Making Beyond Social

Author: André Castro

When Iris Schutten and Roger Teeuwen approached WdKA's Publication Station to co-develop a web-magazine for the Social Practices program, my first thought was that a web-magazine was something not very exciting. The image that formed in my head was of those web-magazines that desperately try to resemble their physical counterparts, with clichés such as glossy looks, and turning pages, accompanied by the indissociable "shhhs" sound.

Yet, when Roger and Iris began to describe their ideas for the publication it was clear that they had something quite different in mind. They wanted to create a space for documenting, reflecting, and building upon the work developed in the area of Social Practices, not only within WdKA, but also in collaboration with other institutions, currently working in the same field. That got me excited! The vision of a collaborative online editorial space, where content is developed in a collaborative and shared manner, and ideas grow from interpretation, edits, conflicts, disagreements, felt exciting. It sounded much like the way content is developed within wikis, such as Wikipedia or Uncyclopedia:the content-free encyclopedia. Not quite knowing what was I getting myself into, I said yes and we quickly began on making it happening.

Tools

In order to start working we had to agree upon the set tools and protocols, which would help us develop the publication. They had to allow the fast development of prototypes, while also permitting extensive experimentation and customization, in both content creation and publishing processes.

We organized the work in two spaces: a wiki and a website. The wiki was established as the editorial space, while the website turned into an appealing and carefully crafted outlet for the content originated on the wiki (in great part thanks to Template). Connecting these two spaces is the wiki's API – a programming interface, which allows other applications to be build upon it – and a series of scripts that pull content from the wiki and integrate it arrive on the website.

The choice for a wiki might not seem obvious when more user friendly approaches, such as content management systems and blogs abound. However wikis are interesting platforms, that can be shaped very distinct uses, allowing different types of work dynamics, and making possible the publication of content under a variety of forms. It provides the essential infrastructure, in which to cast one own's content creation and publishing strategies, in a digital online contexts.

The very first wiki was created in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, and got the name of Wiki Wiki Web. Wiki Wiki Web ("wiki" in Hawaiian means quick) offered a fast and easy way to write and publish on the Web, a principal which remains true for today's wikis.

By their very nature wikis foster collaboration. If a user is logged onto a wiki he or she can not only create content, but also edit the content that others have written. Problematic as that might sound, a history log registers all changes which take place within the wiki, making it possible to revert changes to previous state. Wikis, at least an "open" wikis, such as Beyond Social's wiki, make the content and is development process visible to anyone who cares to visit it, and allow "outsiders" to become collaborators.

It is also worth mentioning that the wiki installation &ndash Mediawiki – used on Beyond Social is the same software that powers Wikipedia. The fact that a tool which runs one of the most popular sites on the Web, is available to a group of students and tutors with no computer engineering degrees, to install, study, and modify, is rather empowering. In addition, the existence of numerous extensions and an API widen significantly the possibilities for creating, structuring, and disseminating content.

Toneelstof, a project dedicated to the history of Flemish performing arts, became an essential reference to the development of Beyond Social. Similarly to what happens in Beyond Social, developers and designers Michael Murtaugh and [Femke Snelting] use a wiki as an editorial space, and the website as the publishing outlet. Within this dynamic, it is striking to see that what appears as fragmented and dissociated information on the wiki, becomes connected and integrated on the website. The branching visual structures unravel and bind together fragments of information.

Workflows

As the blueprint for Beyond Social became clearer, the team behind it grew. Students, tutors, and Template design studio became active involved in its development.

At this point the whole team had to make decisions. The essential challenge concerned the way in which content would get published. As important as tools are, they are useless by themselves. They require strategies that make them function together as a system. The whole Beyond Social team had to establish a series of protocols that could turn the adopted infrastructure into a digital publishing workflow, and a resulting publication.

We had to decide "when are articles ready to move to the front-end website?", "how can editors intervene upon an article without disrupting the work of authors?", "according to what parameters are the articles organized?", "what visual structure will be adopted for the website? Will it be based on a table of contents or adopt forms like a time-line, a tree-like structure, or an image gallery?"

Most answers to these questions are apparent upon visiting both the wiki and the website and its pointless to enumerate them. It seems more relevant to mention that the project's current form and methods, were only achieved through a process of constant open dialog. Experiences, criticism, suggestions, opposing points-of-view were essential! Without them I doubt Beyond Social would have gotten to this stage, and I am thankful for all of those on the project that kept on pushing it further.