City
Torontopedia Needs YOU (Yes, YOU)
Just when you thought there weren't enough Toronto-archiving websites, along comes Torontopedia to add another layer of Toronto-discovering and -learning to cyberspace. Torontopedia is a city wiki that is open to any and all Torontonians to edit.
There's a useful introduction page if this whole city wiki thing is new to you:
What this wiki contains and means is up to you. As a general rule you should contribute content you think will be helpful or insightful to others, but even this rule can be broken at times. Interesting things will stay, and bad contributions will pass with time. Never be afraid to try something new, to edit something, to make your voice heard.
The site is still young, so there's lots of opportunities to leave your mark and contribute to what the creators hope will be "an interconnected community effort to explore, discuss and compile anything and everything about Toronto -- especially the little known, enjoyable things."
Discussion
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The goal is good. But I've got to wonder whether another wiki is the right tool to connect Torontonians. For one thing most wiki's are notriously bad for discussions - and unfortunately this wiki doesn't seem to be designed all that thoughtfully.
I think it's a great idea, something that was just bound to happen. As far discussion, couldn't it just have a forum section, or at least a link to one?
kl> wiki aren't meant for discussion, it's a collaborative information depository.
i would never go to wikipedia for a discussion, but i go there a lot for other stuff.
Great Idea! excellent place to add what you know about the city until everything has been said. Its new, so lets see how much it develops before we write it off.
Ian,
Thanks for the unexpected coverage, now that the cat's out of the bag and the rest of Toronto knows about us, our [Front Page] is officially open.
kl> Wikis, like cities, are built half by planning and half by accident.
Kl, Torontopedia needs you. If you think Torontopedia as a wiki is not designed all that thoughtfully, then I invite you to come and change and improve pages collaboratively along with everyone else, until Torontopedia is designed thoughtfully.
That's the benefit of a wiki, if you see something to improve, just hit edit...
The genius of the wiki format is its simplicity – anyone can log on an add content. Experience with website editing is not necessary.
And yes, you are right that some wikis are bad for discussions. However on Torontopedia, simply add [[Comments]] to any wiki page and you now have comments turned on, blog like for that page.
Dan> With a little creativity, using the [[Comments]] macro, we will indeed have a forum set up in a day or so.
Shawn> Torontopedia is both, a 'collaborative information depository' and an ongoing 'discussion'.
The best City Wikis are part Citizen journalism, part consumer information exchange, part birds-of-a-feather discussion groups.
You look up 'shawarma' on Wikipedia, you'll find a sociocultural history and straight-forward description of this delicious culinary creation.
Look up Shawarma on your local wiki and you should find a thorough shawarma-geist, including prices, reviews, sins and virtues of all the shawarma joints in your neighbourhood...and you can talk about that too.
HiMY SYeD
Torontopedia!
The Torontonian Guide To Toronto