I wanted to let folks on this list know about a new, milti-community wiki project I've been involved with called Wiki Spot (http://wikispot.org). We are a non-profit organization that aims to help communities use and maintain wikis, interconnect wikis where it makes sense, promote the adoption of wikis as a tool for enriching communities, and generally provide a trusted, non-commercial home to community wikis.

Philosophically, our drive lines up very closely with the Wikimedia Foundation: we are dedicated to free software and release all of our code under free licenses and we strongly encourage the use of various free-content licenses. What is very different is the scope and range of the communities we provide a home to.

Wiki Spot grew out of the Davis Wiki project (http://daviswiki.org), which has had an amazing an unexpected impact on the local community of Davis, California.

The Davis Wiki won an award from the Davis City Council (http://daviswiki.org/Thong_H._Huynh_Awards#2007) for our work in community involvement -- an award usually reserved for traditional media like radio and tv stations. We've helped people find their lost pets (http://daviswiki.org/Lost_Pets), find the best bathrooms in town (http://daviswiki.org/Bathrooms), documented urban art (http://daviswiki.org/Urban_Art), been the host of countless local political debates, thrown parties (http://daviswiki.org/Davis_Wiki_Wacky_Woo_1), and done lots of other crazy and amazing things as a community.

With Wiki Spot, we want to provide a safe place for other communities to easily do the same kind of things we've been doing, because we truly believe in the power of local community wikis.

Anyway, I encourage you to get involved and help out if this sounds like something you might be interested in.

Best, Philip Neustrom http://wikispot.org http://daviswiki.org