July 17, 2006

A Wikipedia by and for Anarchists

Infoshop.org is pleased to announce a series of new initiatives under the OpenWiki project. OpenWiki is an open and collaborative endeavor which works off of the principles of the free software movement and employs the participatory wiki software. We're very hopeful of the way that this project can help us document our resistance, network and inform ourselves in ways which were recently much more difficult for many activists.

As of July 15, 2006 the OpenWiki already boasted 1295 full content
pages with over a thousand more stub and talk pages. The site has
been viewed 440429 times and is quickly gaining more exposure. The
wiki has already been a valuable resource to anarchists. Some of the
most recent examples are the May Day pages which helped people plug
into actions beforehand as well as document the widespread resistance
afterwards. The ability for many different people to quickly update
pages makes this project one which can be a very accurate and living
document that keeps up with the everchanging resistance movements
around the globe.

Another exciting element of this project is the accesibility it offers
anarchists and anti-authoritarians who have little or no web design
experience. The wiki software is very straightforward, making the
creation and editing of pages easy to learn for newcomers. It also
helps decentralize the update process of infoshop.org Now instead of
relying on a few html savvy webmasters, activists from all over the
world can instantly contribute to infoshop.org By making infoshop.org
more participatory, the website can better reflect the values of
anarchism which it promotes.

There are dozens of features and projects already going on within
OpenWiki. Some of the most popular so far are the Anarchohoods- pages
which have contact info for various cities and regions with active
anarchist communities. Others include an Anarchist Encyclopedia,
Anti-War and Peace Resource page, Prison Abolition Page, Infoshop
Translations Project, and an Independent Media Guide. Of course, if
these and the others don't spark your interest you can always create
your own.

The wiki is very interested in adding to the now 343 registered users
and helping this effort continue to grow. We welcome people's
participation on whatever level is possible. For those who are
interested in contributing to the effort on a semi-regular basis a
Steering Committee has been formed to simply help with outreach, help
link and organize sites, collaborate on specific projects and network
with similar efforts. If you are interested in helping on this level
you can go to http://infoshop.org/scripts/feedback.php3

Other simple ways you can help are-
-create a page or improve an existing one
-link us to your website
-promote the site on the web in blogs, listserves, newswires and other mediums
-print off flyers found at infoshop.org/wiki and distribute them (esp.
infoshops and other radical spaces, when you table events, at your
school or workplace)
-word of mouth

OpenWiki
infoshop.org/wiki

http://www.infoshop.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

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