One of the first ideas I had when I set this site up, was to list which software packages different Councils were using. I thought this would help any Council planning to purchase a new system, by allowing them to quickly establish which packages were popular, and to find nearby Councils already using a given system with which to discuss the systems pros and cons. I initially concentrated on Geographical Information Systems, Asset Management Systems & Finance Systems, but added a few more lists later on.
One type of software I didn't really think to add until very recently is Wiki software itself. Bundaberg Regional Council has been using MediaWiki for a few years now and as of today the BRC wiki contains over 10,000 pages of information, and it is a very useful resource for Council staff. I am very interested to hear what if any wiki systems other Councils are using. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I have a strong suspicion that not many other Councils are using wikis at all.
Wikis are easy to use, useful, and quite often free, but there are a perhaps a couple of reasons why they aren't being used more. I suspect that being a relatively recent innovation (they have been around since 1995) not everyone knows much about them, how to set them up, how to use them or what to use them for.
Being a "wiki evangelist" I'd love to see them being used more, and I think the way to do that is to show people what they can do, and to make it easy for them to set one up. This website itself is one example of how a wiki can be used, but I think it is only part of the story.
The main reason I set this site up this was to share information that I thought was of general use to Councils everywhere. A lot of it was already documented on the Bundaberg Wiki, and I thought it was a shame it wasn't available to more Councils. On the other hand about 80% of the information on the BRC wiki is Bundaberg specific information that no one else would be particularly interested in, photos and data about assets, Bundaberg specific processes & procedures, and that sort of thing. Although the data itself is of limited interest to others, most people from other Councils and organisations that have seen the BRC wiki, are quite impressed with what we have done, and a few have expressed an interest in setting up something similar for their organisation.
I have thought about this quite a bit recently and I have come to the conclusion that whilst it is easy enough for a Council to host a wiki on their own server and set it up in a similar fashion to Bundaberg, there are a number of advantages in using Wikidot (the site that hosts the LGAM Knowledge Base) to host a network of Council specific wikis.
- Wikidot offers a free hosting option that is more than generous enough to host a sizable wiki.
- It is possible to clone an existing wikidot site and hand the copy of it to a new user which makes it very easy to start of with a functional wiki instead of a blank slate.
- The sites can be configured to be either publicly viewable, or only viewable by wiki members.
- Once a few Councils set up wikis it will be very easy for them to feed of each others ideas.
- It will allow me easily to help anyone to set up their site and get it going.
To get the ball rolling I have started copying a few pages from the BRC Wiki to a new Wikidot wiki to designed to show the sorts of things that could be included in a Council Wiki - it is early days yet, but if you are interested in having a look, the site address is: http://brc1.wikidot.com.
I have also set up a blank version which I am happy to give you a copy of to get you started - http://extranet.wikidot.com
If you are even half interested in setting up a wiki for your Council, please let me know, and I will help you out as much as I can.
Wayne Eddy
Melbourne, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
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