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Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

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Re: Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

#11

Post by stuntgoat »

Wikis are designed to share information. Collaborating with others in your case seems to be about solving problems and accomplishing tasks. I would use tools that are best for each purpose in the collaborative process, rather than lean towards sacrificing functionality for 'all-in-one'-ness.

I would recommend a shared blog so each person can share current notes/ideas/links- for ideas and brainstorming. This is the place for peer comments and discussions. I can edit a blog post easier than a sent email.

A wiki would be great for separating known and unknown answers to the questions that arise during the project. This is the place to show what has been done and what needs to be done. Discuss these topics on the blog, not on the wiki 'discussion' page; post the _results_ on the wiki.

org-mode or something that simulated it would be great for prioritizing tasks. For those that are not familiar, it is an emacs mode that, among other things, allows you to create and move nested lists ( lists of lists ). This is the place to micro-manage the order of steps so that they are done most efficiently and keep people on track.

Re: Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

#12

Post by Maro »

innovate wrote: post #10
moe wrote: post #7

I'm skeptical that a wiki is still a sensible angle in this day and age. I've used plenty of them (and like them for tech centric documentation) but let's be honest; they never quite caught on in a business context. This is most certainly not due to a shortage of implementations (wikimatrix lists 124, no less) nor due to a lack of user-friendlyness (markup-free WYSIWYG ui's are dime a dozen now, from pbwiki to google…

Agreed. Providing structure around an existing workflow for a target group is exactly what the doctor ordered... but even that's a tough nut to crack. One of our hopes in exploring existing workflows is to identify both winners and losers around specific use cases. Thanks for the thoughtful response.

The problem with this approach is that there are as many workflows as there are organizations/people?

Re: Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

#13

Post by qhoxie »

There is certainly room for better wiki options. I found JotSpot to be the most interesting and innovative, but it basically died when it was acquired. The current offerings are so heavily weighted toward power users wider adoption simple will not happen (in terms of editors).

I've had the chance to work at a large scale website based completely around a wiki, and the successes and failures therein became quite evident. There is definitely room to innovate, especially on the editing side of the experience. I have some interesting friends in the wiki community, so feel free to ping me if you want to chat about it some more and I can probably put you in touch with them.

Re: Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

#14

Post by shorbaji »

Good luck with this. There certainly is room for something light & inspiring.

I would like to see a tool that would, first, allow real-time editing of structured documents. Think Etherpad meets Wufoo.

Take the example of a team writing an RFP to buy IT equipment. Team members from purchasing, the business unit and IT would need to collaborate on a document with likely a pre-defined structure (technical specs, functional specs, terms & conditions, deadlines, etc). This is different from the lack of structure in Google Wave or Etherpad. I imagine that the majority of knowledge work in today's enterprise is about filling in templates rather than free-flowing text.

For this to work, as a minimum we would need:-

1. real-time communication 2. the ability to design templates with the right balance between strictness & flexibility

Second, it should support a workflow. Sticking with this example, the purchasing manager should be able to publish the RFP and invite vendors to respond. The bid manager at the vendors should then be able to turn (transform) an RFP into a bid template, invite his/her sales team to collaborate on a bid and so on.

Not sure how this would work, but perhaps the following:-

1. Access control 2. A way to transforming one document with a certain structure to another.

Re: Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

#15

Post by fragmede »

Maro wrote: post #5

For me there is always an "overlap" problem with "infotools" like todo lists, issue trackers, wikis, google notebook etc. And in my case, they're always competing with email, which is hard to beat. Suppose I have an idea for a neat new feature for my product. What do I do? Write an email to the others, or put it on my todo list, or on a shared todo list, or create a feature request on the issue tracker, or write it i…

I think Wave's lack of success is due to a lacking user experience.

Google integration hurt wave because it forced your friends also into that model. Etherpad had a much lower 'buy-in' that made it great for experimenting. The lack of folding messages hurt the returning-user experience - I've read the same msgs at the top of the wave since we started it. Outgoing email also seemed to really like to quote the first message on the wave, and never give anything more useful than 'the wave was updated', so I'd put the effort to login only to find the only activity was a non-committal 'uh huh'. Facebook at least tells me who messaged me.

I believe in Wave's innovation to realize I'll email out a rough draft of 'things to bring on the trip' and the other people on the thread can both respond as a new message (hey, whats the plan for food?), and also to add/remove/comment on my list of things to bring.

Re: Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

#16

Post by megaduck »

As moe has pointed out, you're not going to instantly displace entrenched software, especially in businesses. So, you need a migration path. People already have bucketloads of documents, and many of them are locked up in bizarre proprietary systems (I'm looking at you, Blackboard!). Some kind of bridge is critical, and email is the prime candidate.

I would also figure out some precise user scenarios and workflows, then build a tool tailored for those. If you have clearly defined targets, it should become clear where you can insert a new product.

For a great example of how not to do it, look at Google Wave. Wave is fantastic, magically engineered, and has all sorts of way-cool properties. Search, tagging, collaborative editing, document uploading, you name it. I've used it on a three person project, and it was the best documentation/communication tool I've ever used. I love Wave.

However, I never use it anymore because it's got some deep problems: Wave depends on everybody using Wave. There's no good way to hook into other services. You're confined to the web client, which is a big turn off for some people. Finally, people don't really understand it. What is it good for? Google's answer is "everything", but that's not really an answer.

Using Wave is like being trapped on some technological Galapagos, where everything is cool and exotic but totally detached from the rest of the world. That's the kiss of death, especially when you're a startup looking for traction.

That's my two bits. Good luck to you, and congratulations on getting into YC!

Re: Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

#17

Post by ErrantX »

There are currently (in my mind) two commercially viable options in the "wiki" style arena.

Firstly a mashup of a wiki and Etherpad. So you can browse the wiki as normal - but when it comes to editing you get an Etherpad style interface to allow collaborative editing.

Secondly (and there is a big business here if you get it right) is document management storage. Everything has to be versioned and audited now to meet ISO standard. A server that would accept uploaded word, excel etc. documents, let you edit them and create new ones would be killer, you could track versions automatically and place it prominently in the document as well as maintain an audit of edits. Another wiki aspect would come in in terms of discussing the documents (like a talk page) which is massively useful.

Re: Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

#18

Post by moe »

ErrantX wrote: post #17

There are currently (in my mind) two commercially viable options in the "wiki" style arena. Firstly a mashup of a wiki and Etherpad. So you can browse the wiki as normal - but when it comes to editing you get an Etherpad style interface to allow collaborative editing. Secondly (and there is a big business here if you get it right) is document management storage. Everything has to be versioned and audited now to meet…

So you can browse the wiki as normal - but when it comes to editing you get an Etherpad style interface to allow collaborative editing.

Just my 2 cents but I strongly disagree with that. "Realtime" collaborative editing is a very, very small niche. Think about it, how often do you need or want that?

Secondly (and there is a big business here if you get it right) is document management storage.

With this one I agree. Equally strongly. ;-)

Re: Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

#19

Post by ErrantX »

moe wrote: post #18
ErrantX wrote: post #17

There are currently (in my mind) two commercially viable options in the "wiki" style arena. Firstly a mashup of a wiki and Etherpad. So you can browse the wiki as normal - but when it comes to editing you get an Etherpad style interface to allow collaborative editing. Secondly (and there is a big business here if you get it right) is document management storage. Everything has to be versioned and audited now to meet…

So you can browse the wiki as normal - but when it comes to editing you get an Etherpad style interface to allow collaborative editing. Just my 2 cents but I strongly disagree with that. "Realtime" collaborative editing is a very, very small niche. Think about it, how often do you need or want that? Secondly (and there is a big business here if you get it right) is document management storage. With this one I agree.…

Fair point. Although I have found many aspects of Etherpad to be incredibly useful (and we use and installation of it internally at work now for speccing work) - with some work it could be the "next big thing"

Re: Ask HN: YC S10 startup wants your opinions about wikis

#20

Post by ollysb »

moe wrote: post #7

I'm skeptical that a wiki is still a sensible angle in this day and age. I've used plenty of them (and like them for tech centric documentation) but let's be honest; they never quite caught on in a business context. This is most certainly not due to a shortage of implementations (wikimatrix lists 124, no less) nor due to a lack of user-friendlyness (markup-free WYSIWYG ui's are dime a dozen now, from pbwiki to google…

I'm curious about the issues you have with pivotal tracker. After years of frustration with tools I've found pivotal to be a breath of fresh air. The killer feature is using historical velocity in conjunction with estimates to guestimate when work will be done. This forces managers to see the tradeoffs they are asking for when they ask to squeeze something in. Mainly because of that we found that simply adopting the tool actually improved our agile process. With regards to using it in place of a wiki it depends what information you're looking to track. Pivotal's nature is very feature/time orientated and so may not be suitable for consolidating information. The tags/search functionality might be useful here though. Assuming you maintained the tags this would allow you to aggregate related information retrospectively rather than having to continually consolidate as you do with a wiki.
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