[COMM-ORG] Wikipedia Community Organizing Entry

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

[ed:  apologies for the delay in posting this week.  Minor crises and 
travel got in my way.]

From: Aaron Schutz <schutz at uwm.edu>


If you type "community organizing" into google, the top result is the 
Wikipedia entry.  When I realized how limited the article was about a 
month ago, I took it upon myself to slowly rewrite it, mostly from the 
ground up.

I invite comm-org listerv members to take a look and critique if they 
are so inclined.  If you want to help write, you should familiarize 
yourself with the established procedures and guidelines of 
Wikipedia--actually pretty interesting.  Contact me on my talk page, or 
use the discussion page for the entry if you have issues.

The current article, in addition to whatever failings it still has, 
especially needs an expanded section on international organizing (as the 
flag at the top notes).  There are also other sections, sometimes 
sentences, I left because I simply wasn't sure about them.  

Since Wikipedia is a key information source for the public, those on 
this list might want to also take a stab at other entries, including 
"Saul Alinsky."  In this new world, this is the kind of thing I think we 
need to keep track of if we hope the wider public to slowly learn what 
"organizing" is.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_organizing

You can also look at how many visits a particular wikipedia page has here:

http://stats.grok.se/

Community organizing seems to run about 15-20,000 hits a month recently, 
with 70,000 in September.  Alinsky gets more.



Aaron Schutz
Associate Professor & Chair
Dept. of Ed. Policy & Comm. Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Office: (414) 229-4150
Fax: (414) 229-3700
Website: www.educationaction.org