Wiki History --By Bob Pries

Prologue

In 1980 I joined the AIS because I was interested in rock garden plants and tiny irises were more durable than other alpines. I answered an ad for the Dwarf Iris Society but discovered you could not join that group without being a member of AIS. When I joined AIS I also joined SIGNA. As a botanist I was also interested in species and how the modern cultivars were created from the species. Soon I was on the road to being and Iris Judge, but was surprised to discover that the Judges handbook had a chapter for judging species but there were no awards for better varieties of species. Soon I was campaigning for these awards and I headed a committee which recommended the creation of these awards. After they were accepted I realized that there needed to be a checklist of Species and their crosses so that people would understand the diversity that was already recorded as cultivars. Since species are the foundation of all modern classifications of hybrids I believed a photo rich encyclopedia was needed to educate members on the importance of the species. After some years of work I assembled a bibliography of over 1,000 references and created six volumes of roughly a hundred pages each. Because at the time it was costly to print color photos I made many line drawings that could be included. I sent a copy of this first draft of The Iris Encyclopedia to Timber press but they had just signed a contract with Claire Austen to do an Iris Encyclopedia. They told me to try again in ten years after that stock was gone. My written Iris Encyclopedia was put on hold. As the internet was developing I began to realize that books were less important and that one person could not create a complete encyclopedia, but Wikipedia showed the way. Sadly it was a blow to my ego but creating something that all interested parties could create seemed like a win for everyone.

The beginning

In 2007 I was chair of the Public Relations and Marketing committee for AIS. I could see the internet evolving quickly and the Iris Society's niche dwindling as a prominent source of information . We needed to enlist our membership in a new project where they could collaborate to create a archive of Iris information and pictures. And it needed to be done quickly to maintain our preeminence. The obvious solution was a wiki (a collaborative platform). At the 2000 Fall Board meeting Jim Morris made the following motion: "That the AIS investigate a photo wiki for AIS members on the members only section of the AIS Website." The motion passed but it was almost a year before much happened. Right away the Electronics chair handed me the keys to a new URL but I did not know any HTML language. I searched for a programmer who would help me for free. The AIS was under a tight budget so the wiki only costed the price of the URL and the server space. When I finally found Catherine Button (a programmer and president of the Japanese Iris section she recommended the open source program T-Wiki. She did not want the responsibility of loading it so John Jones the electronics chair asked Chris Lindsey if he would load it for me. Chris had behind the scenes done lots of work for John. I believe he set up the AIS programs for AIS-Lookup and The Iris Register. Chris ran Mallorn a computer advisory company and for several years hosted two Iris chat groups, one just for pictures. Theses groups were part of chat groups for many types of plants. They had served in some ways as an archive of Iris information for which we are grateful. But I wanted something owned by the Iris Society itself. Chris magnanimously load T-Wiki. Catherine Button the proceeded to teach me the basics of the HTML that I needed to construct the Iris Encyclopedia on the WIKI.

In developing the Iris Encyclopedia it was clear that the culture of the internet frowned on firewalls and members only sites. Therefore, in 2009 fall board meeting the motion was made *That the access to AIS Wiki be made available to the general public and that all entries be reviewed prior to being entered in the wiki.

In 2010 *Pries moved and Gormley seconded: **That the AIS create the Iris Encyclopedia; an information resource in a wiki format which allows registered users to upload comments and photos. These pages are verified by knowledgeable docents who create and or monitor pages for accuracy. The rock on which this data is built is the registrations created by the International Registrar. And that the Wiki always be viewable freely and universally." Motion carried.

Creation of Registrations image coordinator in 2011. Registrar recieved few images possibly due to disclaimors and criteria.

In 2017 Structure of the Online Library was created with several reading rooms. Creation of a list of Journals with articles about Iris.