Hi Suzanne & Everyone,<div><br></div><div>The essential thing about Wikipedia style is that they really do want to be an encyclopedia. That does mean that it's not a place to post anything really personal or original. But it doesn't necessarily have to exclude the subjective experience, as long as that experience has been documented somewhere else.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The "evidence" that's needed isn't scientific evidence that Open Space "works" or anything like that; think of it more as documentary evidence about who practices Open Space, how they do so, and notable events in its history. The most appreciated documentary evidence will be in the form of papers in peer-reviewed journals, articles in reliable newspapers, books published by reputable presses, and so forth. Here's a page describing "reliable sources" in detail: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RS">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RS</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>So the first step is to gather together all the available references -- all the articles and books that have been published about Open Space, its history, and how it relates to other meeting styles. That would be the basis for a really solid Wikipedia article.<br>
<div><br></div><div>Cheers,</div><div>Justin (who's only done a very tiny bit of Wikipedia editing)</div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 2:18 PM, Suzanne Daigle <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sdaigle4@comcast.net">sdaigle4@comcast.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black">What a day! Lisa, Arthur, Shufang…amazing the places
this has been taking us in the on-going world-wide conversation about oslist
and ning. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black">On another matter, Michael Herman today appealed to us for help on
what he called “tremendous editing” work required on the
Wikipedia Open Space description. I went to the Wiki website to see what was
there. I cringed when I saw the alerts at the top of the page: “reads
like an advertisement”; “blatant advertising” could lead to “speedy
deletion”; “insufficient context”; “missing citations
and footnotes” and requires “clean-up to meet Wikipedia standards”.
I then started to dig deeper through pages and pages to understand the Wikipedia
standards, guidelines and criteria. Part of me felt that if I was to help
on this (along with other OS folks hopefully?), I’d have to
write and conform to a structure of “predictability”, “control”,
“data”, “verifiability” and “neutral point of
view” that could miss the point of what Open Space is all about. The Wikipedia
focus seems to be much more on the objective than the subjective. Out of
curiosity, I checked other modalities like Appreciative Inquiry and Future
Search and saw some of the same alert messages there too. I then went to Lean
Manufacturing, and Six Sigma – no alerts! Interesting.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black">Somehow it felt that if I was tackling this (with others?), it
would be like describing Chinese medicine on the basis of evidence-based
Western medicine? I now understand what Michael said when he talked about the “tremendous”
editing not because what’s there was poorly done but because of their rigorous
(and limiting?) criteria. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black">Or… perhaps there’s another way of looking at it.
Maybe the time has come for a group of folks out there to take up the <b><i>mainstream</i></b>
Wikipedia challenge to further document this experiential “experiment”
that Harrison challenges us on in his latest book, Wave Rider. Who knows where
it could lead? Perhaps this documentation already exists and we could
draw from it? It appears there would be lots of “evidence” from the
nearly 25 years, in 140+ countries, in (hundreds of thousands?) or (thousands
and thousands?) of situations, stories, learnings, etc. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black">With some trepidation, I’m putting this out there to the OS universe.
Certainly with my still limited experience in Open Space, don’t think this
could be a solo initiative on my part. That being said, as we typically do in
Open Space, I’d like to post a topic “Wikipedia and Open Space”.
Anyone want to join? Maybe we’ll set up a room on the new Ning.
My interest is that I feel we are at a tipping point in the world with Open
Space based on the multiple system breakdowns everywhere. Lots of
opportunity for transformation and making a meaningful difference. Anyone
want to join? Suzanne</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:silver">Suzanne Daigle</span><i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:silver"></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:silver">Managing Partner, US Operations</span><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black"></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:silver">Tel: 941-359-8877</span><i><span style="color:black"></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span lang="FR" style="font-size:8.0pt;color:#FF9900"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;color:#FF9900"><a href="mailto:sdaigle4@comcast.net" title="mailto:sdaigle4@comcast.net" target="_blank">sdaigle4@comcast.net</a></span></span></u></p>
</div></div></blockquote></div></div></div>
*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist@listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist