You may be thinking, why on earth would I want to create a website that anyone in the world can come along to and vandalize? How can I possibly control the content of a wiki?
Wikis are, by design, collaborative and open places. This has its benefits, but clearly, there are drawbacks. Wikipedia may be more well known for the flack it has gotten over its "uncontrolled" content issues than for its successes. So how can a wiki creator keep content safe and secure?
Members and Permissions
When you create a wiki, editing options are limited to registered users to those who have a password.
Wetpaint
Wikispaces
PBWiki
Access controls allow the adminstrator to give different levels of access to different users-- available with premium wikis only
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Administrators-- the wiki creator has total control over the wiki including the ability to create, delete and make changes to all parts of the wiki
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Moderators-- can delete pages and files, including revisions and revision histories
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Contributors-- contributors can edit pages and revert pages to previous versions. They can also upload new files and create new pages.
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Readers-- Readers cannot make any modifications at all to a wiki. They only can read the pages, RSS feeds, and files.
Notification
Wikispaces
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Recent changes-- page, date and author information available on the website
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Notify me-- allows you to subscribe to the RSS feeds for Page Edits and/or Page Discussion
Wetpaint
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RSS updates:
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New Pages
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Recently Updated Pages
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Recent Comments
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Email Notifications
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Activity Alerts
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News & Feature Updates
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Community Messaging
PBWiki
Privacy versus Promotion
If you have a private website, only viewable by invited members, you don't have to worry about your site's appearance in search engine results-- any links will not result in visible content. If you have a public or protected site that anyone can view, you can still control how your site is indexed.
PBWiki
You can enable indexing on Google and Yahoo with a click of a button on your wiki's access controls. The default is "enabled", meaning that your wiki can be found (though not always quicly or easily) via a search on Google.
Promote your wiki on another website, a blog or from within Blackboard using PBWiki badges (visual links to your wiki)-- several styles available.
Wetpaint
Use Privacy settings to limit views of your wiki. A private wiki will not be indexed.
Wikispaces
Wikispaces allows you to set a description telling visitors about your space; if your space is public or protected, this description will appear in the site-wide directory. If you do not set a description, or if your space is private, your space will not appear in the directory.
Wikispaces also provides several linked image badges for your website, homepage or for placement within Blackboard. They also offer a "Live Changes Badge" which will provide links to changes on your space as they occur-- a great way to keep users up-to-date.
Netiquette
You can avoid having your wiki vandalized by trolls or erupting into flame-wars by clearly setting parameters of behavior within which your contributors must work. Here are some suggestions:
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Create guidelines for behavior, content, deletion, and editing.
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Explicitly state what is not acceptable
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Establish a forum for dealing with problems should they arise
Wikipedia has dealt with every type of bad behavior that can manifest itself on a wiki, so take a few minutes to look through their guidelines and wikiquette.
For further information, Gerald Baily and Mike Ribble of Kansas State have compiled an excellent website full of resources on the topic of Digital Citizenship including, but not at all limited to, etiquette issues.
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