EMWCon Spring 2017/Powerpedia

Powerpedia


Presenter     Tom O'Neill
Event Enterprise MediaWiki Conference (EMWCon) Spring 2017
Date and time Wednesday 8 March 2017/2:45 PM EST
Reference https://www.energy.gov/cio/articles/powerpedia-using-technology-increase-transparency

Powerpedia is a private wiki that is only accessible from within the DOE internal network at: https://powerpedia.energy.gov/.


Short History

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  • October 20, 2009 - Powerpedia Established
  • January 27, 2010 – Approved by the Secretary of Energy
  • June 2011 – Most DOE facilities can view and edit the wiki
  • May 30, 2014 – The wiki was viewed the two millionth time
  • November 2014 – The Powerpedia Games, an editing competition launched, encouraged employee involvement
  • December 15, 2014 – An editor made the 200,000 edit
  • February 23, 2015 – Formal 5th Birthday celebration in DOE’s main auditorium
  • April 2015 – Mobile Front End added
  • October 2015 – Content Portals added
  • March 2016 – 3 Million views
  • June 2016 – 250,000 edit
  • January 2017 – Add interactive maps

Why Powerpedia

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  • No unifying platform for the DOE Enterprise
  • The 13,000 Federal employees and 90,000 contractors are geographic separated across more than half of the United States
  • Increase transparency and accountability
  • Improving communication and coordination between DOE organizations
  • Connect headquarters, national labs, production offices, power marketing administrations, site office, etc. in one collaboration space
  • Fostered the transfer of knowledge
  • Average person changes jobs ten to fifteen times
  • Enables continuity across political transitions
  • Making information widely available where it can benefit from Department-wide peer review rather than be trapped in information silos

Restrictions

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  • Solely for authorized internal use by Department of Energy employees and contractors
  • Can be read and edited by any DOE employee or contractor
  • Accessible at all DOE headquarters and field sites
  • Non-public but also Non-sensitive
  • No Personally identifiable information
  • No Classified
  • No Procurement Sensitive info
  • No deletion of pages by editors
  • No anonymous posting
  • Wide audience
  • Follow Three Core Principles
    • Work at the broadest possible audience
    • Think Topically, Not Organizationally
    • Replace Existing Processes

Accountability Features

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  • Individuals need to have an account in order to make changes to Powerpedia
  • To create an account, you must use an official DOE email address. The email address needs to be confirmed before the person can make any edits.
  • Every edit is tied to an individual editor in three places (Recent changes, the article's history, and the editor's user contributions)
  • Email notification enabled for items on editor’s Watchlist
  • Every edit can be undone by any editor. The change being undone is still preserved in the article history.
  • Every version of every article can be seen in the article's history.

Basic Concepts

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  • Powerpedia is organized by topic. The easiest way to find information on a topic is through searching or by following a link from a related topic article.
  • Powerpedia articles, as much as possible, should link to related Powerpedia articles.
  • No one owns any article in Powerpedia. Since any editor can improve the contents of a page (fixing grammar, adding a link, etc.), every editor is encouraged to change articles when they see a way it can be improved.
  • Every edit is tied to an individual editor.
  • Every version of every article can be seen in the Article history.
  • Any change can be un-done by any editor.
  • Be Bold in editing! - Since there is a complete version history and it is easy to revert to previous versions, the wiki cannot really be damaged by any editor.
  • Articles are never finished because the Department is continually evolving and changing.

In Short, Powerpedia offers

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  • A practical and easy way for individuals and organizations at DOE to:
  • Reach more people, more effectively and more efficiently
  • Work topically, not organizationally
  • Move away from share drives, email, and other information silos as stores of knowledge
  • Avoid duplicating content
  • Learn and explore collaboration tools in a non-public environment

Statistics

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  • 3.5 Million views
  • 48k total pages
  • 9k articles
  • 14k file pages
  • 1,600 discussion pages
  • 270k edits
  • 3,900 registered editors
  • Over 20 editors with over 1,000 edits
  • Last 90 days highs
    • 308 edits in one day
    • 5,963 views
    • 164 active editors

Community

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  • Powerpedia Working Group
    • Meets Bi-Weekly using a Web Conferencing tool
    • Ongoing education of features not covered in basic training
    • Regular discussion on possible improvements/developments so the wiki can better serve the community
  • Powerpedia Ambassadors
    • Personalize Powerpedia by being a face of Powerpedia in their organization
    • Help to coordinate Powerpedia promotional activities in their office
  • Powerpedia Advisory Board
    • Core group that provides advice on the enhancement and development of the wiki
    • Limited to those selected by the Lead Powerpedia Curator
  • Weekly Basic Training
    • Held using a Web Conferencing tool
    • New Editors are invited
    • Prominently promoted on Main Page

Enhancements

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  • Labeled Section Transclusion
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Master Point of Contact lists
  • Portals
    • Main page
    • Occupational medicine
  • Maps
    • Beginning with Facilities
  • Collection
    • Creating wiki version of Manuals
  • Dynamic Page List
    • Used extensively in our dashboard
  • Mobile Frontend
  • Multi Boilerplate
    • Many new page templates
  • Quiz

Social enhancements

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  • Article Feedback Tool
    • Reader can add comments/suggestions
    • Don’t have to create an account
  • Notification tool
    • Better highlight User talk page messages
    • Mention capability
    • Thank constructive edits
  • Who Is Watching
    • Private Wiki so no need for privacy
    • Enhanced awareness of those interested in subjects
  • Contribution Scores
    • User page badge
    • One of dozens of Powerpedia badges
  • Discussion pages
    • Tradition wiki talk pages

Goals

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  • Grow the editing community, especially those willing to help garden
  • Have multiple Powerpedia Ambassadors for each organization
  • Install Visual Editor
  • Move search to Elastic with the CirrusSearch extension
  • Have an article on every topic related to DOE and its research with active participation of scientists/engineers in the labs

Federal MediaWiki Demonstration and Discussion Group

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  • Grew out of a discussion from WikiMania 2012
  • Limited to those working with MediaWiki in the U.S. Federal Government space
  • Opportunity to learn from each other, demonstrate our wikis, and discuss common issues
  • Led directly to adding Mobile Front End and Portals to Powerpedia

Wish list

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  • Improved ways to manage user accounts
  • Have a directory of bot scripts that would be useful for enterprise wikis
  • Automate work using the bots, such as
    • Develop a bot that identifies duplicate user accounts
    • Add categories to uncategorized files based on upload files extension
    • Wikify pages based on a manually generated list of nouns
    • Provide an easy way to view all redirect
    • Manage/rename categories to another category
    • Help with creating/organizing navboxes, portals, categories, etc.
    • Look for keywords in organization RSS feeds and add a link to article in the relevant wiki article
  • Make is easier for Enterprise wikis to use the API