Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Modern Quill

Modern Quill

MediaWiki’s Rise, MSWord’s Decline?

Posted: 04 Aug 2009 11:03 AM PDT

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Not too long ago I mentioned that I wanted to use MediaWiki as a tool to help me organize and plan the novel I would like to write. So, I was interested to see this Ars Technica article, with a disturbingly misleading headline, discussing the application of MediaWiki in his office. I’m jumping you straight to Page 2, because the “Alternatives” heading is most pertinent. “The prospects of Microsoft Word in the wiki-based world.”

I can’t say I agree completely. Jeremy Reimer’s main point for adoption, “everyone has read Wikipedia, the interface was familiar and so our users needed no training,” is a bit scary, because it doesn’t change the fact that MediaWiki sucks very hard in many different directions. Within forty-eight hours of installing MediaWiki, I had downloaded four other wiki packages to try out, born entirely from my frustration. MediaWiki is always going to be a strange beast, considering how carefully tailored it is to such a strange project. But despite my complaints, I’m going to continue to use it. Why? Well, because I’ve read Wikipedia, and the user interface is familiar to me. Sigh.

That’s why I don’t write my novel in MediaWiki. I considered it, for about as long as it took me to write three paragraphs. Then I stopped and fired up a word processor.

Of course, a central tenant of Reimer’s piece is “This is a paperless office.” Even with my MediaWiki backend to help me organize, you best not believe that I’m trying to write a paperless novel. As soon as I finish a draft of a chapter, I boot up the word processor, dump the text in, format it, and print it.

I’ve promised to describe more about this project, so I will soon. Stay tuned, or not, it’s up to you.
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