User blog:MonkeysHK/Memo: An Incremental Approach To Structuring Write-ups

This is my description on the practice of creating write-ups for operation.

The three principles of write-ups are decentralization of ideas, democratization of ideas, and formality of ideas.

Organizing for a wiki can require various standards that are better set clear than loose, better written than by spread of words. There has not been enough practice of writing standards out (editing, management standards), or modelling before putting designs into practice. The daunting task of placing a whole scheme of standards into words, in parts practical but together not so, places the current operation at a loss of many potential great write-ups that has not existed for the lack of motivation.

My recommendation is to create write-ups (in the form of, for example, protocols, guidelines or standards) in blogs that can be passed around. Writing in blogs can be a better way to express ideas, always modular, in a personal basis, and organized for permanency (unless deleted). One shall be compelled to a write up without the fear of lengthiness or that of being out-of-place (not knowing where it should belong).

Such a write-up should be transparent, public, and publicly readable, meaning everyone can read and discuss about it, facilitating effective communication and community vetting. Such a write-up is meant to be incremental and adaptive to future situations.

In a wiki collective embracing independent goals of individuals, I recommend institutionalization to be optional, minimal, and thoroughly consensual. When beneficial, write-ups can be compiled into a more complete documentation, forming part of the statutory documents (policy page, information page). An example is to set handful of standards through multiple blogs, then compiling into a full editing guide.