PortlandWiki talk:Community Portal: Difference between revisions

Some of us met at this month's WikiWednesday and conspired nefariously in secret (public) behind closed doors (a space open to anyone who's interested) about PortlandWiki. A casual-style log of the gathering can be found here. -kotra (talk) 07:18, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

New proposal: facets

There's a new proposal for a feature/process wherein people could create pages for their own points of view on any topic. If you have 10 or 15 minutes to spare, check out the proposal at PortlandWiki:Facets, and give your comments on the talk page. Thanks! -kotra (talk) 03:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Web hosting

We are exploring approaching green web hosting providers for PortlandWiki. The planning page for this is PortlandWiki:Hosting. -kotra (talk) 04:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Namespace aliases

Just wanted to mention that I've added a couple "namespace aliases", which are shortcuts: PW:Logo will take you to PortlandWiki:Logo and PT:Logo will take you to PortlandWiki talk:Logo. This will work for all pages that begin with "PortlandWiki" or "PortlandWiki talk", so this page can be linked to from PT:Community Portal. Let me know if you think any other aliases would be useful! -kotra (talk) 01:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Usability Initiative tools

Hi folks, there are a few new tools in Mediawiki that they've finished enough to use on the Wikimedia Commons and, just in the last day, Wikipedia. These include an editing interface that is (in my opinion) superior in ease-of-use as well as some javascripty bits (collapsible boxes, unified search/go field, etc) for the new "Vector" skin. I'd like to use the Vector skin as a foundational basis for the PW skin I'm working on, so I was wondering if it would be ok with folks if I installed the "Usability Initiative" extension on this wiki? The only change we will see with the current skin is the new editing interface (you can preview it on Wikipedia).

More information here: mediawikiwiki:Extension:UsabilityInitiative

-kotra (talk) 00:21, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Kotra, I just took a peek at the new MediaWiki skin and the editing interface. I think transitioning PortlandWiki to the new skin is worthwhile just for the editing interface alone. Hopefully folks who may feel a bit intimidated by wiki markup would find the new editing tools helpful. WikiMaster (talk) 03:29, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'll make the change sometime when I can make a full backup of the wiki. Thanks! -kotra (talk) 02:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Rename Community Portal?

I don't think people know what to do with PortlandWiki:Community Portal and this discussion page, in part because "community portal" isn't a very inviting name. When I make the skin, I think the link to these pages should be a pretty visible button, but we should probably change the names to something simpler and more user-friendly too. Any ideas? My thoughts:

PortlandWiki:Community Portal is used partly as a place to help kick-start editing, and partly as a resource repository for interesting miscellanea relating to Portland, Oregon, and wikis. Maybe we could split this into the currently existing Help:Editing page, various mainspace articles as appropriate like Local media, and a PortlandWiki:Community page for the rest (like links to other wikis, random wiki-related interviews, etc).

Then, PortlandWiki talk:Community Portal (this page) could be merged with the Discussion page and moved to PortlandWiki:Talk or PortlandWiki:Discussion or PortlandWiki:Discuss etc... the stuff from several months ago could be archived and the stuff having to do with discussing the PortlandWiki:Community Portal page (like this section) moved to PortlandWiki talk:Community or whatever is the new name for the portal page.

Anyway those are just my thoughts... what do you think? -kotra (talk) 03:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

PortlandWiki: an encyclopedia of Portland?

Is PortlandWiki an encyclopedia of Portland? This is a pretty fundamental question to what we do here! Please offer your input at Template talk:Welcome simple. -kotra (talk) 01:45, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Skin, interface changes

So I've finally got Mediawiki updated to a version that allows the new Usability Initiative extension. Right now the only visible change is editing interface, which has a new toolbar with a bunch of helpful bits for navigating and using wiki code.

Next I will make Vector the default skin. Vector is used by Wikipedia and some other wikis. You can preview (or begin using) Vector by going into your preferences, the Appearance tab, and selecting Vector. I'll then start work on a customized version of Vector that sets us apart from Wikipedia et al, and reflects our local Portland scene. I'll base it mostly off the current logo, probably with long curves and bold red/rose/carnelian swaths. Some ideas that people have brought in the meetings are: shortcuts to key pages that encourage participation, like Special:NewPages, "create a new article" forms (for topics like Schools, Businesses, etc), and a more prominent "edit" button. Any and all suggestions for this skin are welcome! -kotra (talk) 20:57, 26 July 2010 (PDT)

Update: Vector is now the default skin. I'll start working on the PortlandWiki skin soon. As I'm working on it, it will be one of the skins you can choose in your preferences. It won't be the default skin until I get a lot of feedback on it and people are happy with it. -kotra (talk) 12:38, 5 August 2010 (PDT)

MM 1/17/2011 notes

A few notes from our discussion at the Monday Meet on January 17.

commenting system on news posts, articles

avatars?
button that begins a /Subpage workspace/sketchpad for collaborative building off-page
PortlandAfoot uses Disqus, others are IntenseDebate, TwitterFeed

thumbs-up/star ability for diffs/edits, to build reputation

number of stars visible on every user's userpage
a ticker or widget for comments about stars or edits (combined with above?)

PortlandWiki -> Twitter

PortlandWiki -> RSS -> Twitter

a News RSS feed?

Update on Facebook fan page, like meeting announcements

-kotra (talk) 20:52, 17 January 2011 (PST)

WW notes 2011-02-02

Key points discussed:

people will contribute to PortlandWiki because it's fun and enables them to share their knowledge, not because it's yet another outlet for their company's PR profile.
- outreach to business owners and organization managers will be a struggle until PW is much more popular as a consumed resource.
- outreach should be to normal, everyday people who edit for fun and who want to share their knowledge.
- this will be both more effective at gaining contributors, and will also create a more useful resource, since it won't merely duplicate the subject's website and PR efforts.
  - This is the difference between a diverse collection of information, facts and viewpoints, and a simple directory of ads and business listings.
  - A loose analogy might be Wikipedia's model of community driven collaboration and contribution compared to AboutUs's business-focused model.

-kotra (talk) 19:42, 2 February 2011 (PST)

MM 2/07/2011 notes

invites:barnraising
barnraising proposal to edit, with or without "reward" or "sweeten the pot"
more automated method for channeling invite messages through pdxwikiwedgg/portlandwikigg/twitter/facebook
potential wikipedia/portlandwiki collaborative relationship? (Might Wikipedia be willing to allow space to announce or list local citywiki/civicwiki meetups.)

Mediawiki Update To Do List - Thursday, February 17, 2011

Update core from 1.16.0beta3 to 1.16.2.

13:22 Pacific Standard Time: Core update now complete. Contributors may proceed with new edits.

Help:Resources

Manual:Installing MediaWiki

(Shows wget URL to download straight to directory.)

Extensions to update or remove.

Advanced Meta [done]
Widgets (Remove standalone instance; it's included with Semantic Bundle.)
ConfirmEdit (Remove standalone instance; it's included with Semantic Bundle.)
VideoFlash

Extensions to install.

Trying to find the email list for PortlandWiki, anyone know where it is?

I would be muchly grateful! Best, MarkDilley

Mark - For some reason, I'm just noticing your message now. Did anyone ever get you the list? Do we even have such a list?

-WikiMaster (talk) 19:20, 5 November 2014 (PST)

Any interest...?

in another PortlandWiki meetup? -Another Believer (talk) 14:53, 5 November 2014 (PST)

I'm definitely interested!

-WikiMaster (talk) 19:21, 5 November 2014 (PST)

Found email

about password reset and have logged in! Success! MarkDilley

@@ Line 155: / Line 155: @@
 : I'm definitely interested!
 ::-[[User:WikiMaster|WikiMaster]] ([[User talk:WikiMaster|talk]]) 19:21, 5 November 2014 (PST)
+== Found email ==
+about password reset and have logged in!  Success! [[MarkDilley]]