Fact Sheet 4 - Reference
A wiki is an online Content Management System with configurable (but usually liberal) access rights to allow users to easily create and edit web pages within a browser. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites or corporate intranets. For example:
Please note there are many wiki options available to you. Wikipedia have been chosen as it is a strong resource to promote your department’s research and work. Please review the Read, Learn, Do section to begin researching other wiki options if Wikipedia is not suitable for your department’s needs.
Wikipedia
Getting started
Recommended use of Wikipedia is as support for the content already available on your department's website. Wikipedia is a great resource to boost your search engine optimisation (SEO) and improve results in searches. Single point of truth is your department's website, Wikipedia is a secondary medium to find the information.
- Develop a plan as part of your communication strategy before editing pages.
- Plan what your message is and how much information should be updated. Wikipedia is no different to a media release or advertisement and should be treated with the same preparation.
- Write guidelines on what content should be promoted and how the account should be monitored. Ensure to include regular monitoring of updates as part of your guideline.
- Participate in the discussions when changes are made so you can become part of the community.
- Wikipedia editors are passionate and actively involved in maintaining and ensuring the integrity of content. Read their comments under the 'Discussion' tab before making edits.
- Wikipedia editing tool is not intuitive, you may need support from your web team to edit content.
- Other users will edit your content, often their edits will be correcting referencing and reordering of information and may improve the content. Always check changes to ensure accuracy of content.
Checklist - Reference
In addition to the Implementation Checklist at Appendix A - Implementation checklist (DOC, 53 KB), the following is also recommended:
Review of content (daily)
- add relevant pages to your watch list
- review any changes made to pages
- add relevant content
- participate in discussions if making changes.
Government and Wikipedia
The Department of the Premier and Cabinet is actively involved with the Wikipedia community and updates pages as relevant to the department and campaigns. The official department’s page content was added by the communications team and is monitored on a regular basis.
