There are two upcoming Central Texas DITA User Group meetings that you don’t want to miss if you’re looking into wikis for documentation.
Jan. 1/23/08
Ben Allums, Quadralay – wiki.webworks.com
Chris Almond, IBM – internal wiki
Anne Gentle, OLPC – wiki.laptop.org and www.flossmanuals.net
Ragan Haggard, Sun – www.opends.org/wiki
Feb. 2/21/08
David Cramer, Motive – internal wiki
Lisa Dyer, Lombardi – internal wiki
Alan Porter, Quadralay – wiki.webworks.com
The January panel will talk about models for information development in a wiki framework – a couple of case studies with a demo of each system to illustrate use cases/workflow/high-level architecture. We’ll have a discussion of how these models might empower our professional community.
Ragan Haggard presented Delivering Open Source Technical Documentation via a Wiki at the San Antonio STC chapter this month, and his slides are available for download. My favorite slide is number 17 – and I have his permission to quote it verbatim here.
Why not resist this fad?
• Removing barriers to input from SMEs greatly
improves the documentation.
• These docs will get even better with feedback and
input from real users.
• We writers have no less control over the content
than before.
• A wiki has as much or as little structure as you
impose on it, the same as a book.
• I don’t think this level of collaboration is a fad.
We should have a lot to talk about and perhaps even a homework assignment between the two sessions.