MPKB:About
from the Macalester Public Knowledge Base
MPKB.net is a wiki community website on a web server owned by ¡Adelante! and made completely available to the wider public as a resource in Minnesota for activist organizing - to connect students and community organizations, network student organizations across colleges and provide information on Macalester College's power structure. javascript:void(0) make a map
There is an ongoing discussion on the role of MPKB at MPKB talk:Server
Currently, CivicSpace and MediaWiki, which are open software content management system engines, used for running political campaigns and free encylopedias respectively, are installed and run in the server.
Basically this means that anyone can edit its content. This flexibility leaves room for a lot of potential in channeling creative energies both inside and outside of Macalester for activist organizing and information sharing. Other portions of the site run using pipermail for its various Project:Mailing lists.
See Project:Server
[edit] Liability
This means that the content in the website is not actually owned by anyone. Therefore, ¡Adelante! cannot be held responsible for content posted in the site, even though the site is regularly monitored for accuracy (read: not necessarily "political correctness"). Content posted on the website is only official when the page in question explicitly states that the page is Adelante!'s official statement. See our full disclaimers.
[edit] MPKB and Wikipedia
For many entries, it's best to simply redirect to Wikipedia. These include entries on macro subjects such as country information, and issues in which the activist community, broadly speaking, may not differ from what's established public discourse.
When we start playing with Project:particular points of view, which is encouraged, then we need to digress from Wikipedia, which follows a stern Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View policy. One way to do this is to copy and paste Wikipedia content and start from there. Given that MPKB follows GNU FDL, there are no copyright issues in the process. Simply mark the article with a
{{Source WP|NAME OF ARTICLE IN WIKIPEDIA}}
to earmark it with a warning box that the material has been modified from Wikipedia.
Content like these include articles on Young Lords Party, where there exists substantial impartial content but there is the potential of conflict when activists contribute their bit.
Another option is to write the article from scratch, when the Wikipedia article seems overly biased or there doesn't seem to be much hope in it. One of them is Latin America, which is embedded with Adelante!'s own pan-latino bent.
See also Project:Naming conventions
[edit] Audience
AdelanteMac is targeted primarily towards college students, but it intends to provide
[edit] History
This website initially started as an adelante website under www.macalester.edu/adelante in 2003. then it moved to an outside server to php script testing (in particular, PHP-Nuke) and settled for its current form in january of 2005. it started as a public project in april of 2005.
More on Project:Information Distribution Systems#History
Find out how you can help by reading Help:Contents
