[Daniel Schulz-Jackson]

Unless I’m wrong, the Wiki is a part of the CBOX theme…

Any reason not to “pluginify” this instead of bundling it with the theme, so that peeps can use other themes and still get the wiki functionality?

Also I’m a bit confused, because I read somewhere in your lit that you use mediawiki tech, but this seems to not be mediawiki-related. Just curious what’s the scoop.

Peace, and thanks again for this great project.

[Ray]

The Wiki plugin is theme-independent.

If you’re not using the CBOX theme, you might have to add an extra link in your theme’s nav menu like:

hxxp://example.com/wiki

The Wiki plugin does not use any code from MediaWiki; it’s actually powered by BuddyPress Docs.

Thanks again for posting, Daniel!

[Daniel Schulz-Jackson]

Gotcha. Thanks for following up.

[Gregory Bloom]

Hi folks, I have a follow-up question on this. I’m working on a ‘local knowledge commons’ project, where the current plan is to use a LocalWiki to collect all kinds of structured and unstructured data about our city (DC). I’ll be working with a diverse network that (hopefully) will form into multiple teams pursuing their own project objectives within the ‘knowledge commons’ frame. (For instance: one team will probably try to create an open database of local social services; another may form to geolocate passages from novels that mention DC-specific places — lots of different possibilities).

One thing I’m concerned about is that the LocalWiki software is nice and easy for contributing content, but not that great for group communication. It’s a ‘knowledge commons’ but not an ‘associative commons,’ if that makes sense. I would want our project to be able to support group-based communication like what we have here in CBOX — so that a group can communicate (internally via forum/listserv features; and externally via blog) about what kinds of knowledge they’re contributing to the wiki while they’re  doing it.

So. It doesn’t seem like the BuddyPress Docs wiki plugin offers us the kinds of functionality that would make for a really robust Local Wiki. (No diss on the  plugin, it looks great – but for simple purposes.) I’m not very technical, but I don’t think that it’s possible to actually integrate the CBOX and LocalWiki technologies in the same site; I’m guessing that, if we want to have CBOX-like functionality for active users of the LocalWiki site, we will need two separate sites that we do our best to integrate via hyperlinks.

But I wanted to check in here with y’all. Any advice, technically for the integration of powerful wikis with this great CBOX group-blogging functionality? Or conceptually for the development of commoning production practices?\

Thanks for any help you can give!

[Matthew K Gold]

It doesn’t seem like the BuddyPress Docs wiki plugin offers us the kinds of functionality that would make for a really robust Local Wiki.

Hi Gregory,

Since we’re continuing to work on the integration of BPDocs into CBOX as wiki software, I’d be interested in hearing what robust features seem to be missing. As we continue to work on it, it would be helpful to know what kinds of things members of the community would like to see added.

Best,

Matt

[Mark Dale]

Why not use another wordpress wiki theme or plugin  on another sub-site as part of a multisite install, then they can be logged into it seamlessly once logged into the Cbox side ..?

[MySchoolStuff]

Hi Gregory

I’m using the approach suggested by Mark using http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/wordpress-wiki/ and it seems to be working pretty well. This wiki offers everything I need except the ability to have wikis in groups.

You can see the wiki in action on a subsite at http://sageography.myschoolstuff.co.za/

 

[Giles Brennand]

Matt

I would like to be able to force a structure on wiki pages. So for example a wiki about a company would have a section on its industry, its subsidiaries, number of employees.

I assume this could be done by developing a page template for each type of wiki page.  But is there a better way?

I have in mind about twenty standard structures.

 

Thanks

[Gregory Bloom]

Hrm. I haven’t yet used either software for any extended period of time. But I think (in addition to the ability to develop structured templates as Giles mentioned above) some of the key features of LocalWiki (at least for a local digital commons project) is its robust tagging features and also its GPS capabilities. See some more description here.

I appreciate the quick response! And if we feel like CBOX could accomplish our objective (to develop a robust and very accessible local wiki) then we still have time to consider it.

[Duncan McLeod]

Wiki facilities are such a natural for social media environments that I am surprised at how little appears to have been done to date in terms of integrating wiki mechanisms into Buddypress.    I was excited to see what you folks are doing.

It seems to me that the natural integration point would be at the Group level.   I expect that in most Buddypress applications, the majority of interactions are at the group level, and providing group wikis would be the most useful.   Can this be supported?    If not, are you seeing other higher usage scenarios than I am seeing in cross site applications, or is there a particularly challenging technical issue that would get in the way of supporting a group based implementation?

 

[Ray]

It seems to me that the natural integration point would be at the Group level.

BuddyPress Docs is supported at the group level and functions as a group wiki.

To enable BuddyPress Docs on your CBOX install, download and activate CBOX. Next, in the WP dashboard, navigate to “Commons In A Box > Plugins”. If “Docs” isn’t enabled, select “Docs” and save.

Next, create a new group by navigating to your Groups directory (usually domain.com/groups) and click on the “Create a Group” button. One of the group creation steps allows you to enable Docs.

After you’ve created your group, navigate to your new group and click on the “Docs” nav item in the sidebar. You should be able to create a new doc in your new group now.

[Gregory Bloom]

I was just re-reading over this thread and noticed that my last post (Jan 3rd) i said GPS instead of GIS — whoops! Still learning my way around this stuff.

But yes, as I mentioned before: CBOX is very promising technology for local community organizing as well as an academic setting… and combined with the specialized GIS capabilities of the LocalWiki platform (so that each page can be associated with a point on a map, and the maps can be browsed), it would be just incredible. Is that possible, given the LocalWiki API? Would we need to develop a special LocalWiki WordPress plugin?

[Gregory Bloom]

Hrm. In reading up, I think I understand now that BuddyPress Docs is essentially turning wordpress pages into a wiki. LocalWiki is in Python, so a LocalWiki plugin would only be able to enable the LocalWiki API to talk to CBOX i guess. Still wrapping my head around this…

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