hammockforums wiki?

[bwtruitt]

After visiting straightrazorplace, I was thinking hammockforums users would benefit greatly from having a wiki to store our distilled wisdom.

The forums are great for discussions and generating innovative ideas, but they are rather difficult to use to find out what the consensus was at the end of said discussion. Every great new innovative thread turns up being 1000 posts long and clear as mud for someone who wasn't in on the discussion from the beginning. We have the articles section to handle this to some degree, but it's not quite going far enough in my opinion.

While the articles are categorized a bit, they are not automatically cross referencing each other as they could be with a wiki. It's up to each individual author to provide links to reference material, which again, usually ends up being more 1000 post long threads that are less than desirable. Moreover, only moderators and the original author can update the article which makes keeping the article up to date more difficult than it could be.

The articles *could* make a great seed for the content of a wiki though.

Of course, adding any new functionality obviously make for more work from the site maintainers, but I think if we can work out detail like who can edit the wiki, who can create new topics, who's moderating them, etc. it would be a boon for all of the users. Having direct access to the distilled knowledge of community instead of each person having to re-distill it would be worth the administrative effort.

I would hope it would also cut down on the number of posts asking what a whoopie sling is. At least the answer would always be the same: "here's the wiki page on whoopies..."

[Kukri]

Sounds like a great idea! Wikis are awesome for information storage and retrieval. It would probably take a lot of initial setup and work, but I don't think people around here would shy away from the idea on that basis alone. It would definitely make hammocking more accessible to those starting out, and that's one of the best things about this forum anyway.

[gargoyle]

This question, like soooo many others, has been asked before. The daunting task of organizing and editing all the info needs to be done by someone, or a team of people. That, in a nutshell, seems to be the issue.

We do have a search function that works extremely well. Most people refuse to use it, and just ask questions.
Suprisingly, when questions get repeated, many new and innovative ideas do come up. And newer members can glean info, learn from others and then in turn share their new found knowledge with more new members. It is a cycle, I did it, people before me did it, and people after me will continue to it.

Many new members bring fresh and interesting ideas to the table, be it from past life experiences, past careers, or just plain ol' off the wall thinking.
Recently, we had a new member "invent" a new hammock stand.

I like sharing my hammock knowledge, and I enjoy learning new and different ideas. To compress everything discussed here, into one wiki, is nearly impossible.
I see the forum as a constant evolution, ever-growing, ever-changing.

The forum is a wiki, in a sense. With lots of repitition. :D

Do we need to ask the same question a 1,000 times....probably not. But it gives new folks the opportunity to view topics and ideas that may not ever come to the surface in a wiki format.
But, without the forums openness, and free spirit mentality, we wouldn't be where we are today. I feel if information was cataloged into a wiki, it would appear to the readers as "this is the only way" to do hammocks. New ideas may not arise in such a format.

my opinion. hyoh ymmv

If you build it (the wiki), I will read it. ;)