CAPWiki

[Nathan]

Alright, I searched and found a thread about a CAP wiki project from a couple of years ago. I looked it up on Google and found the site, http://capwiki.net, but it looked hax0red to death (no offense to the creator).

And with the CS wiki having permanent coding problems preventing the creation of new pages and making searching difficult (once again, no offense), I thought I might try my hand at it. The idea of a CAP wiki seems way too good to pass up. Here's the link to my site, under testing:

http://capwiki.wikidot.com/start

To be fair, I'll probably change the name at some point, as I started working on it before I found the other CAP wiki, and don't want to steal the name if it's still being actively used.

Anywho, as I said, it's still in testing mainly because I don't want to "launch" it until I'm sure I'm not going to get sued by CAP for some reason. Although I'm not asking for "official legal advice", what do I need to avoid putting as part of the website? Logo... claiming an official endorsement... and?

Let me know your thoughts.

[flyerthom]

The original one is just spammed into nothingness. I would suggest delaying launch until you can place one of those type in the funky characters below to post things to prevent auto posts and bots. Or require someway of verifying to post like CAP ID so those who have malevolent intentions can be intercepted.

Your work is very good. Please protect it.

[MIKE]

Meh... I hated having to go back and fix stuff that some schmuck had decided to edit and add stuff that was just plain wrong.  And most of my activity was reverting pages that got spammed.

Like to see some sort of process for vetting edits to avoid this sort of thing... but then again, the CS wiki didn't seem to really take off even when it worked.

[Major Carrales]

Meh... I hated having to go back and fix stuff that some schmuck had decided to edit and add stuff that was just plain wrong.  And most of my activity was reverting pages that got spammed.

Like to see some sort of process for vetting edits to avoid this sort of thing... but then again, the CS wiki didn't seem to really take off even when it worked.

OK, the idea of a WIKI is pretty cool in that one can harness lots of info from various people, but as you point out there is the potential for shenanigans.  Is there no way we can create a CAP encyclopedia that is useful and free of such mischief?

I imagine that it would take a dedicated corps of folks the likes of which exist here.  Also, it would provide a real place for you "go look it up" people to send newbies to address their questions.

Ah yes, I can see it now...someone can start a CPTALk thread on a subject, the that someone could compile all the useful discussion into an annotated alamanac to accompany the regs.  In fact, the orgaization of the regs could be the templete for the encyclopedia, thus remaining true to canon and the letter of the CAP law.

Any takers?

[Eclipse]

Most of what a wiki would provide already exists in the "wiki" that is Google - all the regs and docs are already indexed, and we also already have the KB which provides authoritative answers.

Not sure what else you'd put in there - if its not in the regs, its opinion, even if "most" people do it that way, whether its drill, uniforms, or activities.

[Major Carrales]

Most of what a wiki would provide already exists in the "wiki" that is Google - all the regs and docs are already indexed, and we also already have the KB which provides authoritative answers.

Not sure what else you'd put in there - if its not in the regs, its opinion, even if "most" people do it that way, whether its drill, uniforms, or activities.

Don't be ridiculous, Cousin, there are plenty of unwritten things that are in practice that you people do that are clearly found in no regulation.

[Nathan]

The original one is just spammed into nothingness. I would suggest delaying launch until you can place one of those type in the funky characters below to post things to prevent auto posts and bots. Or require someway of verifying to post like CAP ID so those who have malevolent intentions can be intercepted.

Working on it. There is a way I can set it up so that those who decide to join must send in an "application." I would probably just make them say that they are, in fact, human. It's something that I'm considering right now, but the fact that you have to join as a Wikidot member to begin with in order to even join as a member of CAPWiki should hopefully prevent most of the spam from coming through.

There's also an abuse button, and, seeing what happened to the CS Wiki and forums when we let idiots run around, I'm not so wary of banning people pretty quickly if I see them screwing up the wiki...

Meh... I hated having to go back and fix stuff that some schmuck had decided to edit and add stuff that was just plain wrong.  And most of my activity was reverting pages that got spammed.

Like to see some sort of process for vetting edits to avoid this sort of thing...

Easy as pie. On the bottom of the page, users can see the history of the page that they are viewing. They can see the last ten revisions or so, and even compare any two of those revisions in a sample window below with the revisions highlighted. If they choose to, they can also hit a button and revert to any of the previous versions of the page, which in itself counts as a revision and can be reverted from again if need be.

Is there no way we can create a CAP encyclopedia that is useful and free of such mischief?

I imagine that it would take a dedicated corps of folks the likes of which exist here.  Also, it would provide a real place for you "go look it up" people to send newbies to address their questions.

Actually, the wiki can go a long way towards this goal. While it is true that NORMALLY users can edit any content, it's also true that moderators and admins will have the capablity of locking a page once we, or even better the community, decides that the page is as complete as it needs to be. Once the page is locked, then, if anyone wants to add more things in or take things out, they can either put it in the discussion page of the thread and have the staff add it in, or they can request that the topic be unlocked for further revision. I can even put a page rating system up that allows the community to rate pages in terms of quality so we'll know when we're getting close to the page being complete.

How's that?

[Eclipse]

Most of what a wiki would provide already exists in the "wiki" that is Google - all the regs and docs are already indexed, and we also already have the KB which provides authoritative answers.

Not sure what else you'd put in there - if its not in the regs, its opinion, even if "most" people do it that way, whether its drill, uniforms, or activities.

Don't be ridiculous, Cousin, there are plenty of unwritten things that are in practice that you people do that are clearly found in no regulation.

There's a ton, but they don't belong in something even pseudo-authoritative for the very reason that they are a subjective opinion, not necessarily supported by the regs.

The reason the Wiki project didn't' get much on-going support on CS (database errors notwithstanding), is that like the CAC, its an answer to a question no one's asking.

I use Wikipedia 10 times a day because there isn't another source of the same aggregate of information on "anything" like it in the world.  However there already is just such an aggregate already in the Knowledgebase, and that is an authoritative answer (certainly more authoritative than an unofficial Wiki would be).

By design, all its going to contain is quotes from regulations (which become potentially invalid when the reg is updated), links to regulations (so why not go to the source?) and opinion-based articles on subjective topics (and we already have CS and CT for that).

More power to you if you can make it work, but I can't see the need or where the effort will come from.

[swamprat86]

Some of us at our wing are looking at a wing-level wiki for things such as continuity books for major wing activites like encampments.  Another possiblity is to use it as a central record for historical information about our local units.  We haven't had a formal discussion but the idea was brought up.

[IceNine]

That could be a very neat idea, using the wiki for historical purposes.  All too often CAP's history lives on in boxes or photo albums that are locked in offices.

I would love to see some of the history at the local levels

[Nathan]

Some of us at our wing are looking at a wing-level wiki for things such as continuity books for major wing activites like encampments.  Another possiblity is to use it as a central record for historical information about our local units.  We haven't had a formal discussion but the idea was brought up.

There's no reason why a national-level wiki can't be used for this purpose. I don't think anyone would have a problem with you creating a page about your squadron and its history, or with using the pages for encampment after action reports or the like. It says that on my homepage.

[Rangercap]

Your new site this will cover what else beyond the existing wiki... just wondering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Air_Patrol

Nice looking page, BTW.

Brian
PAWG

[Nathan]

Your new site this will cover what else beyond the existing wiki... just wondering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Air_Patrol

Nice looking page, BTW.

Brian
PAWG

Well, while the Wikipedia page for CAP is designed to let people on the outside know what CAP is, CAPWiki would exist to serve CAP members with more detailed information pertaining to THEM, not necessarily just to the outside. So there could be information on specific CAP activities, class outlines, different aspects of emergency services, and other sorts of things that would likely be deleted off of Wikipedia for not serving to the interest of enough people.

[Nathan]

Just to answer an earlier question about the security of CAPWiki against spam...

In order to be a member of any wiki hosted by Wikidot (such as CAPWiki), you must first sign up as a member of Wikidot. Luckily, this is actually good for us, because Wikidot has all of the anti-spam protections during the creation of a Wikidot account, including the little text-picture thing. And so far, I haven't gotten a single email from Wikidot that I didn't ask for, so I'm assuming that Wikidot doesn't sell your email or anything.

That should keep us pretty well protected against spam and bots. As for malicious users, there's no way I can really prevent them from entering. Even if I had their CAPID's, I wouldn't be able to know who they are or what their reputation is. Plus, I don't necessarily want to close off our pages to non-CAP members; I'm sure there are many former CAP members that can contribute to the pages dealing with CAP history and so on. The only protection I can reasonably offer against malicious users would be the "report abuse" button and my short temper with people who are trying to mess up something I've worked hard on.

[Eclipse]

In order to be a member of any wiki hosted by Wikidot (such as CAPWiki), you must first sign up as a member of Wikidot. Luckily, this is actually good for us, because Wikidot has all of the anti-spam protections during the creation of a Wikidot account, including the little text-picture thing.

Those are called "CAPTCHAs", and their effectiveness has been increasingly diminished as better
software breaks the image, or people in 3rd world countries are paid to decode them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capcha

And so far, I haven't gotten a single email from Wikidot that I didn't ask for, so I'm assuming that Wikidot doesn't sell your email or anything.

Rather than assuming, what does their privacy policy say?

[Nathan]

Those are called "CAPTCHAs", and their effectiveness has been increasingly diminished as better
software breaks the image, or people in 3rd world countries are paid to decode them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capcha

Okay, so there's no hope for keeping out spam then, right? If that's the case... well, nothing really changes unless I want to sift through everyone who wants to join the Wiki and decide whether or not they are a real person.

As soon as I start having spam problems, I can take care of it. So far, no problems at all, and their community forums haven't noted any spam problems that I could find through a search.

Rather than assuming, what does their privacy policy say?

Your email address is only revealed to the Users in your contact list. You shall be warned about it at the moment you add a User to your contact list.

Email address may be used to send Wikidot Newsletter or other important Services information or updates and to notify User about events related to particular user account. The User can decide not to receive any emailed information from the Services by configuring the Account Settings.

Email addresses are not shared with any third party, rent or sold.

[Dutchboy]

I don't know if it is aloud or not. Or if it is even possible for the average user to look up a current member  by their CAPID # in the member search with in E-services. I know it won't say much about them , but I wonder if it will at least verify they are a member.  Just a thought.

[JoeTomasone]

You cannot look up a member in Member Search that is outside your scope (your unit, Group, Wing, or Region).

Further, there are a number of public web sites that I found with a quick Google search that have Personnel Authorizations that include CAPIDs, so fakes would be hard to prevent.

[Nathan]

Like I said, it would be easier just to let anyone join. I don't have much of a problem with former or non-CAP members joining up so long as they aren't screwing up the pages (in which case they get the banhammer). Come to think of it, I wouldn't treat a member of CAP any differently if they were screwing up the pages.

I have no doubt that there are some non-CAP members, especially in the form of former members, that can contribute in some way to CAPWiki. As soon as some activity starts showing up, I'll put out a moderator or two to watch the progress and we'll take care of any problems that come up personally.

[Eclipse]

Having non-members or anonymous posters involved, for the most part, would preclude my participation and support.

I have no idea why this phenomenon of "I'm not a member, but want to participate.", exists, but its pretty silly if you ask me.

If you're not a member, find something else to do with your time then being "involved" with CAP.

"Retired" is not the same as "quit, fired, or never joined". Seasoned former members who retired officially from CAP could certainly contribute, especially regarding historical information. 

As to validation, commanders can easily look up anyone through various means.  Fully validated, non-anonymous memberships are the only way to prevent spam and insure some quality in the content.

Its not like you're going to get 10K contributors.  If you got 100 members who actually had something to contribute I'd be surprised, anyone else con submit content via email or other means.  This will not be that big a management problem.

Remember, this is not an opinion based situation, so there is no valid reason for anonymity.