Wiki vs forum

[Tony LEE]

No, I wasn't really suggesting ioverlander. Did put it forward as an example though of what works as it is more or less a wiki, just without "wiki" in the name. There are other similar lists - wikicamps Australia/NZ/USA/Canada is one example also available as an APP on smart phones - and all of them are well patronised, very busy and do their job very well. They are basically camping and accommodation applications that have gradually expanded to include lots of other information that the users find useful so of course workshops, customs and immigration are there as well. However they don't have the sort of information that HUBB has in its reference section. Wikioverlander is another that has a very wide focus - but does not include camping locations of course - but suffers a bit from lack of contributors despite the best efforts of the hard working owner. Is growing though. It does have a lot of the sort of info that HUBB has though.
You rightly suggested having a wiki within HUBB and that would work well to make info a little more immediate.
The HUBB information on Carnets is a good example of what this thread is discussing. On the surface it is a great reference work, but it might/does? suffer from the requirement that all information has to be provided to the webmaster and then collated and then published on the web page. Pretty easy to get out of date or be missing crucial information, or maybe just as bad, including too much out of date stuff in an information tail that needs pruning from time to time. Trouble is any sort of Wiki is going to suffer exactly the same sort of problems if there are not experienced and enthusiastic moderators, good publicity and a wide user base. No easy answer which is why I suggested wikioverland as maybe capable of better things if it had a bit more coverage. Otherwise, HUBB already has a huge amount of information available from the top menu bar (which is probably overlooked by many) so if it were transferred into a wiki format, would/could be a fantastic resource. Trick will be finding a niche that works.