Hello all!

Having had the privilege to be a member of this forum for over four years, I have come to rely on the DVInfo community as a very valuable and reliable source of information. The quality of content on DVI is usually very high, and the members of the community are very helpful. Kudos to Chris and all frequent contributors for building, shaping and maintaining this invaluable platform!!

Over the years, however, I have frequently thought to myself: as great as the interactive nature of a bulletin board system may be for this purpose, it often takes a whole lot of time to find the information you're looking for. How great would it be if there was a structured on-line reference for all the aspects discussed on this forum?

Just today, it occurred to me that there may just be a way to accomplish this: establishing a DVInfo Wiki...

If you're unfamiliar with what exactly a Wiki is and how it works, you can get it straight from the horse's mouth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Wouldn't it be great to start something like this? A collection of reference material that everyone can contribute to - containing detailed info e.g. on a particular camcorder that isn't written in any user manual? I think it would be excellent!

What are your opinions?

Curiously,

Ron

Hey Ron! This topic comes up from time to time...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=8692
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=19769
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=44451
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=44976
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=52576

I agree. I vote for this sort of resource too.

With the new intergration of Web 2.0 and using AJAX it should be a lot easier. I agree some sort of reference abiltity would be great.

If it's not too much work, I think a Wiki should be given a trial run.

It would be useful to put some guides up there, i.e. how to light, how to use your camera, etc.

Having links allows people to explore certain topics further. In the lighting section, you could have links on how to construct certain types of lights (i.e. nanolights, DIY reflectors, etc.) and have lighting diagrams. This kind of information is not easily conveyed in a forum.

For specific queries, this message board is the best.
For broad queries (i.e. the basics on how to make a film), I think some sort of Wiki would work the best.

2- Chris mentions that he is afraid that just anyone can edit pages. However, this isn't a problem for the wikipedia. When those particular pages get defaced, they get resored pretty quickly (apparently in a few minutes).

If you just do a trial run, it'll become apparent whether or not this is a problem that can be solved.

Chris mentions that he is afraid that just anyone can edit pages.Probably better stated that my concern is with the trolls that are occasionally drawn to the light here... I've seen too many brand-oriented hidden agendas (and not so hidden). One way around this would be to give permissions only to those established folks here that we all know and trust (not just the forum moderators). Will look into the available wiki solutions that will integrate with our forum software. I'd want to maintain the one account / one log-in per person thing, so much easier that way.

What about making it a point not to mention a particular product unless it is absolutely necessary? For things like how to light, how to get sound, product names don't have to be in there.

It's probably better to seperate out the product names, since "which product is better?" type discussions are probably better left for the forums. Things change over time.

Will look into the available wiki solutions that will integrate with our forum software.

Chris, you may want to check out MediaWiki. That's what WikiPedia runs on...

http://www.mediawiki.org/

Thanks Ron, I've got that site bookmarked!

Hmm there's a Wikibook project this is a very similar idea to what's being proposed here.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Filmmaking

What about making it a point not to mention a particular product unless it is absolutely necessary? For things like how to light, how to get sound, product names don't have to be in there.

It's probably better to seperate out the product names, since "which product is better?" type discussions are probably better left for the forums. Things change over time.

Yeah, I agree. Get it start first and we can fine tune and work out the details. I also agree with Chris's view about allowing only trusted members to edit the contents.

This is simply a great idea and the movie making example is the way to go.
I'm sure that 15 or 20 trustees can be recruited to help maintain the pages so they remain accurate and troll free.
I truly hope you go for it Chris since it also brings higher exposure to an already informative site and allow more idea exchanges from an international source. After all I'm sure that's why we all are here.

Without offering any additional solution here, i just say it's terrible useful thing. For instance look at my favorite place here - Alternative Imaging Methods (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=70). It's full of keywords which have very fuzzy explanations. Let's take bokeh, hotspot, vignetting. We got there constantly new links outside which are very often reactional. And people very often forget that those are given from pov of photography not from pov of video imaging. And other people just constantly try correct this noise thread by thread and doing zero job in someway.

doesn't it already exist in the form of dvinfo.net (and its related sites hdvinfo.net, etc.)?

wiki sounds like a great idea at first... but i want my encyclopedias to be from authoritative people that know what they're talking about. having the possibilities of a random anyone or a few people editing pages just because democracy is king isn't what education should be. learning is great if the resource knowledge has been tested through fire... but learning plain out lies is a waste of my time =). that's why i never bought into the idea of wiki, nothing against it wholistically as it gets people interested in sharing knowledge... but so did the world wide web. why build ANOTHER tool on top of an existing tool?

learning is great if the resource knowledge has been tested through fire... but learning plain out lies is a waste of my time =).
Hmm... as far as I'm concerned, most people here on DVinfo are exactly the ones that are testing the issues at hand through fire. Forget marketing speech - real experience is what counts. And a book isn't more error-proof than a wiki just because it's printed on paper. I still think a DVinfo-wiki is a splendid idea, and I hope something will come of it someday...

If there is enough demand for HDV/DV wiki content then why don't people just add stuff to Wikipedia? Is there really any reason to have another wiki on the Internet? I don't see the point to setting up a seperate wiki site, when the resource is already there - and free! It seems a little silly to ask Chris to spend more money on a wiki, when free wiki facilities already exist on the Internet.

I would think it would be better to build upon the already existing Wikipedia. For topics such as "which microphone should I buy", you to provide an external link to the DVi forum archive. (Obviously copying and pasting DVi forum content onto another site is NOT allowed).

However, I personally agree with Chris in that FAQ stickies are the better way to go. Having only recently found out what a wiki was, I already find them pretty annoying. Wikipedia is a handy resource - but it has so many problems and issues. I would much prefer to do a search on this lovely forum interface, and be able to view personal opinions, than read a biased one-sided article. That's why I come to DVi for information and not just do a search on Google.

Question: can you add stuff to the vBulletin FAQ? That could be something worth looking into. For example, you could do a search for "boompole" and it will return a FAQ article with some basic information and also links to all the relevant threads. Not sure if it's possible though...

My 2c.

One of the links posted by Boyd reminded me that the DV Info and HDV Info articles are constantly being updated! I completely forgot about them! Also, in the past I always clicked on the HDV Info Articles page (as opposed to the DV Info Articles page) because I tend to shoot mostly in HDV. But after looking at the DV Info Articles, it seems there are a heap of very general articles (such as a ME66 vs 416 mic comparison).

Suggestions/Ideas/Comments:

Is there a way to merge the HDV and DV articles together (and I guess the P2 articles as well)? I guess the reason being, as more technology is introduced, you don't really want to have to keep purchasing new domain names, and setting up new sites.

At the end of each article maybe there should be a link to a specially created forum thread that allows people to discuss the article, offering their own ideas, suggestions and comments. This also means that when someone does a search for, say "ME66 vs 416" on the forum, they will be shown a post which links to the article - keeping everything tied together.

Comments? Suggestions?

I've previously suggested a system where the moderators receive submissions and vet them to be put into a hierarchical structured html database (or wiki) with little interest. As long as the structure is done right (broken down into obvious sensible and straight forward structured categories) it should be obvious and easy to navigate, just type in keyword or make several clicks to get exactly what you want. With the chance to put an advertisement on each page, attract people from all over the video world, and double membership, I would have thought it would be a great idea.