The Wiki Synergy Project


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I (Chris Watkins a.k.a. Chriswaterguy) would like to see greater synergy between people working on wikis, and particularly those working on environmental issues, sustainability and international development, and appropriate technology.

I see this happening in a number of ways:
 * people finding, reading and working on the wikis that best suit them,
 * WikiIndex is a fantastic tool for that. One way to promote the use of WikiIndex for this is to edit WikiNodes (such as Appropedia's WikiNode) so they starts with links to the relevant categories on WikiIndex.
 * Wikis merging where that's appropriate, to avoid duplication of effort, get a larger and more diverse community of editors in one place working on topics of common interest, and create greater synergy.
 * Promoting the merged wiki (e.g. see Promotion of Appropedia).
 * Promoting an understanding of what material belongs in which wiki. E.g. Wikipedia is for encyclopedic information (verifiable, notable, not how-tos, not original research...); other wikis, such as Appropedia, happily accept resources and networking activities which are not suitable for Wikipedia.

Transwikiing pages
One important way to avoid duplication of effort is to move material to a more appropriate wiki. For example, see Wikibooks:Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which was judged to not be in Wikibooks scope, so was moved elsewhere. The redirection can be left there, to let people know where to find the new page, and not to create it again at the first location.
 * When folks are wiki walking around the wiki web and we find content, either pages or categories, we might suggest that they transwikify and move the content to the more suitable wiki? MarkDilley

Sustainability, environment, & international development wikis
See the discussion and proposal on Appropedia, about merging sustainability and development wikis.

Successes

 * Appropedia – seven wikis have merged into Appropedia, including WikiGreen, the Village Earth Appropriate Technology Wiki, and the How To Live Wiki. We've also joined forces with likeminded groups such as Sustainapedia and Engineers Without Borders Australia and are making progress with a couple of other mergers.
 * P2P Foundation Wiki is joined by Sphere of Networks!

Members
If you'd like to join, add your name below:
 * Chris Watkins a.k.a. Chriswaterguy talk 23:29, 20 September 2006 (EDT). Main interest is in Sustainability, environment, & international development wikis
 * MarkDilley
 * Lonny 23:14, 26 September 2006 (EDT)
 * Cgfoz 13:20, 1 October 2006 (EDT)