Community-Based Wikis

I make no claims to originality. Standing on the toes of giants like Jeff Jarvis, Christopher Locke, Clay Shirky Gerry McGovern and more

I’m not interested in saving newspapers. That time has passed. (Though I do have an idea.)

“ Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.” Clay Shirky Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable March, 2009 Retrieved on Friday, March 4, 2009 from http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

Community-Based Wikis Some communities are showing the way with lifestyle information: rocwiki.org – Rochester, NY arborwiki.org – Ann Arbor, MI torontopedia.ca – Toronto, ON richmondwiki.org – Richmond, VA

Some communities are showing the way with lifestyle information:

rocwiki.org – Rochester, NY

arborwiki.org – Ann Arbor, MI

torontopedia.ca – Toronto, ON

richmondwiki.org – Richmond, VA

People offer information about their neighborhoods and towns. Some offer information about their schools, government and community organizations

Wikis are portals to information with a context.

Wikis crowdsource the editor’s role. The same role the daily budget meeting fulfilled in by-gone days.

When most city council meetings are available via RSS and recordings are posted to the city’s Web sites,… … a wiki needs only to aggregate the feeds and provide the public with the opportunity to comment?

It’s happening Rochester City Council meetings: http://www.cityofrochester.gov/app.aspx?id=8589936469 Rochester’s press releases: http://www.cityofrochester.gov/news.aspx The mayor of my small community of Bexley, Ohio has an RSS feed. An more feeds from the city are likely.

Rochester City Council meetings:

http://www.cityofrochester.gov/app.aspx?id=8589936469

Rochester’s press releases:

http://www.cityofrochester.gov/news.aspx

A community can fulfill our daily local informational needs. Those needs that were most valuable to advertisers.

Where does that leave the fourth estate? What about investigative reporting?

I don’t know.

Where does that leave the newspaper business? Journalism has always been a way to sell ads. Maybe now newspapers need to focus on their core business.

Thanks! Bob Robertson-Boyd