The Future of the Wiki

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pkcrafter
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The Future of the Wiki

Post by pkcrafter »

The future and/or direction of the Bogleheads Wiki is in question and your comments and suggestions are needed. My own view is that the Wiki is an excellent source of information for participants of this forum, and I want to see it continue, but there are problems.

The first problem is additions and maintenance of the Wiki has been left to just a few forum members. The regulars are:

Barry Barnitz- Wiki originator
Lady Geek
David Grabiner
Tfb
Cyberbob
Mel Lindauer
Simba (just coming back)
Special contributions from Stickman.
In addition Mephistopheles and Dale Maley left comments in the "Bogleheads Guide to Retirement" page.
Dan Kohn also provided some technical support

The original group that started the Wiki are:
Barry
Ken Schwarz
Piperwarrior
Simba
David Grabiner
Mikenz
Nine other sign ups.

I thought the contributions of these individuals should be acknowledged, but back to the problems. The Wiki has grown very large and it is difficult for these workers to keep it up. After talking to a few of them, I'm sensing some burn out. In fact, there is some thought to incorporating the Bogleheads Wiki into another one which covers general investing. So, problem No. 1 is the future of the Wiki. And that stems from too much work for too few.

The second problem is the difficulty of helping out. My personal experience from making three contributions is it is not all that easy to do. And there are others who agree. Barry and others say it's easy and not to worry about mistakes, but who really does that. I needed a lot of help from Barry to make my contributions, and each time I did, the process was a little different. To someone who does not work on it all the time, the Wiki can feel like a maze where you can quickly and easily get lost. It is pretty easy to write an article, but that is only one step. And of course, people are reluctant to write about anything they don't fully understand.

I would hate to see the Wiki disappear, but I don't think we are ever going to see a large group of forum members contributing. So, what can we do?

One thing I see is a lot of Wiki pages that don't seem necessary or are too general and can be found other places on the web. Maybe if we only incorporated information specific to the Bogleheads style of investing, it would cut the amount of work needed. As far as helping, maybe we need some interface between writing contributions and having them added to the Wiki. There is really not much incentive to contribute something when it requires twice that amount of time to learn how to do it. Contributors need simple instructions.

Any other thoughts or suggestions out there?

Paul
When times are good, investors tend to forget about risk and focus on opportunity. When times are bad, investors tend to forget about opportunity and focus on risk.
teacher
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Post by teacher »

California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) sent out a survey to help gain a better understanding of Financial Literacy as a subject to be taught in our schools. Increasingly, states are mandating the teaching of Financial Literacy (the ability of individuals to make appropriate decisions in managing their personal finances.) CalSTRS is interested in learning more about educators’ attitudes and beliefs concerning Financial Literacy as a school subject.

I sent CalSTRS the link to the Bogleheads Wiki hoping the philosophy of this forum would resonate. If CalSTRS looks at our wiki, I hope the "information specific to the Bogleheads style of investing" is what resonates. If it is crowed with additional related information found elsewhere, they may not see the forest for the trees.
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DaleMaley
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Re: The Future of the Wiki

Post by DaleMaley »

pkcrafter wrote:The future and/or direction of the Bogleheads Wiki is in question and your comments and suggestions are needed. My own view is that the Wiki is an excellent source of information for participants of this forum, and I want to see it continue, but there are problems.

The first problem is additions and maintenance of the Wiki has been left to just a few forum members. The regulars are:

Barry Barnitz- Wiki originator
Lady Geek
David Grabiner
Tfb
Cyberbob
Mel Lindauer
Simba (just coming back)
Special contributions from Stickman.
In addition Mephistopheles and Dale Maley left comments in the "Bogleheads Guide to Retirement" page.
Dan Kohn also provided some technical support

The original group that started the Wiki are:
Barry
Ken Schwarz
Piperwarrior
Simba
David Grabiner
Mikenz
Nine other sign ups.

I thought the contributions of these individuals should be acknowledged, but back to the problems. The Wiki has grown very large and it is difficult for these workers to keep it up. After talking to a few of them, I'm sensing some burn out. In fact, there is some thought to incorporating the Bogleheads Wiki into another one which covers general investing. So, problem No. 1 is the future of the Wiki. And that stems from too much work for too few.

The second problem is the difficulty of helping out. My personal experience from making three contributions is it is not all that easy to do. And there are others who agree. Barry and others say it's easy and not to worry about mistakes, but who really does that. I needed a lot of help from Barry to make my contributions, and each time I did, the process was a little different. To someone who does not work on it all the time, the Wiki can feel like a maze where you can quickly and easily get lost. It is pretty easy to write an article, but that is only one step. And of course, people are reluctant to write about anything they don't fully understand.
Paul
The one post I did, I found the Wiki format hard to use. If I remember right, one has to switch from newsgroup format...for the forum.....to html code for the Wiki. I find newsgroup format easy to remember........but I don't often use html format........so I don't remember it as easily.

If I want to find some information from historical postings on the Forum, I use Google's site search function to find it.........versus trying to remember where the Wiki is located.
Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks is through an index fund that charges minimal fees. – Warren Buffett
sommerfeld
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Re: The Future of the Wiki

Post by sommerfeld »

pkcrafter wrote:Any other thoughts or suggestions out there?
I suggest reducing barriers to entry.

I've seen incorrect stuff in the wiki but have never gotten past the entry barrier of registering in order to fix it because I was unsure if my request to be allowed to edit would be accepted.

Anyone can edit wikipedia - let anyone who has registered for the forum edit the wiki without having to ask permission first.
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LadyGeek
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Post by LadyGeek »

There are two points here. First, the content. I'm happy with keeping the wiki content as-is.

From my investing background (none!), I have no idea what's available elsewhere on the internet. By contributing material to the wiki, it helps me understand what's being discussed in the forum.

The most important point here is that I have assistance from the forum to guide me on content. By using Bogleheads forum members for inputs, you automatically have the Bogleheads' point of view. You can't get that anywhere else. I know what I have is accurate and not some random internet site that does not have my interest at heart.

Case in point: Please see Leverage on the Bogleheads Wiki. The section on Risk was a result of a very heated discussion about the insanity of using leverage as a long-term investment strategy for retirement. Since the wiki needs to be objective, I referenced back to the forum thread for the full discussion.

As to the crux of the problem, IMHO, the recurring theme is that editing the wiki is too hard to learn. Paul mentioned it as a secondary point, but I think it's the true reason why the wiki is not being utilized.

I'm finding that those without an engineering / technical background are not able to edit the wiki. I am constantly requested by other wiki editors to help with updates because they just didn't understand what to do. My recent contributions are along that path. (Please continue to do so, I'm always happy to help.)

I didn't see learning wiki syntax as being difficult, but I'm comfortable working with programming languages. It was just something different and no big deal.

However, for those with a financial background, it can be intimidating to the point that an editor loses all incentive to make a contribution. I think we're losing a considerable amount of expert contributions because the wiki is too hard to use.

Question: How can the wiki be redesigned to be easy to use? Can someone provide a wiki site that they don't have a problem to edit?

A relevant example: 401(k) Plan on wikinvest. Select the "Edit" button and see if this format is easier.

Another example: Investing on Wikipedia.

The Bogleheads' wiki uses the same software as Wikipedia and wikinvest. The main difference is that Wikipedia does not customize the user interface (page layout) as wikinvest does. Would it help if the Bogleheads' wiki looked like wikinvest (without the ads or other material not needed here)?
Wiki To some, the glass is half full. To others, the glass is half empty. To an engineer, it's twice the size it needs to be.
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Post by MossySF »

Need real-time signup (or signup's linked to the forum login) ... when people have an itch to scratch (e.g. fix something, write something) -- they want to do it immediately. Not post a message and wait hours/days for a message back.

To keep people from getting hung up on wiki syntax, something in big blinking letters that says if you don't know how to format things nicely, just type the text and and leave it for someone else to pretty up.
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Post by dbr »

Can someone give me a better feel for what the energy drain is? A Wiki as I would understand it is under no agenda to hold any more content than people volunteer to put in it. Is it that contributions and editing need re-editing to maintain format and content? Is it need for user support? Is it that content must be monitored for obsolescence? Other issues?

Thanks
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Post by LadyGeek »

An understanding of the wiki's background may help.

Origin: Please see Bogleheads Wiki History on the Bogleheads Wiki. (Last edited in June 2009).

Progress since then: Please see Bogleheads Wiki 2009 Annual Report on the Bogleheads Wiki.

The wiki was launched as a separate effort from the forum- more as an experiment rather than an integrated effort. A lot of work was put into this wiki by relatively few people. This separation may explain the need for a wiki account request.

We may be at yet another crossroad. It's good to know that the wiki is utilized. Perhaps it's time to declare the "experiment" a success and see about a closer integration with the forum.

If the accounts (forum / wiki) were combined, I would suggest a higher threshold than 5 posts to edit the wiki.

Energy drains noted so far:
- The approval process to edit the wiki. That's one person managing all the requests (noted at the bottom of every wiki page).

For example: Someone wants to make a "quick fix", but is not an editor. The re-register delay will cause them to lose incentive and the opportunity is lost.

- Lack of continual contributions. I can only write about so many topics. Unless something comes up in the forum, I'm done.

I assume that other contributors are in a similar situation. They are experts in a certain field, but there are only so many pages on that topic. Nothing left to contribute.

Every forum member has a different background and therefore has something different to contribute. With a continual influx of forum members (and no delay to re-register for the wiki), problem solved. (My background is technical, so I helped with the main page design. I also help with wiki syntax.)

-Level of difficulty. The wiki syntax is intimidating. However, it can be as easy as "just type it in". Content, not format is what's important.

If an editor needs help, just say "I need help here with..." and someone will jump in. As MossySF says "something in big blinking letters". There are other ways to do this, but that's the idea.
Wiki To some, the glass is half full. To others, the glass is half empty. To an engineer, it's twice the size it needs to be.
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Post by linuxizer »

-Approval process is a bit of a barrier. I suggest anyone with a Bogleheads forum account and more than 5 posts should be able to edit. If there's no barrier at all, you will drain people's energy keeping out the spammers (I speak from experience).

-As far as the wiki syntax goes, maybe post a super-condensed guide consisting of:

Code: Select all

 == TITLE == syntax for headings and sub-headings
and the [[link]] syntax for wiki links
-I don't think that strictly limiting the wiki to only those topics that are unique to Bogleheads is a good idea. For one, there really isn't anything that is exclusive to Boglehead-style investing. It's all the parts taken together, and the application of academic evidence to practical investing that makes Bogleheadedness great. So where would you draw the line? Also, there are topics that come up over and over again on this forum that could be described as basic investing knowledge (one example that has popped up like rabbits lately is the concept of duration with regards to bonds). The wiki is incredibly useful in such cases, because it saves burn-out on the forum from re-explaining the same basic concepts, and lets us move on to the unique particulars of each situation.
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Barry Barnitz
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Re: The Future of the Wiki

Post by Barry Barnitz »

sommerfeld wrote:
pkcrafter wrote:Any other thoughts or suggestions out there?
I suggest reducing barriers to entry.

I've seen incorrect stuff in the wiki but have never gotten past the entry barrier of registering in order to fix it because I was unsure if my request to be allowed to edit would be accepted.

Anyone can edit wikipedia - let anyone who has registered for the forum edit the wiki without having to ask permission first.
MossySF wrote:Need real-time signup (or signup's linked to the forum login) ... when people have an itch to scratch (e.g. fix something, write something) -- they want to do it immediately. Not post a message and wait hours/days for a message back.

To keep people from getting hung up on wiki syntax, something in big blinking letters that says if you don't know how to format things nicely, just type the text and and leave it for someone else to pretty up.
Here is the signup situation as I understand it. First of all, a fair number of our wiki's editors and administrators have a clear preference for open registration. However keep these points in mind.
  • 1. The forum and wiki have separate architectures. No one knows or has access to your forum password; so there is no way for us to automatically grant anyone wiki access.

    2. The wiki does have an open access setting, but this opens the wiki to all 6 billion souls currently residing on the planet. This is not a tenable option, as linuxizer and the forum's administrators have pointed out.

    3. As a result, each potential account must be manually established by an administrator, who creates the account and then pms the prospective editor with simple instructions for logging on and selecting a password.
We did try a limited mass authorization experiment during the early months of the wiki. Here is the gist of the process, along with the reservations expressed by some of our wiki editors.
I noticed that Xxxxx is one of the few Bogleheads that has reached the illustrious level of 1,000 posts. And I started thinking about someone who has made that many posts. They undoubtedly:

* Have shown a genuine interest in the Bogleheads community.
* Have shown an interest in participating - by actually posting, rather than just lurking and reading.
* Have shown a long-term commitment by spending the time and effort required to make that many posts.


So my proposal is this: Give anyone with 1,000+ posts automatic editor status at the wiki. Since they have shown the positive traits above, I figure there is no downside risk other than the fact that they may simply ignore the editor status and not contribute. But, there is tremendous upside in that they may well become as prolific and valuable at the wiki as they are at the forum. And a nice "We value your forum contributions and invite you to also contribute to the wiki...here's your password" type of message may be all that's necessary to get them started.
The problem is that quantity does not necessarily equate to quality.

What about inviting quality posters to be editors rather than waiting for them to submit an application?
With all respect, I am not sure it's a good idea to create accounts without a request. I might feel like I am forced to do something, but if I am approached like "You seem to have made a lot of contributions to the community. Would you be interested in becoming a wiki editor?", then I might get interested.
I agree that an invitation seems less obtrusive than notifying someone they have been signed up.
The granting of wiki editor access can be done with grace. We can mention that, in attempting to fulfill the wiki mandate, we are loosening membership sign up procedures by granting access to the individual. A brief description of editor rights (creating a page, editing a page, adding a link, correcting grammar and typos) can follow.

One should also point out to prospective editors that the real action point of a wiki is the recent changes page.

Does anyone doubt that if this page was listed on the front bogleheads.org page (on the right side of the page, where the morningstar page used to sit, that wiki membership would skyrocket... simply because of the increased visibility of wiki activity.

If new editors get in the habit on checking in on the recent changes page, they are likely to someday contribute.
Here's a draft PM.

Hi <name>,

Because of your valuable contributions to the forum, the Bogleheads Wiki admins would like to invite you to become an editor. In other words, please allow us to establish a user account for you. We initially considered granting access only to individuals who requested it, but we're looking to broaden our base of high quality writers. As a wiki editor, you'll be able to do just about anything: create new articles, make additions and changes to existing ones, correct errors, add hyperlinks, improve formatting, etc. The Recent changes page is a great source of ideas. When someone has been working on a page, we tend to "pile on," trying to improve it or write related articles.

You don't ever need to worry about breaking stuff, because all previous versions of each article are stored forever. Wiki syntax is easy. Help:Wikitext examples is an excellent reference. If you can't figure out some formatting, it's no big deal, since someone else will be happy to beautify your page in short order.

Agreeing to an account puts you under no obligation to write anything, but when the urge strikes you to contribute, you'll be able to do so immediately. We very much hope you'll consent to joining our user list. If you do, I'll send a follow-up PM with login instructions.
We sent out approximately twenty of these application requests; fifteen accepted, although responding that they had no intentions of contributing to the wiki, a promise they have religiously fulfilled.

Requests for access are virtually automatically granted (although they have to be manually set up). To date only one application was not granted and this was due to the fact that the requester had never made, and has yet to make, a single forum post.

Sommerfeld and MossySF, I can easily set you up for access to the wiki as editors if you wish (we encourage everyone to sign up). Just let me know and it is a done deal.

regards,
Additional administrative tasks: Financial Page bogleheads.org. blog; finiki the Canadian wiki; The Bogle Center for Financial Literacy site; La Guía Bogleheads® España site.
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Re: The Future of the Wiki

Post by linuxizer »

Barry Barnitz wrote:Here is the signup situation as I understand it. First of all, a fair number of our wiki's editors and administrators have a clear preference for open registration. However keep these points in mind.
  • 1. The forum and wiki have separate architectures. No one knows or has access to your forum password; so there is no way for us to automatically grant anyone wiki access.

    2. The wiki does have an open access setting, but this opens the wiki to all 6 billion souls currently residing on the planet. This is not a tenable option, as linuxizer and the forum's administrators have pointed out.

    3. As a result, each potential account must be manually established by an administrator, who creates the account and then pms the prospective editor with simple instructions for logging on and selecting a password.
It should be possible to link the forum and wiki account systems, but it will require a little bit of custom programming. Not sure what the resources available to complete such a project would be.

I wouldn't worry about who has access to the wiki beyond ensuring that random outsiders aren't coming in and pushing investment products or get-rich-quick schemes. A wiki works better as a discussion than as a static document....
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Re: The Future of the Wiki

Post by mas »

Barry Barnitz wrote:
MossySF wrote:Need real-time signup (or signup's linked to the forum login) ...
Here is the signup situation as I understand it. First of all, a fair number of our wiki's editors and administrators have a clear preference for open registration. However keep these points in mind.
  • 1. The forum and wiki have separate architectures. No one knows or has access to your forum password; so there is no way for us to automatically grant anyone wiki access.

    2. The wiki does have an open access setting, but this opens the wiki to all 6 billion souls currently residing on the planet. This is not a tenable option, as linuxizer and the forum's administrators have pointed out.

    3. As a result, each potential account must be manually established by an administrator, who creates the account and then pms the prospective editor with simple instructions for logging on and selecting a password.
We did try a limited mass authorization experiment during the early months of the wiki. Here is the gist of the process, along with the reservations expressed by some of our wiki editors.
Perhaps this would be of use?
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension ... ntegration
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Mas and linuxizer:

Post by Barry Barnitz »

Mas and linuxizer:

Thanks very much. This will have to passed on to Alex and Larry who run the server and phpbb and mediawiki programs. So this decision will rest with them.

My personal opinion has always been for the wiki to be automatically open to registered forum members (with some type of filter, such as the five post requirement to screen spammers and possible miscreants).

Alex and Larry, (and I might also include the forum's moderators) are, of course, more aware of, and sensitive to the tricks that forum malcontents employ-- multiple sign-ins, ips's and whatnot, to circumvent the steps taken to end their shenanigans. So I have always taken any reservations they have expressed seriously.

Secondly, given these reservations, we decided, at inception, that it was preferable to start with whatever restrictions might be serviceable and loosen up later, rather than start loose and have to impose restrictions later.

Given the fact that we have not had any problems with malevolent posters with the wiki , and that any malevolent postings can be easily reverted (and the malicious poster blocked from further access) we have probably come to the point where open forum access to the wiki is both tenable and desirable.

regards.
Additional administrative tasks: Financial Page bogleheads.org. blog; finiki the Canadian wiki; The Bogle Center for Financial Literacy site; La Guía Bogleheads® España site.
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pkcrafter
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Post by pkcrafter »

LadyGeek wrote:
Case in point: Please see Leverage on the Bogleheads Wiki. The section on Risk was a result of a very heated discussion about the insanity of using leverage as a long-term investment strategy for retirement. Since the wiki needs to be objective, I referenced back to the forum thread for the full discussion.
LadyGeek, first let me say that I am in awe of the work and contributions you have made on the Wiki and it is appreciated. But, I think this thread is a real opportunity for posters and potential Wiki contributors to air things out, so in the spirit of doing that I will mention this example:

In the thread you referenced regarding leverage, Mikep remarked:
Leverage is investing money you don't have, plain and simple. Leverage has no place on the wiki, other than to stay away, IMHO.
Your reply was adamant that the topic of leverage does have a place on the iki. I agree with Mike. The point is that the readers of the Wiki are not really impacted by all the unnecessary pages, but the small staff of full time workers are. And all those Vanguard pages???? My comments are directed toward the work the current contributors need to deal with. Off topic, but I'm surprised at your comment on the heated discussion about the insanity of using leveraging. There was an argument about this??

As to getting additional help, as yet I don't have any suggestions. But I would say to those who want immediate access, they can sign up any time and get a password. Once that is done, they can log on immediately when they see something of interest.

dbr wrote:
Can someone give me a better feel for what the energy drain is? A Wiki as I would understand it is under no agenda to hold any more content than people volunteer to put in it. Is it that contributions and editing need re-editing to maintain format and content? Is it need for user support? Is it that content must be monitored for obsolescence? Other issues?
I agree that the Wiki has no agenda to hold any more content than people volunteer to put in, but I think Barry has a vision that seems to discourage boundaries.

I have noticed many pages, Vanguard fund distributions for instance, that require updating. I don't see the need for these pages. Barry does not want the Wiki to be a full of links with no content, but in many cases this is the best choice for readers. It's much better to get the information from the source, and links can be very helpful.

Paul
When times are good, investors tend to forget about risk and focus on opportunity. When times are bad, investors tend to forget about opportunity and focus on risk.
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Post by RobG »

I don't think entries that would survive the "real" wiki should be here. The entries I have seen have been more advocacy of a position than unbiased information. (e.g. home ownership and bond funds wikis). I don't have the time or will to modify them, and I expect the modifications would be trashed anyway. Moving these to Wikipedia would bring in some valid differing viewpoints, and their questionable style would be flagged by Wiki's software.
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Thanks Rob:

Post by Barry Barnitz »

RobG wrote:I don't think entries that would survive the "real" wiki should be here. The entries I have seen have been more advocacy of a position than unbiased information. (e.g. home ownership and bond funds wikis). I don't have the time or will to modify them, and I expect the modifications would be trashed anyway. Moving these to Wikipedia would bring in some valid differing viewpoints, and their questionable style would be flagged by Wiki's software.
Thanks Rob. You bring up some interesting points.

First, one clear preference demonstrated by investors, financial advisors, and forum members is a thirst for normative exposition and advice (i.e. what do I do; how do I implement this.) Perhaps it is no surprise that this mindset carries over to the wiki. Secondly, the wiki's mandate was to express the "bogleheads" biases while being as objective as possible. This is indeed a slippery slope, but as one editor put it:
As to inclusiveness. Wikipedia is not necessarily an example to emulate. First, they need an infinite number of contributors because they are attempting to cover an infinite amount of stuff. We have a circumscribed subject and quality is much more important than quantity. Second, Wikipedia deals with controversial issues by seeking the lowest common denominator that almost everyone can agree on and perhaps pointing to outside sources for further explanations. If we adopt that here, we'll end up with the active versus indexing sections starting with a definition and then a statement that "Both approaches have their proponents." The wiki should be a reference tool, the forum is the place for those kinds of arguments.
In all honesty, we have had a limited number of contributors to the wiki and we have not been very strict about content, wishing to encourage as much participation as possible. With greater participation, objectivity and accuracy should increase.
Special note to Paul: The fund distribution pages are an example of objective information. Just recently, I recall, we had a number of forum members parroting John Bogle's attacks on ETF's by fantasizing they provide no advantages to Vanguard index fund investors , when an examination of the data (there for the asking in the wiki) totally discredits the argument. I know of no links that provide historical fund distributions and historical fund accounting data in one easy to access table or page. Links to Edgar are possible, [We provide them]but forum members and general readers are not likely to delve into Edgar to ferret out the data.
We do have message markers to flag pages. See Template Messages for a complete list.

Thus, I have marked the posts you and Mark have sited:
A financially oriented wiki cannot easily escape providing quantification. Thus data must be periodically reviewed and refreshed; and regarding outside links, which we have used liberally in footnotes, references, and as citing quantitative data as much as possible; these are in constant need of review as they break and are in need of replacement.

We may be coming to a point of inflection in terms of the wiki. Editors had this very early discussion:
But in my experience editing and administering wikis (about 2 years), I've honestly never seen a situation where a wiki didn't benefit from being more open and more inclusive. The nature of a wiki almost demands it, so I can't imagine voting no for anything that trends toward more openness.
I started Bogleheads Wiki contributions with almost exactly your point of view, and now I think I'm worse than Xxxxx. More seriously, which do we want?
1. A greatly expanded Reference Library, with several trusted Librarians and collaboration-enhancing software, or
2. A true wiki.

I'm not sure which I favor. In the abstract I much prefer #2, but when I think about the mess a few specific troublemakers could cause, I lean toward #1.
[We] seem to have already created an excellent reference library at the forum. Wouldn't another just be duplication?
Given the nature of the forum population from which wiki editorship is to be derived, I would expect that there is a likely probability that the wiki eventually gravitates toward scenario (1), albeit with a wider, deeper population of "librarians". Using expected participation rates, success for a true wiki will likely require membership in the 100-1000 range, assuming an expected 50% active participation rate.
Xxxxx's response suggests a succinct answer to my own query: We want #2, but we'll settle for #1
I am personally an advocate for scenario #2 a true wiki ( objective, with a boglehead slant as a concession to its fundamental mandate). Linuxizer sums it up well, " A wiki works better as a discussion than as a static document....". It seems apparent that forum members want scenario #1.

This may change if access is opened up, or more forum members participate.

regards,
Additional administrative tasks: Financial Page bogleheads.org. blog; finiki the Canadian wiki; The Bogle Center for Financial Literacy site; La Guía Bogleheads® España site.
sommerfeld
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Re: The Future of the Wiki

Post by sommerfeld »

mas wrote: Perhaps this would be of use?
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension ... ntegration
that seems like a good idea, and I've seen mediawiki (the software used by the bogleheads wiki) work well with an external authentication setup along those lines.
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Post by MossySF »

For my own company, I've spent a lot of time doing research on HSAs, deferred comp plans, ESOPs and so on and am more than willing to contribute that knowledge to the wiki. I'm in a death march phase now though so it won't happen until early next year.

Seriously, don't underestimate the mental blockage of yet another sign on system. For example, I was looking for an ODF reader for Microsoft Word. The first Google link that comes up is Sun's officia" plugin. So I open that up, click on a download link and immediately see a request for signup. Guess what I do? I go back to Google to see if anybody else has an alternative project or maybe somebody else is hosting the download. I spent a good 15 minutes doing fruitless searches before I finally gave up and signed up a Sun's site -- a process that took 5 seconds.
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Post by nisiprius »

What are the pros and cons of maintaining a separate Bogleheads wiki versus merely contributing the same material to Wikipedia?
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Post by linuxizer »

nisiprius wrote:What are the pros and cons of maintaining a separate Bogleheads wiki versus merely contributing the same material to Wikipedia?
I don't think that most of the content on the Bogleheads wiki would be allowed on Wikipedia. The pages which simply describe investment products and basic concepts would, but even many of those might not make the Wikipedia cut because they are too specific. It would be hard to give any investment guidance within the Wikipedia guidelines (e.g. steering people away from variable annuities, cautioning about tax consequences, etc.). And many pages simply wouldn't be allowed at all, I don't think.
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Post by pkcrafter »

linuxizer, I have seen several mentions about the Bogleheads Wiki content requiring neutral treatment of any subject. My question is why? Can we not use the Wiki format to provide information and what might be described as bias to provide the Boglehead viewpoint? I mean the title is The Bogleheads Wiki.


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Post by Mel Lindauer »

pkcrafter wrote:linuxizer, I have seen several mentions about the Bogleheads Wiki content requiring neutral treatment of any subject. My question is why? Can we not use the Wiki format to provide information and what might be described as bias to provide the Boglehead viewpoint? I mean the title is The Bogleheads Wiki.


Paul
I agree with Paul. I'm sure there must be plenty of other sites espousing various market-timing schemes, how to pick winning active funds, etc.

This is the Bogleheads' wiki, and folks should expect to hear the Bogleheads' points of view.
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Post by linuxizer »

Mel Lindauer wrote:
pkcrafter wrote:linuxizer, I have seen several mentions about the Bogleheads Wiki content requiring neutral treatment of any subject. My question is why? Can we not use the Wiki format to provide information and what might be described as bias to provide the Boglehead viewpoint? I mean the title is The Bogleheads Wiki.


Paul
I agree with Paul. I'm sure there must be plenty of other sites espousing various market-timing schemes, how to pick winning active funds, etc.

This is the Bogleheads' wiki, and folks should expect to hear the Bogleheads' points of view.
And I agree with both Paul and Mel :D . My point was simply that this kind of directed guidance towards the consensus optimal solution wouldn't be allowed if we moved everything over to Wikipedia.
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Post by RobG »

pkcrafter wrote:linuxizer, I have seen several mentions about the Bogleheads Wiki content requiring neutral treatment of any subject. My question is why? Can we not use the Wiki format to provide information and what might be described as bias to provide the Boglehead viewpoint? I mean the title is The Bogleheads Wiki.
I don't necessarily have a problem with wiki's promoting Boglehead viewpoint as long as it is clear that it is opinion or backed up by references.

Anyway, my problem is with a few that aren't boglehead viewpoints. As I mentioned before, the buy vs. rent and the bond fund vs indi bonds are very biased in their style and content. Those arguments are uncorrelated with boglehead philosophy. Plus people on this board link to them as fact, not viewpoint. These are the only ones I've viewed so I don't know if they are representative.

Also, wiki implies an impartiality with some peer review. It might make more sense to just label it "Advice from the Bogleheads."

rg
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Post by linuxizer »

RobG wrote:Anyway, my problem is with a few that aren't boglehead viewpoints. As I mentioned before, the buy vs. rent and the bond fund vs indi bonds are very biased in their style and content. Those arguments are uncorrelated with boglehead philosophy. Plus people on this board link to them as fact, not viewpoint.
Hi Rob,

Specifically regarding the bond fund vs. indi bonds page, I agree that the tone is biased, but the content is solid. I have in other threads provided quotes from a standard academic reference text that back up the claims made in the wiki page (which, you'll note, was not written by me, although last week I made a few clarifying edits for the first time), and there are certainly many (Mr. Bogle among them) who do not have the same distrust of bond funds that you and many others do.

Funds vs. indi bonds is a topic that comes up over and over again on this forum, and it would be a great loss not to have the arguments consolidated into a single place, so that we can advance the discussion forward each time it comes up rather than rehashing the same points.

At the same time, you are certainly right that the tone is biased and a bit strident. Potential solutions for this:
-Flag the page as controversial. I believe this has already been done as part of this present discussion.
-Split the page either into two separate pages for and against, or into a single page with two major sub-headings: "Why bond funds are not the same as indi bonds", and "Why bond funds will not lose money when rates rise" (other titles might be better, those are just first-pass suggestions)

Best wishes,
Ari
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Post by Alex Frakt »

It's not wikipedia. It's a reference section and companion to this forum that uses wiki software for ease of editing and collaboration. It does espouse a certain investing philosophy and that philosophy shapes the wiki's contents.

The separate sign-on is not a negotiable requirement. One of the things I expected to seen and has duly appeared is that a small number of fanatics will try everything in their power to disrupt the forum. Much of the moderators and site admins time is spent dealing with these people. Despite bans and IP blocks, they find ways to get back on, but their inability to keep their personal bugbears hidden reveals them eventually. We also have now have spam sales outfits in India that use real people to register and post enough innocuous posts to get by our restriction on new members posting links.

The only way to keep both of these types of people out of the wiki is to allow only authors with a proven posting history. Spam is easy enough to clean up, but some of the crazies are clever enough to slowly subvert entire sections of the wiki before they are uncovered. And if they get a few of their friends in? Well, remember why this forum exists in the first place, the last thing we want is to give the hocuses and their followers a toehold in our wiki.

BTW, even wikipedia no longer allows anyone to edit pages and for precisely the reasons I gave above. What they found is that the efforts of a few dedicated fanatics can easily overwhelm the counter efforts of tens of thousands of well-meaning, but less motivated reasonable people. When it comes to groups like whole life insurance peddlers or religious cults, you will always be faced with a binary choice between open editing and reliable information.

Note: if you find any of this objectionable and want to set up a true open-ended wiki, our wiki uses the GNU Free Documentation License which allows anyone to copy the entire contents for pretty much any purpose. So have at it, but I'll warn you that you'll face exactly the problems shown above if your site gets popular enough to get the attention of the crazies.
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Post by dbr »

linuxizer wrote:
Funds vs. indi bonds is a topic that comes up over and over again on this forum, and it would be a great loss not to have the arguments consolidated into a single place, so that we can advance the discussion forward each time it comes up rather than rehashing the same points.
As long as the content can be characterized as arguments as opposed to analysis, it does not belong in a Wiki.

Arguments, or at least debate, based on opinions, preference, judgment, and advice, belong in the Forum and not beyond.
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Post by Mel Lindauer »

When I referred to "Bogleheads point of view", I didn't mean that we should allow distorted versions of reality. Rather, I don't want to see market timing, posts about how easy it is to beat the market using the latest scheme-of-the-day, and hocus-type rants on the wiki.
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Post by linuxizer »

Alex Frakt wrote:The only way to keep both of these types of people out of the wiki is to allow only authors with a proven posting history. Spam is easy enough to clean up, but some of the crazies are clever enough to slowly subvert entire sections of the wiki before they are uncovered. And if they get a few of their friends in? Well, remember why this forum exists in the first place, the last thing we want is to give the hocuses and their followers a toehold in our wiki.
What if the accounts were automatically generated for anyone with more than 50 posts who joined more than 3 months ago? That would be a pretty clever spam bot to subvert that, which just leaves the crazies.

As far as the crazies go, once checking the wiki becomes ingrained in the culture of Boglehead-dom, there will be enough eyes to find the changes. Adding a panel to the main bogleheads.org page with new updates to the wiki (easy enough to do, since mediawiki puts out an RSS feed of changes) would accelerate this. Actually, the recent changes panel is a good idea regardless of what the membership discussion outcome is.
dbr wrote:As long as the content can be characterized as arguments as opposed to analysis, it does not belong in a Wiki.

Arguments, or at least debate, based on opinions, preference, judgment, and advice, belong in the Forum and not beyond.
It sounds good, but there's a continuum, from clearly opinion to clearly fact. In between lie things like the bond fund page, which is controversial and yet need not be opinion--the question is not unanswerable, but the answer just may not be entirely agreed upon yet.
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Post by Barry Barnitz »

dbr wrote:
linuxizer wrote:
Funds vs. indi bonds is a topic that comes up over and over again on this forum, and it would be a great loss not to have the arguments consolidated into a single place, so that we can advance the discussion forward each time it comes up rather than rehashing the same points.
As long as the content can be characterized as arguments as opposed to analysis, it does not belong in a Wiki.

Arguments, or at least debate, based on opinions, preference, judgment, and advice, belong in the Forum and not beyond.
Hi dbr:

The workable solution we are trying to implement in the wiki is to have wiki pages be as objective as possible and to provide a link section devoted to forum discussions that debate the issues.

Here is a very recent page which attempts to accomplish this format:

Please see Glide paths on the Bogleheads Wiki.

If you will indulge me for a moment, while I return to one of Paul's concerns. The sensible (to me at least) tack taken by this approach requires, of course, a fairly good acquaintance with the forum.

Now in truth, the small staff of regular wiki administrators and editors tend to have their hands full with cleaning up the wiki, ferreting out typos and bad links, dealing with obsolescence of data, and other dull administrative tasks, while also having to do all of the page writing when forum members suggest a desired topic they wish to see addressed. For us to have a good beat on forum activity is well nigh impossible.

This is where the forum population comes into play. The more everyone pitches in, suggesting the best conversations for inclusion to a page; catching and correcting dead links and typos, and, over time we must, hope, contributing to pages, the easier and more fun becomes the task and the better the product.

regards,
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Wiki

Post by pkcrafter »

It looked like we were making some progress in this thread, but now it seems to have died. The number of posters who made comments is very small and that says something in itself.
Now in truth, the small staff of regular wiki administrators and editors tend to have their hands full with cleaning up the wiki, ferreting out typos and bad links, dealing with obsolescence of data, and other dull administrative tasks, while also having to do all of the page writing when forum members suggest a desired topic they wish to see addressed. For us to have a good beat on forum activity is well nigh impossible.
Wiki workers are overloaded--there are too many pages to maintain. Some of them don't seem to be necessary in my opinion. Cutting pages will ease the burden on workers. Having forum members write a draft of a desired page might help.

The problem with sign up seems to be a minor one. The problem of inexperienced forum members being able to contribute to the Wiki in a meaningful and timely way is a major issue. Also something that might bother contributors--Your contribution will probably be edited, changed, added to, or moved at the discretion of the editors.
This is where the forum population comes into play. The more everyone pitches in, suggesting the best conversations for inclusion to a page; catching and correcting dead links and typos, and, over time we must, hope, contributing to pages, the easier and more fun becomes the task and the better the product.
I don't agree that forum conversations should be in the Wiki. That brings up another important issue. We can't seem to agree on what should or should not be in the Wiki. It seems that if there are a lot of people contributing what they want, the Wiki would a mess. Of course, the editors will follow changing and correcting.. It might work if there are a lot of people editing and correcting, but that's not going to happen. On further thought, it would not work. Ultimately, the Wiki editors will have the job of editing as they believe is best.

The solution?

Make contributions easier and have a method of giving them to the editors and not adding directly to the Wiki. The editors should keep the size and number of pages within a range that they can handle. I do not mean to dump all the work on the editors, but the editors are not going to get a lot of help under the current system. And I'm not sure the system should be changed to allow a lot more people to edit and change existing pages.


Paul
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Re: Wiki

Post by linuxizer »

pkcrafter wrote:Make contributions easier and have a method of giving them to the editors and not adding directly to the Wiki. The editors should keep the size and number of pages within a range that they can handle. I do not mean to dump all the work on the editors, but the editors are not going to get a lot of help under the current system. And I'm not sure the system should be changed to allow a lot more people to edit and change existing pages.
Were we to go this route, we should cease calling it a wiki, for it is simply too far from being one to be labeled as such.

It seems to me that there are at least four types of content on the wiki:
1. Definitions: A corporate bond is X, a stock is Y. Many of these pages are currently just stubs, some are more fleshed out.
2. Summaries of questions that come up in the forum frequently, ideally with an eye towards providing the objective evidence and a summary: TIPS vs. I Bonds (which summarizes for/against points with each, although there's some controversy as to whether that should be there), Bond funds vs. individual bonds, Renting vs. buying
3. Bogleheadish advice: What to do with a windfall, indexing good, no more risk than you need to assume, invest for the long haul, etc.
4. Different parsings of Vanguard fund data: Approximating Total Stock Market (which has data all off vanguard.com but re-capitulates it in a way useful to answer a specific question)

In terms of what is unique to the Bogleheads wiki, 2 and 3 seem to be the major items. Definitions you can find at Investopedia or Wikipedia; The Vanguard fund data you can find at Vanguard (although I often find it more useful to consult the wiki, despite the risk of it being out-of-date).
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Post by tc101 »

I would hate to see the Wiki disappear, but I don't think we are ever going to see a large group of forum members contributing. So, what can we do?
We don't have to do anything. The Wiki is excellent just as it is. If no one enters another line, it will remain excellent. It will not disapear unless someone removes it.

If someone feels motivated to make it even better they can do that, and they probably will. That is the way a wiki works. Don't worry about it.
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Post by dbr »

tc101 wrote:
I would hate to see the Wiki disappear, but I don't think we are ever going to see a large group of forum members contributing. So, what can we do?
We don't have to do anything. The Wiki is excellent just as it is. If no one enters another line, it will remain excellent. It will not disapear unless someone removes it.

If someone feels motivated to make it even better they can do that, and they probably will. That is the way a wiki works. Don't worry about it.
Well said.
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Post by mas »

One of the few concrete maintenance tasks mentioned earlier that anyone could help with is updating dead links.

I took the liberty of running a link checker against the site and posted the results (approx 100):
http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/User:Mas

I have updated a handful and plan to do more, but if anyone feels the urge to help, it is open to anyone (as long as you sign up for the wiki). I have already found a few that were false positives as well, so beware.
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Post by sewall »

Yes, I have a thought about this. (I confess to not having read the whole thread above.)

Once upon a time I was very eager to contribute to the wiki and began doing so. Then I felt tremendous pressure to make articles adhere to certain editorial guidelines. (I won't go into the source of this pressure, but suffice it to say it was not internal! Other people really care about adherence to a certain style.)

Though the story is longer I won't go into it. Bottom line is that wanting greater participation and having a strong desire for a certain look and feel can be at odds.

However, if the editorial guidelines are crucial than it sure would be nice if they were far easier to follow. (Maybe it has been made easier. I haven't contributed to the wiki in many months. My passion to write is directed elsewhere and will likely remain so.)
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Post by mikep »

I have jumped in today and added to the HSA, HDHP, and FSA pages. This is a valuable resource that I don't want to see go away.

The Boglehead concept is to invest tax-efficiently, and no where else on the web could I find something good about what to do if you are in a state that taxes HSA growth. I needed a place to write some tips that TIPS (no pun intended :) ) would be a good choice in this type of account in this situation and give other suggestions out there. There are a lot of websites that discuss HSA's, but none other than this that describes the Boglehead approach.

I plan on focusing effort to the wiki more than the forum questions to help you guys out. Why is it harder to post on the wiki than the forum?

Mike
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Post by LadyGeek »

I think I know why- it's the cryptic formatting.

Formatting in the forum is very limited. For the purposes of a forum discussion, all you really need is is minimal text editing. Like emphasizing something or maybe select a nice emoticon. :)

The icons above the edit box are all you will ever need. Of course, you can get fancy. However, there's not much more to it.

The wiki, OTOH, is a pure word processor. You need outlines, tables, figures. Everything is categorized.

You have the power of a word processor, but need to enter the commands as text. IOW, you can't select a section with your mouse and say "Center this table" like you can with a word processor (windows based).

That single difference makes life hard for those not comfortable typing things like <center> {{ }} </center>. That's a wiki. Of course, you can just type text in and let others format it.

There may be an additional difficulty in the way the Bogleheads' wiki presents itself during editing vs. another wiki. The Bogleheads' wiki has a line of 11 very small icons that are difficult to read, let alone understand what they do. Would something like wikimedia help page example be better? (Please don't save the changes, the page is open for edit).

Would replacing those 11 cryptic icons with something like this help?

Insert: – — … ° ≈ ≠ ± − × ÷ ← → · § Sign your name: ~~~~

(See the example page, as this is a poor representation. The links work in the example.)
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Post by Ducks »

I am/was a wiki editor. I'm happy to help in any way I can. However, my wiki knowledge and investing knowledge are both about this big --->.<--- so I felt like that was about the size of what I was able to contribute. Compounding that, life got pretty busy for a while there, and my contributions pretty much dropped off a cliff. I think the wiki is an admirable project and am still rooting for its success, and will contribute in any way I can. To that end, I will post an idea here that I had posted a while back, because I still think it is a good one.

It seems to me that we have two types of people: Investors and Techies. The "Investors" are people who have a good understanding of investing concepts and definitions; "Techies" are those who have a good understanding of Wiki software and markup languages. There is a small population who are both investors AND techies, but I submit that the crossovers are too small of a population to keep the wiki updated, well-rounded, and relevant all by themselves. I think it would be great to have a way for these two groups to work together without requiring that they learn everything the other knows. Here is my idea to accomplish that goal:

We start a thread called: "UPDATE THE WIKI" or something even more awesome and flashy. An "investor" could go into that thread and post something as simple as:

On this page:
http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Category:College_Savings

add a link to this awesome college savings website:
College Savings R Us
http://college-savings-r-us.comm


Or as complicated as:

Add a new page for my wiki entry about tips, as follows:

{copy/paste 500 word entry about the features and benefits of TIPS}


One of the Techies would see the thread had something new in it, make the requested changes, and in red, would post:

UPDATED TO HERE.

Then the other techies would know not to make the previous posts' changes.


In another thread under the Wiki forum, perhaps called "WIKI WISHES" or something else equally flashy and awesome, a newbie-investor might request that an oldbie-investor write an entry about TIPS, because the wiki doesn't have a very fleshed-out entry about TIPS. So then an Oldbie investor might heed the cry of the newbie investor, check out the TIPS page (which the newbie has politely included a link to in his request for help), flesh it out a bit better, post the changes on the "UPDATE THE WIKI" thread, a techie would see it, and BLAM! new content.

Anyway. That's my idea.
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Post by sommerfeld »

I just signed up as a wiki editor. I definitely have techie skills (I've done surgery on the guts of mediawiki for a private wiki I set up at work).

I'd encourage less-technical people to feel free to dive in to the wiki and provide text and let other people worry about cleaning up your formatting later.

Each wiki page has an associated "talk" page, accessed under the "talk" tab. If you're not sure if your contribution is ready for prime time, make it on the "talk page"; someone less shy can then take it and work it into the main article text.
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Post by sewall »

I made something akin to the following suggestion a while back on another thread. This community has a several (maybe a dozen or more) members that write very fine personal finance content on their blogs. Perhaps some of them would be willing to permit portions of such content to be used as the starting point for wiki pages. (Copyright issues require consent if one wishes to use large portions without attribution.)
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Post by CyberBob »

LadyGeek wrote:I think I know why- it's the cryptic formatting.
No problem, if you don't want to bother with cryptic formatting, just use a standard GUI word processor.
Using this extension you can create MediaWiki articles using the OpenOffice Writer word processor, without having to know the wiki formatting language.

Bob
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Post by Mel Lindauer »

CyberBob wrote:
LadyGeek wrote:I think I know why- it's the cryptic formatting.
No problem, if you don't want to bother with cryptic formatting, just use a standard GUI word processor.
Using this extension you can create MediaWiki articles using the OpenOffice Writer word processor, without having to know the wiki formatting language.

Bob
Does that extension also work with MS Word, Bob?
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Post by LadyGeek »

I was about to suggest a simple change to the editing style sheet to make it look like the menu of a word processor. IOW:
Bold Italic Underline "Heading 1" "Heading 2" "Heading 3" Signature
...would appear immediately above the editing box. Select the text and click on the format you want. Just as it's done in this forum.

There could be (a lot) more, but it's a start. Right now, those icons are not very helpful.
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Post by CyberBob »

Mel Lindauer wrote:
CyberBob wrote:
LadyGeek wrote:I think I know why- it's the cryptic formatting.
No problem, if you don't want to bother with cryptic formatting, just use a standard GUI word processor.
Using this extension you can create MediaWiki articles using the OpenOffice Writer word processor, without having to know the wiki formatting language.

Bob
Does that extension also work with MS Word, Bob?
No, that extension is specific to OpenOffice Writer. I don't know of one for Microsoft Word. However, it looks like there are some macros that will help with Word conversion to MediaWiki.

Bob
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Post by CyberBob »

CyberBob wrote:
LadyGeek wrote:I think I know why- it's the cryptic formatting.
No problem, if you don't want to bother with cryptic formatting, just use a standard GUI word processor.
Using this extension you can create MediaWiki articles using the OpenOffice Writer word processor, without having to know the wiki formatting language.

Bob
Ooooh! Even better! OpenOffice Writer will actually export directly to MediaWiki format!
  • Create a new document (or open a Microsoft Word or other word processor/text document) in OpenOffice Writer
  • Select File --> Export
  • Under File format choose MediaWiki (.txt)
  • Click Save (or Export)
  • Open the newly saved file in a text editor and copy the contents to the clipboard
  • Paste the wikified text into wiki article
Bob
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Post by LadyGeek »

(Bob - you posted just before me. So, I'm updating this post)

The wiki understands HTML directly. Has anyone tried a copy-n-paste into a page directly from an HTML export?

There's a path with MS Word (Office 2003, 2007), which can save files as:

XML document, .xml (may not be helpful here)
Single file web page, .mht, .mhtl
Web page, .htm .html
Web page, filtered, .htm .html
=================

I think there's a number of options here. Off to testing...
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Post by LadyGeek »

Success! I imported an HTML page of an old thread. Using a text editor I did nothing more than copy-n-paste the text (and remove my login header at the top).

This is a demonstration just to show what HTML can do inside the wiki. I'll try to dig up something that would be more appropriate page content.

Please see HTML to Wiki Conversion on the Bogleheads Wiki.
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Post by CyberBob »

LadyGeek wrote:The wiki understands HTML directly.
Cool. That means anyone that doesn't want to bother with wiki syntax should be able to just create articles using their word processor.

OpenOffice Writer
File --> Export...MediaWiki (.txt) format

Microsoft Word
File --> Save As...Web page, filtered .htm .html (Note: definitely use the filtered option, which removes the non-HTML Word gobbeldygook)

Bob

P.S. Do you think that going the HTML route rather than using wiki syntax may make the page more difficult for someone else to edit later? Or does the chance for increased wiki participation because of simplification vastly outweigh that concern?
Topic Author
pkcrafter
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Wiki

Post by pkcrafter »

Wow, great progress since my last post. Some tech modifications to make things easier, some clarifications, and some new contributors. :) Thanks to all.



Paul
When times are good, investors tend to forget about risk and focus on opportunity. When times are bad, investors tend to forget about opportunity and focus on risk.
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