DrugWar

A good wiki should:

1. Be either cheap or free 2. Allow editors to back it up 3. Have some restriction on who is allowed to make final edits (with such a contentious political issue it doesn't make sense to have an open editorial policy such that any anonymous user can update live content. Still the editorial board should be open and easy to join. If content is to be embargoed or subject to editorial scrutiny before going live then it's important to have a large editorial board who make frequent visits or a dedicated editor. 4. Be easy to find content from search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN. I prefer a wiki that presents information to the world as HTML - this is easier for search engines to find. Ideally I'd like to be able to edit pages directly in HTML. 5. Have regular editorial discussions - perhaps a mailing list? - or a forum page - so that required new content can be identified. 6. Have a policy for content. Will the drug war wiki restrict itself to drug war politics? I'd like to see more discussion on alternatives to current drug policy.

A real-world wiki is likely to have a main editor who does most of the wiki, but, potentially, anyone on the editorial board should be able to take this role over by just doing more leg-work.

The Drug War wiki will be a political wiki. I've contributed to political web-sites and important ones often have vandals attempt to bring the site down. That's why I think a Drug War wiki needs editorial control, regular backups and backups which are independent of the provider - just in case the provider decides to pull the plug. I could be wrong about the editorial control, provided that there's no mechanism for a vandal to ruin the site.