We the Wiki is a project of The Village Square, through the support of a grant provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with the ridiculous goal of civilizing the internet. OK so not the whole internet, but we’re going for a tiny part of it.

The wild west had nothing on the shoot’em up atmosphere currently running amok online. We think that’s a tragedy because the potential of the internet as a tool in solving problems is unparalleled.

We the Wiki is just like Wikipedia, fully editable by any registered user, except it’s focused on civic issues – from an international problem down to a tiny local zoning decision. Got an issue? Start a page. Then invite people interested in your issue to participate. Users can add text, link resources, write an op-ed, and create a pro-con discussion. Looking for a topic? The wiki is fully searchable so you can find if someone else has started the conversation you want to have. On the wiki, we can accumulate the wisdom of the masses to advance civil civic discourse rather the current internet standard of smashing it to bits and spitting on it.

Facts matter on We the Wiki. As much as we want to believe what we want to believe, bad facts make for bad decisions. So we’d better get them right.

Your mother taught you most of our rules: No yelling, no cussing, no hitting, no name-calling. If you’re not quite up to the challenge, you’ve got the rest of the internet to behave badly. So what’s it going to be: More spleen-venting or a new way of doing business?

If we’re partin’ ways here because you’re headed out to parts unknown in the Internet Wild West, we wish you luck at the OK Corral. But if you decide to stick around, we offer you a warm welcome to Democracy 2.0.