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===Difficulties===
===Difficulties===
''Problems you had to face, what did not work and why, what others should be careful about and learn from''
''Problems you had to face, what did not work and why, what others should be careful about and learn from''
For each individual scoutwiki's, two main problems are experienced:
#. Attracting people to help with the project. The sowing phase mentioned earlier is very important to keep the wiki going. When it looks to a newcomer like contributing is not useful because nobody will ever read his information, nobody will be attracted to help. The person who starts a new scoutwiki can deal with this problem by staying closely involved with the project, instead of expecting that someone else will fill in all information. The person who has started the wiki, can take a step back from the moment that other people start being involved with the wiki as well.
#. Other large scouting websites and communities on the internet, for example the scouting section on en.wikipedia.org. People might wonder wheather yet another knowledge databank on the internet is necessary, while there is already a lot of material like this. Potential contributors have to learn that the scoutwiki's have all the advantages of a wiki: everyone can contribute directly to this databank, and furthermore, it is not just a place for encyclopedic facts, but for much more. 
For the international scoutwiki, the biggest problem is the fact that there is currently no English version to glue the other scoutwiki's together. As on wikipedia, articles in various languages are linked to each other, so that people can get more information from other languages if they need to. Due to the fact that Finnish people can't read Dutch and vice versa, an English version would be great as an intermediate.


===Photos and other examples describing the project===
===Photos and other examples describing the project===

Revision as of 13:03, 4 December 2006

The international ScoutWiki community has been asked to produce a report about ScoutWiki and the different related national scouting wikis, to be used in the WOSM. This work has to be achieved quickly, and we ask you to consider it as of first importance. From this report depends how the WOSM will consider ScoutWiki Network.

We are working on an English version, which will be translated in French (English and French are the official WOSM languages), and eventually in other languages. For a start, here is the structure the report will have. Note that it should not be too long, one page would be a good deal. So please try to be concise, and to go to the essential.

Structure

Background of the promising practise

How it all started, in what conditions, how did you come up with the idea, what was your motivation, starting questions. Great ideas are usually invented independently in different places simultaneously. ScoutWiki project started with different local initiatives: Scoutopedia in France, PartioWiki in Finland, Scoutpedia in the Netherlands, PfadiWiki in Switzerland and WikiRoca for Spanish speaking countries. The idea was (and still is) to create a free knowledge base, on which everyone could contribute, to share our scouting practise and experience on past, present and future. When we realised there were similar projects in different countries, we decided to unify them, to create a unique project: ScoutWiki available at http://www.scoutwiki.org A ScoutWiki is a Wiki about and for those who practise scouting.

People and methods involved

Who was involved in the project, how many people, what methods did you use (teams, presentations, weekends, etc...) There is over 1000 user accounts created in all local wikies all together (PartioWiki 500+, WikiRoca 200+, Scoutopedia 100+, Pfadiwiki 100+, Scoutpedia ~100) and some user accounts have maybe made just one little change, but there are hundreds active people who contribute their projects regulary. PartioWiki: The main methods are own IRC-channel, where is ~20 active users online to talk about improving PartioWiki or to help random users seeking help. We have kept two "Weekend of wikifying", when we try to contribute PartioWiki as much as possible. One was same time than JOTA. And we have kept one "Workcamp", with few peoples with their computers. It's more fun to contribute, when you do it together. Scoutpedia.nl: The scoutpedia was initiated by two friends from the same scout group. They did not want to promote the project extensively unless it had grown somewhat larger, but due to promotion on Dutch language wikipedia, as well as on a few Dutch scouting communities, supported by a high google ranking, the scoutpedia gained about 20 active users of all ages over time. The structure and way of discussion is merely based on how it is done on wikipedia, due to the fact that half of the active users is also present there.

The process

Sequence of steps, describing what you did and when Each scoutwiki was created as an initiative of individual scouts, exploring the possibilities of the wiki-system for scouting purposes.

The development of a scoutwiki follows more or less the way of development of other wiki's on the web, after the wiki is created:

  1. . The sowing phase: One or two people are keeping the system running: the aim is keeping the wiki alive by contributing at least every few days, building an architecture for structuring all articles, and welcoming newcomers and passers by, hoping that they will return
  2. . The germinating phase: The project succeeded in catching a few people. The amount of cooperating people is still low, but unlike the sowing phase, the project won't stop when one person quits contribution. The amount of articles increases slowly
  3. . Young shoot phase: Many people are contributing. The amount of new articles and edits in existing ones is high. The project is already quite useful as knowledge bank.
  4. . Fully-grown phase: On almost each subject an article can be found. The creation of really new articles is quite rare. The edits are mostly in the field of deepening and reformulating existing articles. The wiki has several hundreds of regular contributors.

The existing scoutwiki's are currently all in the sowing or germinating phase.


This development structure is strongly based on Evolution of a Wikipedia (2004, in Dutch) on meta.wikimedia.org

The outcomes

What were the results, what changed There has ever been more than 4000 articles written on the whole ScoutWiki network, in different languages, and it is just the begining ! As we use a wiki system (like on Wikipedia), every one is able to improve each article content, or to create an article.


Difficulties

Problems you had to face, what did not work and why, what others should be careful about and learn from For each individual scoutwiki's, two main problems are experienced:

  1. . Attracting people to help with the project. The sowing phase mentioned earlier is very important to keep the wiki going. When it looks to a newcomer like contributing is not useful because nobody will ever read his information, nobody will be attracted to help. The person who starts a new scoutwiki can deal with this problem by staying closely involved with the project, instead of expecting that someone else will fill in all information. The person who has started the wiki, can take a step back from the moment that other people start being involved with the wiki as well.
  2. . Other large scouting websites and communities on the internet, for example the scouting section on en.wikipedia.org. People might wonder wheather yet another knowledge databank on the internet is necessary, while there is already a lot of material like this. Potential contributors have to learn that the scoutwiki's have all the advantages of a wiki: everyone can contribute directly to this databank, and furthermore, it is not just a place for encyclopedic facts, but for much more.

For the international scoutwiki, the biggest problem is the fact that there is currently no English version to glue the other scoutwiki's together. As on wikipedia, articles in various languages are linked to each other, so that people can get more information from other languages if they need to. Due to the fact that Finnish people can't read Dutch and vice versa, an English version would be great as an intermediate.

Photos and other examples describing the project