verify the validity of new editions. (Wikipedia 2005)
The Board chose a wiki model primarily in consideration of the limited staffing capacity
of Cooperative Life and the Cooperative Development Institute. Secondarily, the
cooperative nature of the wiki philosophy appealed to the spirit of the organization.
Another consideration was the adequacy of defenses against vandalism. The directory is
set up to send email to monitors whenever a change or addition is made to an entry, and
the monitors can easily revert the changes. An administrator (currently Paul Fitzpatrick,
but the responsibility is to be transferred to CDI staff once the system is complete) is a
universal monitor, and sees all changes, and users can also enlist as additional volunteer
monitors of as many individual entries as they wish.
Based on the feedback received from the survey of Coop Life members and on re-
examination of the Coop Life mission, the Board determined that the directory would
explicitly invite all organizations helping to build a cooperative economy to list
themselves, regardless of whether they were formed as cooperatives or not. This
invitation is on the front page of the directory and is reflected in the wide choices of
categories by which organizations can choose to identify themselves. (See Appendix 5,
Add Entry Page and Sample Directory Entry.)
The work of the technical consultant, Paul Fitzpatrick, made it possible to add another
desirable feature to the directory: the ability to search and view listings by geographical
location. This feature supports the goals of increased awareness among cooperative
organizations and stronger relationships across sector lines, and contributes to the goal of
increased trade among cooperative organizations. In particular, the geographic capability
will be used in a related system of announcements and postings to allow users to specify
the geographic area for which their messages are intended.
The remaining pieces of the project are 1) outreach to users of the directory; 2)
transitioning the directory to the stewardship of Cooperative Life (in practice, the staff of
the Cooperative Development Institute) and 3) integrating the online directory with the
other online products offered by Cooperative Life. Noémi Giszpenc is responsible for the
implementation of outreach. She will oversee the effective transition of the project, to be
carried out by Paul Fitzpatrick and the staff of CDI. The online products committee, with
the guidance of the Board of Cooperative Life, will implement the integration of the
online directory with other online products.
Products & Outputs
This project has generated research on the current interest in cooperative trade in the
Northeast region and is in the process of generating new tools for increasing the amount
of inter-cooperative trade; use by cooperative organizations of the tools to provide each
other and their respective members with goods and services; and a sustainable system for
administering the online cooperation tools.