Definition Wiki vs. A Specific Forum for Acronyms, Definitions, Etc.

That's pretty much what I found. I don't have a problem going to someplace like the wiki 'encyclopedia' and searching for something, but that's a 'rare' success. I spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to do things and I'm relatively web savvy. It reminds me of the 'old' days coding HTML. Simple for me, for most folks it was like 'Greek'.

Cari Spears said:

I hope you cleaned up after yourself!

Sorry - I'm short time - last day before a nice little vacation - I'm gettin' a little slap happy.

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No Cari...it's pretty much everywhere. Where's the hose?

Have a good vacation.

On topic, my feeling was what Marc voiced: the glossary will be for all, but most handy for new folks. New folks might be best served by the easiest to navigate option.

OK, folks. Here it is - A specific forum for Definitions, Acronyms and Abbreviations.

Atul Khandekar said:

No previous experience with Wiki. It's a tough job either way... A combination of both perhaps?

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I'll play with the wiki software a bit more and see if there is a way we can use it.

I'm leaving this thread open for discussion, but - as is evident - The Decision has been made - Specific forum.

I'm not sure what I'll do with the wiki I have on the server right now but if I think of a use for it I'll post here. Or, if you do, follow up with a post in this thread.

I like this decision. I did investigate the wiki, and it gave me a wacky headache with way too many possibilities.

--QG

For those who enjoyed the experiment with the wiki, Wikipedia has an entry for Quality Management Systems that could use some attention. It only mentions Deming, it didn't differentiate between drug and medical device GMPs (I tried to address that), and it seems like it's too short.

Anyway, here's the link if interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_Management_System

Hi,

I've learnt much from simply being a lurker in this forum. I've have a little web design skills, being a generalist in nature. I probably can't contribute anything in terms of know how and experience in getting a medical product through to market, but maybe one thing I can do here is perhaps make a comment on how you can sway the thinking back towards a wiki. And that is:

1. eliminate or reduce the learning slope
2. provide useful benefit immediately

Being still a learner, sometimes I am lost when some of you experts here use acronymns, sometimes the acronyms don't even match the paragraph being discussed... in this case I have to make assumptions... sometimes kind folks actually put the acronymns in brackets which then helps. Now going through threads can be quite tedious for learning and collecting information, to find one piece of information, I could be searching many threads, some leading to other issues etc. A well constructed wiki can help here. Using collective skills you could even build a Template generic Technical Document using a wiki

Anyway, I have never contributed in a wiki and before today I didn't know how it works, but having a quick look at some of the syntax and examples available on the net it looked fairly simple. So to address the above two points strategy I have started an Acronymn page. Lacking much info.... but the basic syntax is there and folks with information should find it easy to add to it. There could be folks in the forum more skilled with it than me, perhaps a few of us could form a team to handle the inputting of information into the wiki. Anyone wants to add something can send it to some central person and who ever has some free time could begin putting it in.

Structure of the Wiki is another matter to consider, I hope to illustrate how it could be done only.

Meanwhile congratulations for a very informative forum.

Wiki software is sorta different. It is more orientated towards definitions and related 'encyclopedia' format(s). The vBulletin software these forums 'run' on is essentially a situation specific 'Consecutive / Threaded Message (Discussion)' format. One asks a situation specific question and others try to help out through replies.

A problematic aspect of with 'Wiki' software is there is a significant learning curve. The software these forums run on is relatively simple for 90% of the folks who visit. At the same time, its capabilities (formatting, search, etc.) are significant.

I thought a lot about Wiki software here and even put up a trial Wiki. Many people had been requesting this for a long time. I found that it is better to go to the Wiki Encyclopedia and add to the content there (or to learn from as the situation may be) than to try to repeat what is there here. These forums are essentially for situation specific discussions and help.

isoreader said:

So to address the above two points strategy I have started an Acronymn page. Lacking much info.... but the basic syntax is there and folks with information should find it easy to add to it. There could be folks in the forum more skilled with it than me, perhaps a few of us could form a team to handle the inputting of information into the wiki.

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The Wiki I have online now can be used. If you can find a 'following' that want to work on a Wiki, I'll help however I can.

Please have a look at the Acronymn page

Definitely, I'd be willing to help here. If anyone has any more "acronymns" send it in and I'd post it on the wiki.

Bear in mind that if you can add a thread on a Forum, you can easily click the highlighted "edit" on that page and put in the info in the same syntax used. I have put in a few examples there anyone can follow.

If an acronymn have several meanings or you want to put more info than a single sentence, then we can create a separate page to link it to.

I'm all for it if some folks want to jump in and get involved.