The Wiki

A meta guide on using this very wiki

What’s it for?

The bookstack is a wiki, and by that we mean it’s a repository of knowledge accessed by LSH’s website. The design and structure of it has been provided by an app, a copy of which has been downloaded to our own server and is therefore private within the bounds of the strength of our server’s digital security and the settings we give it. Essentially, it’s ours and ours alone and no one is getting in that we don’t allow. Much of it will be public on the site because that will be in LSH’s favour, mainly for recruitment and information sharing, but parts like admin and personal profiles will be member only content.

We need this sort of thing for many reasons, it’s very typical of hackspaces to have some kind of wiki. This is because it makes the information more accessible for everyone, especially newer or shyer people. Instead of the information being kept in one particularly clever person’s head, it’s on a web page that you can go read without having to wait for anyone to be available to get your answer. It also means that no information about LSH evaporates when members move on and no one is obligated to be continually available to provide it. Knowledge that exists in many people’s minds is more powerful, after all.

You might seek out the bookstack for many reasons, such as learning LSH’s rules and guidelines, arranging inductions, finding instructions on how to use equipment, finding tutorials/specs/patterns for projects, or reading meeting minutes.

You might add information to the bookstack, like inventory lists, equipment instructions, tutorials/specs/patterns, and something about yourself on your personal profile.

Before you proceed

A knowledge repository is a good thing, and should remain as community owned and operated as LSH is, but that does come with some responsibilities. This book outlines the Etiquette, Best Practices, Structure, and Roles involved in the bookstack, please give it a good read before participating.

Etiquette

The etiquette we ask for in the bookstack is about what behaviours will make the best of it. It revolves around 5 key principles: 

  1. Be bold,
  2. intellectual property isn’t a thing,
  3. prove it,
  4. don’t be a problem,
  5. and don’t break the bookstack.

1) Be Bold

Stated very broadly, this is the idea that it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. Don’t be precious about upsetting people or making “bad” content. More is the ask: more content, more collaborating, more involvement. Write the way you write, don’t worry about how “nice it is. You can always ask someone to look at it after you’ve gotten the important stuff down, but if you don’t do it assume no one else will. Err on the side of adding to the bookstack rather than leaving it alone.

Best reasons to BE BOLD:

There are some caveats to being bold, which you’ll find under Don’t be a D— and Don’t break the bookstack.

2) There is no intellectual property in a knowledge repository

Unfortunately, individuals claiming dominion over sections of content is not healthy for a knowledge repository, especially one belonging to a community organisation such as LSH. As mentioned above, the bookstack needs to grow to be healthy and intellectual property stifles that.

Welcome others editing content you write and don’t sign your name to anything. The bookstack records who made changes to a page and has that covered if it’s important. Everyone has something valuable to contribute to our knowledge repository.

3) Prove it

This principle is mostly about being wary of misleading anyone who might not know any better. In circumstances like LSH, it may sometimes be impossible to back up your statements, but do try to avoid including including any information that doesn’t come with some kind of supporting source or framing opinions as fact.

Because the bookstack is essentially anonymously written, most readers will not realise who has written certain content, and as a page ages, the authorship becomes muddled. Don’t expect anyone to know that you wrote it. Don’t even expect anyone to know who you are or that you’re actually an expert on the topic.

As with knowledge repositories, the information becomes reasonably reliable because many people have had influence on it and because it includes sources.

4) Don’t be a problem

This one is mostly about respect, which is a thing you continually demonstrate by doing things that make others feel like you appreciate them and what they do. But how you make people feel this way isn’t always obvious, particularly in the context of a knowledge repository. So here are some ways to not be a problem on the bookstack:

5) Don’t break the bookstack

Luckily, almost everything you can do in the bookstack is reversible, so don’t spend your time being fearful that you might mess things up. “Breaking things,” in this context, typically means that a small change of the wrong thing can temporarily affect the entire site negatively. On the bookstack there are two things it’s possible to edit that will “break” the site: templates and shelves. Avoid editing either of these without explicit authorisation and you’re golden. These are largely the territory of admins (a bookstack specific volunteer role) or the original authors.

Best Practices