• The Forum – John Curtice

    We were very lucky yesterday to have a special forum meeting at St Mary’s with John Curtice.

    Prof John Curtice is a member of St Mary’s and the Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University. He is a public opinion guru – constantly analysing figures, opinion polls and election results. In his forum presentation yesterday he reviewed changing attitudes to same-sex marriage and then took questions from the folk who were there.

    Introduced by Pam Richmond of St Mary’s Justice and Aid Network, the forum is available in two videos – the first being the presentation and the second a question and answer session.

    There were lots of interesting things which came out of the session. It was noted for example that the Roman Catholic community in Scotland seems to be particularly accepting of same-sex marriage proposals. Also that those who go to church more often are more likely to be less accepting. Along the way we learned about what John called a phenomenal cultural revolution – a change in public attitudes which is striking, recent and unlike almost anything else which is tracked.

    For those who subscribe by email, the videos can be seen on the Cathedral website.

8 responses to “What is a wiki?”

  1. Chris Avatar

    I wanted to comment on your wiki post, but there is a gremlin preventing me – no box to write in, so no writing!
    [Comment now moved]

    This is what I’d have said:
    Great clip! A really clear description – can we get it incorporated into an educational package for the church? See http://scotedublogs.wikispaces.com/ for a good example of a wiki in use for over a year.

  2. Tim Avatar

    Yeah. Wikis have huge potential. When I was setting up my church website I sat down and thought:
    a) lots of pages
    b) easy editing
    c) uniform appearance across pages
    d) ability to allow some people to (not) edit certain pages

    End result was dokuwiki.

    The real trouble is still persuading people that they’re capable of contributing…

  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Yes, it is odd getting people to post on a wiki is very much harder than getting them to post a comment on a blog. Something about a fear of being the authorial voice.

    I think that it is fear of being contradicted and corrected, which is a shame, as whenever I post to a wiki, I’m hoping that someone can improve on what I’ve written.

  4. Kimberly Avatar

    Fabulous video. Thanks for linking it.

    I wonder if this is one of the ways we should be trying to respond to the Draft Anglican Covenant.

  5. Stewart Avatar

    Wikis are great – look forward to seeing the St Mary’s Wiki developing (and adding to it!)

  6. jimmux Avatar

    Thanks for a very clear explanation! Now that I understand how they work, I’ll be raising a discussion on how we might be able to use them on the National Postgraduate Committee of the United Kingdom. They seem a very useful tool for sub-committees which do a lot of work by e-mail.

  7. Kennedy Avatar
    Kennedy

    I had a look at Tim’s church website and looked at the bit with the contributions from the congregation and saw this statement:

    ‘Please note: the content in this section is contributed by members of the congregation and should not be considered official statements by the Church.’

    I am a great fan of wikis for collaborative work, but I think this indicates one of the issues with ‘public’ wikis. These problems tend not occur when wikis are being used for internal usage or for a closed group. Open editing is very attractive but you need some form of management to ensure that defacement doesn’t occur or statements which might be damaging are published.

    Also, how do I tell the difference between ‘the Church’ and ‘ members of the congregation’? Are they not the same thing?

    Kennedy

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