[Gregory Bloom]

Hrm. In reading up, I think I understand now that BuddyPress Docs is essentially turning wordpress pages into a wiki. LocalWiki is in Python, so a LocalWiki plugin would only be able to enable the LocalWiki API to talk to CBOX i guess. Still wrapping my head around this…

[Gregory Bloom]

I was just re-reading over this thread and noticed that my last post (Jan 3rd) i said GPS instead of GIS — whoops! Still learning my way around this stuff.

But yes, as I mentioned before: CBOX is very promising technology for local community organizing as well as an academic setting… and combined with the specialized GIS capabilities of the LocalWiki platform (so that each page can be associated with a point on a map, and the maps can be browsed), it would be just incredible. Is that possible, given the LocalWiki API? Would we need to develop a special LocalWiki WordPress plugin?

[Gregory Bloom]

Awesome! I will read through these over the weekend. And I figure I’ll be back here with more questions/thoughts soon enough…

[Gregory Bloom]

Hrm. I haven’t yet used either software for any extended period of time. But I think (in addition to the ability to develop structured templates as Giles mentioned above) some of the key features of LocalWiki (at least for a local digital commons project) is its robust tagging features and also its GPS capabilities. See some more description here.

I appreciate the quick response! And if we feel like CBOX could accomplish our objective (to develop a robust and very accessible local wiki) then we still have time to consider it.

[Gregory Bloom]

Hi folks, I have a follow-up question on this. I’m working on a ‘local knowledge commons’ project, where the current plan is to use a LocalWiki to collect all kinds of structured and unstructured data about our city (DC). I’ll be working with a diverse network that (hopefully) will form into multiple teams pursuing their own project objectives within the ‘knowledge commons’ frame. (For instance: one team will probably try to create an open database of local social services; another may form to geolocate passages from novels that mention DC-specific places — lots of different possibilities).

One thing I’m concerned about is that the LocalWiki software is nice and easy for contributing content, but not that great for group communication. It’s a ‘knowledge commons’ but not an ‘associative commons,’ if that makes sense. I would want our project to be able to support group-based communication like what we have here in CBOX — so that a group can communicate (internally via forum/listserv features; and externally via blog) about what kinds of knowledge they’re contributing to the wiki while they’re  doing it.

So. It doesn’t seem like the BuddyPress Docs wiki plugin offers us the kinds of functionality that would make for a really robust Local Wiki. (No diss on the  plugin, it looks great – but for simple purposes.) I’m not very technical, but I don’t think that it’s possible to actually integrate the CBOX and LocalWiki technologies in the same site; I’m guessing that, if we want to have CBOX-like functionality for active users of the LocalWiki site, we will need two separate sites that we do our best to integrate via hyperlinks.

But I wanted to check in here with y’all. Any advice, technically for the integration of powerful wikis with this great CBOX group-blogging functionality? Or conceptually for the development of commoning production practices?\

Thanks for any help you can give!

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