Today my feeling and emotion is to see the TechNet Wiki is get very big, I'm very happy to see the greatness that TechNet Wiki has turned into, which is a reference to Microsoft articles. I see everyone involved in building community in helping the TechNet Wiki .

We worked for a long time, all helped, Ed, Yuri, Luciano, among many other community members ...

In addition, I gained a lot of experience with the TechNet Wiki project. I think it was also very good for everyone.

The Wiki is a valuable tool; it helps in many cases everyday.

So in this post, we'll talk about 3 Tips to improve your articles on the wiki.

1 - if you use a lot of acronyms and technical terms in the article, a Glossary is a good way to put all the terms in one centralized Wiki article.

2 - Keep an active file with notes, resources and links to media files on the Wiki or external sites; I find these very helpful.

3 - Put your solutions in a Wiki that help with problem solving your technology; it is very necessary. We need to include more articles about troubleshooting the various product scenarios.

A hug to everyone and see you next week.

Luiz Henrique Lima Campos
Microsoft MVP, MCT,MCP,MCC,MCDST,MCSA,MCSA+M,MCTS e MCITP
Moderador no Microsoft Answers e TechNet Forums e Membro do TechNet Wiki Community Council
Visite o meu blog: http://luizhenriquelima.wordpress.com/
Me siga no twitter: @luizlima

Hello and welcome everybody to our TNWiki Article Spotlight on Tuesday. Before I start todays post I like to come back to my last blog post on user pages for a minute. It was amazing for me to see the growing number of new user pages, especially from people who where something like an idol for me since my first day at the TechNet wiki. Thanks guys and keep up the good work!

Let's get back to topic. Some of you have already noticed that a lot of people we are interviewing are SharePoint guys, but we have not featured a lot of SharePoint articles yet. That is one reason why I want to feature a SharePoint article today. The second reason is a little bit more personal.
Two years ago I have worked on a SharePoint development project (it was my first contact with SharePoint). After the project was finished I said "I will never work with or develop for SharePoint again!" Oh dude, how wrong I was. Two weeks ago the same project came back to me. It needed some improvements. My first thought "Oh, no. SharePoint! Again!" But this time it was different. You normally will have a lot of problems with SharePoint, but there is some mysterious attraction. Who already has worked with SharePoint and was in a cold sweat know what I mean. To make a long story short: Now I have my own SharePoint environment to work with and additionally an Office 365 account, which includes SharePoint Online.

As I started my second journey with SharePoint I was looking for some resources. But here is the problem. I'm a developer! I have some good understanding of administration, but this is not always enough. I was happy as I saw the SharePoint 2013: Resources for IT Pros article Craig Lussier started on our wiki.

And now, here is your mission: I need more SharePoint content, especially for developers! If you know an article on our wiki about that topic, leave a comment. If you have created an awesome SharePoint article, leave a comment. If you are planning to create the most amazing article about SharePoint the world has ever seen, leave a comment. You're ready? Go!

- German Ninja Jan (Twitter, Blog, Profile)

We're continuing our Monday series, "Monday - Community Interview". Today it is Howard S. Edidin!

Howard is a veteran in the industry and still going strong.

I really appreciate Howards opinion of the TechNet Wiki:

 "You do not have to be a MVP or expert in order to post an article. An article can provide a high-level view or go into detail on a subject."

Who are you, and what do you do?

I am an Architect that specializes in BizTalk and Windows Server AppFabric. With the introduction of Windows Azure BizTalk Services (WABS), I will be adding it to my specialties.

I have been working with BizTalk over twelve years now. Since most of my work has been contract, I have had the chance to implement BizTalk in many industries and utilized almost all of BizTalk’s capabilities. 

About two years ago I started my own consulting firm, Edidin Group, Inc. I have one employee, my son Mark, who is following in my footstep and is becoming an excellent BizTalk Developer.

This also brings me to what else I do. Besides Architecture, I provide guidance and training to my clients on BizTalk Development, Administration, and Operations. I am also a totally hands-on person, being a firm believer that “You cannot design it without being able to build it”.

Recently I took a contract-to-hire with Sogeti in Chicago.

What do you do with TechNet Wiki, and how does that fit into the rest of your job?

Since BizTalk is a complex product and used to solve so many problem, I utilize the TechNet Wiki to find answers to questions, read about new (and sometimes old way that I have forgotten about) ways to use BizTalk, and to keep up to date in general.

Many versions ago, there was application called “Hitchhikers Guide to BizTalk”.  I forget who published it. I utilized this Guide in the same way I use the TechNet Wiki.

How does writing Wiki articles differ or is similar to writing a book? Your ESB book you co-authored with Andres del Rio was just released right?

There is a great difference between writing Wiki articles and writing a book. But there are also a few similarities. The main difference is when you write a Wiki article you are proving information on a single subject. Many of the Wiki articles are a single source for referencing other Wiki articles and external Blog Posts. Others provide key information on a subject. Although I had published one lengthy article that was a tutorial about using BPMN in Visio for designing and documenting BizTalk Solutions, I believe Wiki articles should a reasonable length for viewing on-line.

Just the other day, PackT Publishing released the book I co-authored with my good friend Andres Del Rio. Andres is also a contributor the Wiki. The book is “Microsoft BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.1”.

This is the second book I co-authored. The first being “Microsoft BizTalk Administration Essentials” (authors Howard S. Edidin, Andres del Rio, and Steef-Jan Wiggers), which we decided to give away free on BizTalkAdminsBlogging.com.

What are your favorite articles you’ve contributed?

There are two articles; “Using Visio 2010 BPMN to Design, Model and Document BizTalk Solutions” and “The BizTalk Anti-Pattern List”. When I get a little free time, I plan on updating the first to include Visio 2013.

Do you have any tips for new Wiki contributors?

• You do not have to be a MVP or expert in order to post an article. An article can provide a high-level view or go into detail on a subject.
• You can also modify an existing article by appending new information, or removing information that is no longer valid.
• Try to keep your personal opinions out of what you write.
• The Wiki is all about sharing knowledge.  If you have something that would be of interest, the Wiki is a great place to share it.

Thanks Howard for all your dedication and support for BizTalk and your contributions to the TechNet Wiki.

 - Ninja Steef-Jan (Blog, Wiki, Twitter, Profile)

Welcome back for another analysis of contributions to TechNet Wiki over the last week (Sat-Fri) - a day late, due to real world constraints.

Firstly, the usual weekly leader board snapshot...

Patris breaks out in front for contributions this week!

sayedissahassan's monthly articles were unfortunately removed as they were plagiarised.

Once again, here are the results of another weekly crawl over the updated articles feed.

Most Revisions Award   Who has made the most individual revisions

#1 Naomi  N with 195 revisions over 56 articles! Nice work Naomi!

#2 Ed Price - MSFT with 123 revisions over 60 articles! Tremendous!

#3 Steef-Jan Wiggers with 101 revisions over 18 articles.

Most Articles Updated Award   Who has updated the most articles

Slightly different this week than above:

#1 Patris_70 with 84 articles

#2 Ed Price - MSFT with 60 articles

#3 Naomi  N with 56 articles

Most Updated Article Award   Largest amount of updated content in a single article

The article to have the most change this week was a new arrival, Visual Basic - Knife Thrower! by Paul Ishak. This is an excellent contribution to the wiki and entry into the TechNet Guru competition for July. It is a very simple but engaging example of how to make a game in Visual Basic and has won the approval of many wiki members. Thanks Paul! 

Longest Article Award   Biggest article updated this week

This week's largest document to get some attention is the Knife Thrower above, and second was the Ninja Blog author schedule highlighted in the last awards, so I'll mention third longest this week: Premier Field Engineering (PFE) by Santos Martinez, which was edited by Peter Geelen - MSFT this week. This article also lists an impressive collection of related blogs, so is worth a bookmark for anyone interested in this kind of thing.

Most Revised Article Award   Article with the most revisions in a week

This week's most fiddled with article is TechNet Guru Contributions - July 2013 by, me :D    We are all amazed at how many amazing contributions and competitors we are getting for these monthly awards. Thank you to everyone who has joined in.

Smallest Significant Edit Award   Size isn't everything! Every edit counts.

Ignoring the addition of tags, this week's smallest but valuable tweak was to Autodiscover Service playing major role in Lync and Outlook, by dplotnikov - mvp - they simply added a table of contents (by putting [toc] at the top of the article, which auto-generates the table from the article's headers. This is a vital job and we are very grateful for this kind of tweak.

Loving all your work!

Best regards,
Pete Laker

We often ignore this point and often all the credits go to the author (and he deserves it), but in all most diverse books or articles of different technologies there is a common factor among them: we can always see a note of gratitude to the reviewers and editors from the author.

For those who are not used to writing, you may think it is a standard courtesy and cannot appreciate or understand the value that a good editor or reviewer can bring to the articles, but the truth is that they play a key role.

Of course the Editor role is even more important when we are writing books. Stephen King (American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy, his books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films) once said: “To write is human to edit is divine.”

So what is and what’s the role of a TechNet Wiki Editor?

In my personal opinion, there are two types of TechNet Wiki Editors:

• The ones that plays a similar role of an Technical Reviewer or Contributors;
• And the ones that plays the role of an Editor.

The “Technical Reviewer or Contributors” improved the article with new content or corrects it in technical terms by eliminating or correcting false statements or also tagging them for better search, therefor often requires deep technical knowledge. With this, they are improving the overall quality of the article and putting it always updated with new content.

The “Editor” plays a different role, they normally are looking at the shape or condition of the writing itself like poor structure and clarity. Generally they will focuses on the structure and flow of the work as a whole will:

• Correct syntax errors like: spelling, punctuation or grammar;
• They read the content and checks it for sense or clarity;
• They make layout designs changes like: determining or unifying headline size and font;
• Tagging articles for better search;
• Avoid inadequate material and so on…

This may seem less important than the first type of TechNet Wiki Editors but they also plays a key role and they probably are doing the most difficult part. By clarifying and putting some esthetic and structural consistency between all the articles, they are improving the article but also the general welfare of TechNet Wiki by providing the same experience in all the content.

TechNet Wiki Editor Achievements (aka "badges")

In the Wiki, you can earn an achievement gold, Silver or Bronze as a Wiki Community Editor:

• New Wiki Editor: for making the first revision to a Wiki article.
• Wiki Editor II: for making multiple edits which contributed to continued community engagement (25xEdits and 10x500 PageViews)
• Wiki Editor III: for demonstrating an on-going commitment to providing meaningful revisions to the Wiki (100x Edits and 20x500 PageViews)

Acknowledgments/Credits

As a TechNet Wiki Contributor (writer) I would like to thank all the editors, for their contributions in my articles… for improving them constantly and put them day by day better.

It’s impossible to list everyone but here are some of these people who are making a magnificent job: Ed Price, Carsten Siemens, Richard Mueller, Tord G.Nordahl, Charlie Mott, Naomi N, Payman Biukaghazadeh, Maheshkumar S Tiwari, Fernando Lugão Veltem, Saravana Kumar, Horizon_Net and Steef-Jan Wiggers.

(and apologize to the others that aren't referenced)

“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray

- BizTalk Wiki Ninja Sandro Pereira (Blog, Wiki, Twitter, Profile)