We announced our intention to launch a wiki a few weeks ago, and are very pleased to make it public today under the name ConservativeVault.com.
It's basically an online encyclopedia for the Conservative Party and the wider conservative movement in Britain that will comprehensively cover people, debates and policies by harnessing the wisdom of the ConservativeHome crowd. Once it's found its feet and built up more content we're confident it will become an invaluable resource.
It struck us that many of the posts on here would be better off in a wiki that could incorporate the best of what readers would normally add in the comments into the actual article. Two of the pages we've started the wiki off with have been copied from ConservativeHome with that collaborative idea in mind - Harry Phibbs' 100 questions to ask your local council and Tim Montgomerie's "war and peace" account of the Conservative leadership race. Almost all content from now on will be generated by Wiki editors however, and down the line we intend to recognise and reward the most prolific and constructive contributors.
At the moment we're controlling the creation of new pages so we can shape its direction, but users can edit them if they register accounts with verifiable email addresses. Abuse of the wiki's open source nature will not be tolerated and any unhelpful changes can be very quickly reverted.
We must pay tribute to ConservativeHome readers Peter Harrison of the impressive Festipedia, and Geoff from Gibraltar (happy birthday Geoff!) for all the work they've done in helping us build the bespoke wikisite. We decided to use the same template that you know and love from Wikipedia and have provisionally added a dummy-proof editing tool that doesn't require any knowledge of code at all.
The wiki is going to be refined and improved on as we go along and we see it as something that all of its users have a stake in, so any feedback on potential content or on the functionality of the site is very welcome.
It looks good so far.
I think it might need more references. I have just added one link in the article about David Cameron winning the leadership race.
Posted by: Ben Stevenson | July 24, 2008 at 13:47
Good move, there is a huge potential for this! Anyone seen dKosopedia in the US?
Posted by: Alexei | July 24, 2008 at 13:50
Having trouble validating my account (username: Ulster Tory). Could an admin do it manually? Cheers!
Posted by: Ulster Tory | July 24, 2008 at 13:53
Ulster Tory - no, I'm afraid we can't validate your email address for you. MediaWiki doesn't give us a mechanism for doing that.
What is the problem? Have you received the confirmation email? If not, it may have been blocked as spam. There are a couple of minor problems in this area which we are working to fix.
Posted by: Peter Harrison | July 24, 2008 at 16:43
I hadn't read your account of the leadership election before. It's a fascinating insight.
Posted by: Mark Fulford | July 24, 2008 at 16:56
This is a fantastic resource - well done Tim and Sam for setting it up!
Posted by: Sally Roberts | July 24, 2008 at 17:04
I don't seem to be getting confirmation Emails either. AFAIK I have no spam filters set up.
Posted by: Comstock | July 24, 2008 at 19:19
Tried again and it worked this time. Cheers!
Posted by: Ulster Tory | July 24, 2008 at 23:32
Ulster Tory - glad it worked!
Comstock - many ISPs reject some emails as spam without your knowledge. Equally, some emails just get lost. It might be worth requesting another confirmation email - go to "My preferences" and you will see a link, click on that link then click on the button. However, we are working with our hosts to resolve a couple of issues - watch this space.
Posted by: Peter Harrison | July 25, 2008 at 09:33
I can't seem to get a confirmation e-mail. Since it was Ulster Tory who started it, there may be a leprechaun amongst the gremlins. Best of luck with getting it fixed!
Posted by: Nick Gulliford | July 25, 2008 at 16:21