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.
Since I spearheaded this project and I'm graduating, I feel a responsibility to make my thoughts about its future 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 ultimate goal at this point should be to achieve greater participation, 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 relied upon for information.
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
- making the site 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, hence the first section. But if we need to make people aware of that utility for them to want to use it.
I think there are some low hanging fruit that we can take. If you put resources and projects here, share them! Notify groups you're connected to so they can ensure the information on their page is correct. Once people are back on campus, distribute posters and QR codes around campus. With a campus of roughly 3000 people, we can spread the word fast.
After much trial and error talking to people about this project, I've developed a rough elevator pitch. Feel free to take it and adapt it if you wish:
The goal of VassarWiki is to harness the wisdom of the crowd for collecting and organizing community information. A website where any community member can easily contribute information (a wiki) will make our information infrastructure more democratic, efficient, and persistent beyond the four-year student turnover cycle. We all have unique knowledge to share, and it shouldn't stay trapped in our heads or disappear after we graduate/retire. There are many reasons to help, like to advertise what you're doing on campus, memorialize your time here, or raise social/historical consciousness.
Since I'm now a graduate, I can't promote the wiki on campus. But I am able to promote it online and in a better position to facilitate alumni contributions. Because I envision the wiki to be a way for institutional knowledge to be shared across generations, 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 that 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. And 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. Anyway, enjoy your summers!