Like Thing #4, Thing #17 seems impossible. While I have a PBwiki account (since I use PBwiki for a collaborative writing project I'm working on with a friend of mine back in Indiana), I cannot join the PLCM Sandbox wiki in order to edit pages.
But as I explained in my previous post for Thing #16, I'm familiar with the wiki syntax.
Showing posts with label pbwiki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pbwiki. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Charlotte Mecklenburg Thing #16
First of all, and I have to get this off my chest, I think it is hilarious that the podcast for this "thing" talks about how easy it is to edit wikis and that they don't have a complex markup language. This is false. Wikis do have a complex markup language - it's just that one can avoid it if they don't want to do anything more than type in content.
For example, I'm a member of a collaborative-writing/role-play group that draws its material from the television show Heroes; however, String Theory is set in an alternate universe where the antagonist in the first season was not defeated. Like most online roleplaying communities these days, String Theory has a wiki to organize information on plots, characters, and individual "scenes." String Theory uses Wikidot, and I have yet to see a game that uses another wiki service (such as Wikispaces or Pbwiki). Anyway, this is all just to preface the sorts of things that can be done with a single page on a wiki using the syntax. Wikidot really phrases it well when they say, "master this and you can do magic ;-)" on their help page.
As an example of what I've been able to do with wiki syntax and time, I'm linking the character page for Matt Parkman, a "feature character" (or character from the television show's canon) I play on String Theory. Matt's page has a variety of examples of what can be done with wiki syntax. There are collapsible fields, tabbed fields, pictures, tables, embedded videos from Youtube, and edited links to other pages.
I have used PBwiki for a smaller collaborative writing project, but it did not seem to me that their interface allowed for much customization via the use of syntax. Wikispaces allows for the use of a "text editor" versus a "visual" one where raw syntax can be typed in. I would normally prefer it, but since the only time I use Wikispaces is with the DUSEL wiki when editing pre-existing pages, I can't justify fiddling with the code and risking throwing off the established look and feel.
Maybe it's because, back in middle school, I made webpages using raw HTML and nothing else, but I prefer working with raw wiki syntax than grappling with the user-friendly editors in place in some cases. So maybe that's why I like wikidot the best.
For example, I'm a member of a collaborative-writing/role-play group that draws its material from the television show Heroes; however, String Theory is set in an alternate universe where the antagonist in the first season was not defeated. Like most online roleplaying communities these days, String Theory has a wiki to organize information on plots, characters, and individual "scenes." String Theory uses Wikidot, and I have yet to see a game that uses another wiki service (such as Wikispaces or Pbwiki). Anyway, this is all just to preface the sorts of things that can be done with a single page on a wiki using the syntax. Wikidot really phrases it well when they say, "master this and you can do magic ;-)" on their help page.
As an example of what I've been able to do with wiki syntax and time, I'm linking the character page for Matt Parkman, a "feature character" (or character from the television show's canon) I play on String Theory. Matt's page has a variety of examples of what can be done with wiki syntax. There are collapsible fields, tabbed fields, pictures, tables, embedded videos from Youtube, and edited links to other pages.
I have used PBwiki for a smaller collaborative writing project, but it did not seem to me that their interface allowed for much customization via the use of syntax. Wikispaces allows for the use of a "text editor" versus a "visual" one where raw syntax can be typed in. I would normally prefer it, but since the only time I use Wikispaces is with the DUSEL wiki when editing pre-existing pages, I can't justify fiddling with the code and risking throwing off the established look and feel.
Maybe it's because, back in middle school, I made webpages using raw HTML and nothing else, but I prefer working with raw wiki syntax than grappling with the user-friendly editors in place in some cases. So maybe that's why I like wikidot the best.
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