At the end of the day, and I think this is a point that isn't well understood because we have a foot on both sides of the border, this is the official wiki for a non profit organisation. The wiki's set up in such a way that those that are willing to support the aims of the organisation can edit freely. I don't know of any other similar organisations which offer open editing or participation - one I know that runs meetings for its members (and this is just networking!) charges $10 for non-members to attend a meeting; another runs closed email lists that non-members can't even see.<br>
<br>As for the argument re vandalism - that isn't even our biggest prospective problem. The biggest is actually misrepresentation - the risk that we will be discredited as an organisation in the eyes of those we seek to build partnerships with. In the relatively insular world of free culture, edginess seems like a good thing, but in the real world, quite apart from our legal and other obligations with CAV, we have to deal with businesses, large organisations, governments, NGOs and the like. We're competing for their attention with more professional outfits which can offer them something. We're asking them to give us something - which requires a standard of credibility and professionalism. If random chaos is unfolding on our official website (and that is what it is), we have a bit of a problem in that area. Expecting already busy committee members (and I'm not even speaking for myself here) to monitor the wiki in such circumstances is an imposition on them and a completely unnecessary one - what do we stand to benefit from it, as against the costs?<br>
<br>cheers<br>Andrew<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/12/12 Peter Halasz <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:qubero@gmail.com">qubero@gmail.com</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Sarah,<br>
<br>
The only actual reason you've given for not opening up the wiki to<br>
non-members is because of fear of vandalism.<br>
<br>
Ok, so we have a problem: Potential vandalism.<br>
<br>
Solutions?<br>
<br>
1. Actually observe actual vandalism before locking anything down.<br>
2. Assign a couple of people to patrolling recent changes once a week<br>
3. Locking individual pages when we require their integrity to be preserved.<br>
4. Requiring wiki users to sign in<br>
5. Requiring new wiki users to wait 3 days before editing<br>
6. Banning everyone but paid members, who, after paying their<br>
membership, can apply for an account, which, when it expires, is no<br>
longer allowed to edit.<br>
<br>
C'mon, seriously? You went with #6? To combat vandalism?<br>
<br>
Although, as you say, we CAN keep the wiki locked up, why SHOULD we?<br>
And why with such tight control?<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Peter Halasz.<br>
User:Pengo<br>
(Lapsed member)<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
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