The whole site as a wiki?

[mickmel]

We currently have a rather large church (8000 or so members) and a sprawling website to match. The site is in need of a graphic overhaul, if for no other reason than we've had the same look for about a year now. Given the scope of the site and the number of minor edits I'm e-mailed about each day ("change women's basket weaving from 5:15 to 5:30", etc), a wiki-based format makes a lot of sense.

It would be slightly less than a "true" wiki site, as it wouldn't be open to everyone for editing. However, I'd give all of the staff instructions and clearance to fix what they see fit - probably 30 people or so. I'd be using MediaWiki (http://www.mediawiki.org/), which I am familiar with because of my use of it on another site (TabWiki (http://www.tabwiki.com/)). I'll convert all of the existing data over by myself, to build a good base structure for the other staff to use.

Our current site is www.mtbethel.org (http://www.mtbethel.org/). The current test location for the new site is www.mtbethel.org/wiki/ (http://www.mtbethel.org/wiki/).

What are your thoughts on this idea in general? Good, bad, other?

Do you know of any other church sites that have gone all-wiki?

[flutem3]

Mickey wrote:

"a wiki-based format makes a lot of sense."

Hi,

What is a "wiki-based format" and how does it differ from other formats the names of which I don't know either...I don't think?

What are names of some other formats?

Thanks!

Carol

[mickmel]

What is a "wiki-based format" and how does it differ from other formats the names of which I don't know either...I don't think?
I'm sorry - I should have defined that a little bit.

You may be familiar with the site WikiPedia (http://www.wikipedia.org). If you're not, you need to be. It is a wonderful resources for any information you need.

A wiki, in the basic sense, is a site that anyone can edit. If you go to WikiPedia and look up and article, you can edit the page! You don't need to log-in, and your changes go live right away!

The idea is absolutely insane, but it works well. If you have information to add about a subject, add it! See a correction that need to be made? Correct it! They get some troublemakers, but for every one person that is out there causing trouble, there are about 20 people ready to fix the page.

Given the sensitive nature of much of the content on a church site, it would be foolish to make it a true wiki. However, by allowing any of the staff members to edit any pages (but not church members/visitors), it might just work out. They could fix event info, update their personal information, correct the stray typo, etc.

While I'm tempted to just dive in, this is my job - I don't need to do anything stupid. People might say "Their site is a wiki - what a forward-looking church!" or they might say "Their site is a wiki - their webmaster is an idiot!"... :)

What are names of some other formats?
There isn't really a list, as it's virtually unlimited, but here are a few general categories that most sites would fit into:

- Static - Build the pages and post them as plain HTML files.

- Dynamic - Have the pages generated on the fly using PHP or ASP, but essentially behave like a static site. This is more or less what Mt. Bethel is like right now.

- CMS - Use one of the popular Content Management Systems (Mambo, Typo3, etc) to manage the data on the site.

- External CMS - For churches that use a service like e-zekiel.

- Blog - Some churches simply run a blog (or series of blogs) to get their information out.

- Wiki - Enough said above. :)

[flutem3]

Mickey wrote:

"You may be familiar with the site WikiPedia. If you're not, you need to be. It is a wonderful resources for any information you need."

Yes, indeed, I am familiar with Wikipedia. It is my friend, but I didn't realize that I could change something on it. I will have to look again. Generally, I am just looking for a topic and haven't really spent much time checking how it is constructed. I will check. It sounds neat to me.

Well, with such a large church it makes sense to use a form of wiki. I would think you might be asking for trouble too, but I had trouble with something as simple as a guest book. I guess the chance for obnoxious entries is always there if you open it up a bit. However, I like the idea myself.

I am looking for a way, but not a blog which is linked to other blogs unless they would be Christian blogs, to open up our website so that people, if they will, can write testimonials on a testimonial page(s). I tried to use a guest book and change the heading, but it didn't work very well.

Anyway, thank you for the information. You have quite a job with such a large church. WOWIE! I could not handle it yet. Ours is big enough for me for now!!

Carol

PS I am familiar with www.webopedia.com and www.answer.com too. Both are good.

[mickmel]

Just to follow-up to this, I've decided not to go the route of a wiki. I still think it could work great for some churches, but the shortcomings are a bit too severe for us to overcome.

Our site includes a number of nice scripts that really wouldn't work with a wiki, such as:

- Events that automatically disappear when they're over. With a wiki, those would have to be removed (or hidden) manually.
- Dynamic menus. With a wiki, the main menu would have to be static.
- Events in multiple places. The way it is now, entering a single event will have it appear in up to five places (that ministry page, the front page of the site, the calendar, the upcoming events and the daily events). With a wiki, the events would have to be added to each place manually.

There were a few other reasons, but they were along those same lines. I realize that most of those things could be overcome with some creative scripting, but that would eventually lead to ... what we already have now! :)

It just doesn't seem like the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages, at least for us. I still think a brave church could use a wiki for their site and do well, but it's just not for us.

Mickey

[Faithhb_lutheran]

Here's an idea, One that I thought of using for our church then changed my mind. where could a wiki come in handy? Under a membership section. For those of you with member sections on your websites no offense but I think that they all are misused. Info that should be out on the main site is kept back behind the membes section and then the mmebers reap no more benifits from the site then from a Sunday bulliten. If you set up a wiki site as the member section you could build a real community in the congregation while you and if you have it your ministry team could comcentrate on bringing the message of the gospel to the world through the main site. Just an idea.

[flutem3]

Here's an idea, One that I thought of using for our church then changed my mind. where could a wiki come in handy? Under a membership section. For those of you with member sections on your websites no offense but I think that they all are misused. Info that should be out on the main site is kept back behind the membes section and then the mmebers reap no more benifits from the site then from a Sunday bulliten. If you set up a wiki site as the member section you could build a real community in the congregation while you and if you have it your ministry team could comcentrate on bringing the message of the gospel to the world through the main site. Just an idea.

Hi,

I have looked up the wiki stuff and have no idea how to use it. But it looks as if from your idea, it could be set up to create a testimonial page.

I had the notion that I could use a guest book for this purpose. I use:

www.ultraguest.com

I changed the html snippet to say testimonial, but, of course, the rest of the text is for a guest book. I couldn't change that. Is there some other kind of guest book out there that I could alter to make this kind of page? I want it to be accessible to all....I think. I would like to try it that way to see if it is workable.

Thanks. By the way, I am feeling somewhat better.

Carol