As you know, I made an effort to build a STICKY thread at the top of this forum.

I found it hard to keep the sticky up-to-date since there is so much rapidly evolving information. Also, there is so much knowledge that we could tap into if all of the members of this board could update and edit the Sticky.... so, I decided that we should give the Wiki a try.

Flyertalk offers a fine (albeit rather hidden) Wiki platform for us to use. I have set up two pages (one for Tokyo and another for Osaka) and I'm trying to set out a logical format for the information within those pages.

Find the pages here -
http://flyertalk.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

I made a first attempt at moving some Tokyo information from the Sticky to the Wiki. Please help me to improve that - and to add the information for the Osaka section.


(And of course, I welcome efforts from other Flyertalkers who have the knowledge required to create a Fukuoka section / Sapporo section / Iwate section / Gifu section etc.)

BUT PLEASE - If you have never used a Wiki before
Please gain some familiarity with the Wiki tools before you start hacking away at the valuable information that other people have posted on the Wiki.
You can try things out without damaging other people's work if you experiment in the "sandbox" area of the wiki.
You can also "preview" any changes that you make to the wiki before saving them.
Please keep a cool head about anything you want to change on the Wiki. Don't make changes in anger. If we all respect each other, then we will find that our combined efforts will produce a resource that no individual could ever hope to create.

What will become of the Sticky Thread?
Let's leave it as it is for now. If the Wiki is a success, then we might decide to do delete time-sensitive information from this Sticky - and just leave links to the Wiki pages, which we can all keep updated.

Good job. Look forward to it. ^

Kudos to you for your effort and interest.

That being said, I really hope that our Master Thread and "stcky" will stay here in the forum. I'm sure most posters to a Japan Forum wiki will be like those who post to this forum. That is, honest and fair. However, in general, I trust internet wikis about as much as I trust the "high official in the Nigerian government" who keeps e-mailing me such exciting investment opportunities. Witness the on-going dispute regarding Expedia with negative reviews being summarily removed.

Like I said, I appreciate your effort and will probably visit the wiki on occasion. I just don't think any wiki is something anyone should depend on.

JR

I strongly recommend Wikitravel if you just want general info about getting around and seeing things in Japan.

http://www.wikitravel.org/en/Japan

Gosh darn - She told me that she only trusted me with this business opportunity related to her uncle's inheritance. Is she two-timing me? Say it ain't so abmj, say it ain't so.....

Seriously, though, I understand your skepticism. I hope that the regular visitors to this forum will contribute to the Wiki - and if they do, then we might get high quality information there. I'm hoping that the stuff about airports and transport options will not be the kind of information that people feel a need to vandalize and delete. But if it attracts that kind of behaviour, then I guess we will just go back to the "less collaborative" platform, which is the current Sticky.

I think some of the articles on Wikitravel are pretty good - and you can get some good general tourist information on locations in Japan from there. I don't think anyone intends the Flyertalk wikis to replicate that. Rather Flyertalk's Wikis focus specifically on the knowledge that this community has (and that people come here to ask about).

I think that the fact that one has to log in to edit the Wiki will help, somewhat, in controlling the freakshow on some Wikis.