Re: Wiki and Irisregister

[Robert Pries <robertpries@embarqmail.com>]

The Iris register has been a workhorse for a tiny group of people in the Iris society and it will continue to be so. I have spoken with many Iris Register users and they see no threat from the wiki in replacing the Iris Register. For the uses that the Iris Register has traditionally provided, the wiki will provide too much information, and would not be as fast. John should see no threat to the relatively few people using the Iris register of abandoning it.

The competition for the wiki and the register is the rest of the internet, not some internal turf battle. We need to provide as authoritative and as complete information as possible in order to compete with Wikipedia and Dave’s Garden. Dave’s Garden gives away its information yet still has almost 8 thousand subscribers. That alone generates almost $200,000, not counting advertising. I don’t expect anything close in revenue, but surely if we developed electronic memberships instead of wasting time worrying about internal competition, we could easily generate enough to put the society back on a more stable tract. The rewards could be substantial and the risk extremely minimal. Do we put at risk the effectiveness of the wiki in competing in the wider market? I am not trying to keep the Iris Society just as it is. That model has not been working for some time. The goal is to retain what we have and do something better that will give all the Iris societies a chance at survival.

----- Original Message -----
From: "John I Jones" <jijones@usjoneses.com>
To: aisdiscuss@aisboard.org
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 1:09:55 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [AISdiscuss] Wiki and Irisregister

As i said from the beginning of this discussion, my intent is to be  
sure that the Board understood the impact of putting the iris  
registration information into the Iris Wiki. I will support whatever  
position the Board wishes to take about irisregister and the  
registration information, always have.

I am also in favor of the iris wiki. I think that it will be a great  
tool for advancing irises and the AIS.

A lot has been written about the issue of incorporating the iris  
registration information into the wiki, some of it conjecture, some  
fact, and some opinion. I thought it would be a good idea to try to  
summarize the relevant issues.

Much has been said claiming that irisregister will actually increase  
its subscriber base because members of the wiki will want "higher  
authority".  First we have to recognize that if the registration  
information is included in the wiki, there is no need for someone to  
access irisregister. They already have all the information and at no  
cost. Every time the irisregister is updated the information will  
migrate to the wiki.

The most common user of irisregiser are those that access it to get  
descriptions for their iris sales. They are by far the majority of  
users. They will be able to get that information at no cost  from the  
wiki.

Most of the people that will access the wiki are just after pictures.  
They won't care about the descriptions.

Using pictures for iris sales has become the best way to sell. With  
photo printing technology getting cheaper and cheaper, and software  
programs freely available to print multiple pictures per page,  
"custom catalogs" are a breeze and inexpensive. At the very beginning  
the wiki was proposed as a "Photo Wiki" to the board by Bob.

It is probably true that some of the people that will be adding  
pictures to the wiki will subscribe to irisregister to be able to  
migrate the information to the wiki, at least until the majority of  
iris registration information is in the wiki at which point they   
will drop the irisregister subscription. However, the majority of  
wiki users that add pictures are going to do only that. Oh yes, it  
has been said that many of the current docents will quit if they can  
not put the iris registration in the wiki. If they perceive that the  
wiki is only valuable with the registration information in it, then  
they are just trying to get the information for free.

Frankly, there is so much more information that can be added to the  
wiki that is of far greater interest and value to the (predominate)  
general user that it is hard for me to understand why the  
registration information is so important. Growth habits, hardiness,  
disease resistance, geographic limitations, increases and on and on.  
What kind of iris to grow in what environment. This is all much more  
important to most of the future wiki users.

There is no doubt in my mind that the wiki will be good for AIS. It  
will advance irises tothe public and bring in more members.  
Irisregister was never conceived or designed to attract more users to  
the AIS. It was designed to provide as database and search engine for  
the information. There will be far more wiki users that irisregister  
users.

The problem is of course that no one knows for sure that will happen.  
Not I, not Bob. We can all make guesses about what will happen but no  
one knows with any degree of confidence. It is my considered opinion,  
and I have years of experience with irisregister, that we will loose  
a significant part of the irisregister revenue. That may be well  
ameliorated by more members drawn in from exposure to the wiki, and I  
hope it is.

John












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