Somehow it seems cosmically wrong to be working on Thing #18: Playing around with PBwiki on the auspicious day of President Obama's inauguration. Nothing can compare to the power of that event, but I must work on these things whenever I have the opportunity. The deadline is near for Nebraska Learns 2.0, and I need to keep moving.
After looking at the discovery resources for PBwiki, I was very excited. It looked so very easy compared to Wikipedia and the Confluence wiki software we use at my library. I was thrilled by the promise of simplicity, a wiki easily accessible to all.
And then I clicked on edit, and discovered that PBwiki is completely incompatible with my computer (or at least my browser) at home. After numerous retries and reloads, I eventually got something other than a blank page. But the page I got was filled with strange code and odd blocks of color--definitely not a friendly display. So I gave up. (Side note: This was rather a surprise. I have no trouble editing Wikipedia articles from home, and I did not expect PBwiki to have higher browser requirements than Wikipedia.)
Now I'm at the library, using a decent computer. I went to PBwiki and clicked edit, and I got exactly what I should have: a simple, user-friendly, editable page. I edited a couple of pages on the Nebraska Learns 2.0 wiki, and it was easy and intuitive in a way I would never have expected from my previous experience with other wiki software. By hiding the markup code behind a rich text editor, they really made their wiki friendly and nonthreatening.
PBwiki would be great for a public wiki that a library wanted to share with its patrons. It would also make a very nice internal staff wiki. It's very nice. If I ever need to set up a wiki in the future, I would seriously consider using PBwiki as the platform.
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