IT Milk: entry

I’ve always wanted to use MediaWiki for a website, and I finally launched a site called Tontine Book with it. MediaWiki is the famous open-source software that powers Wikipedia, and it is undoubtedly the most powerful wiki software available. I love the concept of creating huge content websites through user collaboration. Compare this to the numerous niche blogs that I had created before that became too much work for me to handle on my own.

Tontine Book is a complementary website to our successful and growing social network Tontine Nation, which is a community of auditioners and fans for the upcoming reality TV show Tontine. Tontine Book is a collection of knowledge about everything that is happening with the Tontine TV show, and it tries to fill in where Tontine Nation fails.

All the action on Tontine Nation is so fast-paced because members are constantly adding new content to the site. That’s a good thing, but you can quickly become lost if you don’t religiously keep up with the activity on the site. For instance, Tad Patrick Frank, the casting director for Tontine, just logged onto Tontine Nation and posted a couple of messages on his personal wall. But then immediately a swarm of members responded to Tad’s comments and buried them far down into the archives. You would never know about Tad’s announcements unless someone were to tell you to dig through the website.

So Tontine Book caters to the normal user interested in Tontine but who is too busy to participate and follow along with Tontine Nation. Anyone can create or update a page on Tontine Book to collect the history of the Tontine TV show in one convenient location.

However, one snag that I realized with Tontine Book is that MediaWiki can be a bit complicated for a user who is not technically savvy, which would include the majority of members on Tontine Nation. As administrator of the website, I am probably one of the few geeks on the roster. And even I had to take some time to grasp the editing syntax for MediaWiki. So can I expect a deluge of participation on Tontine Book from my folks at the Nation? Probably not, until a few decide to battle the learning curve.