Launching Wiki-Content on GH - GreenHybrid

ibrands · #1 (**permalink**) 11-15-2006, 05:28 PM

The GreenHybrid team is excited to announce the launch of Wiki content in the Learn channel. One of the great strengths of GreenHybrid is the knowledge and insights of its users, which make the forums, articles and mileage database so useful. Wiki articles are another great way to capture and share this collective wisdom, and no community is better equipped to educate hybrid owners and shoppers than GreenHybrid!

To get the Wiki pages rolling, they've been seeded with content from another Internet Brands community site, Wikicars.org. Wikicars is currently a mix of user and IB-supplied content, and, going forward, contributions to the articles on either Wikicars or GreenHybrid will be mirrored across both sites to reduce duplicate efforts and spread the learnings as widely as possible.

I'm excited about this development, because this new code base will enable us to add more features and functionality in the future!

We are currently anticipating moving the updates to production this Friday, beginning at about 9am PST. We're setting up an 'In the shop' page that will display while we are performing the work. Our hope is that the site will return to normal by early afternoon.

I hope you find the Wiki articles interesting and that you can improve them where they need help. Contributions and edits are always welcome. As ever, feedback about this change and any change to GreenHybrid is welcome too.

Thanks all.

Nidhi
Assistant Editor
Internet Brands Automotive

bwilson4web · #2 (**permalink**) 11-15-2006, 09:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibrands

The GreenHybrid team is excited to announce the launch of Wiki content in the Learn channel. . . .

The "channel" had me confused until I remembered the "Learn" tab where collected articles reside.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibrands

. . . One of the great strengths of GreenHybrid is the knowledge and insights of its users, which make the forums, articles and mileage database so useful. Wiki articles are another great way to capture and share this collective wisdom, and no community is better equipped to educate hybrid owners and shoppers than GreenHybrid!

To get the Wiki pages rolling, they've been seeded with content from another Internet Brands community site, Wikicars.org. Wikicars is currently a mix of user and IB-supplied content, and, going forward, contributions to the articles on either Wikicars or GreenHybrid will be mirrored across both sites to reduce duplicate efforts and spread the learnings as widely as possible.

This sounds pretty good. I'd visited Wikicars.org and thought the Prius entry was mostly OK. But the lack of a mileage database and forums like here made it a little too 'static' to keep my interest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibrands

I'm excited about this development, because this new code base will enable us to add more features and functionality in the future! We are currently anticipating moving the updates to production this Friday, beginning at about 9am PST. We're setting up an 'In the shop' page that will display while we are performing the work. Our hope is that the site will return to normal by early afternoon.

I hope you find the Wiki articles interesting and that you can improve them where they need help. Contributions and edits are always welcome. As ever, feedback about this change and any change to GreenHybrid is welcome too. . . .

Thanks for 'heads up.' I'm looking forward to the change too. We used 'sticky' to hold a FAQ in the Prius forum, just to make sure it would be easily found by 'newbies.' If we can integrate the 'sticky' function with the Wiki content, I think we'll have a winning combination. But first, integrate the Wiki and we'll go from there. I for one look forward to seeing how well we can move from 'stickie' (one author/editor) to Wiki for a unified Prius FAQ.

Bob Wilson

ibrands · #3 (**permalink**) 11-16-2006, 09:47 AM

Thanks for the idea about the "sticky" posts!

Hopefully all goes well tomorrow and we can start implementing some of these interface changes.

As far as Wikicars, I saw that you went there and made changes to the Top Reasons to Buy a Hybrid Car and Reasons Not to Buy a Hybrid Car (yet) pages, a while back. The reviews do need a little extra love and care as we build out the site, since it's one of the features that is unque to the site. So yes, the Prius review could use some less static info and more interactive info, like the database. That's what we're hoping this integration will do.

Feel free to make changes on Wikicars, since it is a wiki. We're also toying with the idea of adding embedded videos and other interactive features on Wikicars, so any and ALL ideas are welcome. You can send me a message on Wikicars here.

Once the wiki-content is on GreenHybrid, it will be easy to change content on either site, and such changes will be mirrored on both, as well.

ibrands · #4 (**permalink**) 11-16-2006, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibrands

Once the wiki-content is on GreenHybrid, it will be easy to change content on either site, and such changes will be mirrored on both, as well.

Slight correction!

The roll out for tomorrow will display Wikicars content on GreenHybrid. We will have to make edit to Wikicars. Changes to Wikicars will then be moved over to GreenHybrid.

Sorry for the confusion!

ibrands · #5 (**permalink**) 11-17-2006, 04:00 PM

Hi all,

We ran into a couple minor in-house upgrades today, so unfortunately the Wikicars content won't be rolled over until Monday.

The site will be down this coming Monday, November 20, 2006 from 9am PST for about 6-7 hours, as we try again.

Thanks for all your patience!

bwilson4web · #6 (**permalink**) 11-20-2006, 04:58 PM

Let us know when you want some feedback. . . . [could not repeat it.]

I took a peek at the Wiki and not half bad. I didn't want to try anything until you' all announce "OK, break it!"

Bob Wilson

ibrands · #7 (**permalink**) 11-20-2006, 05:04 PM

No worries, I love feedback!

Just remember: You'll need to make changes in Wikicars and then those changes will get carried over into GreenHybrid. You can't break wikis, so have at it!

leahbeatle · #8 (**permalink**) 11-21-2006, 08:57 AM

Interesting. I do like wikis, though I think the jury is still out on this addition to GH. I did, however, have to go over the two lists you mentioned above just to knock some of the irritating grammar problems out of them. Substantively, though, they weren't terrible.

CCRGMac · #9 (**permalink**) 01-02-2007, 01:59 PM

I made an edit to the FEH wiki at lunchtime today and it showed up, but has now gone again. It wasn't a big deal (pointing out that one of the externally linked sites hasn't been updated since 2004), but I'm just wondering if my edit was dismissed by a moderator, or if I should have hit a 'save' button somewhere or...

ibrands · #10 (**permalink**) 01-02-2007, 03:09 PM

That's odd. It shows up when I checked.

Can you please verify that the change is live on the Wikicars' FEH page? If it's not there, please make the necessary changes on the Wikicars page and hit "Save Changes".

Once you've checked that those changes are made on the Wikicars FEH page, please respond to this post and I'll verify that they're pushed live and reflected on the GreenHybrid FEH wiki page, as well. Thanks!