A Wiki Web is an advocate of the  Cathedral Vs Bazaar method of development. Since it can be edited by a large community of its users, rather than by a small elite group of web authors, it has the potential to grow quite large, very quicky. Therefore, it is important to know how the web is structured so it remains navigable and useful to all.
Entry Points
There are a number of entry points into the Wiki Web.
- First of all there is the Front Page. This is the first page that most new users see and it also acts as a high level contents page for existing users. You may want to bookmark this page in your browser and note that it is always available by following the Start Here in this Web link in the navigation area at the bottom of each page.
- Next we have the Categories navigation link. In this web we use a dynamic Category system to group together related pages and, by clicking on Categories, you will be shown a list of all the current groupings available. From this list you can click on a category to locate a page describing it. By using find Wiki References at this point you can see all the other pages that have been gathered under this category heading.
- Frequent visitors to the web will probably head straight to the Recent Changes link. This displays a list of the pages that have been updated most recently. Obviously, if you have already browsed much of the information available, then you might only want to keep abreast of the changes. You can bookmark this page in your browser to get there quickly
- If you want to search all the pages in the web for a particular piece of text you can perform a Wiki Search from the navigation area.
- Lastly, you can obtain an alphabetical listing of all of the pages in this web by choosing the Index link. As the web grows, this facility may become increasingly less useful.
If you get stuck then visit the FAQ page. This maintains a list of frequently asked questions concerning the use of this Wiki Web.
Your responsibility
Before you make substantial changes to this web it is important that you understand the web's structure. In particular, when you create a new page you should:
- Categorize it, if appropriate. Visit the Category page to find out how to do this. However, don't feel that all pages need to be classified; they don't. It's just that if a suitable category page aready exists you should certainly use it. This, of course, demands that you review the list of available categories quite often.
- If your page warrants inclusion in the overall list of contents on the Front Page then you should add a link to it there. Remember, though, that the Front Page is really for quite large subject headings only.
Related pages: Wiki Beginners Topics
|