On Wikipedia, only uploading media (images, video and audio) is allowed. Darren VanBuren ------------------------- Sent from my iPod Try Fedora 10 today. Fire it up. http://fedoraproject.org/ On Apr 28, 2009, at 9:06, "McHale, Nina" <Nina.McHale(a)ucdenver.edu> wrote:

You could suggest they use a conversion tool like this http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Word_macros to convert from word to wiki. I think you lose a huge collaboration ability when you just post a word doc. You could try telling them it is much easier to have multiple people collaborating on a doc when it is converted into wiki text. Rob Robert Hagens | Chief Technical Officer| Envysion, Inc. 950 Spruce Street | Louisville, CO 80027 303.590.2365 office | 303.590.2351 fax rhagens(a)envysion.com | www.envysion.com | Visit our blog -----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of McHale, Nina Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 10:07 AM To: mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Mediawiki-l] wiki versus Word Hey, all, Some of my colleagues are objecting to my desire to minimize uploading of Word documents to our new intranet wiki. My main objection to it is that we ought to be entering information into wiki pages so that we can take full advantage of document versioning, talk pages, watching, etc.-y'know, the stuff that makes it a wiki... I've been called "silly" and "arbitrary" regarding this. :) I'm not outright forbidding posting Word documents; I'm just trying to get people to use the wiki the way it's mean to be used. Am I being unreasonable? I even stated that it's acceptable to load the final version of a 20-page report, or a form that's meant to be printed out and filled out by hand-i.e., things in a final state that do not need further editing. Has anyone else encountered this resistance? I was most surprised that it came from someone who uses/edits Wikipedia, which, as far as I can tell, does not support uploading of Word docs. Nina Nina McHale, MA/MSLS Assistant Professor, Web Librarian Auraria Library http://library.auraria.edu/~nmchale/ Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=672599042> | MySpace<http://www.myspace.com/ninermac> Serving the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver, and the Community College of Denver 1100 Lawrence Street Denver, CO 80204 303-556-4729 _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

Well, you are absolutely correct for many of the reasons people have already mentioned. But, your users are still asking to upload Word files. For whatever reason they want to use Word to edit their content and have multiple people read and edit it. Maybe they are old fashioned. Maybe they are not willing to listen. Who knows, but as a provider of services you should still try to meet their needs. Get a CMS system installed and tell everyone that is where documents will be stored. They can check them out and in to keep versions straight. Then remove uploading of Word and other documents in your wiki. Tell everyone they must use the CMS if they want to have their content in a Word document. Even put a link in your wiki to the CMS. Make it easy for them to use the wiki for what wikis are good for and the CMS for document management. And if they still want to upload documents into the wiki, tell them it's a security issue unless you have a virus checker scanning the images directory of your wiki server. -Jim -----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of McHale, Nina Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 12:07 PM To: mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Mediawiki-l] wiki versus Word Hey, all, Some of my colleagues are objecting to my desire to minimize uploading of Word documents to our new intranet wiki. My main objection to it is that we ought to be entering information into wiki pages so that we can take full advantage of document versioning, talk pages, watching, etc.-y'know, the stuff that makes it a wiki... I've been called "silly" and "arbitrary" regarding this. :) I'm not outright forbidding posting Word documents; I'm just trying to get people to use the wiki the way it's mean to be used. Am I being unreasonable? I even stated that it's acceptable to load the final version of a 20-page report, or a form that's meant to be printed out and filled out by hand-i.e., things in a final state that do not need further editing. Has anyone else encountered this resistance? I was most surprised that it came from someone who uses/edits Wikipedia, which, as far as I can tell, does not support uploading of Word docs. Nina Nina McHale, MA/MSLS Assistant Professor, Web Librarian Auraria Library http://library.auraria.edu/~nmchale/ Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=672599042> | MySpace<http://www.myspace.com/ninermac> Serving the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver, and the Community College of Denver 1100 Lawrence Street Denver, CO 80204 303-556-4729 _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

Hi everyone - I sympathize with the struggle to introduce users to a new tool - they resist because learning new things slows them down...they lose productivity and it's frustrating. I've been looking for a tool that allows users to have an editor with a friendly UI that is compatible with MediaWiki, so I'm trying out this combination: OpenOffice Writer, (http://www.openoffice.org/) because it behaves like MS Word, and Sun Wiki Publisher ( http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/wikipublisher)<http://… , because it promises a painless upload/download with MediaWiki. I'm attempting to put it together now - I'll keep you posted Also, this article is a great introduction to wiki use: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-social-mediawiki/in… Best, Evelyn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Evelyn Yoder Technical Communications http://longjump.com/ MediaWiki-based online help: http://longjumpsupport.com/ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: McHale, Nina &lt;Nina.McHale(a)ucdenver.edu&gt; Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 9:06 AM Subject: [Mediawiki-l] wiki versus Word To: &quot;mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&quot; &lt;mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Hey, all, Some of my colleagues are objecting to my desire to minimize uploading of Word documents to our new intranet wiki. My main objection to it is that we ought to be entering information into wiki pages so that we can take full advantage of document versioning, talk pages, watching, etc.-y'know, the stuff that makes it a wiki... I've been called "silly" and "arbitrary" regarding this. :) I'm not outright forbidding posting Word documents; I'm just trying to get people to use the wiki the way it's mean to be used. Am I being unreasonable? I even stated that it's acceptable to load the final version of a 20-page report, or a form that's meant to be printed out and filled out by hand-i.e., things in a final state that do not need further editing. Has anyone else encountered this resistance? I was most surprised that it came from someone who uses/edits Wikipedia, which, as far as I can tell, does not support uploading of Word docs. Nina Nina McHale, MA/MSLS Assistant Professor, Web Librarian Auraria Library http://library.auraria.edu/~nmchale/ Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=672599042> | MySpace< http://www.myspace.com/ninermac> Serving the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver, and the Community College of Denver 1100 Lawrence Street Denver, CO 80204 303-556-4729 _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l