The start page identifies some reasons for this wiki:

1) Encourage community participation.

2) Gather knowledge in a system that has a functional search.

3) Demonstrate that this “Open Source” tool, can be a component of a “friendly” place to share knowledge.

Here are some more:

I freqently find things on the internet that do not include the Who, What, Where, When and Why of a subject. There are times when one of the 5 W's may not be required to make the information valuable. If When is important to a page of this wiki, you can use the Old Revisions button on the side of this page and see When this page was edited.

My English teachers stressed the importance of Who, What, Where, When, Why as relates to journalism. When this wiki links to a place on the internet, one or more of the 5 W's may be missing in the linked content.

Good journalism usually includes the answers to Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?

Changeing the order to Why, Who, When, What, Where

Why: More than one reason. 1st… The web content of the Computer Club web site is not easy to search. My first attempt to search the content of the Security SIG produced almost nothing. 2nd… I have been around long enough to know people in our community have given their time and energy to share a lot of knowlege. Capturing knowledge in a place that provides better search capabilities is a goal of this wiki. 3rd… A wiki is designed to encourage community contributors. One intent of this wiki is to reduce the time requirement of individual volunteers, by providing a tool that allows many people to contribute. Getting more members of the community educated about “how to use a wiki” will be a challenge.

Who: In a perfect world, this wiki would allow anybody to create or edit content. Perfection is hard to achieve, so you will have to register, with this wiki, to be allowed to edit or create content.

When: Some knowledge gets obsolete. Each page of this wiki has history. A reader can choose to view the history of the page. Please note the “clock symbol” on the right side of this page. If you hover the cursor over the clock symbol you should see “Old Revisions”. If you click on the clock symbol, there will be evidence that this page has evolved. I know some of the knowlege that will be referenced from this wiki is unlikely to contain dates that identify the age of the information.

What: This wiki uses dokuwiki which requires understanding the concept of namespace and page name. The concept of namespace and page name is demonstrated by the name of this page. This page is in the namespace of freqentlyaskedquestions and the page name is whyhavethiswiki.

Where: This wiki is a where , from the perspective of information on the internet. The content of this wiki will reference other material. It is important for the reader to recognize when this wiki leads you to another “where” on the internet. As a reader you need to know that the content of this wiki is only as reliable as the creators and editors. If you find information you need to “trust”, remember to “trust but verify”.