Wikidelphia Meeting 2025 February
No URL
These notes come from a Wikidelphia meeting held on 2025 February 13. These are just notes and should not be taken as verbatim quotations.
Present were Wikidelphia Instigator Stan Pokras (S), Staff Editor Paul Sank (P), and volunteer Ted Hewson (T).
9:00 PM
T: FindHelp, 211, Wikidelphia, we're going to include, leading to training in how to use the resources and how they're useful.
A Google Sheet with tabs ... questions ... list of functionality ... various tools ... identify gaps and opportunities for collaborative development.
FindHelp.org meeting set up. Setting up with 211. We'll meet with others too.
Spreadsheet needs strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats data from Wikidelphia.
We went thru it on Tuesday.
[T shares screen.]
Some things on it aren't things that Wikidelphia is good at—not in our scope. Others definitely are to our advantage. Our primary goal would differ from FindHelp's. ...
We'll see where the exercise leads. No rush. The intent: learn how to ... train ... all parties involved.
The focus of FindHelp is direct services for free or low-cost.
Checkmarks mean the organization itself has claimed its entry and does its own updating.
[T calls S.]
[S joins.]
S: Integrating Wikidelphia and Other Networks.
What to do with two terms? "Remote viewing" vs "remote perception". In theory, you can't have too many terms, because different people use different words to find the same thing.
Extraterrestials. There's been a spate of sightings. More people are paying attention. Government and military have been pooh-poohing while also admitting they've captured aliens and "biologics".
T: "Remote viewing" I get but not "remote perception".
S: This interests people because of a desire to understand why they're here. Remote viewing and remote perception are said to be pathways to the understanding.
P: To me, viewing would be a subset of perception.
S: ... Ubiquity University ...
T: Back to Wikidelphia vs Other Networks. Wikidelphia is specifically associated with Philly.
S: What to do when we have related topics?
T: Give an example.
S: Other Networks has a bigger problem of being language-sensitive, with more people.
Understand relationship of ... categories within Wikidelphia. I have the category methodology of categories in Wikidelphia that's different from in Other Networks.
An "Issue" is something ... operate within a realm which becomes the issue with that organization.
A book, Ambient Findability is the best explanation of how relationships should occur among categories. It's my go-to book. I need to finish reading it. ... Helping people with different terms find the same thing.
We have a language guy here [referring to P].
T: So, how to simplify designations so more people will get to the same place?
S: How do I get to Wikidelphia from here. [S shares screen, showing Wikidelphia's Main Page.]
We have several approaches re categories.
T: If you search for "children", do you get the categories re children?
P: "Search Categories".
S: Super Issues and Popular Issues. Super Issues is a set of categories that have a large number of pages. More than 5 or 10. E.g. Issue-Justice, Issue-Social_Justice.
Search Categories for "children". I have not had specifically expert people give feedback on this system.
"Children" brought up a list of categories.
T: There's also "Youth". Which to use?
S: Serves-Children is separate from ...
T: Looking at larger categories ... Serves-Children_and_Youth.
S: Let's look at ...
T: Does a page have Children and Youth? Look at The City School. Ah, there are [x] that serve youth and [y] that serve children. Add in Serves-Children_and_Youth.
P: Just go ahead and put both.
S: Put both.
Look at Serves-Youth. A list of items. Look at North Philly Project. Does-Afterschool, Issue-Community, Community Development, Engagement, etc.
T: With so many categories, pretty indiscriminate.
S: One category is not appropriate.
T: Within categories ... all those are sort of like—
S: Back to Other Networks. Super vs. Popular: Popular has more than a few; Super has a smaller number. I'm not satisfied that it makes the best sense. It was my intention to figure out how to use multiple categories. I was worried that Issues pointing to each other would cause confusion in the system, but it doesn't.
In Other Networks I have a very different system of bringing things together.
T: Give it a go.
S: Other Networks is a different sys called Special Collections (SC). In SCs there are things like ... Issue-Education has 13 subcategories and 80-some pages.
Environmental Education has 11 pages. Look at Issue-Environmental_Education, it has Issue-Education, should also have Issue-Environment.
Bulldog Films. Issue-Environment, Issue-Environmental_Education are both here ...
It gets more weird with Issue-Environment and Issue-Climate. ... the way that the org uses the words. It should say—oh, it does.
Go to Issue-Climate ...
T: ...
[At this point, transcriber P is having trouble keeping up.]
T: The hierarchy of issues needs clearer definition. Category, Subcategory, ... can you have multiple subcategories, like three levels?
P: I think so, yes.
T: S seems to have dropped out. How do we move toward the future, clean up the past ... is it worth it?
The way I use Wikidelphia ...
[T and P lapse into casual chat.]
[S re-appears.]
S: A sticky issue. We're trying to have a practical system for people to interact in spite of using different words for the same thing.
Make one force the viewer to the other?
T: See how you would do it ...
S: What I would like us to think about is, what do we want to do? How to make Wikidelphia useful to more people? Then, how to make it self-supporting? A subscription system? Some other system to bring in money? Grant-writing?
T: Our resources review will bring up some answers.
S: Whether understandings will happen, we don't know it, but go ahead and see if it works.
T: Strength of Wikidelphia categories ... Can we make it simpler? ... Train people ... Show its value ...
S: Multiple categories on a page ... Serves-School, About-School, ... gives flexibility, reaches into concept of findability.
Ambient Findability is the readable one among the four I have.
[End Of Meeting.]
See Also (On Wikidelphia)
- 2-1-1 SEPA Social Services Directory & Hotline
- Category:Issue
- Popular Issues
- Search Categories
- Super Issues
