Army Asks Its Personnel to Wikify Field Manuals 143
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."
Perhaps the Key Difference (Score:5, Interesting)
between this and Wikipedia is that each edit will be linked to an ID which in turn is linked to a known service(wo)man.
Combine this with the way that the final manual will be the product of review teams rather than the wiki-style entries themselves, and this seems as much a very efficient public feedback/comment system (using wiki software and formatting) as a true wiki.
Shouldn't it be like this already? (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Forgive my ignorance, but by definition a field manual should be exactly that - a tool relevant to experience in the field of combat.
I fail to see how some "researcher" no doubt with a worthless degree in "Ancient Medievil History" or the like is more qualified that some who's, gasp, actually been in the field?
By open-sourcing information, they have basically allowed for a large influx of new, refreshing and indeed relevant ideas and ideology.
General sockpuppet disagrees too (Score:4, Interesting)
On a (slightly) more serious note, the rank and file and upper brass have differing views on how their opinions are going to be received by the other side. Of course they do! The higher level officers have always expected their suggestions to be taken seriously and responded to with a prompt, "Yes, sir!" They see no problem here. The grunts have a long history of learning exactly how much their input is both required and appreciated by those men, especially when it comes unsolicited. This is one of those rare situations in the military where both sides' reactions are perfectly understandable and even... rational.
Re:This is a good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
This is an incredibly good idea. This may sound weird, but I'm going to compare this to my experience with Internet spaceships.
My corporation in EVE has a wiki where we dump ship fittings and tactics. That alone is a huge benefit, but what really makes it shine is that combined with a killboard, which tracks all of our combat statistics, and a forum where we can discuss the entries there. Everybody can see who is actually successful, and obviously when the highly successful people speak, others listen. The end result is that we have a central database of battle-tested equipment loadouts, that are collaborated on and refined through discussion, and backed up by an objective reputation system.
That exact setup is fully within the Army's grasp, and they should pursue it wholeheartedly. What seems intuitive in battle is rarely the most effective choice, and resources like this can drastically reduce the time it takes to becoming a veteran, as well as increase odds of survival until they reach that level of expertise.
Queue nerds flaming about how real war isn't a videogame.
Who to believe? (Score:4, Interesting)
This would seem to pose a problem when there are conflicting viewpoints - esspecially among higher ups. Wikipedia has this problem too, but wikipedia articles on controversial topics aren't really actionable (and you can't plead your case that oh, you read this on wikipedia it must have been true! when something is wrong that you did act on wikipedia from). Army doctrine is.
If you take a look at the current US army and marine corps counterinsurgency field manual Chapter 2is titled "Unity of Effort: Integrating Civilian and Military Activities". I bet with 200k troops or so active at any given time on recolonization (I term I would prefer to counter insurgency), there are going to be at least a dozen different high level officers with different ideas on how to get things done, and some with contradictory ideas both seeing success (or failure). Figuring out which goes in the manual, which doesn't, and why is the sort of thing that requires people at the top to act as editors, pick sides and end up essentially censoring one group of people is likely to build dissent - and public dissent. It's different when they're silenced in a research lab, the only people who've know they've been shut up are immediate colleagues, but when you make opinions widely public (or in the case of an army wide wiki, mostly public), even wildly wrong ones, you're giving the people who dissent a voice to end up on faux news touting how their solution to 'counter insurgency' would have been to gas the lot of them! It even made it into the field manual before it was pulled! The government isn't supporting our commanders who want to use more/less/different whatever.
Certainly a military wiki has its place, but I'm betting there are going to be some kinks to be worked out yet. One of the virtues of the military structure is deffering responsibility for being wrong. If I'm colonel A and General B tells me to do something I know to be wildly misguided (but not illegal), I go and do it, and when questioned about it, can say with honesty, and possibly with written orders to squarely place the blame on General B. On the other hand with the wiki system if Generals C, D, E and F all say things on a topic, not all of which is consistent, and the one I happened to see was General E's opinion which happens to be wrong who's fault is it now? Colonel A for not researching enough Gen. E for being wrong, or the Lt who was moderating the discussion for not blocking the wrongness of E that was agreed upon by C, D and F.
Re:This is a good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
> most of the grunts I have worked with have a
> reading / writing level of less an 8th grade student.
Check out the Army reading list [militarypr...glists.com] section for cadets, soldiers, and NCOs. Some good stuff there... especially Keegan's "Face of Battle". On the other hand, I have no idea how many folks in those ranks have read any of those.
Re:This is a good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
The other great thing about this is that it will tell the policy makers all the brain dead stupid shit people are doing, so they can mention a few extra pertinent negatives in the next version of the manual.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a good idea, but you are wrong. First of all, it is significantly harder to perform statistical analysis on combat procedures in real life. It's easy to record data off a computer program, you already have a large amount of the information in the correct form stored electronically, and even if you have to write something down or take a screenshot you're already sitting at a computer connected to the internet. GI's in a firefight aren't going to have perfect comprehension or recollection of specific details (especially regarding things like enemy troop placement, movement, etc.) and they can't really be expected to.
The armed forces already do a ton of statistical analysis on various things, but gathering good data about specific encounters is much more difficult in wartime than you seem to understand. As I understand it, most analysis they do is at a higher level.
Second, the armed forces are extremely conservative about experimenting with combat tactics, for obvious reasons. While you might consider trying some different configurations and tactics risky in EVE, the risk of losing some ISK over losing a squad of men aren't really comparable.
Real war isn't a videogame :)
Re:This is a good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
I served, and I think you're full of it. "Most" is a rather definite word, that's a majority, more than half, and from my experience I would strongly disagree with that assessment. They weren't all wonderful writers like your average programmer (lol) but they could write up a patrol report that made sense.
And what was the point of your little soldier bashing post? That they shouldn't have a wiki because they suck at writing? That those that want to write shouldn't be allowed, that only the technical writers should have the ability and the grunts should just shut up and get shot at? I'm even more pissed mods marked it Score:5, Insightful. Shame I used all my mod points up yesterday, I had mod points good until tomorrow.
I think a wiki is a fantastic idea and I'm shocked the Army would even consider it, very un-Army like, to give the grunts a voice. This is not the Army I remember, only good can come of this, and developing the wiki and similar programs should be encouraged.
First Aid and Field Medicine (Score:4, Interesting)
A while back I was reading a survival page from a practicing guide and Park Ranger working in the Texas desert. He had made a point about the standard "suck out the poison" from a snakebite advice still being in the army field manual long after anyone in the medical community, or desert survival park ranger community had given up the practice.
http://ridgerunnersurvival.tripod.com/da1.htm [tripod.com]
Now the page is from 2000 and he's quoting the various field manuals up to 1992. There's also advice on why water rationing as described in the manuals is a bad idea. Digging a condensation trap will cost you more sweat than it will gather in drinking water, etc.
So I wonder what other areas it might be better to enlist some subject matter experts in, the idea of opening it up to more voices outside the war colleges is good, maybe they should open it up even more.
And like a good wiki-citizen he cites the books he references and his credentials.
The best soldiers have initiative. (Score:4, Interesting)
This isn't really new, per se, but it is a reassertion of one of the best values of American soldiery - the guy on the ground should have some room to make some decisions for himself or herself. Good commanders have always encouraged their subordinates to lead, and given them tools to do so. Bad commanders don't.
Great idea, circumstances involved (Score:3, Interesting)
Taking into account what happens on Wikipedia sometimes - vandalism - I gotta say it occured to me that the percent of vandals re-writing and thus spoiling good articles goes down in proportion to the size of the public for the amount of pages said Wiki would contain. Simpler put, Wikipedia being a Wiki for the broadest possible public - the general public, no restrictions - is substantially more suspectible to vandalism than say a Wiki shared, written and accessed by 10 individuals (an intranet Wiki, for example). Add to that a relatively simple fact that probably any soldier with his sanity in behold will refrain from mal-editing Wiki entries on semi-automatic rifles because he knows he may be shot in the head by one held by his comrade - this makes the Army somewhat more of a unity than the general public, which generally does not care much for one another - everyone being anonymous and all. In the army, they would think twice before resorting to Wiki vandalism, because they know they may have to fight side by side, in which case you need all experience you can get from your buddies. The two factors should make for a very useful implementation indeed.