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Write a magazine article collaboratively about RecentChangesCamp (feel free to write in complete sentences or outline form, and to change other people's outline form into complete sentences, or re-work anything here)
Well, if we explained to you that it was a webpage that anyone could easily edit, add content and create new pages, that wouldn't probably mean anything to you, would it. But if we told you that it brought together over 100 social activists, technologists and technolical social activists, that might matter. Oh, and the group was facilitated in an OpenSpace fashion, just to confuse you further.
Really it is simply understanding that we are all creative, intelligent people who what to create and facilitate change. That is the WikiEthos?. That is OpenSpace. That is SelfOrganization?. That is what RecentChangesCamp was about.
But really, what is wiki? What is open space? What is an open space meeting about wiki? Too many whats.
In the beginning there was collaboration on Old English Dictionary, then WardCunningham wrote the first wiki.
Over the course of the last decade since, the urge to facilite more collaboration and collaborative process has quickened its pace with the internet. This is concretely shown by the successions of FOO Camps eliminating "regular joe" kind of techies through expert model thinking. BAR Camp was invented to create a low cost way to gather. RecentChangesCamp was intended to be that kind of event.
Individually, the co-convenors come from a variety of backgrounds:
source code: CampProceedings
The Glass Plate Game - this was important because it challenged the way I thought about games.
SisterSites?, an important way to link up wiki.
WikiPractices, now the second conference to have a session on them, first was WikiSym
WikiIndex got a bit of exposure.
"Open Space" Conference Draws Technologists, Social Activists and Social Activist Technologists.
Community-Building Using Wikis and other Online Tools
Feb. 5, 2006 - A conference to advance the technology of wikis and other community-building tools provided the perfect setting for advancing the evolution of creative and collaboration styles that embody the world of wikis.
The first RecentChangesCamp (RCC), held in Portland, Oregon was facilitated in OpenSpaceTechnology style. That means, when the over 100 participants arrived on Friday for the three day event, no schedule, no agenda, and no speakers were on any program. Instead, attendees proposed dozens of topics for small group discussions by announcing and then posting on a wall their proposed sessions, with an attached stickie indicating a place and time. Social activists and software engineers co-mingled in front of the wall searching for the sessions that would fulfill their potential and desires as a participant.
WardCunningham, inventor of wiki, likened this conference style to the wiki itself. "It assumes people are creative, and if left to their own devices, will in fact create in a way that is worth the effort of everyone coming." Wikis are a living sets of easily inter-linked web pages, allowing anyone to edit and change any of their contents.
"The wiki community's embrace of non-techies was really special," In the days following the conference, Ted Ernst, one of the co-conveners of the conference wrote on the Recent Changes Camp wiki: "The non-techies added a lot of heart, which was easy for the techies to embrace. This isn't tech just for tech; it's tech for people, and that makes a huge difference."
EugeneEricKim floated the idea during one of the sessions that he felt there were technical people and less technical people. This fits with Ted's recognition of the heart of the less technical people, who also recognized the heart of what one of the more technological people where explaining, but he couldn't understand some of the ideas being discussed. These two groups were united by the heart they had for change. One of the wiki mantras is: It is not about the technology. It is about the people, the people and the people. (something like that)
Ideas bubbled up during 3-4 daily sessions of up to ten meetings held simultaneously exploring issues as diverse as jobs in Oregon, making wikis comfortable for newcomers, intentional communities, identity online, linking wikis together, creative on- and off-line processes to support new ways of doing business, philanthropy, spirituality and government. Conversations continued intensively over meals and late into the night. New relationships developed, old ones were strengthened, software was written, projects were imagined, initiated and/or substantially moved forward.
Some of the early organizers were concerned about the cost of an event at a nice hotel with full price rooms. Others responded with active outreach to potential sponsors, and ultimately sponsors were found such that the entire event was a gift to participants, including a block of gifted rooms which made it possible for more people to come. Some people also stayed with local residents. The participants have already paid the favor forward with substantial donations toward future such events, and next year's Portland organizer has a goal of a zero-cost event, by getting meeting and residential spaces donated.
In the words of one illustrious guest, "For this, I can say, it was worth being born."
WardCunningham said he looked forward to the world they create. "The ideas are inspiring. It's not just, 'Go buy more stuff and consume it', it's, 'Give back to the world'". Exploring the potential in an interview on camera by GeriWeisCorbley, Ward theorized that we might not know the full outcome of this conference until months or even a year from now.
The O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) is a professional conference where the open source community "gathers and gains momentum". As a professional conference, OSCON comes with a professional price tag that is typical for software industry conferences … $1000 for the convention sessions plus several hundred dollars for each additional tutorial and special event. Counterintuitively, developers on expense accounts can more easily justify travel to a $1000 conference than to a free conference.
Unfortunately, the "professional" price-tag is more than many of the rank-and-file open source hackers can afford. So last year, the rank-and-file from Portland (the conference venue) organized FOSCON which stands for "Free" OSCON and held it off-site at FreeGeek, a local Portland geek hangout. Even though FOSCON lasted for only one evening, it raised the specter of a conference "fork". As the de facto "physical center" of Open Source, Portland is the natural location for an Open Source conference. But, since O'Reilly could almost certainly draw a larger turnout of $1000 attendees if they chose to hold OSCON in a bigger market, the possible development of a competing "free" conference in Portland gave the organizers reason to reevaluate their choice of venue.
OSCAMP was conceived of at RecentChangesCamp as a grassroots cooperative effort with O'Reilly to make OSCON better for everyone. O'Reilly would provide free space for OSCAMP at the conference center so that folks who want to come to OSCON but can't afford the entrance fee would have a place to participate. In return, volunteers would organize OSCAMP as an additional attraction that would draw more people to OSCON. OSCAMP helps organize the fringe of activity that has grown up around OSCON so that it doesn't hurt, but promotes OSCON paying attendence.
Since RecentChangesCamp we've developed our strategy for bringing more folks to Portland for OSCON/OSCAMP and created oscamp.org to host a wiki for our organizing effort. OSCAMP is going to be OpenSpace just like RecentChangesCamp, but this time with a focus on OpenSource?. We're sending out invitations to groups that don't get together face-to-face very often and encouraging those groups to host a "camp" within OSCAMP. So we might have PhpCamp?, InkscapeCamp?, RubyCamp?, SoftwareDefinedRadioCamp?, … all within the umbrella of OSCAMP. When project teams come together to discuss project specific topics at their "camp" the team members will also be able to participate in topics of interest that might not be directly related to their main project.
All in all it's a solution that helps OSCON and associated activities rock even more!
To get involved with OSCAMP, please go to http://oscamp.org or contact BrandonCsSanders.
MarkDilley started SwitchWiki (http:// something) in 200x as a way to highlight all the different uses of wikis. At WikiSym2005, Mark began working with RaymondKing and JohnStanton on the next generation: WikiIndex (http://wikiindex.com). WikiIndex allows wikis to be categorized and tagged and then sorted: by topic, wiki engine, etc. RecentChangesCamp was a birthday party of sorts for WikiIndex, introducing the site to many more users and editors. There are now over 2500 wikis included.
A small group of professionals that attended the RecentChangesCamp in Portland have since begun to organize a support network called the "Open Guild" or "OGuild" to address the needs of Open Technology Professionals. While it is hoped that the OGuild eventually serves all technology professionals, we're beginning by organizing those who specialize primarily in on-line community applications. The primary sources of funding for the OGuild include the following:
To become involved in the creation of the OGuild, please contact PravinPhilip or BrandonCsSanders.
Writers: MarkDilley, BarbaraSehr, TedErnst, GeriWeisCorbley, JohnAbbe, KristinWebbTomson,
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Furthermore, permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. See RCCLicense for more.