Now, creating a website requires a lot of HTML markup, access to the server, and more hassle than it's really worth, right? Technically yes. Practically, well, there are ways around that.

There are things out on the Internet called wikis. In a nutshell, these wikis let anybody, anywhere, anytime, edit any page on them - all in a very easy manner.

If you want to try out a wiki for yourself, you can use the wiki @ wilcoxd - register yourself as a user, and play around editing your "info" page, or creating pages yourself.

Yes, you can easily create your own pages on a wiki.

If you're still trying to visualize what a wiki is, think of a bulletin board system - we've all used these online forum things on the Internet. Ok, know what I'm talking about? Now take away the Message-reply-reply-reply hierarchy. Now add the ability of anybody to edit anything anywhere. You have a wiki.

You may ask yourself - how can we prevent hackers from editing our stuff? Well, we don't - one of the wonderful things about a wiki is that it takes very little work to change a page. Wikis also (normally) keep track of what changed (and give you a way to undo it). So, if someone makes an inappropriate change ("I 0wnn j0o00 u s4ck0rz", etc), it's easy to change it back.

Given the easy editing/creation capabilities of a wiki, I think it would be a perfect match for a distributed, uncoordinated effort such as "an NCA alumni website". It solves the problems associated with websites of the kind ('how do we register/link/track/sort/display everybody, and still keep it easy for people toregister'), and allows the individual classes to take initiative and use the wiki as a springboard into other things - such as reunion planning, general 'where is everybody' information, collaboration in any number of things.

Currently there is an alumni section, but it's not exactly useful. To be truly useful it needs to be editable by members of the classes themselves. Say I (class of 1999) want to put something up in the current alumni section - I would have no idea where to start, who to contact - or if I did, I would just throw up my hands in despair because it was Just Too Much Effort. With a wiki's instant access, always editable nature, I can hop on, change one thing, and be done with it with 2 clicks.

So, gentle reader, what do you think? Is this a good idea, or does it have as much hope as a horseshoe peddler in downtown Detroit?

Make yourself heard! Comment ("taunt"), email me (the little envelope at the bottom of the page), or send me an IM with your thoughts, feelings, suggestions, etc. Comments in this entry are prefered - then everybody can read your thoughts on the topic.

I'll see what I can do to get this going initially if there's enough feedback here.

Taunt. ( taunt(s) already recorded)

11:10:24 PM