User:EdwardNWM/On VassarWiki's Future
I want to begin this open letter by thanking all of you who have contributed to VassarWiki so far! I know it's not a small request to ask you to dedicate your time amidst the busiest time of the year. At the end of the day, the project doesn't exist without you.
I feel a responsibility to make my thoughts about the future of this project transparent, hence writing this open letter. I believe this next time period is really critical for the success of this project. So I would really appreciate your help!
I think our main goal at this point should be to achieve greater adoption, which means getting both more contributors and more readers. Using the language of the technology adoption lifecycle, we are very much in the first stage of "innovators". Our challenge is to cross the "chasm" to get early adopters. This can only come by:
1. Making VassarWiki truly valuable
Don't get me wrong, I think the project is in a really promising state right now! But VassarWiki is still in its infancy, so it still has a lot of gaps. While there will never come a point where VassarWiki is "complete", there is a critical albeit fuzzy threshold where the wiki can be reliably relied upon.
Reaching this point means doing a few things: creating pages for more significant subjects, expanding existing pages to be comprehensive, refining pages to be presentable, and making the site easily navigable. Since it's summer and the campus is much less active, we are able to do this work at a leisurely pace.
2. Properly articulating VassarWiki's utility
Of course, this requires VassarWiki to have utility in the first place, hence the first section. But we still need to promote it, and I think we have some low hanging fruit. Reach out to groups you're associated with or are proximate to, place posters or QR codes around campus (once folks are back on campus), and share the resources and projects you put here!
After much trial and error, I've developed an elevator pitch, and feel free to take it and adapt it:
VassarWiki is a project to crowdsource the collection and organization of information about Vassar College. This will make the college's information ecosystem more efficient, democratic, and cross-generational. Everyone has something unique to contribute, and a unique reason to do it—to advertise your group, consciousness-raise, or memorialize your time here.
Since I'm now a graduate, I can't easily promote the wiki on campus, but I am more able to facilitate alumni contributions. I envision the wiki to be a way for institutional knowledge to be shared across student turnover, so bringing in alumni is a massive part of the project's success. At the same time, while I think the wiki should be open to the community at large, it should still center the people most enmeshed in the community (namely, students). So I'm going to set alumni contributions as something to work towards once we get significant on-campus buy-in.
3. Lowering barriers to entry
I've tried my best to make the editing process as easy as possible through refining a number of project pages. If you work though any kind of difficulty in contributing, consider making or editing a project page so it's easier for others! And if you have any suggestions on how the editing process can be improved, please reach out.
If you're asking someone to contribute, give them a specific ask and do some of the work first. For example, I'm making a page on the 2024 SJP encampment, so SJP members/alums (and others) can provide testimonials and any archives they have. To make it easy, I'll first make a shell of the page and provide some information of my own.
Some final notes
Even though I'm an alum now, I'm still dedicated to this project. And despite being in this weird middle-ground spot, I'm actually really hopeful about it. I hope you are too.
Also, I'd like to ensure that VassarWiki has true shared governance. If you've been involved thus far, consider being an administrator. If you or your group is interested in sharing the ownership of the servers, let me know. I really don't want to be a dictator guys.
If you have any concerns or suggestions, provide them. Enjoy your summers!