Wiki Changes

From AFSWiki

Most likely you have noticed a change to the look of the AFSWiki Main Page. The Wiki system administrators and the Communications Exchange Advisory Group have joined to discuss and test a new look for our Main Page.

Two major issues prompted this change.

1. The first being a lot of volunteers sending feedback that our Wiki looks boring. The root software that we use for the Wiki limits us with our design however the Wiki is intended to be a text based media for storing documents and articles for collaborative updates between AFS Staff offices and the volunteers. So think of the boring card index at your local city library. It’s not how flashy the index is but the content of the documents that are recovered of as a result of the index.

1. The second issue has been a concern for the Wiki system administrators and others which is a continually expanding and overly busy Main Page. The Main Page was not intended to be an index to all items that seem very important to particular departments or groups. The Main Page is suppose to be the first step in getting to the subject you are looking for in addition to the Search Engine. A too busy page just makes it difficult to find what you are looking for. It is our hope that Departments will examine their pages from a customer point of view and reduce the clutter. Reorganize! If you have an idea or need help write to sysadmin@afswiki.org or there are several very skilled wiki editors that are not systems administrators that also may be able to give you help.

To determine what should be on the Main Page and what should be moved to a submenu we used a statistical analysis program that can tell how many times each link on a page is being used. It was decided that if a link was rated at 2% or less that people were not using it and it was just taking up real estate on the Main Page.

Other changes:

• Other changes had in mind all users regardless of the type of computer they are using. So you now can size the screen down to accommodate even the smallest notebook screen.

• Because there is a large request for information about Global Link we added a new section just for Global Link. We will continue to monitor usage.

• Even though the Main Page will not be available for direct editing we have set aside two modules for Staff and Volunteer input.

1. Under “Recent Important News Headlines” in the News section items can be added by editing the linking page called “Template:Recent News”.
2. AFS Departments that have important new issues that they feel needs attention can post them in the Department Updates section. This section also is updated by a linking page called “Template:Dept Updates”.

• A tiny but very useful change in our look affects all pages with the addition of an Advanced Search engine which is only available to Logged In Users. We hear constantly how difficult it is to find things on the Wiki. Some of the problem is a lack of understand of the default search engine. If I type in Sending Handbook, I get sent to a results page that lists every page were Sending and Handbook are listed because there is not a page or document called Sending Handbook. And since there is not a page called Sending Handbook I get the option to create the page at the top of the page, which may cause some confusion. The Advanced Search option, even though not a Google Type search is much better at tracking down that item you are looking for and easier to read.

As always we are eager to hear your comments and even though we may not be able to accommodate everyone we will give you a response and merge your comments / wishes with others to help us with future updates. Write to the System Administrators at Sysadmin@afswiki.org.