The contents of the proposed wiki
The wiki would be layered as follows:
- Primary sources (statutes, statutory instruments, conventions, treaties and so forth) would lie at the heart of the wiki. These would be hyperlinked so that, for example, defined terms would connect to definitions and commencement provisions would connect to provisions relating to dates subsequently determined. Links would also be added to relevant cases, case notes and articles;
- Secondary sources (judicial cases; registry, EPO and OHIM decisions; domain name arbitrations and mediations) would be added, possibly on the bases of existing free online access models such as BAILII;
- Tertiary sources (official guidelines, practice amendment notes etc) should also be included;
- Primary commentaries (books, articles, theses and dissertations, practitioners' newsletters) can be added either as full texts, where freely available, or as bibliographic references to subscription-only sources;
- Secondary commentaries (personal observations, discussion points etc) can be added, but probably on the basis that they are moderated;
- Further sources (links to approved third party sites such as international, regional and national official and governmental bodies; officially recognised/accredited organisations; links to unapproved third party sites such as other wikis, weblogs)
- There should also be a Noticeboard facility so that users of the wiki can post information of relevance and interest to other users: this facility can be used for advertising vacant positions, sale of books, notice of local postal strikes and so on.
This list is not in any sense intended to be exhaustive and it may be that, once the project is commenced, further layers of information will be identified and catered for.
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Comments (2)
astrid arnold said
at 9:49 am on Aug 4, 2007
Primary sources: is there any way that the primary sources - legislation - on the Wiki could be updated to show changes as, for example, on the Butterworths Legislation Direct service. I realise this would be a lot of work (and cost) but I am not sure that people would use the service if this wasn't provided.
Martin Farley said
at 10:27 am on Aug 6, 2007
Astrid, wikis permit any user to update content. So, with legislation anybody could update it to show that a section had come into force or been amended/repealed etc. They could also add commentary or links to relevant SIs, case law or other legislation.
Legislation Direct on Butterworths is consolidated, but does not show previous versions of a section (so if it has been repealed there is simply a space with no text). On a wiki you should also be able to recall previous versions to see what the changes have been.
For a useful example of a legislation wiki and how it could work see http://ukpatents.wikispaces.com/
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