Etiquette for Wiki Attachments

The wiki is a dynamic mechanism, and the use of attachments to publish normal wiki material is to be deprecated. There are many reasons for discouraging the use of attachments, and these are listed below. In particular, Word documents are not to be placed on the wiki. The reason for this drastic dictum is that not everyone has Word on their computer, and the use of Word documents is not inclusive.

PDF documents can be placed as attachments (they are universally accessible), but there are constraints on their use. These are listed below.

Why attachments are discouraged

1. Attached documents are a static documents, and cannot be (easily) edited by others. This may be a reason to suggest their use, but if it is the only reason, then access control is a better solution. On the other hand, the wiki is a dynamic environment.
2. Attachments are subject to the same access control as the page to which they are attached. You cannot place confidential material in an attachment, and have stronger access control on it compared to the attaching wiki page.
3. Linking from wiki pages to attached documents is clunky, and inconsistent with other intra-wiki links. Such links interrupt the flow of reading a document (try reading a document with attachments on an iPad or similar device).
4. Attached documents cannot easily link to other wiki documents, and even when they are, their static nature precludes keeping the link consistent.
5. Cross referencing attachments from other places in the wiki is difficult, and is subject to dangling references if the original is moved or deleted.

6. Attached documents do not blend into other wiki documents. For example, you cannot quote from sections of a PDF document without cutting and pasting, thereby destroying the integrity of the quote (if the original changes, the copy does not). Wiki documents do allow this. (Example: ChurchFutureScProposalExecutive)

7. Attachments are not searchable by the wiki.
8. Attachments require an extension for the mime-type mechanism to work properly, and the extensions are often omitted by novice users.

Why PDF documents are discouraged

1. PDF documents carry significant overhead in specifying their presentation. They usually an order of magnitude (10 times) larger than the actual text that they convey. Space is not inexhaustible.
2. pdfs (because of point 1 above, and because of rendering engines) take longer to download, and are not seamless. Some browsers do not handle pdfs well.
3. If you are building a document that is to be used by others, and perhaps printed by them, such as a meeting agenda, any attached PDF documents will need to be printed separately.
4. Many browsers cannot display attached PDF files easily.

Circumstances where PDF documents are appropriate

1. The document is expected to be printed, and has a particular formatting that must be followed. Examples are the Weekly ChurchBulletins, NewView, and election forms, or checklists and the like, that have tick boxes to be completed.

2. Where a particular issue must be widely canvassed, and printed copies for congregation members without computers are to be generated. It is expected that a wiki version will still be made available. (Example: the ChurchFutureScProposal)

3. Where significant tables and/or figures must be included. Tables are difficult to get right in many document processing systems, and making users transcribe (for example) Excel spreadsheets leads to too many error opportunities. In any case, these must be converted to pdf documents before attaching (for the same reason that Word documents are prohibited). (Example: Financial summaries)

Some Philosophy

An essential thing to bear in mind at all times is that the wiki is a dynamic tool. While it is invaluable as a data or document archive, its real strength is in allowing all users to make contributions, not just the page maintainers. Attachments do not encourage such participation.

The access control lists provide great flexibility in controlling who can read, write and edit documents. If you don't understand how to do this, ask somebody, or read the documentation (HelpOnAccessControlLists).

Remember, the point of the wiki is content, not the style or format. If you spend too much time on getting the look of a document right, you are missing the point of the document. Yes, clarity and correctness are important, but these can be achieved without the use of elaborate text processing tools.