Practical Semantic Mediawiki

This hands-on session for non technical users emphasizes the "need to know" aspects of Web publishing, wikis, information design and Semantic Mediawiki.

Acronyms

• SMW = Semantic Mediawiki
• MW = Mediawiki
• CC = Creative Commons

Web publishing

Access models

• Fully open
• Require login
• Require created accounts to edit (closed editing)
• Require created accounts to access (fully private)

Access models can be changed over time.

Accessibility

• Making sites accessible generally increases usability
  • The curb cuts principle
• Mediawiki is accessible, SMW has issues (forms)
• Value content over appearance
• Good tags for images

Terms of use

• Creative Commons - share with options for attribution, non-commercial, changes
  • Choose your license
• Traditional copyright - by permission only

• Re-using content
  • Find CC media

Using Mediawiki

Mediawiki is the underlying software of Wikipedia. It is robust, supported by a large community and supports hundreds of useful extensions.

Creating pages

• How to name pages
  • One topic per page
• Short, avoid special symbols, sentence form
• Code and matching brackets
• Basic markup — [[]] , [], |, {{}}, {{{}}}, [[File]] headings, bold, bullet points
• Linking
  • Brainstorm using links
• Categories
• Uploading images and files
  • What not to upload
  • Subcategories
• Moving pages
• Deleting pages
• Templates - used for consistently reused content

Making pages look good

CSS is the style system of Web pages and can also be used in Mediawiki. Like wiki markup, learning can be progressive.

• CSS styling <div style="background: orange">Hello world</div>
  • Avoid losing meaning (don't use <big> for headers), keep it simple
• Re-using styles MediaWiki:Common.css
• Hiding MW's menus and changing the 'skin'

Semantic Mediawiki

SMW is an extension ecology of MW that allows marking up content for re-use and create easier to use forms and views.

• Meaning through relationships
• What properties does your content need to be useful?
  • Triples
• Inline annotations
• Queries
• Creating a class (template, properties, forms)
  • One topic per page
  • Formlink {{#formlink:Comment|comment||Comment[Topic]={{PAGENAME}}}}</formlink>
• Subtypes
• Basic inference

Converting content or sites

• Pandoc
• Convertors for Open Office, Microsoft Word

Hosting

• Export a site, modularize by category
  • Complete site export
• Special:Version
• Free light/startup hosting
• Inexpensive Mediawiki with SMW option
• Wikia
• Self-hosting