Loomio
Fri 30 Apr 2021 6:17PM

Knowledge Base + Collaborative Notes

AW Atrian Wagner Public Seen by 28

A lot of ideas have been discussed across a broad spectrum of intersecting topics, including product ideas, incorporation and logistics, values, ops, resources, and more. Due to the nature of where we are discussing these ideas, it is difficult to keep track of all of this data for someone wanting to catch up after the fact or learn about what we are doing.

It is in our best interest to maintain some sort of knowledge base that allows us to keep collaborative notes of all of this data, both for people wanting to join us later on and for existing members to info recall what has been brought up without having to read through tons of chat logs.

In this thread, I would like us to:

  • discuss our needs

  • gather suggestions for systems we can implement

  • compare those systems to see which best suits our needs.

AW

Poll Created Fri 30 Apr 2021 6:24PM

Knowledge Base Needs Closed Mon 3 May 2021 7:03PM

First lets talk about our needs with this knowledge base.

Here are the pieces that stand out to me:

  • a way to gather information that is easy to reference

  • has a way to track who makes changes

  • collaborative, ie multiple people can submit and work on changes

  • has a way to view as docs for people who want to read and not edit

  • permalinks, not based on page title

  • bonus: allows us to make at least some docs public, ie a place we can point people to who are interested in learning about what we're doing with the co-op

Please feel free to add to this or make suggestions as to adjusting it.

Results

Results Option % of points Voters
Agree 85.7% 6 JG WH KM W R AW
Abstain 14.3% 1 JA
Disagree 0.0% 0  
Block 0.0% 0  
Undecided 0% 29 ZS J AN JB KG AO JK TE SL US LS JB RS A M N CE P LE CM

7 of 36 people have voted (19%)

WH

Woozalia Hypertwin
Agree
Fri 30 Apr 2021 6:24PM

These are all on my wish-list for a collaborative platform; we will probably have to settle for something that hits most but not all of them. MediaWiki will do all but the last 2 easily, and the other two with a little more work. (it's easy to create redirect pages if you want alias URLs, and it's not super-difficult to set up a wiki that is private by default but which has one or more public areas.)

JA

Justin Abrahms
Abstain
Fri 30 Apr 2021 6:24PM

I think we also probably want to have clarity on who should edit? People who understand git? Anyone w/ a web client?

A

AIDA Fri 30 Apr 2021 6:28PM

Something I feel is critical is permalinks aside from the page title. Docs get moved around a lot and renamed. Relative links don't work that well there for bookmarks and referencing in code.

AW

Atrian Wagner Fri 30 Apr 2021 6:37PM

Thanks, that is a great point, and I added it to the proposal for needs.

JB

Jamie Bliss Sun 2 May 2021 3:35AM

Alternatively, software that tracks moves.

eg, MediaWiki does not support permalinks, but it does leave redirects when pages are moved.

AW

Poll Created Fri 30 Apr 2021 6:30PM

Knowledge Base Systems Closed Mon 3 May 2021 7:03PM

This second proposal is about gathering suggestions for Knowledge Base Systems that fulfill the needs outlined in the first proposal.

Suggestions so far:

  • notion (suggested by sean)

  • wiki (sugggested by jakimfett) with mediawiki being a more specific suggestion

  • MS365 (suggested by kat)

  • Nextcloud (suggested by woozle)

Results

Results Option % of points Voters
Agree 100.0% 4 JG KM AW J
Abstain 0.0% 0  
Disagree 0.0% 0  
Block 0.0% 0  
Undecided 0% 0  

4 of 4 people have voted (100%)

JG

Jen Garcia
Agree
Sat 1 May 2021 12:47PM

It's kinda old-fashioned but MediaWiki has served this purpose at other orgs I've worked with

KM

Kat Marchán (they/she) Sat 1 May 2021 5:49PM

Having something that lets us write Markdown would be AMAZING. Is there a MediaWiki plugin to do that? Also, are you able to have certain parts of a MediaWiki closed off to the public as-needed, or does everything need to be public?

WH

Woozalia Hypertwin Sat 1 May 2021 6:45PM

There is indeed a Markdown mode; I haven't used it, as the native markup is easier for me, but there are at least two extensions (that I could find) to enable it, and one of them lets you set which mode is the default and override that on a page-by-page basis. There's also now a WYSIWYG editor, though I've found it can't always initialize properly on some installs.

You can indeed make certain areas of a private MW install public -- I've done this a couple of times.
(public areas: anyone can view, but only authorized users can edit; private areas: only authorized users can view and/or edit, and those rights can be designated separately)

AW

Atrian Wagner Sat 1 May 2021 9:03PM

This sounds fantastic! I am definitely on board with trying out Mediawiki.