The DavisWiki website on Thursday, December 13, 2007 |
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| URL | daviswiki.org |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | Nonprofit |
| Type of site | City Wiki |
| Registration | Optional |
| Created by | Community of Davis, California |
| Launched | 2004/06/24 |
Started in June 2004, daviswiki.org is a wiki based in Davis, California about the people, events, universities, bands, places and other things of the city.[1][2] For example, it includes information about local events, advice for classes to take or not take at UC Davis, locations of the cleanest bathrooms in town, and ways a poor student can best pack a to-go box from the local restaurant buffets. Newcomers or anyone with a question about life in Davis are often asked by "wikivangelists", "Did you check the wiki?," much in the spirit of RTFM.
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DavisWiki was at one point the largest City Wiki in the world. Karlsruhe's city wiki Stadtwiki Karlsruhe has since surpassed DavisWiki in total page count, but differences in the wiki software, varying content/page densities, make drawing conclusions from page counts problematic. As of November 2009 DavisWiki has over 14,945 pages, 11134 registered editors, 301 editors who have made over 100 edits, and 35 editors who have made over 1000 edits.
Based on the above activity, and the interest that local politics have on daviswiki, the Davis Human Relations Commission awarded the daviswiki the Thong Hy Huynh Award[3] for Excellence in Community Involvement.[4]
Davis Wiki includes long discussions on its pages regarding local politics, local elections, development, city policies and similar material. This is a bit counter to many wikis, which strive for a neutral point of view in all articles. Articles on the Davis Wiki are balanced by consolidating commentary to present an aggregate set of multiple points-of-view, intending to reflect the actual Davis community.
WikiSpot is the Wiki Farm that hosts the DavisWiki and other local community and topic specific wikis.[5] WikiSpot neither charges for its hosting or has advertising, but the content should not be for commercial gain.
WikiSpot runs on Sycamore, a software package forked from python-based MoinMoin. The user interface is simple and it does not offer WYSIWYG. A 'quick edit' feature allows the user to double-click on a paragraph to edit it directly.[6]
DavisWiki and WikiSpot are financed by the Wiki Spot charitable 501(c)3 organization.[7] They are run advertisement-free through community donations and fundraising events.[8]
Some of the Davis Wiki team, including co-founders Philip Neustrom and Mike Ivanov, are now working on the Local Wiki project. [9] The Local Wiki project aims to be an ideal platform for sharing local community information, which could become a new form of local media.[10]