iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

Ladies, gents, anthropologists and Australians...

How about a wiki as the next step for the iDidj forum?

Discuss!

d

Sounds good, but I don't know much about wikis

How do you intend the wiki to be used here, like what function would it fulfil? Are phpBB forums capable of hosting a wiki?

Guan

SOUNDS GREAT TO ME IM UP FOR IT BUT............. whats a Wiki isn't it what you get in a candlei

Rich you smart arse

Here is an example of a wiki for people that don't know: http://www.wikipedia.org/. A wiki is a collection of articles on a range of topics (those of us here would be contributing information on yidaki, mago, playing, indiginous issues and so forth) that constantly evolve as new information arises, where old information is found to be incorrect/outdated/outmoded or most importantly in regards to the indiginous members when a person mentioned on the wiki dies.

How I intend it to be used
- The idea of a wiki is collaboration - collaboration between all contributers on topics of interest, and exists in a structured environment
- The wiki could be opened up to universities in Australia (and around the world) for contributions on different topics
- The wiki would be readonly to the public, and editable to the people that signed up and created an account.
- The wiki would be not for profit, the people benefiting would be the didgeridu community at large. I envisioned the wiki as a couple of steps on from the Mills mailing list and W3 didgeridu website.
- Wikis are searchable (Wikiepedia shows this, as does Dekiwiki the piece of wiki software I am roadtesting at the moment).
- The wiki could be textual and visual as well
- the kind of information it would make available would be invaluable, in so far that it is structured - that is where the wiki wins out over other tools, in my view.
- The biggest reason I can see for doing this is that it would be a monument to indiginous players and a positive mark on the internet, where there is so much rubbish about the instrument and the people who play it

Of course there are drawbacks (there always are):
- the man power to set it up would be substantial and on going - the wiki would never be 'finished' much in the same way a forum is never finished
- convincing people to contribute could be 'interesting' to say the least
- some subjects would be untouchable while others could be tricky because the body of people who know about them is so small

In regards to hosting the wiki on the forum - I'll get back to you on that.

D

Hi Dan,

What sort of subjects do you think the iDIDJ Wiki would cover? I like the collaborative approach. Not sure if there is enough ground-breaking new information coming out regularly, however, to warrant a Wiki... but I like the idea!

Guan

there are a couple of things that you would need to cover or include i think as its an instrument you would need audio and it should cover all aspects of didge not just Trad or not just contemp it would need both as thats where MOST western players come from and as an educational tool would need to Include rather than exclude

Hi Guan and Rich

Subjects - playing styles of all kinds and samples of each possibly? Guan would be good for the trad bits as he currently pwns youTube. Others:
- yidaki mouth sounds (didh dirrk etc) and practice rhyths for beginners
- news/aboriginal issues (a good start would be the events in Oz at the moment with the army being sent in)
- player 'histories'
- mythologies
- anything else indiginous, because frankly this wiki could extend that far...

Randy's website was such a break through - now if we could take that to another level? Without wanting to sound cliche here - this idea could run and run and run

I'll looking into wiki hosting, although DekiWiki seems pretty good so far I am not sure how many concurrent users it could have (writing or reading)... something for me to do over the next few days.

Dan

Hi Dan,

The beauty of a wiki is that multiple contributors can add/modify a topic, but with the above topics that you are proposing, wouldn't a normal website be better? Its just that most of the required information can't be obtained in any way except thru original research. But if you were to do a wiki on say, Australian geology, or Redfern socio-political history, there's a vast amount of available information already in encyclopedias, specialised literature, online resources etc. in which case a wiki would make sense because it spreads the burden of researching, compiling, writing, editing...

With the news/Aboriginal issues topic, there are dedicated newsfeeds and areas in cyberspace where this sort of information can be found. I can highly recommend the websites of 2 national Indigenous newspapers which have an online presence:

Koori Mail

National Indigenous Times

You can get a general idea of current newsworthy issues on both these websites, and you can also subscribe to the hardcopy version of the newspapers which are also very good reading and present a viewpoint a little different to mainstream voices. There are other newspapers and magazines that deal with more localised stories or with a narrower subject matter but see how you go with Koori Mail and NIT first.

On your mythologies topic, that's a tricky one and best left to Indigenous caretakers of these stories to contribute or not contribute. It is a touchy subject matter because of the sacred nature of these stories.

Where a wiki could be useful is perhaps in the compiling of a list of literature/references about certain topics? Let's keep brainstorming!

Guan

Howdy!
I'm new here but just thought I'd throw in my two cents. I like the idea of the wiki but the sheer amount of work that the upkeep of a wiki is considerable (I have some friends that run a wiki of their own), and I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to expand the available pages within Wikipedia. The article for "didgeridoo" for example, albeit providing some basic info could be much more extensive in my mind. So maybe, rather than having to start a new project why not conciously try and work towards buliding on the information already available in an existing community?
Peace.
Adrien

Hi Adrien,

Great idea. And welcome! Maybe we can all work together collectively on what a a good wikipedia entry on didgeridoo should be. Anyone want to start off?

Guan

Well the Wikipedia entry is decent, it has most basic info, but I feel like it could be considerably expanded, with parts on playing styles, etc. But thats way beyond my league being that I am a complete newcomer to the instrument. Check out the entry and see what could be contributed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgeridoo

Hi there,
Apart from the need to imrove the text, I think the pictures should be changed as well. The images are very important to carry the message and sometimes more efficient than the text and it would be better off putting a shot of a traditional stick. It would be more representable then I reckon,

M

Gotta agree with you on that one Mahir, about the pics.

And wouldn't it be great if many of us here can write something together to expand the existing text? I know a lot of subscribers (and also non-subscribers) visit the Forum to learn more and to glean info, not feeling so confident in writing here just yet. But anyone and everyone is welcome to contribute anything anytime, and with this wiki thing, it might be a good idea to have as many hands in it to truly reflect diverse thoughts, experiences and viewpoints. The main thing is relevance and accuracy, as well as knowing your sources.


Guan

This is a great idea. .. I am certainly willing to put in what I can.
The quality of the article as it is needs some fixing. But the work to be done is to follow all the relevant links in this page
and see what they lead to and what can be tidied up in the other articles.

Martin

Hi there !

I've also proposed to open a Didj Wiki for French users, on French forum FranceDidgeridoo.
The best answer I got was > "well, why don't you just contribute to Wikipedia's Didjeridu's page ?"

Indeed, that may be the best way to develop a didj Wiki ! No interface to set up, everything is already created !