So, I want a wiki? Or... something else? What. What do I want?

February 5, 2009 5:33 PM

I am managing research on a book. The author and I live 2800km apart and I think I want to work through a wiki. As I gather data and articles and she writes her chapters, I want all our source material and links to be building momentum, stored in one hooded online space. So I THINK that what I want is a wiki to share/organize research for the book. Do I?

I don't have the vernacular to properly/accurately describe what I want, so I'll just explain it in my own words and hopefully it's vaguely clear...

Author knows zip about technology. I know zip + 1 about technology. But I like to push myself a bit further and learn something new with each project, and since the beginning of this one my brain has returned again and again to the idea of a wiki, based on what I know of what wikis do. Perhaps I don't want a wiki, but I need to be told that based on the description of what I DO want. I'm a little too stupid and old and lacking a network of people IRL of whom I can ask, "Is a wiki what I want?" to get more than confused stares.

So: I want to create a closed online space to organize my research for, and share my research with, the author & her editors at Impressive International Publishing House. I want to restrict visibility of the page(s) and research to the two of us for the first many months of the research, so we can work privately. (Draft text will be posted for our mutual reference & editing, and we can't allow book content to leak online.)

I would very much like to avoid building the research in Word and sending new versions to the author every two hours on work days as I touch-touch-touch the content. An elegant solution would be far more my preference, and it will help me continue to impress the nice people at Impressive International Publishing House who already think I am pretty damn great after my previous book project with them. I have to put in the time and actually do the fabulous research (a given), but managing to also amaze them with the appearance, clarity & organization of the results online/through technology is within reach, particularly if I put it all in accessible online form, as I do in my vision of the wiki. I think.

For the building of this wiki, I have no html skillz other than this , so I need a wysiwyg editor. I definitely need to be able to include links which will bounce a user out to the web to view a page online. I would like to be able to upload pdfs and images. Something really easy to be marginally customizeable in terms of general look would be great, but not necessary. I also want:
* a sidebar wherein you can quickly navigate to research for each specific chapter, essentially a table of contents
* chapter research pages would be clearing house spaces for the information, links, and analysis I assemble, including links to online articles, downloadable pdfs of newspaper and magazine articles, images, ISBN lists of books, and text wherein I will summarize and make comments about slant of research, talk about the direction of sleuthing, poke fun at people's spelling ability and hair, etc.
* costs would hopefully not include people, unless they were one-time-fee-setup people. I should be able to figure everything out myself in the model I seek, or be able to pay someone a set-up fee where they put it together and I never have to speak to them again (or, in theory, they actually answer their telephone/emails after the first week and do the damn work I need, when I need it).
* costs should not include a monthly fee to keep stuff online.

Initially I thought I'd found what I wanted in Google Sites but somehow can't create the links I want (despite using the "links" clicker-oo on the editing bar for about a dozen links before I realized it was sending me right back to the wiki main page when "saved"), which makes me question my understanding of what I was creating in the first place and its probable usability for my project.

I went through all the examples and templates on Google Sites and Apps today and didn't find any that included links to outside pages, so perhaps this isn't supported. It was the first thing I wanted to be able to do, though, so I found this surprising. But I don't work inside a corporate environment and am not hip to the way things are shared these days, so maybe there's a way around this that my pea-brain doesn't recognize in the templates and examples. What could it be? I don't want to get any further on this nascent Google Sites page and realize I have built a useless monument to Lack Of Preparation.

So, AskMe people, I'm looking for your social networkian and technological expertise. Me = currently dumb, and me = glazy-in-the-eyes when it comes to certain kinds of programming ideas. But, me also = hardworking and definitely wanting to kick out the jams on this contract (am certainly not doing it for the money).

My basic question is this: in your opinion, what should I be using (online program, software, architecture, what)? Do I think a wiki is a good idea but really I just don't know about this perfect, other, industry-wide-solution-called-X? If something other than a wiki (another term for a similar idea, another program, something else) would work for me, I'm open to suggestions.

If a wiki is what I want, which online wiki type/service/program is appropriate, given what I need?

posted by Mrs Hilksom to computers & internet (12 comments total)

Try Google Documents...it saves versions and both can edit. Plus you do not need to know much about technology.
posted by rvrlvr at 5:35 PM on February 5

If you're looking for the collaboration part of this, Etherpad is a cool site, more 'live' than Google Docs.. everything appears as fast as one person types and is distributed to all other users in real time. I'm not sure Etherpad would meet your requirements for privacy however..
If you use a mac, SubEthaEdit is similar, and more private.
posted by acro at 6:18 PM on February 5

You're going to have to pay, because you're not tech-savvy enough to put together a solution on a space that you own and control. Even if you were tech-savvy, you'd probably be paying for server space.

And are you REALLY going to risk your hard work with a free solution? what happens if it goes down or disappears? I mean, sure, I love free and everything, but I do not trust my hard work to free. I do not trust months of research to free.

That said. some suggestions:

1) PBWiki (you can limit it to whomever you want, and there is a free model
2) Backpack (also a free model)
3) Evernote. I use Evernote for all my book research these days. I love that I can get to it from any computer, and that it syncs my changes from wherever I've made them. I also love that I don't have to be online to have access to my material. I go to the writing space, sync once, and then go offline to write. Yes, they have a free solution as well.

I don't know your business but I think you are over emphasizing the importance of dancing bears and snazzy presentation over a clean solution that is easy to navigate and works.

You do not need to be technical to use ANY of the above solutions.
posted by micawber at 6:50 PM on February 5 [1 favorite has favorites]

These are good suggestions. I would say for just a page of notes, links and so on, Google Docs is the way to go, but it sounds like you need a bit more than that. I can vouch for PBwiki as suitable, usable and non-technical.

I'd say "a wiki" is sort of what you want, but better terms to google for might be "collaborative" and "documents" and "sharing" and "editing" and stuff like that, because the type of tool you're looking for doesn't necessarily have a name just yet :-)

Good luck!
posted by so_necessary at 8:17 PM on February 5

2nding Google Docs. You get a Word-like interface with the huge bonus that there's only one master document, so collaboration is much easier than mailing Word attachments back and forth.
posted by zippy at 8:18 PM on February 5

Amazingly I discovered that I had this list of 100 tools to take notes and organise ideas open in another tab. I would wager that something on this list will fit your needs pretty damn well.
posted by so_necessary at 8:31 PM on February 5

Going to bed now, will investigate everything tomorrow - anyone hitting this question tonight please be encouraged to add your two cents. And THANK YOU, ALL.

So_necessary, even if another of the suggestions ends up being exactly what I was trying to describe, bless you for offering this: " the type of tool you're looking for doesn't necessarily have a name just yet". I have spent the last week feeling like a complete tool for being unable to figure this out, you made me feel a bit less like an idiot. Thanks.

Micawber, I am not married to "free"; my intention was to cut out the middleman and be ABLE to do it all myself. My lack of expertise on the tech side has landed me in incredibly frustrating experiences with hiring tech support in the past. This is obviously a low-difficulty project for someone who knows what they're doing, and in previous hires (all website builds) I've found my work falls at the bottom of the priority list, I get the long sigh and the rolling eyeballs and lack of explanation, I usually have to grovel and beg for small changes - I've been told my work requests are considered so "easy" and it could be done "anytime" by the people I've hired. So they put off my requests until I'm about ready to go over and burn down their house to get a response. I end up firing them. Any suggestions regarding some dude in Bangalore or Hyderabad who I can pay to actually DO the work in a vaguely timely manner are totally welcome and I will happily pay a reasonable sum to get what I want.

For the record. Thanks again, all!
posted by Mrs Hilksom at 10:06 PM on February 5

Also, I don't think I mentioned dancing bears or snazzy presentation. Definitely not necessary. I'm just looking for clean, organized, clear. FTR.
posted by Mrs Hilksom at 10:07 PM on February 5

I can recommend Wikidot - very easy to get started for non-techies, very reliable.
posted by iivix at 1:28 AM on February 6 [1 favorite has favorites]

Mrs Hilksom:

What you're looking for could broadly be referred to as "online collaboration tools" that have "versioning"(so you can keep track of changes).

Google Docs, as others have mentioned, is one approach. You're working on linear document, which is a familiar idea.

Wikis would work also, but are more designed for a complex network of interrelated documents. There's no reason you couldn't use each wiki page as a linear document, of course. Markup in wikis tends to be based on typing somewhat non-intuitive codes, which will vary depending on the underlying wiki software. There are a lot of different wiki packages out there, each with different pros and cons. Wikipedia runs on MediaWiki, so if you've ever edited Wikipedia, it has the virtue of familiarity. Instiki is another package that gets good reviews.

It sounds like you want something where you pay for hosting and control your little online fiefdom, which is perfectly reasonable. If this is a key point, then Google Docs is out. Many web-hosting services have one-click installation of a lot of software, such as wiki engines. My web-hosting company has one-click install of MediaWiki, for example. There might be a little fooling around making the wiki password-protected, but apart from that, this kind of thing really can be easy for a first-timer.
posted by adamrice at 7:38 AM on February 6

You need Evernote.
Download the software so you can use it offline. The offline version saves while you type. Need I say more? Then it will sync with the online version as often as you set it for. Include links in the notes by either pasting the url (which then becomes click-able) or creating a text link with a simple right click menu. Set your default type to any font you want and any size.
posted by cda at 8:31 AM on February 6

Evernote is awesome. THANK YOU, ALL!
posted by Mrs Hilksom at 2:29 PM on February 6