I installed two wiki’s tonight for the first time. What’s a wiki? According to wikipedia…

A wiki is a type of computer software that allows users to easily create, edit and link web pages. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, power community websites, and are increasingly being installed by businesses to provide affordable and effective Intranets or for use in Knowledge Management. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as “the simplest online database that could possibly work”.

My first wiki can be found at http://wikibooknotes.org.  I plan for this to become a collection of notes I create about books that I find valuable.  The site is still under development but a few pages are up.  The second wiki is at http://music4mass.com/wiki.   I hope this will eventually become a destination for Catholic music ministers looking for help planning music for liturgy.  The wiki will be edited by users and will include suggested songs that fit the readings each Sunday of the liturgical year.

Now for the technical stuff.  WordPress (my blogging platform) and MediaWiki (the wiki platform) are both excellent open source programs.   GoDaddy –my hosting service– makes it relatively easy to set up WordPress blogs in a matter of a few clicks.  MediaWiki’s are a bit more of challenge.   I was fortunate to find Eric Hartwell’s InfoDabble site and his wiki installation article.   If you want to learn more about wiki’s, contribute to one of mine or to wikipedia.  To learn more about blogging, consider setting up a free blog at wordpress.com.

http://www.ehartwell.com/TechNotes/MediaWikiOnGoDaddy.htm