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Other Uses for Wiki Software?
CodeMonkey22 asks: "The much-discussed Wikipedia could be considered the quintessential definition of what Wiki software is capable of. More recently, however, a plethora of specialized reference websites, such as Wookieepedia (Star-Wars) and the Marvel Database (Marvel Comics), have popped up. This got me to thinking, are websites the only viable use for wiki software? Working in an IT department, the first alternative that came to my mind was an intranet knowledge-base. TWiki, for instance, touts itself as 'an Enterprise Collaboration Platform'. What other uses could take advantage of Wiki? What changes would be needed to make it more applicable in other areas of use?"
We've used it sometimes for things like:
-documentation on a project
-knowledge base for various IT stuff
-sharing various infos (guides, training stuff, etc)
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When I was hired to be half of the tech-support department for my art school, I set up a wiki on my PowerMac as a place to put whatever documentation I generated. Anything I might otherwise scribble on a piece of paper, or what I would have put into a WP document back in the 1990s, I can instead key into a web page, and it's accessible and updatable from anywhere there's a net-connected computer, including at home (handy for reviewing and documenting today's accomplishments or previewing tomorrow's projects with a strong drink at hand). It hosts lists of software in each classroom, a table of permanently assigned IP addresses, an exhaustive list of tasks to accomplish between semesters, a checklist for how to lock down the Windows boxes, software serial numbers (did I mention that the whole site is password-protected?)... basically any info I - or my boss, or my future co-worker - might want access to, whether in the office or not.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
That's a bit like saying that Bugzilla is built on MySQL, and is really only a thin layer over it, so you might as well just use SQL directly to submit your bugs. For example, TWiki has a huge feature set, and over 100 plugins, including a LaTeX plugin if you want to use it for some content. See http://twiki.org/
See Trac ("an enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects"), which integrates both a wiki and a ticket system (among other things such as version control) together. This means you can use wiki markup in tickets and commit logs, and link from wiki pages to tickets etc and vice versa. Nice :-)
Mod parent up. Trac looks to be quite nice/interesting actually, as long as you're using Subversion. There's a sandbox here if you want to play around with it. Not many projects use it, though (I know MythTV does, but other than that...)
I think what you're looking for is JotSpot's new product Tracker which provides just the online, wiki spreadsheet compatibility that you describe, for exactly the problems (like constantly emailing a tracker spreadsheet around) you lament.
JotSpot might be relevant to the discussion in general, as well. They do a lot of work with wikis. Are there any other web development companies out there doing stuff like this? I hope so, but I haven't run across any others yet.
[I'm not an employee or anything; I just found out about these guys last night and it looks like they're doing cool stuff.]