Minutes of Coordinating Meeting
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Contents |
SPSU Wiki Coordinating Meeting
August 9, 2005
Attending: Zvi Szfran, Bill Gruszka, Bob Brown
Discussion of Benefits
There was a discussion of the expected benefits of operating a wiki for the SPSU community. The conclusion was that we should proceed. There was additional discussion of providing email addresses for alumni as a way of increasing their affinity with SPSU.
Potential uses of the SPSU Wiki include:
- Coordinating alumni groups, especially in other cities
- List of campus construction projects and improvements (already in process)
- An orientation to SPSU written by students for students.
There was discussion about whether people will recognize what a wiki is, and whether it should be described in some other way. A wiki is different from an electronic bulletin board in that the content is expected to change slowly over time rather than being evanescent.
The conclusion was to continue with the term "wiki" and attempt to educate the SPSU community about what wikis are and how they can be used.
Approval was given for Brown to work with the Sting staff on an article about the SPSU Wiki.
Bill Gruszka suggested a link from the SPSU home page.
Wiki Community
The decision was that the contents of the wiki should be readable by anyone. Editing will be allowed by students, faculty and staff, alumni, and friends of the University. Editing access will require a user ID and password. Validation will be automatic for anyone with an SPSU email address and who acknowledges the confirming email. Access by others will require manual intervention. Access for friends of the University will be vetted by the Advancement office.
Content
Contributors will be asked to limit their contributions to information about SPSU and to keep within what a reasonable person would consider the bounds of good taste. Pornography, hate speech, commercial use, and actionable allegations without proof are specifically prohibited.
Monitoring of Content
Several faculty and staff members and several students will be recruited to act as "sysops." People with sysop privileges can lock pages to prevent editing, roll back edits to a previous state, and lock specific accounts to prevent the member from editing.
Review of Project
A preliminary evaluation will be conducted at the end of fall semester, 2005, to assess the value of the SPSU Wiki to the SPSU community and determine whether it should be continued.
Zvi Szafran asked about hit counters for the wiki pages. The standard implementation includes a to-date hit counter and a time stamp showing when the page was last modified. Brown will look into whether there are options for providing a "recent hits" counter within the software.
Technical Considerations
The wiki is currently running on a Dell PowerEdge server located in the CSE lab area. It was agreed that we would start up with the server in that location, and using the current email reply authentication method. The Dell server will be used through the end of fall semester. If the end-of-semester evaluation results in a decision to continue operation of the wiki, Bill Gruszka will make recommendations and arrangements for a suitable server for ongoing operation. (The current Dell server belongs to Brown, but can be donated to SPSU if appropriate.)
The Dell server may be moved to the data center during the evaluation period to take advantage of the better facilities available, provided Bill Gruszka has resources available to coordinate and assist with the move.
The authentication method may be changed from email confirmation to LDAP during the evaluation period provided Bill Gruszka has resources available to coordinate and assist with the installation of the LDAP plug-in.
Bill had technical questions about the server near the end of the meeting. It is a Dell PowerEdge 2450 2U rackmount server with two CPUs, 1GB of memory, a RAID 5 disk array with hot spare, and redundant power supplied. An APC SmartUPS 1400 is part of the server package. Spare power supplies and disks are available. A one-year subscription (ending June 30, 2006) to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the Red Hat Network has been contributed to the project to provide for timely updating.
Adjournment
There being no further items for discussion, the meeting was adjourned.
Follow Up Actions
- Preparation of minutes (Brown) Completed 2005-08-11
- Review and approval of minutes (Gruszka, Szafran)
- Provide link from main page, and possibly "SPSU Place?" (Gruszka)
- Appointment of sysops. (Suggestion: Zvi Szafran nominate a couple of faculty members and ask Barry Birckhead to nominate a couple of students. Brown has made Szafran and Gruszka "bureaucrats." A bureaucrat in wiki terminology is someone who can assign or remove sysop privileges.)
- Coordinate with Sting staff on article (Brown) Email sent to Dave Bachtel 2005-08-13
- Review current "disclaimer." (All)
- Modify the "About" page to include the content restrictions above, after minutes are approved. (Brown)
