Join us at 16:00 UTC on 26th July 2017 to help get this project off the ground!

Barn Raising On Farm by Don Graham is licensed under CC BY-SA

Background

We Are Open Co-op, in partnership with Participate is creating a knowledge base around Open Badges called Badge Wiki. You can read more about this in the announcement post, examine the technical scope of the project, and review the draft Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

In order to get this project off the ground, we’re going to be working with the Open Recognition Alliance. There will be a special meeting on July 26th for those people interested in earning a badge for wiki barn raising.

What is a ‘barn raising’?

Wikipedia defines it in the following way:

A barn raising, also historically called a raising bee or rearing in the U.K., is a collective action of a community, in which a barn for one of the members is built or rebuilt collectively by members of the community. Barn raising was particularly common in 18th- and 19th-century rural North America. A barn was a necessary structure for any farmer, for example for storage of cereals and hay and keeping of animals. Yet a barn was also a large and costly structure, the assembly of which required more labor than a typical family could provide. Barn raising addressed the need by enlisting members of the community, unpaid, to assist in the building of their neighbors’ barns. Because each member was entitled to recruit others for help, the favor would eventually return to each participant.

Applied to wikis, barn raising involves the coming together of a community at a particular time and a particular place to start building something. Stewart Mader in Wiki Patterns defines a wiki barn raising in the following way:

A wiki BarnRaising is a planned event in which a community meets at a designated time to build content on the wiki together. One person alone can’t build all the content in a wiki, and a community of people needs to understand how to use the wiki, and feel a sense of buy-in for it to become successful. A BarnRaising achieves this because people come expecting to learn how to use the wiki, and they are able to interact with each other as they work, thus strengthening community bonds and creating a support network that keeps people using the wiki.

Building Badge Wiki will involve several virtual barn raising sessions using the collective power, wisdom, and expertise of the community. You can find out more about

FAQ

How do I join in?

We’re going to send out more details closer to the time, but the easiest thing is to:

  1. Block out your calendar for 16:00 on July 26th (what time is that for me?)
  2. Join the Badge Wiki Loomio group for discussion and decisions around this project.
  3. Encourage others to join in by sharing this post!

Do I need any previous experience?

Nope. We’ll be using the Open Recognition Alliance’s proven approach to running sessions, which involves dialing in using your computer or phone, and sharing an etherpad-based agenda.

Where can I read more about wiki barn raising? Who has done this before?

There’s some great examples here:

Will badges be issued to participants?

Of course!

We Are Open Co-op works to spread the culture, processes, and benefits of openness wherever we can.