[split] Ideas about a Law of One Wiki

[Vasilisa]

A Law of One wiki in general would be an incredible idea. Though I think that the alignment of diverse viewpoints necessary for a wiki on these often subjectively interpreted metaphysical concepts might prove elusive.

My comment may not be entirely appropriate, but I know that in Russian there is for example a theopedia, where the basic concepts from the teachings of H.P. Blavatsky are presented in a structured form.

https://tinyurl.com/y4sp7zjj

Or the encyclopedia of Thelema thelemapedia
https://tinyurl.com/y65naysf

Or, for example, Wikiquote on the books of Castaneda

https://ru.wikiquote.org

PS These strange icons "B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BC%"  in links are Russian names that the browser doesn't understand.

And I couldn't insert the last link correctly. In the search bar you need to score  Учение Дона Хуана or Карлос Кастанеда

[Aion]

Some of you may not be aware that there was a sincere effort to create a Ra Material wikipedia page in the past and it was deleted multiple times.

https://tinyurl.com/y26uw594
https://tinyurl.com/y2o792mm

According to Wikipedia pundits it is "not notable" and not mainstream enough to deserve an article. Keeping in mind that Wikipedia is fueled by empirical skeptics.

Not that there's anything wrong with being that type of person, they just don't usually take to this kind of 'fringe' stuff.

[Vasilisa]

I wasn't talking about Wikipedia And about processing in the form of an "encyclopedia" in almost the image and likeness of Wikipedia. And I gave a few links to Russian-language resources that are familiar to me.

In the English-language Wikiquote there is such a very small page.. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carla_Rueckert

[Aion]

Sorry I was more noting because Gary mentioned it, forgot to quote him.

[Asolsutsesvyl]

To finally follow up regarding the idea of a Law of One wiki, after a month...

A Law of One wiki in general would be an incredible idea. Though I think that the alignment of diverse viewpoints necessary for a wiki on these often subjectively interpreted metaphysical concepts might prove elusive.

[...]
A wiki could have the benefit of harmonizing dogmas and distortions so that the Confederation's intended message and perspective may shine through; or, conversely, articles may become incoherent with inconsistent points of view. Be interesting to see!

That kind of thing depends a whole lot on the people doing the editing and how they work.

Personally, I would suggest formulating some simple rules. Simpler than Wikipedia's (which grew into bureaucratic complexity over the years), but in part similar in essence, in terms of making clarity and coherence and faithfulness to sources used requirements for the text. The biggest essential difference to Wikipedia's rules which would clearly be necessary is to reject and replace the neutrality and notability criteria.

Some distortions may be easy to harmonize, while others may not be. The tone may become more impersonal, making a sharp distinction between what truly follows and is well-suppported and what is only speculative. I think competing speculative ideas can be allowed when described as such, while the more clear-cut core ideas should ultimately be written to logically fit as a whole.

Well, I have the background of having tried making a wiki for another community, though I did not start from scratch with the contents (in large part imported from earlier online glossary). Neither did the wiki grow in membership, as a duo of myself and another did nearly all new work on the text, while frustrated with how almost everyone else seemed too inhibited to give it a try or even come with any feedback.

It was successful in terms of becoming better than and replacing the old resource, but it also depended on my spare time work, while I dreamed of eventually working more closely with the organization. Then it all fell flat, as I did not move further into the core of that community but instead away from it all. After a longer time of inactivity on my part, and not being contacted, the path of least resistance on the part of their main web developer turned out to be to take it down for technical reasons instead of looking into upgrading the software further (as may have been a simpler project for me). But I had moved so far away from being in tune with the heart of the Cassiopaea community that I was actually relieved that my work no longer represented it. (You can look at "thecasswiki.net" using web.archive.org, for how that wiki looked 4 years ago or so.)

With that past I have further ideas, and also experience tinkering with the MediaWiki software and extensions for it, before also leaving that behind 4 years ago. I could adapt only ideas (new and old) for a different wiki, or also catch up with the present state of the software and work with it and ideas for tweaking it.

But I've also spent a number of years not getting further in external life, after being too single-mindedly focused on ideals and another online community, already, with nothing to externally show for it except years of depressed inactivity after. So I feel strangely torn, between on the one hand having earlier done what I've felt to be the right kind of thing in the wrong place (and perhaps at the wrong time) and motivated to do it in a better setting on a different inner footing, and on the other hand not wanting to commit to spending much time on anything without first taking care of the problem of remaining a jobless drop-out living with my parents.

(That's part of a current pattern, perhaps best to further discuss elsewhere, of why I keep pendulating between sharing ideas and feeling hesitant about moving forwards with any personal involvement related to the ideas should the possibility open up.)

To end this with something more practical for a possible Law of One wiki, a little more than a year ago, another relative newbie made a short-lived wiki. See thread, "I made a Law of One Wiki". In response, I made some notes, including:

[...]

A decade ago, I read some articles at wiki.lawofone.info, but that wiki went down when Tobey at lawofone.info replaced it for the re-listening project. I haven't asked, but perhaps he felt that the articles, which were fairly few, were not worth keeping as they were on their own. Anyway, if/when a wiki project proceeds, I think it would make sense to ask Tobey about copying the text of the old articles; I don't think he'd mind, if he has a backup. I'd have expected the old wiki to be available through web.archive.org, but in this case we're less lucky and the contents seem to be missing.

[Sacred Fool]

I have zero experience with wikis, but I have a big mouth, so here are some random thoughts on the matter. It strikes me that simplest would be best. Personally, I think that an article should offer (1) the known definition, (2) context to support the definitions, and (3) areas of application or connection to other ideas a reader might wish to pursue. For instance, take Density. (1) Give definitions from the Confederation sources, (2) maybe fill that in with implied or linking ideas and (3) offer ways the concept might fit with other concepts (incl. cross references).

I'm just guessing, but it seems this could be done slowly over a period of time. Per given article, (1) should be fairly simple, (2) a little more involved and (3) could have a life of its own.

Of course, this would be dependent upon an authority figure to clean it up and delete the garbage, no? Yes? How would that work? Does the above ring soundly or as naive musings? Also, what do think about the target audience, initially, being newcomers?

[Plenum]

Moderator Note: url's were shortened in the first two posts.

Long url's are formatted as a single line in the forums, and so long links end up breaking the natural word wrapping in the forum template.

In simple English: it makes the screen width too large.

Please try using tinyurl for long links. Or use the url anchor button, which gives you an option to embed a long link.

[Asolsutsesvyl]

I have zero experience with wikis, but I have a big mouth, so here are some random thoughts on the matter.  It strikes me that simplest would be best.  Personally, I think that an article should offer (1) the known definition, (2) context to support the definitions, and (3) areas of application or connection to other ideas a reader might wish to pursue.  For instance, take Density.  (1) Give definitions from the Confederation sources, (2) maybe fill that in with implied or linking ideas and (3) offer ways the concept might fit with other concepts (incl. cross references).  

I'm just guessing, but it seems this could be done slowly over a period of time.  Per given article, (1) should be fairly simple, (2) a little more involved and (3) could have a life of its own.

The best idea I arrived at earlier is to copy Wikipedia's basic format for the main text. A paragraph or two on top written to give a clear-enough idea of what the topic really is (longer only if necessary), then the rest of the text divided into however many sub-sections below as makes sense. But more extensive quoting, relative to the volume of original text, can be expected compared to Wikipedia, I think. As in, initially writing on LOO topics could often make for copying various quotes from lawofone.info with links back there.

The topic of "Density" would naturally make for an article series, where articles on each density link back to the main article. I would try to make the main definition something which cleanly and logically follows from the main sources, with any ambiguities noted. Intuitively related ideas could be explored. And ideas mentioned in connection with the definition would also make for related "See also" topics.

Eventually, for fuller cross-referencing, I'd like to dig into related cosmologies, from the Fourth Way cosmology of a century ago (most refined in the post-Gurdjieff works of Boris Mouravieff), to the Cassiopaean cosmology (sorting out how it's really related to Ra's, with ambiguities noted). Some very general terms, such as "dimension" used in all kinds of ways by popular New Age authors and channeled sources, could also be related to "density", pointing out how things do and do not add up across differing kinds of frameworks. Many popular terms and small confusions of tongue could be explored.

(More work with wiki software extensions could, over time, allow for building up various structured pieces of data attached to wiki pages, allowing dynamic pages or just info-boxes inside the wiki that give results from that on stuff related to other stuff in various simple ways. But this may in part overlap with what lawofone.info provides in a more streamlined and performant way, and so may be best used for things the options there do not provide. Ideas may develop over time...)

Of course, this would be dependent upon an authority figure to clean it up and delete the garbage, no?  Yes?  How would that work?  Does the above ring soundly or as naive musings?

It could become an active project, in need of a lot of clean-up work, but it is also very possible that it would end up less active than wished for. Inactivity is initially a much greater risk than quality problems with the content, unless you get a dedicated "wiki vandal" (troll) who isn't removed, or spammers who aren't filtered out.

A good basic feature of wikis is that everything done can be undone, as all versions of pages are stored (unless explicitly deleted by an admin). There's also various systems that can be added later, to make it easier to keep it clean. A fairly heavy-duty solution is content review as done on German Wikipedia; it allows everyone to keep editing like before, but only trusted reviewers can change which version of a page is shown to guests; in a simpler form it is selectively enabled here and there as vandalism protection on English Wikipedia.

I think the focus at first can simply be to keep it welcoming and see how it may grow, unless/until there grows increased need for quality control. (The one big early exception to being welcoming: Keeping spammers out. With open editing or registration, you need protection against spammers just like on forums. A simple short-term solution is for people to only register by invitation - "give me your email address and you'll get a link to make an account" - but at length that may be limiting. Ease vs. easier growth enters over time.)

Also, what do think about the target audience, initially, being newcomers?

In terms of readers, I think it's a good goal for it to be useful for newbies, but also non-newbies. Apart from writing text about topics, it is possible to gather other types of information for e.g. readers from the forum. On the old "CassWiki", I combined three projects for that community:
1. The encyclopedic articles, or using pages for that. Pretty much self-explanatory.
2. Adding links at the end of pages to good forum discussions and other web pages, online documentaries, etc., useful for further information on the topic. This was meant to integrate and replace a somewhat earlier effort others had come up with, to gather the best links per subject area on the forum.
3. In that community there was/is an extensive recommended books "List and Guide" on the forum, which had grown short texts on various books and their significance. Moving it to the wiki in an expanded form.

Here, apart from good forum threads, examples of extra links which could be added at the end of articles on topics include to pages in L/L Research's archive which fit the topic. That could offer a well-structured means of catching up on a smaller subject.

[Louisabell]

I wasn't sure about this Wiki idea at first, but it's starting to grow on me. The only thing I see available online that is similar to a LOO wiki is the LOO study guide on the David Wilcock website... and he's sort of been into 'interesting' interpretations of the LOO recently...   

for reference: Divine Cosmos Study Guide
(Sorry if there are better resources out there that I have not come across!)

But a community run Wiki on the LOO could be most awesome.

The best idea I arrived at earlier is to copy Wikipedia's basic format for the main text. A paragraph or two on top written to give a clear-enough idea of what the topic really is (longer only if necessary), then the rest of the text divided into however many sub-sections below as makes sense. But more extensive quoting, relative to the volume of original text, can be expected compared to Wikipedia, I think. As in, initially writing on LOO topics could often make for copying various quotes from lawofone.info with links back there.

I think wikipedia is not the best example, as it seems to be trying to be more of a 'pedia' (encyclopedia that is) then a wiki. There are more better examples of community wikis from gaming communities. I recently got into MTG, and there are so many community resources made up around this game, it blows the mind. I don't think a wiki based on spirituality can be contained in something as rigid as an encyclopedia as there are just too many interlinking and interwoven ideas, as Peregrine has noted. 

Personally, I think that an article should offer (1) the known definition, (2) context to support the definitions, and (3) areas of application or connection to other ideas a reader might wish to pursue.  

I really like how you've broken this down. It also brings up a good starting point, which is to just begin with categorising themes and spiritual concepts and then applying their definitions. The lawofone.info site already has a great list of categories on its main page from which questions have been sorted into already. These can be divided up even more, or completely reworked. 

I also wanted to make mention that I believe Bring4th already has a great repository of information, but it's main drawbacks is it's sorting and retrieval capabilities. Seriously, some posts that have been made are so insightful, and it would be awesome to utilise that information in a wiki. There could also be links to the community threads that pertain to an idea. 

Of course, this would be dependent upon an authority figure to clean it up and delete the garbage, no?  Yes?  How would that work?  Does the above ring soundly or as naive musings?  Also, what do think about the target audience, initially, being newcomers?

I have done some work for a scientific paper, and the academia world has already invented a good system of this in its peer review process. Of course we would need reviewers, maybe selected from a 'board' of willing participants. A few reviewers (the minimum is three) would receive the notes that a person would like to submit. The reviewers would then offer edits/suggestions and a final yay or nay. The responses range from "perfect as is", to "passible if these things are changed/improved on" to "it's beyond fixable". Sometimes there has to be multiple submissions until all the reviewers pass an article for publication. 

But I imagine that that would be late stage stuff. This kind of work takes a loooong time. But don't all good things take time?  

I think the focus at first can simply be to keep it welcoming and see how it may grow, unless/until there grows increased need for quality control. (The one big early exception to being welcoming: Keeping spammers out. With open editing or registration, you need protection against spammers just like on forums. A simple short-term solution is for people to only register by invitation - "give me your email address and you'll get a link to make an account" - but at length that may be limiting. Ease vs. easier growth enters over time.)

I'm wary of too much of an open door policy. Perhaps there can be a comment section under an article for people who would like to contribute. Excellent comments may then be integrated into the main article over time.

[Asolsutsesvyl]

I wasn't sure about this Wiki idea at first, but it's starting to grow on me. The only thing I see available online that is similar to a LOO wiki is the LOO study guide on the David Wilcock website... and he's sort of been into 'interesting' interpretations of the LOO recently...   

for reference: Divine Cosmos Study Guide
(Sorry if there are better resources out there that I have not come across!)

But a community run Wiki on the LOO could be most awesome.

Another relevant site to look at is https://montalk.net - I think Montalk is an inspiration in the broader, looser synthesis he has produced. It goes beyond the core ideas of any of the sources he uses, from L/L Research's work to the early Cassiopaean material, to a large range of other things. He somehow harmonizes the teachings and bridges the gap between the view of the cosmos as a benevolent and loving place and more Gnostic ideas. I'm not sure about everything he's into and has been into, but he's managed to avoid becoming centered in fear and paranoia and/or egocentrism, the way often seen happening to people deeply exploring the ideas of 4D STS control systems and deep conspiracies in general.

If topics, or aspects of larger subjects, which have more generally become associated with fear-based teaching and conspiracy theory are to be covered - and otherwise part of the picture would need to be left out, analogous to excluding "book 5"-type information across a wiki - then I think Montalk's resource is an example of something sober and basically honest enough to be good inspiration, something that can be referred to and quoted in places without having to warn readers about problems with a source.

(A good argument for covering controversial stuff, or stuff usually covered by more controversial people, is that staying silent on such topics leaves those concerned with them with only those who do cover them, and it can be harmful for more level-headed examinations and perspectives to be in the minority.)

I think wikipedia is not the best example, as it seems to be trying to be more of a 'pedia' (encyclopedia that is) then a wiki. There are more better examples of community wikis from gaming communities. I recently got into MTG, and there are so many community resources made up around this game, it blows the mind. I don't think a wiki based on spirituality can be contained in something as rigid as an encyclopedia as there are just too many interlinking and interwoven ideas, as Peregrine has noted. 

Personally, I think that an article should offer (1) the known definition, (2) context to support the definitions, and (3) areas of application or connection to other ideas a reader might wish to pursue.  

I really like how you've broken this down. It also brings up a good starting point, which is to just begin with categorising themes and spiritual concepts and then applying their definitions. The lawofone.info site already has a great list of categories on its main page from which questions have been sorted into already. These can be divided up even more, or completely reworked. 

I also wanted to make mention that I believe Bring4th already has a great repository of information, but it's main drawbacks is it's sorting and retrieval capabilities. Seriously, some posts that have been made are so insightful, and it would be awesome to utilise that information in a wiki. There could also be links to the community threads that pertain to an idea. 

[...]
I'm wary of too much of an open door policy. Perhaps there can be a comment section under an article for people who would like to contribute. Excellent comments may then be integrated into the main article over time.

It's good to see some thinking beyond my own. Rigidity is, in general, a large problem in the community I made the "CassWiki" in. I'd like more exploration of such ideas which go beyond copying from my old "recipe".

I'll think more about these things in general. I'll however note some shortcuts I took earlier, with the old project. One of these is with discussion. Basically, it seemed like more effort than it was worth to make a wiki as good for discussion as forums, at least with MediaWiki-based software. A variety of software extensions each try to bridge the gap with different alternatives to the type of "talk pages" associated with each article in the old Wikipedia model.

If commenting is more open than editing, then there's the usual spam problem. But if discussion on the wiki is for wiki members to participate in and others only to read, then that's one less obstacle to making the wiki good as a "forum" of sorts for its stuff. Though previously, I simply avoided it all because having one forum seemed sufficient. It seemed better to give discussion of wiki matters a place on the preexisting forum than to try to make the wiki equally good as an avenue of discussion. At any rate, it's the easier option, allowing general suggestions and commenting without needing to moderate commenting on a wiki too.

Another shortcut is that the article format was often a bit different; I tried to structure the text to fit the Wikipedia-ish mold I described when it worked, but some articles remained differently or less structured because doing it otherwise would require a fuller rewrite. And the topics were, regardless, not defined in exactly the same way as on Wikipedia; inherited from the earlier "Esoteric Glossary" that many pages had been copied from, article subjects were often those of philosophical essays with sometimes two or three terms rather than one in the title, with a "and", "or", or "vs.". I describe a Wikipedia-like way of doing things, but the criteria I used were not only simpler but also a bit looser, in general. The order I tried to bring was basically brought in the middle of content creation in the absence of having any clear earlier description of how things were in principle to be done at all, only vague high expectations in general on the part of the community.

Of course, this would be dependent upon an authority figure to clean it up and delete the garbage, no?  Yes?  How would that work?  Does the above ring soundly or as naive musings?  Also, what do think about the target audience, initially, being newcomers?

I have done some work for a scientific paper, and the academia world has already invented a good system of this in its peer review process. Of course we would need reviewers, maybe selected from a 'board' of willing participants. A few reviewers (the minimum is three) would receive the notes that a person would like to submit. The reviewers would then offer edits/suggestions and a final yay or nay. The responses range from "perfect as is", to "passible if these things are changed/improved on" to "it's beyond fixable". Sometimes there has to be multiple submissions until all the reviewers pass an article for publication. 

But I imagine that that would be late stage stuff. This kind of work takes a loooong time. But don't all good things take time?  

The simplest thing often seen on wikis is that some editors focus more on improving the quality. Sometimes it's a matter of proofreading the text and improving it more formally, sometimes it's a matter of checking it for accuracy with sources, perhaps followed by discussion before further editing.

Some wikis do include a "peer review"-type system more centrally than Wikipedia, in which articles can be placed in a category that makes them come up in an automatic list of pages for review. Variations on the theme can be used for voting and commenting on articles which appear in a list, regarding what to do with them, an example being the parody wiki Uncyclopedia. Though in essence this seems like a slicker and simpler version of what goes on on Wikipedia. (Uncyclopedia also has article categorizations for things needing improvement, a little like Wikipedia, but also uses them as part of periodic article improvement campaigns in which things are sorted first into what needs improvement, and later on into the improved and the deleted.)

There's that, what I mentioned in the previous post, and more to consider besides, but yes, the problems needing such solutions generally grow with scale...