Tuesday, January 20, 2009

A Random PBWiki Strategy - Sharing vs. Securing

In my work with wikis and the wonderful, wikitastic folks I work with, we have found a frequent need to have some areas of a wiki in development and some areas public. Let me first say that wikis are one of the most amazing tools you can use (for a long list of reasons I may someday blog about). Trust me, you'll love them. We love PBWiki.

In my experimentation (in several events using http://reta-otl.pbwiki.com) when I locked down a page for only administrative access, I would often have trouble making it readable to the whole user group again. Even if I would change the page settings, users would still have difficulty.

One strategy the most capable, Web 2.0 conscious persons I know, Tektrekker, taught me is to create an Administrative folder with custom security (so only the users you want will be able to access it). When pages are being drafted, they can easily be moved to the Admin folder, edited, and then moved back out for public consumption later.

So, to paraphrase...

When you PBWiki, let your folders do the security, then move your pages to open folders as you wish to make them available.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

A break from social media...could that be good?

Sometimes.... when you step away

you're suddenly aware of how many people are
getting by
just fine

without all this....

When you return
(for a moment)
you are paralyzed.

Conversation is powerful.

You wonder about every word.

For me this feels



a breakthrough.

And now I'm happily
back
and have a somehow
deeper
appreciation.

My new year's resolution
out here
is to
remember
to
take a hiatus
once in a while.