[lug] Wiki server suggestions for small organization

[Dan Mackin]

I agree with Davide that with Google Drive, if there's no structure to
shared drives and permissions aren't managed, it can get unwieldy quickly.
That said, with some planning and management of Drive, it can be used
effectively... but someone does have to "own" it. I currently do this as a
volunteer for a non-profit and it's not without its hiccups but I feel like
it has moved the org in a positive direction... but I may be biased as it
was my idea. ;)

Also, Google Drive is just one component of Workspaces (f.k.a. G Suite) and
I think it'd be worth exploring the "Sites" service that is included as a
potential solution. I've not used it myself but I have seen other orgs use
this as an internal wiki to varying degrees of success. If you do decide to
go down the Google Workspaces path, as a non-profit you can get a
"Workspaces for Non-Profits" license for free... though it does take some
hoop jumping!

https://www.google.com/nonprofits/offerings/workspace/#!#workspace-pricing
-Dan

On Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 5:49 PM Davide Del Vento <davide.del.vento at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 4:43 PM Jed S. Baer <blug at jbaer.cotse.net> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 11 Mar 2021 15:45:15 -0700
>> Davide Del Vento wrote:
>>
>> > and if you are not very well
>> > organized you end up like in a messed up pile of paper in a file cabinet
>>
>> That's going to be true about any platform. e.g. nothing in a wiki
>> enforces
>> having people create new pages in the proper place in the hierarchy.
>> Somebody will always need to ride herd on the thing, sometimes moving
>> things around to where they need to be.
>>
>
> While that is true, at NCAR we use both Atlassian wiki and Google docs
> (both for academics), so let me share my experience with them. Both are
> "not sorted" (to be kind :-) by the people who create the pile of documents
> (ehm, to use an euphemism).
>
> Atlassian's wiki creates index pages, and Google creates a mess of
> unstructured directories.
> Finding stuff in the wiki is possible in the index pages, with some
> determination. Finding stuff in Google Drive in the folders is impossible
> once you reach a not-so-high number of documents.
>
> Wiki search is basically useless, whereas Google search just sucks (much
> more than Linux does, to cite your signature). You may find stuff with
> Google search only if you have the right search terms, which you never do
> because in an organization like ours (and I assume the same with Vince's)
> all the documents contain the same keywords because they are all on the
> same subject.
>
> So with Atlassian wiki, you can find your stuff with some determination
> (=if you really need them and have/find the time to search in the index
> files).
> With Google, you will NEVER find anything, unless somebody is kind enough
> to send you the link (provided they have it), or there is a dedicated
> person whose only job is to sort stuff as it is created. FWIW, this is the
> direction we are headed at NCAR, but I doubt that it will work in a
> volunteer-based org, since it's extremely tedious and time consuming, and
> only a boss saying "this is your duty or you're fired" could convince a
> person to do this sorting.
>
> Of course if the number of total documents is small, none of this is a
> problem, but if the number was small probably Vince would not have asked
> the question in the first place?
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