DokuWiki of the Month: Rangerwiki
This article is part of a monthly series.
Every month I present a DokuWiki powered site which is special for its design, content or clever use of the software. To give you a first impression on what the site is about I'll send a short, interview style questionnaire to its creator.
Rangerwiki
This month's wiki is a typical fan project. Rangerwiki might not appeal to everyone but the dedication is truly amazing. A nice example of how to use a wiki to collaboratively work on a topic.
Questions were answered by the site's webmaster Jarel Jones.
Can you give a short introduction on what your wiki is about?
Rangerwiki is basically a full-featured Power Rangers resource. It's an attempt to encompass everything related to the series, going into detail on characters, locations, powers, and the like. We're also including transcripts of episodes as a resource for people who don't have the ability to watch the shows easily. One of the reasons we're doing this is because a lot of the other sites are lacking, due to having not been updated in years time, or are located at places like Wikipedia which limit the amount of information that can be given.
There are actually several Power Rangers-based wikis already on the Net, but with our objective of including full transcripts for 14 years worth of episodes complete with screenshots, ours probably has the highest aims.
Since when is it online?
Since April 17, 2006, so nearly two years now.
Why did you chose DokuWiki? Did you try other software before?
While we didn't try any other software, we did go through the list of ones available and chose the best based on our personal requirements. It really came down to wiki software that used GPL, that used text files for data storage, and wouldn't be too server intensive. DokuWiki fit the bill.
Did you do any modifications to the software?
Other than a dozen or so useful downloaded plugins, one or two custom built ones for organization purposes, and toying with the CSS for a different color scheme, the backend has remained untouched.
Who is editing the site?
The site is edited by a closed user group, but joining the group simply requires knowledge of the subject material, a desire to help with the project, and sending a quick e-mail.
Brag about your statistics ;-)
Currently Rangerwiki gets about 1000 to 2000 visits per month, which is actually rather impressive considering the site isn't close to finished yet; out of a planned 1132 pages (and that's just up to season 15!), we currently only have 455 available, and the amount of info left to be added even to those pages puts us at about a tenth complete. Hopefully we'll get a lot more traffic once we're coming closer to our overall objective.
Is there anything else you want to tell about your wiki?
An interesting note: most of that closed user group is made up of fiction authors. Thinking about it, I suppose the ability to spin a good yarn does make writing near essays on characterization easier.
If you know of a DokuWiki driven site which is somehow remarkable and should be featured as DokuWiki of the Month, drop me a mail or leave a comment, please.