Common Craft's Wikipedia Page

Yaay! We have a page on Wikipedia. Now what?

As you may know, Wikipedia pages tend to evolve over time as users contribute new information and we're excited to see the Common Craft page evolve.  But first we're hoping to build on a solid foundation - and we need your help. The information that's there is a good start, but it can be better. 

As the owners, it's not kosher for us to edit the page, so we'll be adding suggestions to the "talk" section over time (a few are there now). If a Wikipedian deems the information verifiable, unbiased, accurate, etc. they should feel free to update the article.  Of course, the hope is that information in the article grows organically. We hope you'll consider lending a hand!

If you don't know what a wiki is, you might check out Wikis in Plain English.

Wikipedia and the Value of No Experts At All

My Dad has a saying about trying to get boys to do work.  "One boy is worth one boy, two boys is worth half-a-boy and three boys is worth no boys at all."

When I look at Wikipedia with my plain English glasses, I think the same is true about experts. Look at it this way...

Let's say you're trying to learn about digestion.  You can likely find an expert who can sit with you and make digestion very easy to understand. Now, lets say you're talking to two experts. Something changes - the experts are now double checking each other and looking for ways to relate their unique point of view. With each expert you add, the more accurate the information becomes and the harder it becomes for you to understand.

Custom Video: Wetpaint Wikis in Plain English

Would a Wiki By Any Other Name Smell As Sweet?

Did you know that in a recent survey by Harris Interactive that only 16% of the online public know what a wiki is? For some, this will seem surprising. Others will say "what's a wiki?"

Wiki Video in Multiple Languages via DotSub

Just after posting our first video on RSS , I learned a few valuable lessons:

1. Video is inaccessible for the hearing impaired

2. Video is not easy to translate into other languages

3. There is a new site that addresses both of these issues called DotSub .

DotSub makes it easy for me to transcribe the spoken words into text subtitles. Then, once the subtitles exist, it enables DotSub members to voluntarily translate the text into other languages and post the video to their blogs. This makes videos international and more accessible - for free.

Video: Wikis in Plain English

Purple Numbers

Last night I got a chance to hang out with a majority of the folks from SocialText at Nancy White's House. Among other things, I learned about a resource by Chris Dent called Purple Numbers that I'd never heard about before.

Blogs or Wikis to Support Disaster-Relief Site

Dina Mehta, who lives in Mumbai India, helped set up a great weblog to support relief efforts in the region after the earthquake/tsunami. Since setting up the site, she's wondering if it would have been better to use a wiki instead of a blog.

The Household Wiki

My wife and I have been making an effort to move away from the TV. The winter weather in Seattle makes it easy to sit in front of the tube and eat Cheetos all day- which we both agree is a bad, bad thing.

We’re finding that without TV we focus more on computers in the house and getting more things done via wireless Internet connections. I think we’ll have a laptop with a wireless Internet connection in our immediate vicinity from now on.

This sets us up for an experiment using wikis in the household. We’ve been using a wiki to organize travel plans lately and it’s been perfect. We can update it at home or work or anywhere we’re connected. This experience has me thinking about other ways we can use a wiki in our house.

Wikipedia: Replies to Common Objections

I'm getting more and more fascinated with wikis. I still have some issues and I don't think they are the answer to all our prayers, but damn they are fascinating to me.

Perhaps most fascinating are the impressions and objections people have about wikis and how "the wiki way" seems to account for many of them. In my mind the wiki keepers work like an invisible hand to move the wiki forward even in the midst of what can seem like chaos to the outsider.