MarkDilley did a lightning talk session on the Universal Wiki Edit button and we talked to ~250 people individually about it - the response was quite enthusiastic.

During Ahmed Tantawy’s “Open culture and the Internet in the Middle East.” we learned how statistics show that employees are the best source of innovation for organizations and companies. In fact, more new ideas come from the employees than the R&D / Consultants or Management departments. Wikis prove to be a great resource in organizing this and facilitating the flow of ideas.

A session on Edit Conflicts mentioned the use of FAQs to resolve disputes - articles on AboutUs.org can also greatly benefit from it.

Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley did an excellent session on Wikis: Beyond Encyclopedias - which we were very excited to be mentioned in and it included the very interesting information that they have learned ‘how to build wiki communities about anything’. Two years ago, they were haphazard about it, and if it worked, it worked. Now they know what resources will bring what results. We look forward to talking to them more about that.

We also heard lots of comments about AboutUs, mostly positive, from the wiki community present there. One participant pointed out that we should give more focus to growing our active community, as community helps make wiki’s reliable. We couldn’t agree more! Another interesting criticism came from a privacy advocate who held that “Privacy = Right not to be disturbed” - an interesting, possibly privileged take on privacy in the internet age. Most folks really thought that what AboutUs was doing was pretty interesting.

Quick thoughts

These were also excellent sessions:

• Enric Senabre Hidalgo’s Use of wikis for political participation
• Edo Navot’s Wikipedia as “Real Utopia”
  
• Cormac Lawler’s Collaborative research in Wikiversity

• In a lighting session we learned of the ease of using SVG in text editor from Terence Yuen
• The Video Editing company Kaltura has ruby API plugin… hmmm - who’s interested in video editing on AboutUs.org? … maybe someone who is making tutorials or guides?
• We met Noam Cohen who writes cool tech pieces for the NYT - often about wiki.

AboutUs statistics

There are 12,003,158 total pages in the database. This includes “talk” pages, pages about AboutUs, minimal “stub” pages and redirects.

898,859 files have been uploaded.

There have been a total of 15,914,871 page edits since AboutUs was setup. That comes to 1.33 average edits per page.

User statistics

There are 221,278 registered users, of which 79 (or 0.04%) have Sysops rights.

So there you have it, 12 million!

But oftentimes we have knowledge or experience of website that would lend itself more fittingly to something along the lines of a review. That’s where AboutUs’ InfluenceUs feature comes in. The idea here is to leave constructive feedback for a website by posting a comment on their AboutUs page aimed at helping them improve (e.g. influencing them). By explaining what you are delighted or frustrated about it gives the website valuable information on how their operation is being received and how it can improve, and they can even address an InfluenceUs post by replying to it. Also, because these comments are in the public domain they give visitors to the website’s AboutUs page another eye into the website based on this person’s experience.

Try it out by clicking the InfluenceUs button at the top of a domain page on AboutUs. For more information see our page on using InfluenceUs.

The premise is pretty simple. Pages on AboutUs now show the number of times that particular page has been viewed since the page was created. (You can check this by viewing the page’s history, and it will be sometime between AboutUs’ launch in June 2006 and today’s date.)

Look for the Page Views count in the box to the right of just about every page on AboutUs.org. Currently the number is updated on a semi-regular basis and will hopefully be live soon.

Whether a particular page has been viewed more than you expected or less than you would hope, editing the page to make it prettier and have better content is a great way to attract more viewers and to get them to stay awhile.

5:30pm - 8:30pm

* OregonHealthConsensus

* Wikimania

* UniversalEditButton

It would be lovely to see you there - rsvp though Facebook - if you have an account.

Also, announcing WikiMeetups.com - an awesome website idea from a friend of AboutUs

I want to know why it is that domain registrar logins seem to be one of the most easily lost pieces of information in nonprofits. Ack!

Actually I think the problem is more pervasive than logins. Our work at AboutUs puts us in touch with lots of people who lose their domain names all the time. When I mean lose, I mean zip zero, don’t have a chance of getting it back.

Early on one of the ways that I saw people using AboutUs was to educate themselves about digital realties of virtual properties. Currently the best example of this is for people to simply note on a domain page at AboutUs that their site has moved. So, if anyone is looking for them by domain name and they land on AboutUs, they are easily found.

What also happens is that because people are not aware that they don’t “own” the digital property, they are merely leasing it and upon non-payment, you lose that property. There are tragic examples, such as the hospitalized burn victim losing their established non-profit website of 5 years. More commonly websites are lost by people who just aren’t aware of the tenuous nature of domain properties - they can be bought, lost and sold.. So there are many rants about cybersquatters taking their domain… it is usually all perfectly legal.

One thing that any organization needs to do is think in terms of properties. How often do you hear about a non-profit being evicted for non-payment? Never. Someone in the organization must have the responsibility of thinking about digital property like this, so it doesn’t get lost.

Sometimes even prestigious institutions lose.

So do yourself a favor, keep track of you digital properties, else you will have a headache and allow someone else to make a few pennies off of your traffic.

AboutUs is designed to make it quite simple to create a page about a business or organization, provided that it has a corresponding domain/website. In fact, you don’t have to do anything but search for the website in our “Find!” bar, and if the page doesn’t exist yet the AboutUsBot will create one for you to edit.

A lesser known fact is that because AboutUs is a wiki, pages don’t have to just be about another site, but can actually be a site of it’s own.

AboutUs can be a great place to give something a web presence in a much easier and economical way than a typical website. We may not be able to do some of the things that a traditional wiki host does, but the advantage with AboutUs lies in our already high visibility, and the fact that we exist to be a guide to businesses and other organizations.

Some examples include: Janoose the Goose, NIAYH, Thompson Homes Ltd., Florist in North Port, Learning Gardens Laboratory, and Valtech1 Home Inspection Services. (Also, some people have chosen to redirect their URLs to their page on AboutUs. See ChaosCafeAndParlor.com and RegulasJoyOfMovement.com as examples.)

There are two easy ways to create a new page on AboutUs. Either go to the URL bar and navigate to http://www.aboutus.org/TheNameOfYourPageHere, and then click “edit this page” or add a FutureLink to a page on AboutUs with the name of the page you want to create like [[TheNameOfYourPageHere]] and then click that link and add your content.

I spent nearly 40 minutes on the phone, going through the wiki page for his comments and taking lots of notes for things we’d change. I also asked him about his personal history and how he got into the business (the website said online since 1999, but it turns out it’s a family business that his father has been in for 50 years!) Great stuff.

I also talked to him about how we don’t consider our office in Pakistan to be an “outsource” situation, that we have an office in Lahore with full-time employees, with all benefits including health and stock options. He seemed impressed by that and the kicker for him turning around his reaction was when I told him that I spent time there in January. He got more interested and wanted to know how it was over there.

When I told this story to my partner, she said that globalization is a fact of life in business these days and that the way we’re doing it at AboutUs is different than many (most?) other companies, and is a point to be proud of and promote.

A few other points: Both the development team and the Customer Service team are split between Pakistan and the US, with the majority in Pakistan in both teams. This means we’re an “around the clock” company, making us that much more efficient.

The United Nations is starting one to help staff in 80 countries share information.

16 U.S. intelligence agencies use a top-secret wiki called Intellipedia.

How are you using wiki to further your business, organization or ideas

How can you use AboutUs?

Newsweek: Power In Numbers: How wiki software is reforming bloated bureaucracies and changing the face of communication.

One of this month’s topics may easily include the recent “Universal Edit Button” (http://UniversalEditButton.org) or the upcoming Wikimania event!

and we imagine the rest will self organize - itself.

at the AboutUs office, 107 SE Washington #520 5:30-8:30