About the wiki

Template:Basic Template:Grayback The Nearshore Wiki is a user created website, with five kinds of pages, where we synthesize knowledge to improve conservation efforts.

This site provides free document storage, and workspaces for collaborative development of text and graphics. People working in similar kinds of places, or studying the same attributes of those systems, can learn about each other, and build a shared and transparent information base.

How do I start?

This site is built by us for us. You add information, evidence, or theories in an existing page, or a new page you create. By categorizing and linking a page we associate it with other pages and make it easier for others to find it. To do this well requires that you learn a few things:

1. Understand the anatomy of a page.
2. Learn a little about wiki practice including the use of wiki markup code.
3. Make sure you understand what we are trying to do here in terms of our vision and our social contract.
4. Know something about our how we use different kinds of pages to organize information.
5. Join us by getting a user account, and identifying yourself.

Organization and Goals

Pages are either associated with places or using a hierarchey of systems, attributes, and predictive abilities that we call objectives. Places are organized around specific spatial units that we call sites, based on PSNERP process units, but you can also create pages for your own definition of place. If you want to report on your workgroup, a particular effort, or a particular resource or document we have pages for those as well.

You can jump to a list of existing pages of a particular type from the navigation menu on the left. To know about the page you are in, look for a colored box in the top right corner.

This wiki aims to provide the following services:

• Improve document sharing among diverse partners
• Improve the synthesis of knowledge on important system attributes among multiple efforts and workgroups
• Increase the ease of informal (or formal) peer review
• Improve the accessability of current ecosystem science to interested citizens
• Improve network functions among workgroups working in similar systems
• Provide a foundation for a shared adaptive management strategy for puget sound restoration and protection

What is a 'Wiki'

A Wiki is a dynamic and cross-linked website, where content can be created and edited instantly at anytime. Users, with a name, password, and e-mail address, can upload documents and images and author and edit web pages. A number of features facilitate linking between pages and off-site.

Who's Wiki is This?

This site is hosted by Western Washington University, and is administered and maintained by a cooperative of individuals working for academic, governmental and non-governmental organizations interested in improving our ability to provide public service. A volunteer moderator team administers the site in accordance with a social contract, to which all members adhere. Content is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. Feel free to investigate thethe current organization of our network and the structure of this wiki.

Participating in the Wiki

Participation is encouraged by all individuals who are willing to adhere to our social contract and are actively involved in observation or synthesis of ecosystem-centered knowledge or project management in the greater Salish Sea ecosystem. It is very easy to join us by getting a user account and getting started.

There are a wide range of other web-based resources out there. This platform is intended to complement those efforts, by creating a dynamic hub that brings us together, while supporting a level of information sharing that makes ecosystem science more accessable and integrated. This wiki is a place where you can put information so that you, and others, can find it again.