WikiMaas

WikiMaas Maastricht Independent Guide Recent changes • WikiNode • About • [No Mobile URL]
Founded by:	Niels, Daniël, Sander, & Robert
Status:	Dead
Language:	Multilingual
Edit mode:	OpenEdit
Wiki engine:	MediaWiki
Wiki license:	GNU Free Documentation License
Main topic:	Limburg

Wiki size:	630 article pages see stats
wikiFactor:	2

(As of: 2008-04-23 - Archive.org)

WikiMaas, a portmanteau, meaning 'Wiki Maastricht', and originally stylised wikimass,[1][2][3] was the city-wiki for Maastricht, in the province of Limburg, in the Netherlands. Maastricht Independent Guide, as it was also known,[4] was originally powered by the Oddmuse wiki engine. Sometime early 2007, WikiMaas subsequently changed to the ubiquitous MediaWiki engine, along with the Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) suite of structured data extensions.[5]

Great features

• a calendar incorporated into the wiki software
• a php wiki map – CityMap (a city map based on Google Maps that has wiki characteristics, such as adding content (locations and routes), editing content, and a revision history).

Agenda function

The agenda is one of the most edited parts of WikiMaas. Actually, it is not even an agenda. It is the blog plug-in from our original wiki-engine Oddmuse. We made a minor hack in the code, so that the blog command would not insert the most recent posts, but instead the first posts in the future. We have put the blog entry form open to anyone to post future upcoming events, and the first ten are displayed in a sidebar on the right of our front page (actually, on every page). Viewers can click on them to read the complete description. Via a link on the front page, users can also reach a calendar to view all other agenda items.

We believe that this agenda function is one of the main contributors to the (relative) success of WikiMaas. Most wiki pages are only interesting the first time you read them, especially when you have a small community and pages don't change much. The agenda provides a more dynamic piece of content; something that readers come back for every week. Especially since WikiMaas is mainly written from an alternative, leftist, activist, (and can we use the word 'underground'?) perspective, the agenda is an addition to the regular city agendas. We have the parties in the squats, and the political demonstrations that are not featured in the regular media. The city's weekly printed agenda even once recommended WikiMaas in their 'featured' section.

In the agenda articles, there are links to the other wiki articles, like the venues of the events, or the local bands. So, we can say that the agenda provides a popular entry point to the wiki content. It attracts visitors, and sucks some of them into the rest of the wiki.

Developments

Beginning 2007, WikiMaas went down for a couple of weeks because of unpaid bills. In the end, only the version up to December 2006 could be recovered, losing three months of edits. Some more details are available on the weblog of one of the founders.

As of late 2008, WikiMaas is completely defunct, and from 2010, the URL has been hijacked by cyber-squatters.