Wikis are useful and valuable tools to communicate in the workplace. They add value to work tasks by enabling colleagues to share ideas and information instantly. I am on a very steep learning curve about wikis and how they might help a municipal government to better function internally as well as to better serve its citizens. Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

I am also on a steep learning curve on Wikis, but it has been brought up as something for us to use. I need a tutorial!

I've found wikis to be very useful in team collaboration - especially when the various members of the team are all over the city! It hasn't saved as much as I hoped on email overload because of the notifications but it has definitely helped with the crossing emails and the wiki helps to corral conversations in one place!

I was wondering how we can create folders? Also I think it is important to footnote the information if possible not only to make the wiki more credible but to give readers a chance to further their research by visiting the original sources.

How about a page that discusses the various forms of local governments? Is this idea in line with the type of information we want to have?

Enelya, I started a page like that, and I think Lisa edited it. But it isn't obvious because it is buried in the pages. We need to start creating folders, and for some reason the software won't let me. Beck sent me a wonderful "taxonomy" for the wiki, but I can't do much to create the structure unless I can create folders. I sent Robert an email so hopefully he can figure out why I can't get the folder command to work.

Now that I can make folders, it seems that this setup does not allow for a tree-like structure of folders.Instead it looks like using this format, we will end up with pages and then folders on whatever topic we set them to. I don't see how to put one folder inside of another one. For example in my particular area, I would have an overall category of Public Works then have separate categories within for things like water, wastewater, streets, etc. If I set that up here it looks like the categories within public works will have the same level as public works.

Am I not looking at this the right way? Or maybe a wiki in its essence is not set up to be a nested type document? Or doesn't it matter if every topic is at the same level?

Sorry about spamming the comments here! I went out and looked around on the Web and realized that first of all, I must be a total wiki noob! Anyway, from what I could tell we make all our pages and folders if needed then create the nesting of all these with a main page that serves as a type of table of contents for the wiki. This main page really only needs to have the primary outline since nested pages can carry on this outline in more detail. So am I on the right track now?

I think the best way to navigate this wiki is to click on the pages and files link at top right of this page. It will provide you with a list of all the pages/files and you can go from there. Hope this is helpful. Great comments. This wiki is growing nicely. Keep up the good work!

It is not a big issue while there are only a few pages on the site, but the best way to ensure the site remains easy to navigate, is to use hyperlinks within the page text.

Wayne
I was wondering about that same idea - When I visit a wiki, it seems like the front page is a type of intro but also a type of table of contents that leads you into the wiki using hyperlinks. I think right now, our front page of this wiki is more of an explanation of what we are doing with it rather than being the front page of the wiki. Another MuniGov member gave me a great outline for city government, and it almost seems like that is what should be on the front page with each section linked to a page. Right now I don't think anyone not familiar with our project would understand exactly what resource we have here and how to access it.

So in a way I am still wondering if pbworks is still the best format for what we are trying to create. This week I saw the future melbourne site and was impressed with the format for their wiki. It almost looks like a website.

Hi Pam,

I don't believe that pbworks is the best option. I think MediaWiki is the best option, and as you would be aware I quite like Wikidot as well.
I think that the Future Melbourne site is TWiki based, which I haven't had much to do with.