Wiki.Wiki.Wiki

I have never done a WIKI before in my life. I never really use Wikipedia or anything because I have been told all throughout my school career that they are an unreliable source of information. I would like to tell all my teachers and professors who have said that, they are WRONG! A lot of us in the class struggled with our wikis because we had to make sure everything was properly cited, that our information is 100 percent accurate, and it had to be professionally written. With all of the strict guidelines and the tough admins, there is no way people can post inaccurate information.

THE IDEA FOR MY WIKI

My grandmother owns Melanie's Sweets Unlimited, a local bakery here in Buffalo. She has been around for about 35 years, and she really does not have any modern advertising or marketing skills. I believe, because of this she is losing out on a huge opportunity. I figured that not a lot of people really know about the bakery, unless your parents or grandparents have taken you there, then a wiki would be great to give people history on her bakery. Plus, I decided to use BufWiki, which apparently tourists and other people visiting Buffalo use to find something to do. Why not go to the old Broadway Market and get a feel for old Buffalo while you're in town?

NO ADVERTISING ON WIKIS

I thought that maybe I can make this article more towards advertising for my grandmothers business. Then, we were taught that if it even could be marketing anything about the business, we could not have it. Wikis are supposed to be strictly factual. I could not find any historic background on her bakery at all, so I decided to interview her myself. My grandmother loves attention, so she was thrilled to do the interview.

THE INTERVIEW

My grandmother was thrilled to see me when I came in for the interview. She had me wait a while because she had to make sure the cookies got out of the oven in time and the cake she frosted was put in the refrigerator, but it was okay because I got some great information from her. I began to ask questions about when she opened, why she opened, what locations she had, why they closed, so on and so forth. I found out a lot of things that I personally did not even know about my grandmother and her business.

THE ARTICLE

 I began writing the article almost immediately after the interview. It was really difficult to make sure my article was mostly factual because I like to write a lot of fluff sometimes, and I definitely use words to make things sound better that could be considered advertising. I finally got into a good flow and kept writing and writing. I made it to about 900 words and I had nothing else to say. Then I remembered a brief conversation I had with my grandmother about holidays and Easter. Those are the more busy times at the Broadway Market, where her stand is located. She was telling me about her polish baked goods and how she is a big part of the Polish community. I expanded upon that and got a little over 1000 words. I was so excited to start coding and everything.

CREATING THE WIKI

I wanted to create a wiki on BufWiki. Since my grandmother is local, and she is all about supporting Buffalo, I figured a BufWiki would be perfect. So I started studying the codes so that I would be ready to post. I had my external links ready to be posted and my images as well. Then I check the class blog and I read through it and I thought that our wiki was supposed to be published before class the one day....so I published it. Guess what! IT WAS TAKEN DOWN! I felt bad because then Professor Pabico had to deal with the rude admin. Thank God she found out a way for us to post them with them not getting closed down immediately!

RE-CREATING MY WHOLE WIKI

Well I had all the article saved, but I did not saved the coding with the text. MY BAD! So, when I went over what I needed to fix with Professor Pabico, I figured it was fine because I had to redo a lot of my article. I had to go through and take out certain words that could hint towards me advertising, I had to make mine more like a wiki that was on Wikipedia, and I had to add the interview section to the wiki because I had no sources to cite. After I got all of that done, it was all uphill from there. I got to code everything and at the end of class I finally was done and over this wiki. I published it, and publishing something on the internet never felt so good!

FINISHING MY WIKI
I was so nervous that as soon as I finished that my wiki would be taken down immediately. The next thought that popped in my head was that I never want to create a wiki again. After that I was looking through BufWiki and there was like not real wiki pages.I think that these admins should be just a little more lenient so that people actually will use the site. It would help them out, it would help out Buffalo, and it would help out businesses a lot. I understand they are trying to keep their cite clean and creditable, but if it is not popular people won't use it either. I feel that if someone (like myself) went and interviewed the owner of a business and wanted to post a wiki about them and the company, that we should be able to. The owner is not going to lie to us or give us false information. Just because I could not cite anything, because there is no information about the business does not mean it is not creditable.