Wiki Reorganization

OSE Wiki Reorganization Effort August-September 2011

Hi Everyone,

I have met many of you in person, others I know only online, but most of you I do not know at all. The wiki is the place where Open Source Ecology comes together; a place where our learning and efforts fit together like the puzzle pieces they are and how we connect and interact with each other in order to have something to show for the project we are all working on. To be more specific, because of the asynchronous nature of our work around the world, it is this wiki that is the core of the project and it deserves our attention to ensure that our efforts are in turn seen around the globe.

The recent efforts I have been making on the wiki are in response to the month I spent at Factor e Farm this summer and my impression of the big picture. A great many people have given countless hours and loads of solid input to the wiki but up to now the attitude has been to “throw it on the wiki and we’ll sort it out later.” The time to sort it out is now because 2012 is approaching quickly, and we need to have our information in order for others who may be interested. When I heard about the project through Marcin’s TED Talk, I figured the plans were already posted on the wiki; I was half right in my assumption. The information was there (some out-of-date, but nonetheless there) but unfortunately the pages lacked any real structure or navigability. I sought to change that, and have made some major infrastructural changes to the wiki that I believe will catapult the project to the next level if adopted correctly. My visit to Factor e Farm was as exciting as I dreamed. The LifeTrac was bigger than life, and three more were just frames when I arrived. A month later, they were complete and I knew the process behind manufacturing, maintaining, and using them. But the information in my head isn’t readily available to everyone in the world (same goes for you too, Marcin, sorry) so we as OSE contributors must fill in the wiki, and we must do it so others can easily read and understand what it is that we are trying to communicate.

To really get the wiki going, I propose:
 * Everyone reread the instructional pages listed on the Required Reading page
 * Familiarize yourself with the GVCSTool page. This is meant to be a mirror template for any of the GVCS Tools and can serve as a framework for building pages.
 * Review the Special:RecentChanges and page regularly to track contributor actions.
 * Review a few of the pages that are furthest along in terms of formatting and readable material like CEB Press, LifeTrac, Power Cube, and Industrial Robot and see if there are other GVCS tools that you can format to look like these and GVCSTool.
 * Cut and paste from other wiki articles if necessary, just make the pages fit the wiki structure (i,e, CEB Press/Manufacturing Instructions/Tools) and are readable. Someone else will finish it up later.

If everyone works together on a few of these pages, I know we can get them nicely categorized and looking good in a week or two. Let’s do it!

Ryan Lutz - ryan.lutz37@gmail.com

User:Ryan_Lutz