Wiki Goes To War

July 2, 2009: Later this month, the U.S. Army is activating a Wikipedia for seven of their 550 manuals. There will be a 90 day experiment, where troops can edit manuals, and leave comments. All those who make edits or leave comments will be identified, because the only ones who can access the wiki are army personnel with a military email address.

The branch that is responsible for the manual has the final say on which changes become permanent. But because of the open (at least to military personnel) nature of the wiki, there will be pressure to go with needed changes.

Aside from getting errors or unintelligible stuff out of the manuals, the army also realizes that everything is changing so quickly, that wiki based manuals are the only way to keep up. If the experiment works, more manuals will be added to the wiki.