I am a sub-editor of the European Union's knowledgeboard.com and this has caused me to observe the trials and tribulations of sustaining various wiki's, whilst not claiming any expertise
I have started a public conversation thread here in case it can add to your discussion http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=132487&d=1&h=417&f=56&; dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y Wiki's it seems to me are asking for a lot of a core community's time which also means that core group really needs to be certain its open sourcing the same topic To give you a specific example. I have a dream of finding a community that wants to put together a different curriculum for teaching about 6th grade on. Partly because my daughter is currently 2nd grade! Now, many people might be attracted to that idea, but to be more specific I would probably co-qualify the core community around a few key ideas. These are not all of them (of course there should be communal room for more than my self dreaming) but still the wiki I dream of would have content so that the following became no-brainers -every child has a right to experience open space before leaving school -every child is taught (the networking age's revolutionary freedom) that the great virtue of email and any other virtual tools you use is to learn how to connect to your own 10 best mentors through life and help peers do so too: http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=122627&d=1&h=417&f=418 &dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y -there's something systemically wrong with controling too much measurement and scoring when it separates facts from learning and doesn't contextually help sustain positive human emotions/relationships (probably, a teenager's syllabus of mapping systemic or communal relationship patterns is one of the few content/theory syllabi I would prioritise links to- exercise: how many different synonyms for self-organizing can you find out there?) If a consequence is that a great wiki currently needs an inner society to see it through gestation, then, unless you have millions of funding to administrate it more openly whilst still keeping its patterning core to the dream, then although the exciting applications of wiki's should open source something, my feeling is that this paradox is one to organise around and fast track At the end of the day, wiki's are asking a lot of some people's time, and its best to know who's who and why's why in such a cooperative dream. Incidentally, I do note that wiki and open space could be natural supporters of each other, though that might also raise the issue as to whether you are trying to develop content ideas that weave global diversity from all quarters of the globe (and so it becomes a question of not only affording time but the continuing cost of beating geographical barriers) Actually, my network of friends is discovering a halfway house to wiki's in co-blogging. The idea is to find people who love the same communal place (starting with some very disconnected ones like these Indian villages http://whynotvisakhapatnam.blogspot.com/ and get a sample of that core community treating the blog (of what this place most needs to connect with the outside world like) a wiki through having co-editing rights; as well as linking selectively through a family of 100 other place blogs. If you love a place and feel it could do with connecting its development needs with others, please contact me, and we can quickly try out what's involved around your specific development location. Of course as part of this family's inner society (and because we feel deep local poverty requires urgent systemic relief as the root cause of most global strife), we are trying to start with places which are in the centre of big conflict issues like whether people or global corporations own water, and a few other needs that differentiate sustainable bushes (however poor) from that other sort. 100 parallel blogs can cover each other's tacks and links in ways that make one wiki centre more vulnerable. At least I hope so!! Chris Macrae wcbn...@easynet.co.uk London, DC & 100 other places * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
