[Foundation-l] Request for approval for a wiki for standards

Sat Jan 7 14:38:13 UTC 2006

Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>>
>> On Meta the request for a Wikistandards wiki has been revived.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>  GerardM
>
>
> Are these standards you would put on this new wiki anything to do with 
> a manual of style or writing guidelines?
>
> I also have to ask - is a wiki really the best format for documenting 
> standards? A standard is supposed to be an immutable document; it 
> can't just be edited and changed by anyone because that's going to 
> ruin compatibility.
>
> Chris

I believe that a wiki is an excellent method of collaborative writing, 
including standards development.  Often when trying to develop a 
standard you need to work on several parts of the standard 
simultaneously, and having revision control and other feedback methods 
found on MediaWiki software is going to be very useful.

As far as making a standard immutable, we already have page protection 
once the standard has been put in place.  This is no different than 
Wikisource where similar kinds of immutable documents already exist. 
 That would have to be a community decision as to if a certain page has 
a "final" status and can't be changed any more.

More likely, you would have to have some sort of versioning of documents 
anyway, where you would have a "frozen" official version and a draft 
version that is still a work in progress.  We already have date 
versioning in MediaWiki software anyway, so this is something that 
doesn't even need extra development.

As far as a style guide, there are several current ISO related 
guidelines that could be adapted for use by anybody trying to write 
standards documentation of any sort.  This isn't even new for Wikimedia 
projects either.

I want to add that there is a huge need for open and free (as in speech 
as well as beer) standards.  Even modestly priced standards from groups 
like ANSI or ISO can cost more than $200 a piece, and I've seen some 
fairly general standards documents costing more than $100,000 each with 
some incredibly draconian non-disclosure agreements.  Even supposedly 
public standards like the National Electrical Code that governs how 
buildings are wired with electricity can cost a couple thousand 
dollars... and that is a matter of law that you have to live by.  

This is something that really needs to be established, and I feel it 
would be an excellent candidate for the seed wiki (under whatever name 
that might be officially called if it get going).  There isn't quite the 
same level of support for this as say Wikiversity, but I think we could 
get a strong community going for this.

This really can't be accomodated in Wikibooks directly in part because 
this isn't really teaching materials or textbook development, and the 
standards development process needs some additional community support 
that simply can't be directly accomodated by Wikibooks.  New policies 
and social structures need to be developed that are specific and unique 
to the development of standards documentation.  Most of that can be 
developed ad hoc once the project is developed.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning