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[pct-l] PCT-L wiki



Hi,

many readers on this list actively search and collect information for 
coming hikes. While this email list provides first hand experience and 
social interaction, it lacks two dominant features:

1) FAQ: many questions arise again and again. The answers don't really 
change, but "elders" get bored and drop out. Most readers compile their 
own FAQs for an upcoming hike - but sharing happens infrequently.

2) Seasonal information: the status of springs, locations of caches, 
mailing addresses, phone numbers, forest status etc. change during the 
years - and often even during the hike. It would be nice to permit easy, 
immediate and collaborative updating at a central place.

A wiki is a form of a dynamic web site that permits these operations. 
Every visitor of a wiki is allowed to change the information posted on 
that web site. Therefore the maintaining effort is shared on many 
shoulders and information accumulates and stays up-to-date. (For instance 
the first hiker reaching independence could post conditions on Forester 
pass for everybody that follows to read. Status of caches and springs 
could be updated on a daily basis. There would be no need of searching 
through hundreds of emails.)

For this reason I propose the creation (or use of) a wiki. The most famous 
is the wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Crest_Trail

Now I'm not sure wikipedia would want to essentially become a forum with 
so specialized knowledge. (They might not mind on the other hand - and 
they have awfully nice technology under the hood.) One could also set up a 
simpler system like pmwiki http://www.pmwiki.org/, that runs under php on 
most webservers.

I believe it makes a lot of sense to have a wiki devoted to the most 
current trail conditions, phone numbers, etc. One could add long distance 
hiking advice to it on the long run - but this is more ambitious. (On the 
other hand most people destill it anyways from this list - so it is just a 
matter of formatting.)

Opinions, experiences?


Ilja.