by Sarah Hughes, Whitireia Publishing student 

Puke Ariki, Taranaki cultural centre, has got a wiki! That’s right, as part of Puke Ariki’s digital strategy, 1 December 2006 saw the launch of what we believe is New Zealand’s only regional ‘wiki.’

‘But what is a wiki?’ I hear you ask. According to techweb, a wiki is ‘A Web site that can be quickly edited by its visitors with simple formatting rules.’ A wiki is used as an informal encyclopedia, and it’s a place where anybody can go online and add or subtract information.

In my discussion with Kate Roberts, Manager of Service Delivery for Puke Ariki, she stated that the purpose of the Taranaki Wiki was to ‘increase community engagement,’ both within the community and with Puke Ariki as a resource. As the site itself states, ‘This Wiki has been set up to allow the people of Taranaki, and elsewhere, to share their knowledge of all things Taranaki.’

Taranaki Wiki is a site full of intriguing photographs, interesting snippets of information, and fascinating historical stories about the region of Taranaki. At the moment, Kate says a lot of this information is generated or solicited by a few devoted staff; however, as the profile of the site rises, they expect to have enough community engagement to need an editor rather than a writer.

One of the tricky parts of implementing the site, according to Kate, was the process of drafting a Terms of Use Agreement. Terms and conditions are only occasionally noted by users of websites, but in a wiki this is essential, so Taranaki Wiki have tried to make their terms and conditions as simple and approachable as possible.

‘The unique feature of this site,’ says Kate, ‘is that it is about one community region of New Zealand, as opposed to one professional interest group.’ The site was funded by the Community Partnership Fund for implementing a New Zealand Digital Strategy, which provides government funding for many digital projects across New Zealand.

If you would like to know more about wikis in general, go to wikipedia, or read about setting up a personal wiki and starting a wiki.

If anybody has heard of other interesting and unique cultural wikis in New Zealand, let us know.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Culture online, New in the sector, Social media, Technology, Your stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.