- Image via Wikipedia
Here’s some history and background before you get started.
I’m working with a non-profit to develop and implement a platform for their members that will make it easier for them to organize, coordinate, and communicate with each other. We’ve been testing a couple of wiki solutions, but have run into three basic scenarios:
- Hosted + good support + high cost ($6-10/mo/user). Hmm, 500+ members * $10/mo…. Yeah, not sustainable.
- Hosted + no support + no cost. Ok, it’s not really *no* support, it’s forum/community support which means that someone (typically me) has to dig around to find the answers. And, in this specific case, the company may be shutting down this product altogether to focus on their enterprise products (i.e., they want to get paid and make money. I understand.)
- Not hosted + no support + no cost. I’m the most technical person in the organization and getting one of these setup (not to mention maintaining it) makes my head hurt.
So, if we need a hosted, web-based, editable platform to help us organize, coordinate, and communicate, where does that leave us?
WordPressMU
WordPressMU is the multi-user version of WordPress.org. It’s what WordPress.com runs on. It does everything WordPress does, plus scales to millions of pageviews, allows unlimited users and blogs, and allows different permissions on different blogs. All for free.
Ok. Not really free. You do have to host it somewhere, but the software itself *is* free.
Instead of wiki “pages”, we can have blog “posts” and web “pages”. The site remains editable, but with flexible permissioning and the ability to take the whole site private (by requiring visitors to be logged in). And, since a core function of blogging software is to publish/push content to its readers, we don’t have to find a kludge-y way (like we did with the wiki) to update the non-profit’s members. Once blogs and feeds are established, readers can subscribe to RSS or choose to receive email updates.
I’ve only been playing around with WPMU for a few days, but I love it already! Now if I can just get it working with BuddyPress (and possibly Thesis), I’ll be set…
What are your experiences with wikis? Have you considered (or ruled out) blogging software for your organization?
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