ICANNWiki

Organization
Type	Non-profit
Region	NA
Country	United States of America
City	Portland
Founded	2005
Founders	Raymond King
Websites	icannwiki.org

ICANNWiki is a not-for-profit independent organization dedicated to supporting the collaborative development of articles on Internet Governance and ICANN-related topics. The wiki provides neutral, third-party information for the Internet Governance community. It is not affiliated or a subsidiary of ICANN. ICANNWiki is known for putting a fun and unique twist on the content, such as the Caricatures and Playing Cards it produces.

Board and Staff

Board

• Raymond King
• Judy Song
• Andrew Merriam

Staff

• Technical: Mark W. Datysgeld
• Content: Christiane Tavares

Mission

The Internet Governance space is known for being highly technical and obscure, making it difficult to develop a general understanding of the issues involved. These issues are pertinent to the daily lives of all Internet users, as well as those on the other edge of the digital divide, still waiting for Internet access. ICANNWiki works with the community to break these complex concepts down into understandable, fully-referenced, fact-based, and neutral articles.

Sponsorship and Funding

ICANNWiki is made possible via the sponsorship of partners who believe in our mission. More information can be found in ICANNWiki:Sponsorship.

Current Work

Our progress is publicly tracked in ICANNWiki:Development.

History

ICANNWiki was originally founded by Raymond King in 2005, with help from Brandon CS Sanders and John Stanton, with the belief that a public wiki could be a real benefit to the greater ICANN community. The project debuted at ICANN 24 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The site was relaunched in 2010, and a considerable effort has gone into improving articles and standards. ICANNWiki has always been supported by the community, whether from the thousands of people who have contributed to articles on the site, or through company sponsorships. Our wiki is a medium for peer production, where the act of using the site together will create a valuable common asset. This lasting work, made up of the industry's collective intelligence, can then be used to further our common mission of making the Internet a better place to live and work.

Work Areas

• ICANN Meetings - There are 3 ICANN meetings held per year, often in very disparate locations as per ICANN's mandate to be a global organization. Generally, two ICANNWiki team members travel to the meetings in order to interact with the participants. We teach people about the site and its usage, create and edit articles, take photographs for caricatures, and sometimes conduct video interviews. While travel costs and booth materials are one of the project's largest expenditures, we feel the opportunity to work directly with the community, in a face-to-face mode, is important.

• Content Creation & Editing - We strive to incorporate information from ICANN and other news sources into existing articles in a timely fashion. If we see that an informational need is unmet, we build new articles from scratch and elicit the community to contribute as well. ICANNWiki insists upon on neutral and documented information and edits pages as they are created or updated by community members. This has always been a significant undertaking for staff, and with the launch of the New gTLD Program, we've seen the site traffic, pages and its activity increase exponentially.

• Community Building - Community Building begins with the newcomers. Once we have helped them into the world of Internet Governance, they often return the favor by contributing edits to ICANNWiki content. ICANN veterans and career DNS folks are often the most educated about ICANN topics. We encourage these seasoned participants to help edit articles, assisting those who do not yet have an advanced perspective or understanding. The ICANN community is vast and diverse, so even long-time participants find themselves in need of information about the work being done by other groups at ICANN.

• Sponsorship Outreach - ICANNWiki depends on the generous support of sponsors. Without them, we would not be able to do what we do.

North America, according to the ICANN Geographic Regions (ICANN Geographic Regions).

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