As is apparent if you read any of my older posts, which you surely haven’t, I have a motorcycle. It’s a 1978 BMW, so it’s in need of periodic maintenance and repair. Thankfully there’s a wonderful resource – the Airheads Beemer Club – which, along with the airheads mailing list, provides a vast amount of advice and instruction from many people who have more knowledge of these machines than anyone else who does not work for BMW (and perhaps more than most who do).
The current form of knowledge distribution, as it were, is a monthly mailing called Airmail, which contains riding stories, upcoming events, classifieds and the technical advice of Oak Okleshen. For many, Oak’s tech articles are the reason for Airmail and for paying the yearly dues (a piddling $20) for the club.
Recently, on the airheads mailing list, which is disconnected from the club (one need not be a member of the club to join the list, nor do members of the club need to subscribe to the list), talk of a Wiki has come up. The reactions to the suggestions have been interesting and varied. The most vocal responses, surprisingly (to me), have been negative. The amount of opposition to the free editing and self policing nature of a wiki is counter to my experience – Wikipedia is a great resource for all sorts of topics and, for those that aren’t covered well, one can always add to or modify the topics to improve them.
There’s a lot of worry about theft of intellectual property and the presentation of someone else’s materials as one’s own. These worries are groundless; the versioned nature of a Wiki and the ability to track all changes, along with (at least on a Mediawiki powered site) the ease of discussing changes in an article, mean that it is extremely difficult to pass another’s work off as original. Someone familiar with the original work is bound to come along and call the plagiarist out.
I’ve been keeping my own opinion off the list; I don’t see a reason to muddy the waters further and, if a Wiki is a good thing for the club, it will succeed despite the efforts of those who might actively oppose it. Give the Airheads Wiki a look and, if you have anything to add, feel free to contribute.