Great help on community management. I just got a job as web mgr. and trying to figure out ideas to implement. Keep posting I will keep reading.
Tks

That is a very good idea and an awesome perspective. Good post - gets me thinking.

I get it now Travis!
I like the idea of giving readers quick links into the wiki so that they can access an a number of related resources that I can manage as the site owner.

Originally I was thinking the opposite- that wiki entries would be blogged (which is likely working somewhere too).

the bliki is good idea for combining forums with blogs

and a Bryght or Drupal site with forums + blogs maintained by a site mom is also a good combo to realize this

more at:
http://www.bryght.com/node/view/105

Great post, Lee -- useful and thought-provoking. Keep those insights coming!

Have you considered how Manila works? The home page is a weblog, and each weblog entry also begins a discussion in the forum section of the site.

I think this is a good way to combine the features of a weblog and discussion.

As always, well thought out points. I find that our faculty exposed to blogs ask this question almost right off the bat. Discussion boards are something that have as a familiar frame of reference, while blogs are new beasts.

For a new project with four focus groups, we are weaving together blogs for each group to have as an info hub, a wiki for collaborative space, and a discussion board for things such as small online activities, "virtual" guest speakers, or activities related to workshops. It's just getting off the ground, but all are subtly wired together with RSS.

http://graphite.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/plone/

However, I spend too much time addressing spam on all 3 ;-) For the future, I may be looking at one system such as Plone.

Crikies! I was thinking plone when I typed the URL.. it SHOULD be:

http://graphite.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/ocotillo/

Dave,
Thanks for the thoughts on Manila. I do think that the blending approach can be valuable- and we'll see more of it. For some instances though, I think having the resources be distinctly different can be a key to building on the strengths of each.

Alan,
It sounds like you're doing some interesting things with the different resources. I'd be interested in how you're using the wiki along with blogs and discussions boards. I've always thought wikis (in that instance) could be used to organize the valuable information that flows out of the other resources. I'm going to have to check into Plone. Thanks!

Lee,

The mixing of a wiki and a blog is actually happening in the form of a new tool called a bliki. They give the ability to give structure to data while allowing the reverse chronological display along with robust commenting system. They're really good at creating a single tool for collaborative environments where the blog entries are going to be closely tied to or will actually become part of the final product. Examples would include software documentation, bug listings, or a blog that will become a source of history and needs to be rearranged into the proper "context" via structuring once the entries have been recorded.

The best way I can think of them is like having a wiki's "Recent Changes" page that more closely resembles an actual blog instead of just a list of changes.

Interesting Travis. I've not messed with wiki and blog combinations much. I have seen how SocialText does it, which confused me a little.

I do like the idea of a different ways to handle "recent changes".

It actually took me a few days to wrap my head around the concept as they seem so disparate. The kicker is to have a "front page" or "blog" flag on an entry. If that's not checked it doesn't show up in the blog.

The idea is you create an article on the Presidential debate, like you've been doing all along during the campaign. When you mention John Kerry, you say something like this:

Tonight Senator [[John Kerry]] crossed swords with President [[George W. Bush]]

John Kerry points to an internal page that contains a list of all of the stories you've posted about him, as well as links to his campaign web site, his Wikipedia entry, and other relavent info. The same for Dubya. Neither of those subsequent pages are marked as being blog entries, so they never make it to blog view of the site.

More along the lines of our sites, we could post something like this:

Today the nation's newspapers created [[RSS Feeds]] for their daily news. I'm glad they finally caught on...

The "RSS Feeds" page could be an explanation of what an RSS feed is, along with links on how to use them, etc.

I guess the best way I can describe it is that a bliki creates a blog with a running "documentation" of the site. That's the info that's not necessary for the entries to be understood, but can help put them in a better context. In the role of community building that this post originally started out on, they're useful for easily referring to existing "common knowledge" so the new members can easily get up to speed without the old members having to read through a full description of the annual food drive's significance.