User:OneKarma/Forum
User:OneKarma/WG/Philosophy/Wiki as Forum
It is intended that this page host a discussion around the idea of adopting the wiki as a centralized and open forum.
Premise
There must be a central information resource provider to support the Occupation. Current modes of communication, especially mailing lists, are not only varied in effect, but also cumbersome to use. There is a huge lack of clarity and unity because of these difficulties.
- 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, but the front-information in a mailing list is only the most recently updated conversation. Changes on a wiki should be seen as evolution, but updates in a mailing list will never be more than updates.
- 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.
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 unitfy 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.