Army Asks Its Personnel to Wikify Field Manuals

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the Army began encouraging its personnel — from the privates to the generals — to go online and collaboratively rewrite seven of the field manuals that give instructions on all aspects of Army life, using the same software behind Wikipedia. The goal, say the officers behind the effort, is to tap more experience and advice from battle-tested soldiers rather than relying on the specialists within the Army's array of colleges and research centers, who have traditionally written the manuals. 'For a couple hundred years, the Army has been writing doctrine in a particular way, and for a couple months, we have been doing it online in this wiki,' said Col. Charles J. Burnett, the director of the Army's Battle Command Knowledge System. 'The only ones who could write doctrine were the select few. Now, imagine the challenge in accepting that anybody can go on the wiki and make a change — that is a big challenge, culturally.' Under the three-month pilot program, the current version of each guide can be edited by anyone around the world who has been issued an ID card that allows access to the Army Internet system. Reaction so far from the rank and file has been tepid, but the brass is optimistic; even in an open-source world, soldiers still know how to take an order."

CAC Card

[Anonymous Coward]

The Common Access Card (CAC Card. yes, it's redundant) is not unique to the Army, the entirety of the U.S. Armed Forces uses them to varying degrees because it's integrated into the Military ID (which is a Smart Card)

infotopia

[martas]

there's a book called Infotopia (http://www.amazon.com/Infotopia-Many-Minds-Produce-Knowledge/dp/0195189280), about how information is generated and shared in an increasingly tech advanced society, and this is one of the things it mentions in its "vision for the future" in the intro. interesting book. quite optimistic.

Re:This is a good idea

[adamchou]

I see two major issues with this

1. A lot of people in the military are not that well educated and the idea of them trying to write manuals sounds horrendous.
2. With Wikipedia, items posted by random people usually require a source. What source is there going to be here? This is mostly going to be mostly opinion, not tried, tested, and true facts.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Or use Simple Green to Clean Helicopters. It corrodes the Aluminum.
For certain Maintainance tasks there is no unofficial way. There is only the way listed in the manual.
with a form to fix the typos in the back.

Re:This is a good idea

[mordors9]

I would point out that when Charlie Rangel and some other politicians started denigrating the volunteer soldiers as a bunch of lower class, uneducated people with no prospects, as study found that they were generally middle class and better educated than the citizenry as a whole. http://www.heritage.org/research/nationalsecurity/cda05-08.cfm [heritage.org]

Yes, but

[Anonymous Coward]

this is actually how things get done. For example, Condoms were ORIGINALLY handed out PURELY for sex. Some soldiers figured it out that they were also nice for closing muzzles and keeping the barrel clean. Ultimately, that info made its way up the chain and then it became a standard. There are lots of tricks that guys in the field will do. If this information can be disseminated QUICKLY, it may help more. Also, if as you say, perhaps there are reasons to NOT do something, this will get it stopped quickly. The DOD is finally back on track.