This is only somewhat related to the upcoming General Assembly, so skip if you want to, but it is related to being in Silicon Valley:
We Presbyterians talk a lot about being connectional, and even practice it occasionally (but not enough). We believe that being connectional gives us strength. We believe that coming together, in prayer, is a good way to govern ourselves. We believe that many people working together make better decisions that one or two persons working in isolation.
So this “open source” movement in technology is interesting from a theological point of view. Open source means that the underlying code that makes programs run is shared with all, with the idea that everybody contributing and working on a project together can make it better, faster, than one person working alone. “Wikipedia,” an online encyclopedia that allows anyone to update entries, takes this concept beyond software programming and expands it to include information as well. The idea is that if someone puts something wrong in an entry, someone else will fix it. There are some controls and some monitoring, but that’s a satisfactory description for here. While Wikipedia is not a source I would necessarily trust for publication in a scholarly or even news article, it is a fast, generally accurate, resource. In other words, the concept mostly works. (Afterall, councils do err, but subesequent councils correct them.) Since Wikipedia debuted, ”wiki” sites abound all over the internet.
Why am I talking about this now? An article in this morning’s San Jose Mercury-News noted that the latest version of the Firefox internet browser was launched Tuesday. I won’t bore the non-technically-interested among you with much detail, except to say that Firefox was created as an open source alternative to Internet Explorer. You can read the story for more detail.
Writer Chris O’Brien made this comment:
“But the work of Mozilla to attract and lash together the contributions of so many people to perform a task as complex as developing a piece of software is even more impressive. …
“How far the crowd-powered model can be extended remains to be seen. Can it solve social ills, as so many social entrepreneurs believe? Could it somehow be applied to stubborn medical problems? We’ll see.”
Yes, we’ll see, but it occurs to me that the “crowd-powered” model has been around for a long, long time, and we Presbyterians ought to be very good at using it. In too many ways we seem to have lost our understanding — and indeed our knowledge — of one of our strengths.
Maybe we should start calling the PC(USA) an “open source” denomination! Or we could become WikiPresbyterians and we could work together instead of apart.
Grace and peace,
JB
Sign: kxdrb Hello!!! zsmbs and 2985wbvdddzsws and 671 My Comments: Nice blog!
By: movielike on September 22, 2009
at 9:31 am
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
By: sandrar on September 10, 2009
at 4:26 pm
If we Prebyterians love wiki intrinsically, would you all please come help me with my wiki, ReformedWord?
By: Robert Murphy on October 12, 2008
at 4:57 pm
David:
I’m intrigued by the idea of a wikonfession. Maybe we could start something, Facebook or something, to have a conversation.
JB
By: jboltwv on June 25, 2008
at 12:39 pm
You’re dead on with this. The challenge with that is getting folks…particularly Presbyterian folks…to engage in wiki conversation will take some doing.
A wikonfession might be an entertaining thing to start…it’s a great way to have conversation about faith and to engage difference.
By: David Williams on June 25, 2008
at 3:08 am
It doesn’t have anything to do with being unwilling to step into the future. Yes, Wikipedia, et al, is –in the long run and in general — very accurate. But let’s say for example, you were doing a feature story on Jeff Francoeur and you happened to access the information in that brief window of time when the Wikipedia entry on him said your sister was his fiance, before the community corrected it. Your “scholarly” paper would be worth, well, you know. So, I still wouldn’t use Wikipedia as a supremely authoritative source, or as my only source.
By: jboltwv on June 20, 2008
at 9:14 am
Also I used wikipedia info for several school projects and papers.
just for my dad…STEP INTO THE FUTURE OLD MAN!!
By: Greg on June 19, 2008
at 11:50 pm
I am all about wikiPresbyterians, I wish I could get more people to put their two cents in, or at least do it constructively.
I do have one bone of contention, studies have shown that the information on Wikipedia is as, if not more, accurate than the information in any Encyclopedia Britannica.
Which proves to me that the 2.0 wiki idea could be the and maybe should be the “wave of the future” or as someone once said “nurtured by our past, embracing our future”. That is I believe that the Presbyterian model (polity/theology of discernment) is a wiki model.
Blessings,
Greg
By: Greg on June 19, 2008
at 11:49 pm
exactly! “…individuals work together, bringing their own thoughts, understandings and creativity to the question.” a very small percentage of our folks are currently doing this. i think we both want that to change.
for me, this isn’t about telling anyone how to vote (though i understand you and people in your position need to guard against such a thing); i have no interest in that. it’s about proclaiming and embodying a connectional system where there are safe spaces for all voices, which would theoretically lessen the instances of folks “instructing” others how to vote (which we both agree is highly inappropriate).
public hearing sounds like a good start. i like your thinking!
By: Stephen Baldwin on June 19, 2008
at 11:07 pm
Stephen, thanks for the thoughtful question, but I don’t think there’s a contradiction at all. One of the reasons wiki/open source works is because the individuals work together, bringing their own thoughts, understandings and creativity to the question. They have not been told how to think, or what approach to take to solve the problem/add to the mix.
I hope I conveyed that it’s perfectly acceptable for all of us to talk to our commissioners and participate with them — “with” being the key word — in their process of discernment. In fact we ought to do that, but from what I see, so much of what folks really want to do, and expect to be able to do, is to “tell people how to vote.” Do I wish I could tell the Assembly/Session how to vote on my pet issues. You bet I do! But that would be contrary to our understanding of what happens when the body gathers.
Maybe we should consider for the 2010 GA creating a time, perhaps informal, at a presbytery meeting for a gathering with the commissioners so they could hear from others — maybe a special table or room at lunch, maybe a “public hearing” as they have at GA. That would be living out connectionalism in the process I think. Let’s keep figuring it out.
By: jboltwv on June 19, 2008
at 9:16 pm
Amen! we’ve got to allow our connectional nature to be expressed in today’s connectional technologies…a reason ymiLIVE is doing so well.
but isn’t there a contradiction between praise for our connectional system in this post and saying in the last post, “They (commissioners) are to pray, listen for the Spirit, and make up their own mind. Period.” where’s the sense of connection there?
shouldn’t our connectional nature manifest itself in regard to commissioners as well?
i hope this conversation can continue at some point. may the Lord be with you!
By: Stephen Baldwin on June 19, 2008
at 8:32 pm
YES! This is exactly what I think our strength has always been, so should be NO surprise that Presby’s love the whole opensource/wiki way of doing things. I think it feeds something inside of us that us starving to be unleashed!
By: Bruce Reyes-Chow on June 19, 2008
at 7:24 am