User:OneKarma/Forum

This page is meant to host discussion of the following proposal: Establish within this wiki a centralized, equal-opportunity forum for Occupy Boston.

Premise

There is a huge lack of clarity and unity because of communication difficulties. Current modes of communication, especially mailing lists, are not only varied in effect, but also cumbersome in use. There must be a central 'information resource provider' to support the Occupation.

Mailing lists 'force' un-filtered information upon individuals, but a wiki simultaneously hosts the most pertinent information (and its discussion) while being navigable per content. A wiki represents a tree of knowledge; it should be organized and coordinated as such.
The front-information on a wiki may change frequently due to broad intelligences, but the front-information in a mailing list is only the most recently updated (responded-to) conversation. Changes on a wiki should be seen as evolution, but updates in a mailing list will never be more than converstaion.
A wiki hosts updates right away, but mailing lists require hours of waiting for a response. There have been many queries within the mailing lists regarding whether messages are being received or not. The wiki would not have this issue, because everyone can see that their contribution has been published when they save a page.

Proposal

Issues

The major issue with using a wiki seems to be understanding the process of contribution, which is, in my opinion, much easier than reading and replying to a number of massive email lists. Becoming familiar with editing functions, navigation tools, and special pages can be daunting. We should therefore post guidelines proposing a specific structure and method that can be scaled and adapted to the many sizes and specialties of groups. We should unify to determine our ideals and the best methods to attain them. We should host a fully public, round-table discussion to determine the first steps of action. This discussion cannot cease until a central forum has been established.

If the Occupation appears to the mainstream to lack unity, clarity, definition, or priority, it is because the Occupation has failed to create the pathways that maximize the efficiency of crowd-sourced social evolution. At best, unity in the Occupation is extremely vague, and can generally be summarized in a single word: discontent. Indeed, the Occupation has barely agreed upon a few 'official statements'. The discussion is limited by the structure of the forum, or lack-thereof.

An intellectual conversation requires a soft and understanding environment that can be founded in its peaceful goals.

Concepts

The Occupation has presented an impressive show of arms; this is not to be overlooked. The protests give weight to our decisions by the numbers of their appearance. I believe it is necessary now to dismiss the issue of assembly/occupation, because it distracts us from the overarching social issues that we may be able to solve on our own, whether or not we are able to protest without violent opposition from a dying society. We must build a new society to sprout from the new. The old systems will dissolve slowly as we impart small changes that replace them. I propose a demand for space in public buildings to be relegated to the use of the Occupation for the purpose of an intellectual gathering such as this. I suggest that these 'offices' perform only the primary functions of the movement's livelihood. It should provide a public internet connection, printers, other print media, a library, and of course rooms for discussion and group meetings.

There should, as a central structure, be an online people's forum. In the forum, there will be a much larger foundation of voices if all contributers are able to navigate intuitively. By following the basic structure of topics and their nested discussions (a natural aspect of every wiki) we may build a professional feel upon the face of the wiki, and individuals will be able to quickly find and discuss the issues of greatest personal interest. A wiki is meant to crowd-source information - I suggest we use OccupyBoston's wiki to crowd-source a revolution.

Any organization of dedicated individuals can maximize efficiency by coming together as a whole to agree upon goals, methods, and tasks. This should be a first prioroty of any organization, and the discussion should be 'alive' as long as there is anyone in support of the forum. The Occupation movement has reached a massive scale, but it does not present a navigable structure, so the whole is more of a chaotic mob than a committed organization. The mess of communication methods shared by contributors has led to a lack of definition. Each medium should represent a specific function within the goals, methods, and tasks that are determined by the whole people via round-table discussion.

Goals

The ultimate goal of the Occupation (and truly the ultimate goal of any compassionate act) is the creation of (or evolution toward) a perfect society. Rather than acheiving perfection, the most difficult task is defining perfection. Coming to a working agreement on 'perfection' would allow us to determine pathways for acheiving that perfection. After conceptualizing our goals and sorting out the best potential methodology, it would be necessary to create tasks which could be delegated to working groups. This process establishes ultimate authority within the people, leaving no room for modification of that principal. A people's forum should declare that the only sovereign being is a human (or another creature of human-like sentience). The people should declare a Global Entity, a peaceful species unification for all those willing to apply. There will some day be global revolution, but we cannot know exactly when. We might facilitate the revolution by its discussion, however, and I argue that it is the most important discussion in which we might partake.

Forum Basics

To maintain a fully open and equal-opportunity forum, please follow these basic guidelines.

Most importantly, anyone can become a content creator/author, but no one is ever a content owner, as everything exists within the 'Public Domain' (see the link at the bottom of every page).
Etiquette should require no more mention than this.
Research is key to proper communication. One should always make an effort to learn more than is already known about a given topic before criticizing or suggesting alternatives.

Pages and Nested Discussion

Every topic page should represent a 'professional face' regarding its topic. The related discussion page (tab in top left) is the place for clarifying questions and development of the ideas described on that topic page.

Insert four tildes (~~~~) to post a 'signature' with a time-stamp on your comments so that others know how to contact you if your questions are answered. The wiki automatically inserts a link to your user-page when you click 'Save page'.

Frequently Used Pages

To save from 'editing wars' on discussion pages where a number of collaborators may be attempting to write simultaneously, authors should be re-directed to a live-updating document such as https://pad.riseup.net.

To ensure that your work is not lost in the case of simultaneous editing,

open a .txt document on your computer (Microsoft has a program called 'Notepad' with which some may already be familiar) to write an update.
Go to the Edit tab, then select all (ctrl+a on Microsoft) and paste it into your .txt document.
Then click 'Cancel' (to the right of 'Save page', 'Show preview', and 'Show changes' buttons at the bottom) or just leave the page.
Perform all your editing in the .txt document (don't forget to save!),
then go back to the Editing tab and replace the 'old' version with your update.

It may also be helpful to check the History of that page if you have been working for a while. Others may have updated it while you were working on your .txt. In this case you may have to track the differences between the version you were editing and the version created during your working period. It is likely that this will never be the case, but it is good practice to back-up all your personal work with document files on your personal computer whenever possible.

Formatting

Every page (both topics and discussions) should follow a few basic formatting guidelines. Visit User:OneKarma/Help or http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting for the basics.

Communications Methods (Discussion)

OccupyBoston.org

The meaning of the 'website' is clear: it is a public face - a 'news' outlet hosting only the most well-developed and/or urgent stories.

Wiki, Mailing Lists, and Groups

Communication between Occupiers is often chaotic and stressful because there is a lack of clarity in the meaning and intent of various communication mediums. The wiki, mailing lists, and .org group spaces are in conflict because they are neither clearly defined nor consistently utilized.

Wiki

Benefits: A wiki is intended to be the most complete resource for information on any great number of topics. The strength of a wiki comes from its public, transparent, autonomous, and open-source natures. There is room not only for the most pertinent information on every specific topic (on the 'Page' tab), but also for a discussion and evolution of those topics (on the 'Discussion' tab).

If the wiki's dynamic nature can be understood by the Occupy Boston community, it can be transformed into a centralized, collaborative space for anyone truly interested in societal progress.

Issues: Lack of 'Standard Practice': Collaborators may be unable to easily locate and/or post the information they desire because there is not a standard navigational structure (if there is a standard structure, it lacks clear representation).

Mailing Lists

Benefits: Mailing lists are the best medium for immediate and specific updates. A mailing list updates subscribers in nearly real-time, creating a kind of forum for very specific working groups. The newest reply is always at the 'top'.

Issues: 'Forced' Participation: Subscribers receive every message sent to the group, without any potential for filtering per content. Many subscribers use their personal email addresses, and mailing lists tend to 'clog' that space.

Lack of 'Archives': Subscribers are unable to view messages occurring before their subscription request, so they may be unable to view pertinent discussions unless those discussions are updated within their subscription period. Those updates must also include all previous text from the 'thread', which is not a requirement for replies.

Groups.OccupyBoston.org

Benefits: The 'groups' section of OB.org is clearly a 'forum' for all working groups.

Issues: 'Exclusivity': Membership to each groups must be approved by an admin, greatly slowing the process of contribution and creating an air of authority in what is otherwise meant to be open discussion space.

User:OneKarma/Forum Table of Contents

User:OneKarma/Forum - an introduction to the concept of an open forum, and utilizing this wiki as such
User:OneKarma/Forum/Functions - the functions that an open forum should perform in order to be successful
User:OneKarma/Forum/Demo - a 'prototype' for how working pages can be organized in an open forum