The Village Square leads city ‘Wiki’ page charge
Tallahassee Democrat –Peggy Sanford might need a little help keeping up with Tallahassee’s new media craze, but she’s definitely going to give it a shot.
Sanford, 67, a 20-year Tallahassee resident, took diligent notes and remained focused while Tallahassee’s new “Wiki” page was explained to her. The page will serve as a one-stop shop for answers to all Tallahassee questions — in theory anyway.
“Wiki” pages like popular website Wikipedia.org rely entirely on user-generated content for information.
Tallahassee-based nonprofit The Village Square has taken the reins for the project and held the first “Camp Wiki” training session for TallahasseeWiki on Sunday afternoon.
“I don’t think I would have tackled this on my own,” she said. “I had no idea this new page was as developed as it is now. I’m definitely excited for it.”
Liz Joyner, executive director for The Village Square, said the project will bring together knowledge from everyone in Tallahassee. To date, the website has about 125 written pages. Joyner said she hopes to have 250 pages for the website by next training session on July 15.
The first training session packed Midtown’s RedEye Coffee shop. The early adopters at “Camp Wiki” were just the first of many who will pick up and utilize TallahasseeWiki, Joyner said.
“People who live in a place know it better than anyone,” she said. “To have that kind of informal network and informal access to everything about Tallahassee that we think is important is very unique.”
This project is one of many within the LocalWiki project. Program founder Philip Neustrom said the now-nationwide project started as a side project while he was at University of California, Davis. The project has since ballooned into a global initiative to provide locals with the best information about their community.
DavisWiki, the page for Davis, Calif., has almost 100,000 monthly unique visitors, Neustrom said. LocalWiki is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The website started in 2004.
“We initially started this because Davis is a very classic college town,” he said. “We learned all this interesting stuff about the community and wanted to record it somewhere. It just was a shame every year people left and took their knowledge with them.”
Alan Williams, a 16-year-old Leon High School junior who also serves as de facto tech support for the website, said he plans to make the database accessible via mobile platforms soon. He said hopefully this project will bring the older and younger members of the community together.
“This can be a good service,” he said. “If you’re a resident you can find new places and meet new people. If you’re a traveler you’ll know the best places in the city.”
