Organizing our knowledge and information

[Deleted User]

So there is clearly a lot of great information deep in these forums, but I feel that some of us are potentially missing out on a lot of good stuff because either we don't know how to find it, or we don't know it's there. I think our brain trust of members provides more than enough quality triathlon information, but there's a problem of organizing all of this so that it's accessible and transparent.

I think it'd be a good idea if we had some regular, systematic method to update the wiki with all the good stuff that we produce in the forums. As far as I can tell, the wiki is fairly static, with occasional updates by the coaches. Unfortunately, I think we "lose" a lot of great information in the forums as the threads roll off the front page, so it might be a good idea to keep a record of all the noteworthy threads that come up. The team email updates is a good start, but I'm thinking something more permanent and accessible to posterity.

(Note that I'm not talking about archiving ALL the threads here, just the "important" ones that might serve as a valuable source of information in the future)

There are a bunch of ways that we can do this, but it'll take some brainstorming to see what's the most efficient. Some suggestions:

• Compile and digest all the information in a thread and add as an additional wiki page. This might be time-consuming though.
• Have a organized list of noteworthy threads grouped by topic (ex. swim, bike, run, nutrition, etc.) that contains 1. a link to a thread and 2. a brief summary of the contents discussed therein. However, a problem I can see with this is that the links might be broken if the infrastructure of the website gets retooled (i.e. for EN 6.0).

Of course, then there's the problem of deciding who does what, how do we decide which thread(s) are important enough to be immortalized, etc.

Thoughts on this?

MattAaronson

Talk to Coach P, I think he is working on this. Originally when the team was a lot smaller the Wiki was very actvely populate and updated based on the "consensus" information in various threads. But this does not seem to happen anymore. I have offline suggested a more actively "curated" wiki....

Robert Sabo

Maybe just more forum links in the WIKI

Ian Kurth

Better search functionality in both the forums and wiki would go miles toward this goal.

Mark Cardinale

I would love to be able "bookmark" a thread.  I feel i have lost track of really important threads that are hard to find when searching because i can't always remember the exact forum where the thread originated.

[Deleted User]

I agree that a functional search tool would be very helpful, but basically what I'm suggesting is that we compile a list of threads that represent the "best of" the forums. It'd be great if people were more involved in curating the wiki (after all, that's the whole point of having a wiki instead of a "top-down" administered website), so I think it'd be good if there could be some sort of team-wide initiative to do that.

Tom Glynn

@Mark I use Evernote to bookmark a thread. Just use the web clipper extension. I tag it as EN. Works really well and it becomes searchable within Evernote.

Mark Cardinale

@Tom - Just found your reply.  Evernote works great.  Thanks for the tip.  I guess the only downside is if there is additional content added after you capture the thread, but i see the source URL is captured so i assume it's possible to circle back to the original thread to check for updates.  Thanks much!

Tom Glynn

@Mark, correct. If you click on the URL it brings up the current information, not the original clip.


Of course if RnP switch platforms, all of the links no longer work.

Dino Sarti

I can't get even get the search function to work on the new web plat form in the forums. Does that happen to anyone else? Is it a Mac issue? Am I dumb?

[Deleted User]

Posted By Dino Sarti on 11 Apr 2013 05:41 PM


I can't get even get the search function to work on the new web plat form in the forums. Does that happen to anyone else? Is it a Mac issue? Am I dumb?

I think Rich posted somewhere that he's aware of the search being broken, and it's a complicated issue to fix. 

Coach Patrick

As Chief Wiki Officer, I hear all of your pain. First and foremost, thanks for caring....in the early days, there was no wiki, so building it was easy....maintaining / upgrading it is something else for sure. While I like the regular updates, I think that the work could quickly grow into a full time job. Plus, let's not forget some of the value is in having the discussion, not just finding the old one (this is topic dependent, of course, and depends on who shows up in the thread).

As of 4/11 we have upgraded the search a bit, it's much faster/not crashing (we have a LOT of data) and next step is to "hack" it so we can include our non-member content (blog, podcasts, etc).

As for the wiki options include:

* Firing up a thread ranking system so you can "reward" the ones you like the most and we'd be able to find them.
* Monthly review / contest, submission of the top three swim / bike / run threads for review (or we pick the best of them).
* A place to submit / note posts of interest (submit a link) and that is moderated and filtered into the wiki?
* A volunteer group that reviews the wiki, identifies areas of need, then searches for the content?

What say you?

Mark Cardinale

Same....Forum search doesn't work for me either.

Coach Rich

Mark, go to the very top of the page to the space next to the magnifying glass icon. Type your search there. It returns results from the forum and wiki.

Yes, there is the word Search right there at the top of the forum...and then a little magnifying glass at the top of the page above that. One works, one doesn't, it sucks and we're just learning this. We'll work on killing or moving one of them.

Mark Cardinale

Thanks, Rich. That does the trick. Just did a quick search and got results. I didn't realize there was a search option in that space but the magnifying glass should have given it away. Thanks

Coach Patrick

@Mark, we have now upgraded BOTH search areas to return excellent results...hope that helps!!!

[Deleted User]

All right, here's what I propose:

1. Every ~month or so, the coaches make a "Best threads of the month" thread, where they make a short list of what they feel are the best discussions that have taken place recently in the forums. These should be threads in which the discussion has mostly died down (i.e. probably not on the front page), so it's easier to make a wiki entry without new information being added all the time.
2. In this thread, members volunteer to create a wiki page summarizing the contents of a nominated thread. Start off with one member creating a wiki page for each thread, just to get the ball rolling. These entries don't have to be terribly long or complicated...maybe just a bulleted list of the main points and the overall facts, consensus, points of contention etc. Point is to get all that information in a thread distilled and summarized. 
3. Once that's done, these members post back to the "Best of" thread with a link to the wiki page. Then, other members can add their own contributions to that page if need be. 

Hopefully the division of labor works out well that way. Thoughts?