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Archiver > CHANNEL-ISLANDS > 2010-02 > 1265824430


From: "Steve Foote" <>
Subject: Re: [CI] Jersey version of Donkipedia
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:53:50 +0000


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Dear Listers

To start with thanks to everyone for their positive comments and
words of encouragement about the Donkipedia initiative. Also the
contributions have really started to take off, with some great
contributions already to the Torode and Corbet pages.

I’ve just caught up with the debate about a Jersey version of
Donkipedia, and thought I would add in my two pennorth.

I have no problem with expanding Donkipedia to cover the whole
Channel Islands – and I think it is early enough days to change the
name without suffering from too much of a “branding crisis” since
it’s only really being going a few days. (I must admit I would be a
little sad, as I was quite pleased with the Donkipedia name – but
agree that it does not work for all the Channel Islands).

I would, however, be disappointed if it deterred Angela and other
Guernsey-based listers from contributing – but maybe we could win
her around? It would be good to hear other Guernsey peoples’ views.

It would also be very easy to add in new pages to cover Jersey,
Alderney and the other islands.

Similarly, the fact it is hosted/ sponsored by the Guernsey Society
could be overcome, by getting a completely separate domain name (as
long as the chosen one is available) – the cost would be around $10.
Unfortunately I have checked: CIpedia.com, CIpedia.org and CIpedia.net
are all taken.

This means that the only limiting factor would be having enough
people willing and able to contribute and help manage the site. The
main reason that I did not propose a CI-wide wiki in the first place
was that I wanted to avoid being too ambitious until I had time to
assess whether it would be too time-consuming, and whether enough
people would be interested to contribute.

Despite what Andrew Thorn claimed, there is much more to setting up
a wiki than just installing the software. As a sometime contributor to
Wikipedia, I am aware of the amount of effort their administrators put
into making sure that it grows in a controlled way, is structured in a
sensible way so that the information is structured consistently (using
templates) and is easy to find (using categories), protects the site
from unwanted intruders and vandalism (this is one of their major
challenges), and so on.

Therefore what I propose is this - if a volunteer comes forward to
be administrator for Jersey (Mike Bisson - are you volunteering?) –
and Alderney (Ross Brown – are you interested?), and we can agree on
an alternative name, then I will

1. Register a domain name in our chosen name

2. Install MediaWiki software

3. Agree an appropriate structure for the new wiki with the new
admin team

4. Copy across all the existing Donkipedia content

5. … and we’ll be in business!

All the best

Steve Foote


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