I want to start off by noting that I’m a writer, blogger and HTML-site coder. I have little background in Wiki creation, editing or communities. Now with this out of the way, I want to discuss my impressions of Wikidot.com as both a new contributor and wiki admin.

Most bloggers build a blog in a fairly solitary manner. We have our WordPress or Blogger accounts. Of course we do interact through comments, social networks and guest posting. However, even if you are a part of a blogging team that helps write and develop for one blog together, there is still a limited number of people interacting to make a site flourish.

What happens if you want to get a community together? What if you have this great idea for an interactive website that you feel deep down other people would enjoy contributing to? Or maybe you want to make a tool to offer webspace for other people to design and organize information on a specific topic. While a blog may be tweaked to be able to do that (I tried and gave up, it’s a little difficult), that’s where a wiki comes in.

You can install something like Media Wiki on your site if you like. But I’ve found a great place to get your feet wet in the wiki world… with no setup hassle and every possibility to learn to code and understand the wiki creation process. It’s a website called Wikidot.

What is Wikidot?

From the site:

Wikidot is a place where you can start your very own Wiki-based Site. For FREE.

At the Wikidot.com publishing network we offer everyone a Site (your-site-name.wikidot.com) — a customizable place in the Internet where Users can edit content, upload files, communicate and collaborate.

You can:

• start a site using a your-site.wikidot.com subdomain
• create and edit pages using our quick and easy Wiki tools
• change the design
• add new, useful functions
• invite your friends or coworkers and allow them edit pages too!
• start a forum for your Site
• set your Site as a private (hidden from public) wiki for you, your friends or coworkers

For a full list of features, visit here.

For a tour of the site, visit here.

A Newbie’s Impression Wikidot

While that sounds all very exciting, the real question is how easy is it to jump in and start wiki-ing?

As I noted above, I came to this a complete noob at all things wiki. I was first introduced to Wikidot through the Dragon Trees Wiki. It was set up to help players at the Dragon Cave organize their virutal pets by lineage, breed, etc. Though I had no previous knowledge of wiki coding, the wiki admin had set up a number of easy to use templates to help users get started. They also put code snippets on the site to help users learn how to tweak the coding to customize pages to their own liking.

With a little trial and error, I found myself picking it up really fast. And from there, I figured out what I could do to expand the layouts to better fit my own personal themes and modes of organization. Everything is fully customizable. If I didn’t want to use a template, I didn’t have to. But they certainly made life eaier.

Later, when the idea came up that the writer friends at Sygnus.org really could use a place to help organize their characters, I instantly remembered Wikidot and how easy it was to use. So I returned to my account and was pleased to see that I could set up 5 of my own wikis, while still contributing to as many other wikis as I wanted.

And so, the Sygnus Figment Registry was born.

In creating my own wiki, I never felt like I was without options or information on how to design my community. It just takes a little careful reading. Sometimes I had to search the Wikidot community sites and forums for answers to my more advanced-design questions. But for someone who came in knowing nothing, I feel like the system was quick and easy to use, as long as you are willing to put the effort to learn it. Resources are plenty and the design possibilities are a lot more flexible than I would have initially imagined.

I spent time writing instructions for new users, and so far, I haven’t heard anyone who had any difficulty joining, becoming a member of my wiki and using the templates to create their own content. It’s very fulfilling to watch new pages being created and how the members of the site personalize their own pages as they develop them.

Though Wikidot sites are more than able to support a personal website, should you want to make one, I don’t think that I’d stray from my current WordPress platform for that. However, if you’re looking to create an interactive community website with a group, Wikidot earns an A+ from me in ease of use and functionality.

Those who use the Sygnus Figment Registry (you know who you are), what are your thoughts on using the Wikidot system so far? Good? Bad? Easy? Hard?