On the followup question - yes. You need to have the landing pad "main page" visible to anyone, but you can create a group memberships structure with a custom group that keeps anyone from accessing content unless you approve them. That isn't super-secure, but gets you reasonably far towards a secure semi or acceptably private wiki that's on the internet.

On the original question, there are a bunch of books on intranet collaboration tools (including Wikis) within organizations. It's been reasonably common within organizations I've been at, though some have used Twiki or Plone or another one instead of MediaWiki. I advocate for it, and prefer using MediaWiki.

Some good resources:

Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody" and "Cognitive Surplus" books, Tapscott and Williams "Wikinomics" book and the many magazine and web articles that came out of that linked off the Wikipedia article on Wikinomics.

There's a lot more; those will get you started.

-george

On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 7:08 PM, Bruce Whealton bwhealton@futurewavedesigns.com wrote:

I have a follow-up question or related question... can you use mediawiki to setup a private wiki that would exist on the web?  I have in mind something for a non-profit... They wouldn't have the funds to pay for virtual private hosting or anything... so this may not be the thing to use.  I just know that a wiki can be easy to use and that most folks do have internet access... as does the organization in question. Bruce

-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Tech Geek Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 9:43 PM To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list Subject: [Mediawiki-l] Benefits of using wiki in a corporate environment-how to convience?

Well, so being a mediawiki savvy I realize how using mediawiki can benefit a small to medium scale enterprise.

Recently I have being asked task to convience my executive management team about benefits of using an internal corporate mediawiki in the organization (say 60 to 80 people). What are some good pointers/resources that I can point them to?

I would like to avoid the route of me telling them as to why I think it will be useful. Rather it  would be good if I can give them a 3rd party resources or even testimonials from this mailing list which explains in general that how can mediawiki benefit an organization.

Your inputs will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

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OK - I'm pretty non-tech. What IS the htaccess file all about?

----- Original Message ----- From: David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 17:23:04 +0100 Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Benefits of using wiki in a corporate environment-how to convience?

On 17 October 2010 03:20, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:

On the followup question - yes.  You need to have the landing pad "main page" visible to anyone, but you can create a group memberships structure with a custom group that keeps anyone from accessing content unless you approve them.  That isn't super-secure, but gets you reasonably far towards a secure semi or acceptably private wiki that's on the internet.

For more security, you can put .htaccess control in front of the whole wiki. This tends to be a major pain in the backside, though, and I've seen it confuse non-technical users who don't understand what's going on.

- d.

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reasonably common within organizations I've been at, though some have used Twiki or Plone or another one instead of MediaWiki. I advocate for it, and prefer using MediaWiki.

Just to give more clarity: I am more looking for benefits of wiki in general and not which tools to use because if we decide to use wiki then it will be mediawiki indeed. I think it is great platform!. So the question is not "Which wiki tool?" but "Why wiki (concept wisel)".

It wold be really nice if we can have a wiki page on the Internet, specifically targeted for conviencing executive managment and bosses (just like sometimes you have to convience them for using open source tools). This will really lead to quicker adoptation of wiki in corporate environment.

Thanks for the pointers tough.

Bruce,

You may also want to look at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Security_issues_with_authorization_extensions

It has some great information. You should be aware that in most "protected" environments, there are three basic approaches:

1. Restrictions based on user (limiting access to certain users) 2. Restrictions based on NameSpace (limiting access to certain users and groups to specific namespaces) 3. Restrictions to downloaded/uploaded materials (img_auth)

Additionally SMW+ is offering some additional protections, but that stuff all comes with a price (version compatibility and synchronization - not to mention serious questions as to whether or not it could ever be made to function fully with a Windows environment).

At the County of Montgomery, PA, we use MediaWiki extensively for collaboration - not only with development (internal and with vendors), but also for several applications. However, when we use them for applications, we generally restrict access via the network additionally.

For Cloud partnerships, frankly I don't see how you could successfully run an agile implementation without some form of collaborative stack that includes wiki capabilities.

Good luck!

jpond

-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Whealton Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2010 10:09 PM To: 'MediaWiki announcements and site admin list' Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Benefits of using wiki in a corporateenvironment-how to convience?

I have a follow-up question or related question... can you use mediawiki to setup a private wiki that would exist on the web? I have in mind something for a non-profit... They wouldn't have the funds to pay for virtual private hosting or anything... so this may not be the thing to use. I just know that a wiki can be easy to use and that most folks do have internet access... as does the organization in question. Bruce

I have given out many a wiki in my organization and want to echo Dan's point that wikis do not do all the work alone. You cannot put one up and expect it to self-organize all the information put into it, nor expect people, on their own, to put in the proper information and follow directions on how your wiki is to be organized (by categories, namespaces, etc).

And its not just the corporate environment where dedicated people and a well thought out process are required. Wikipedia has thousands of people, the majority volunteers, that manage the bots and policies. I know a person who wrote an article in Wikipedia and was quickly challenged by one of the volunteers on their expertise in the subject. The effort of those who manage Wikipedia has made Wikipedia successful, not the software alone.

So, for anything to be successful you must dedicate people to its success. A wiki is like a garden where seeds are planted by some people and other people help it to grow, and like a garden it can be an ugly thing if not planned right or left alone for too long, but if managed properly can bring many benefits.

And training is a must since this is a relatively new technology, which people will find difficult to use but once trained have few issues in our experience.

-Jim

-----Original Message----- From: Daniel Barrett [mailto:danb@VistaPrint.com] Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 10:00 AM To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Benefits of using wiki in a corporate environment-how to convience?

Our successful, corporate MediaWiki site has been written up in various places. Here's one article:

http://www.northeastexecutive.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=arti...

and one book (we are one of the major case studies):

http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-2-0-Collaborative-Organizations-Challenges/...

MediaWiki can make a HUGE, positive difference for a company, but not if you just throw up a wiki and assume people will see the benefits. The corporate environment is very different from the Web: everyone is "too busy" to learn new systems. Our rollout worked but it took dedicated personnel and a well-thought-out process.

DanB

-----Original Message----- Recently I have being asked task to convience my executive management team about benefits of using an internal corporate mediawiki in the organization (say 60 to 80 people). What are some good pointers/resources that I can point them to?

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