Purpose of Portland NETwiki

File:Hypertext.gif

NETwiki supports a wide range of media. Get ready to unlock a whole new experience as a NET volunteer with THE P0WR OF TEH INTERNETSSS

Portland NET is not a typical CERT program. NET's large membership base and commitment to community learning mean that NET can grow into areas of disaster preparedness, response, and recovery that many CERT programs do not find the opportunity to explore. That also means NET has become a relatively complicated program with branching and specialized areas of expertise.

The strength of Portland NET is its people: their knowledge and diversity of experience. By using a collaborative platform, a Wiki preserves institutional knowledge long after key PBEM staffers come and go. The Wiki does not supplement PBEM's community engagement; it is a part of PBEM's community engagement. It also saves staff and volunteer time by organizing collective knowledge into easy-to-find and send articles.

Add to that a Wiki's interlinking capabilities, ease of use and familiar formatting, automated revision tracking, capacity to present information that engages with multiple learning styles, and scalability, and it's easy to see why a Wiki would evolve into a critical part of the NET ecosystem.

To summarize the most important reasons PBEM manages and grows this resource:

• Preservation and accessibility of community and institutional knowledge: Portland NET is the outcome of over 30 years of volunteer and PBEM staff expertise. Prior to NETwiki, much of this institutional knowledge was locked up in the heads of volunteers or under layers of nearly forgotten electronic files stored on PBEM drives and inaccessible to the wider NET community. Today, PBEM and NET can use NETwiki as a platform to establish, expand, and refine expertise and knowledge. A Wiki harnesses group productivity as opposed to individual productivity.
• Saved PBEM staff time: An inordinate amount of PBEM staff time was spent writing emails to volunteers answering narrow questions about program protocols or best practices for response. Today, PBEM staff can publish much of that information to NETwiki and send volunteers links to comprehensive articles instead of calling up all the information or research needed in order to complete a reply. With that time saved, PBEM staff has increased capacity to respond to other volunteer requests and program needs.
• Quick and easy edits: A Wiki allows team members to update or correct content on the fly, ensuring that information stays current without requiring specialized technical skills (as was needed for the NET Guidelines, which was published through Adobe InDesign). Not for nothing, "Wiki" is a Hawaiian word meaning "quick".
• User-friendly interface: The familiar, web-based format is easy to navigate for volunteers and staff alike, offering a more approachable alternative to complex platforms like WebEOC.
• Offline capability: Wiki content can be exported or mirrored for offline use, supporting continuity of operations in disconnected environments, such as over the AREDN mesh network.
• Supports rich content: Wikis can host a wide range of media—text, images, videos, documents, and hyperlinks—making it easier to share training materials, guides, and operational protocols in one place.

Guidelines for NETwiki content creation and editing

This article section is a Program Guideline

One of the entire points of convening NETwiki is to make knowledge and expertise in the NET community participatory, and decoupling the authority of expertise in disaster response from PBEM - a small government bureau with limited staff time and knowledge - and handing it to neighborhoods. That notion is in line with the expectations of the online culture that built and builds wikis. Many community wikis also have low or no barriers to entry when it comes to authoritative control. Other wikis, such as internal corporate wikis, maintain strict content control.

NETwiki falls between those ends of the spectrum. PBEM respects the libertarian view of wikis that permits anyone to edit anything at any time. That is not what NETwiki is. PBEM does exercise some content control for the following reasons:

1. This is still a City of Portland government sponsored resource, and PBEM will not approve or allow any NETwiki content that does not conform with the City of Portland's Code of Ethicsor City of Portland Core Values.
2. PBEM will protect its credibility and that extends to the NETwiki since PBEM sponsors it. PBEM staff have heard often from community partners that they rely on us for credible information, and errant NETwiki content will not be permitted to interfere with that reputation.
3. The discipline of emergency management has become a strange place with contradictory information, as political agendas influence awareness and best practices and growing conspiracy theories burn up precious staff resources. PBEM will be associated only with information and data that respects the best tested science available.
4. Since NETwiki is a government resource, PBEM must protect taxpayer dollars by reducing legal risk. Therefore, PBEM staff must look out for information that could cause harm, like a misguided recommendation for personal protective equipment, for example.
5. We want to make sure NETwiki is accessible and well organized. It is not in the spirit of a wiki to allow an individual to make an incoherent decision using this tool; editors and content creators must be empowered to participate in the way the information system is organized. For that reason, PBEM will exercise some mild control on design and NETwiki's overall organization. PBEM will also set standards for who qualifies as a NETwiki contributor.

Pursuant to the expectations listed above, the following rules are applied to NETwiki:

1. PBEM will set standards for who may qualify as a NETwiki editor. PBEM also reserves the right to suspend or revoke access for any editor at any time.
2. Only PBEM staff may approve edits to:
   • the NETwiki Main Page
   • Any page labeled as a volunteer position description (volunteer position descriptions carry a lot of legal risk)
3. PBEM staff have full discretion to reverse edits on any content or delete it entirely.
4. Any page or article labeled as a "Program Guideline" cannot be substantively changed without first going through the community approval process described in the article: Procedure for creation of or significant modification to CPT guidelines.
5. NETwiki will include a page dedicated to content design standards and tips in order to promote better organization of information: the Wiki Code Cookbook.