====== Why a Wiki? ======

Keeping information in a Wiki has many advantages:

  * The entire Pilot's Information Wiki can be searched, for example for 'airspace';
  * You are always presented with the latest version of a page. A paper document can show it's date of printing / when it was last updated, but **there is no way of knowing if it has been altered since without checking the online source** - especially important for the [[airfieldmanual:start|Airfield Manual]].  This is not possible if the definitive source is a Word document on someone's PC;
  * Wikis have built in version control, so:
    * There is a [[https://pilots.scottishglidingcentre.co.uk/benefits_of_a_wiki?do=recent|Recent Changes]] link at the top of each page which will show all recent changes to the whole Wiki;
    * You can see the history of all changes to pages;   
    * It's easy to compare versions of a page to see what has changed, and who made the changes;
    * if anyone editing a page wants to, they can easily roll back changes;
  * Presentation of the [[airfieldmanual:start|Airfield Manual]] on a table or phone is far better than with PDFs;   
  * Additionally PDFs generated by DokuWiki include a QR code for the page, which makes it easy to quickly find it online and see if it's been updated; 
  * Editing pages is relatively easy with the [[https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:prosemirror|Visual Editor]] (though not as easy as using your favourite WP program);   
  * Wikis encourage a top-down approach to organising information - you can make a link to a page before the page itself is created. These links appear in RED.   
  * It's easy to reorganise information and rename pages. The Wiki software can create redirecta which seamlessly take you from the old page address to the new one.   
  * Information - text and media - can be organised in '[[https://www.dokuwiki.org/namespaces|namespaces]]', rather than having one big pile of links.  Divide and conquer!
  * The software we are using [[https://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki|DokuWiki]] is widely used.  As a consequence:
    * There is a mass of information and help available, both official and unofficial.  
    * It's relatively easy to build a test website to 'learn the wrinkles' - this is what Sally has done.  
    * It was also easy to install the software on our Web Server.
  * It's possible to limit administration rights (and hence editing) to a small group of users, which has been done.