I am starting a community wiki in Oregon City, Oregon.  I call it OCityWiki.  I’d like to see it help build a sense of community.  I’m into the role of  “citizen journalist” and I’m on a mission to make this idea work here and then export it to other communities.

It is my thought to bifurcate the wiki.

One side would be modeled on Wikipedia -- sort of an encyclopedia of the town with fairly static pages and where pmWiki's relaxed admin style works really well.

The other side would be for news/forums/event calendar, etc. with pages that change a lot but where there will be a need to control carefully the content.  For example, the news page would be under the control of one or more editors, where nothing can be posted except by one of the editors.  The moderated forum page would allow anyone to view the postings, but would require a login in which the user is required to provide a real identity, an email address, and make postings using first and last name.  The forum user could edit his own posts after posting, but not anyone else’s.  The event calendar would allow anyone to make a posting, but only that person could edit the posting, and the wiki would cause the posting to shift to an "archive" page as soon as the calendar overtook the event date.  The site should be very secure, whatever that means.

The site I envision is really over my head (internet security makes my head spin).  I’m a recovering lawyer and a real estate investor/businessman, not a programmer.  I suppose I could spend hours and hours figuring this stuff out, and I may just do that. But this is really not the best use of my time, I don’t think. 

The local community college is probably going to provide me with some kids to help through their “Community Work Experience” program, and I have a friend who I can pressure into helping when I really need it, and sooner or later I hope find a local geek who gets passionate about the idea, but in the meantime, I’m stuck.

My first question: is pmwiki is the right wiki software for me to use for news/forum/event side of my proposed community wiki? If not what is?  If it is . . .

I’d like top find a pmWiki power user to take OCityWiki under his/her wing, create the killer community wiki I envision in collaboration with me and the other folks I'm getting involved here in Oregon City.  Then, we can make this "community wiki" template available for download by people in other communities. 

A Communtiy Wiki template is sorely need  - newspapers just don't cover local politics anymore.  The internet is killing local newspapers.  The sunlight of news coverage is the very best disinfectant for government waste, incompetence and corruption.  Replacing newspapers is one real need that can be met by "citizen journalists" recruited from the retiring baby boomers with writing skills.  The death of newspapers and the growth of citizen journalism is going to be a powerful combination.  Also, a community wiki with people using their real names, bumping into each other in the grocery store, could really help fight the "bowling alone" syndrome that has grown so much over the last twenty years.  I really believe that a killer community wiki template would be a killer app with potentially large, very positive implications.    

Although I can’t do the programming, I can do a lot else.  First, I could pay somebody to help me build this site, if that’s what it takes.  But my preference would be for me to trade my writing/thinking/business/creative skills to whoever helps me, on kind of a barter basis.  Any takers?   

If not, any suggestions on how to set up the login/security features I seek for the news/forums/event side of the wiki?   I am spending my weekend trying to figure how to make ZAP logins work on my beta site.  Complicated programming advice will go over my head, but I'm competent to paste snippets of code.  And I don't really understand if ZAP is the right way to go or not.

Sorry for the long post.  Hope I didn't violate any posting rules. 

-- 
Philip Yates
515 High St.
Oregon City, OR 97070	
(503) 570-8000

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