UCNISS/Sport Wiki Academy/Why use wikis

There are many different types of sport organizations, each with their own unique goals and objectives. In general, the reasons you may want to use a wiki include:


 * Improve the quality of the Wikipedia article related to the sport your involved with. Many people turn to Wikipedia first when looking for information. Wikipedia appears near the top of many Google searches.  By improving the quality of information on Wikipedia, fans will be more informed and may visit your site.
 * Provide a chance to network with others who are interested in the same topic as you.
 * Is a chance to empower people inside your sport organization and to make your fan base feel empowered.
 * Information does not disappear just because it gets older. Important content does not disappear, nor feel appear dated.

These are just a few general reasons why your sport organization should use wikis. There are more reasons that are specific to the type of sport organization you are involved with.

Why sport programs at universities should use wikis
University sport studies programs should use wikis because:
 * Wikis provide a great platform to share research, organize coursework that may be valuable to others, and allow for constructivist learning methods.
 * They can help to promote the program to potential research students.

Why state institutes of sport should use wikis
State institutes of sport should use wikis because:
 * Wikis provide an easy to use platform for state institutes of sport to share information with the government, sponsors, member state federations, and the general public.
 * Wikis provide a shared workspace where all those parties can contribute to sharing knowledge around the institute's organizational objectives.

Why sport federations should use wikis
Sport federations should use wikis because:
 * Wikis are a wonderful way for sport federations to easily connect national, state and local competitions, to post calendars that are easily updatable by anyone in the organization.
 * Wikis can be a place to host pictures.
 * Wikis are a place where information from multiple sources, like from state sport federations, can be consolidated.
 * By using a wiki, sport federations can allow stake holders on various levels to participate.

Why sport leagues should use wikis
Sport leagues should use wikis because:
 * Wikis are a great way to help foster a sense of community amongst fans. They are an alternative to social networks, tend to be more factual, less opinionated and thus less of a problem in terms of presenting information that is overly negative about a league.
 * Wikis like Wikipedia are generally viewed as being neutral, which adds credibility to information presented about your league.
 * Wikis provide up to date and accurate information on resources that are viewed by many people.

Why sport teams should use wikis
Sport teams should use wikis because:
 * You can provide current team rosters, updated schedules and a history of the team.
 * Wikis can be used promote athletes affiliated with the team. This can be on Wikipedia, Wikia or others.

Why athletes should use wikis
For many athletes, if there is an article about them on Wikipedia, it will rank highly on Google. Improving the Wikipedia article can help improve an athlete's visibility on search engines like Google. This makes Wikipedia and other wikis important to helping with an athlete's media visibility. Beyond that, athletes should use wikis because:


 * Unlike news stories or blog entries, if a wiki has factually incorrect information or is out of date, athletes can easily update and correct these problems.
 * For athletes, having their own wiki as a fansite hosted by themselves on a service such as Wikia or PB Works means they can help create their own fan community, provide a place for fans to interact on talk pages, and share pictures.
 * Wikis can be a place for an athlete to consolidate all the factual information that they want the public to know. Because it is a wiki, the information is much easier to update.  Most wikis have RSS feeds so that search engines will be easily notified that this content has been updated.