Army Asks Its Personnel to Wikify Field Manuals

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the Army began encouraging its personnel — from the privates to the generals — to go online and collaboratively rewrite seven of the field manuals that give instructions on all aspects of Army life, using the same software behind Wikipedia. The goal, say the officers behind the effort, is to tap more experience and advice from battle-tested soldiers rather than relying on the specialists within the Army's array of colleges and research centers, who have traditionally written the manuals. 'For a couple hundred years, the Army has been writing doctrine in a particular way, and for a couple months, we have been doing it online in this wiki,' said Col. Charles J. Burnett, the director of the Army's Battle Command Knowledge System. 'The only ones who could write doctrine were the select few. Now, imagine the challenge in accepting that anybody can go on the wiki and make a change — that is a big challenge, culturally.' Under the three-month pilot program, the current version of each guide can be edited by anyone around the world who has been issued an ID card that allows access to the Army Internet system. Reaction so far from the rank and file has been tepid, but the brass is optimistic; even in an open-source world, soldiers still know how to take an order."

Comments

This is a good idea

[Darkness404]

This is a good idea. Even though I haven't read any field manuals I have read numerous instruction booklets, documentation and books about programs and often times what the official documentation says and what you need to do are totally different. Many times even though the "official" way to do something is doable, it might be awkward or slow, and you can do an "unofficial" way and save time and get 95% or more of the same results. I expect that army field manuals are no different.

Re:This is a good idea

[Brian Gordon]

Yeah but there may be compelling reasons why they want it done the official way that your common foot soldier doesn't know about. The trick is to make the more-efficient unofficial policy official wherever possible, not to encourage everyone to do their own thing and get it done faster.

If grunts serendipitously discover that moist towelettes are great for cleaning guns, then the right people should be informed. They should not just use tons of moist towelettes at the cost of hygiene and the unit's general health.

Re:This is a good idea

[grcumb]

This is a good idea.

Says you. I suggest you ponder the following phrase:

Global Thermonuclear Edit War

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have prefered not to write this anonymously, but because what I have to say is not very "pro soldiers". Its not anti-soldier either, its an observation from having been in the armed forces myself.

I have worked on a deployment as an intelligence analyst in the Balkans. My job was to read "patrol reports" squad leaders / platoon leaders would write up after their patrols. I can say this with experience that most of the grunts I have worked with have a reading / writing level of less an 8th grade student. Their ability to translate experience into the written word is often very poor, and hard to translate. A lot of the work was shoddy at best, and required additional "questioning" of the patrol leader and its members in order to find out any information of value. Probably 20% of the time, the additional questioning yielded actual useful information.

This lack of literacy does not entail that these individuals are stupid or incapable. That is a very dangerous assumption to make, and is often not true at all. Its very simple, most of the infantrymen learn by doing, and not by reading. They are experts at executing breaches and urban combat operations once instructed, and can adapt very well. But I wouldnt trust them to write a document I'm going to hand to fresh recruits. Thats work best left for the officers.

For some of the listed field manuals (in particular Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations) this will probably work, for others, it will probably end up being white washed by field experienced officers. I expect most soldiers will also expect the white wash to occur, but I think this is a very good compromise and positive adaptation of technology to shape doctrine and benefit from collective experiences.

My question for the slashdot crowd is this: Is there better technology than a wiki to organize collective experience?

Re:This is a good idea

[martas]

next step: open source warfare. now everyone can be a strategist!

Re:This is a good idea

[ring-eldest]

And you thought Wikipedia edit wars were bad?

Re:This is a good idea

[imamac]

The "right" people are 40 links up and around and back down the chain of command. The chances of suggestions actually making it to those people is slim. This just cuts out a few steps. I would be seriously surprised if the technical experts did not review the material just like moderators at wikipedia.

Re:This is a good idea

[SuperKendall]

Yeah but there may be compelling reasons why they want it done the official way that your common foot soldier doesn't know about.

Then it will sure be great that the people writing the stuff will see the entry on how soldiers do something in real life, so the material can be compiled in a way that infuses practice with theory...

Re:This is a good idea

[imamac]

Perhaps still using a wiki article for any given topic. Then Allow a time period for edits--say 3-6 months or so. Finally the article is locked and the technical experts review it and publish an official manual.

Re:This is a good idea

[DNS-and-BIND]

Oh yeah, bash soldiers for not being good writers. You know, if they could write, they probably wouldn't have taken up soldiering. But I forget, this is the year 2009, and we all need to be warned not to hire ex-soldiers.

Re:This is a good idea

[ParticleGirl]

I can say this with experience that most of the grunts I have worked with have a reading / writing level of less an 8th grade student. Their ability to translate experience into the written word is often very poor, and hard to translate. (...) I wouldnt trust them to write a document I'm going to hand to fresh recruits. Thats work best left for the.

I am sure you know what you are talking about, and I have no military experience... but it appears that the reports you were reading were required of the squad and patrol readers.

One thing that wikis in general have going for them (and I would assume that the same principle applies here) is that contributors are self-selected. People tend to write if/when they have something they feel needs to be said, and people who choose to write often (not always, of course!) tend to be better equipped to do so than those who would rather not. Sometimes they're even concise. Hopefully this applies here, to the benefit of the military. Maybe people with something useful to say will have an easy way to make it heard.

Re:This is a good idea

[tcopeland]

> most of the grunts I have worked with have a
> reading / writing level of less an 8th grade student.

Check out the Army reading list section for cadets, soldiers, and NCOs. Some good stuff there... especially Keegan's "Face of Battle". On the other hand, I have no idea how many folks in those ranks have read any of those.

Re:This is a good idea

[19thNervousBreakdown]

That'd be nice, but things change so fast there's no way that would work alone. Imagine if a particular maneuver were compromised by the enemy, and the soldiers were baited into executing it. If they can change it, that happens once, or for a short period of time. If it's locked, it happens over and over until the article gets through a review team, unlocked, etc.

Maybe have a locked version at the top and notes at the bottom that were still editable.

Re:This is a good idea

[adamchou]

I see two major issues with this

1. A lot of people in the military are not that well educated and the idea of them trying to write manuals sounds horrendous.
2. With Wikipedia, items posted by random people usually require a source. What source is there going to be here? This is mostly going to be mostly opinion, not tried, tested, and true facts.

Re:This is a good idea

[Carrion Creeper]

As a former soldier, the most successful part of this program will probably be getting new ideas into the hands of the people who write field manuals. Decisions about official policy still must be researched to find out if particular circumstances the soldiers mention are as frequent as they claim, and checked against reality, reason, and military law. Cleaning your weapon with moist towelettes may be great, but it may also corrode the weapon over time. On the other hand, it will help get a wider variety of information in the hands of someone who can put that out to everyone else, because maybe moist towelettes do a great job and nobody was willing to mention it in any official capacity.

The other great thing about this is that it will tell the policy makers all the brain dead stupid shit people are doing, so they can mention a few extra pertinent negatives in the next version of the manual.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wanted to say thanks for replying with exactly what I wanted to say.
AC because I'm not adding anything useful...

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Or use Simple Green to Clean Helicopters. It corrodes the Aluminum.
For certain Maintainance tasks there is no unofficial way. There is only the way listed in the manual.
with a form to fix the typos in the back.

Re:This is a good idea

[electrosoccertux]

Well, it's no surprise that there are lots of people in the Army who didn't like education much and wanted out after highschool.
I don't condemn them, I'm glad they are willing to serve, and I'm glad they're doing something instead of sitting around collecting welfare.

Anyways, a solution would be to have a field engineer tagging along at all times, and task him with the documentation. Pay better and I'll sign up; touring the world would be fun.

Re:This is a good idea

[mordors9]

I would point out that when Charlie Rangel and some other politicians started denigrating the volunteer soldiers as a bunch of lower class, uneducated people with no prospects, as study found that they were generally middle class and better educated than the citizenry as a whole. http://www.heritage.org/research/nationalsecurity/cda05-08.cfm

Re:This is a good idea

[More_Cowbell]

A lot of people in the military are not that well educated and the idea of them trying to write manuals sounds horrendous.

No one is forcing anyone to edit anything... as someone noted above, wiki editors are self selecting, my bet is the more educated would contribute>

With Wikipedia, items posted by random people usually require a source. What source is there going to be here? This is mostly going to be mostly opinion, not tried, tested, and true facts.

Ah, the mantra of /. ... RTFA.

Under the three-month pilot program, the current version of each guide can be edited by anyone around the world who has been issued the ID card that allows access to the Army Internet system. About 200 other highly practical field manuals that will be renamed Army Tactics, Techniques and Procedures, or A.T.T.P., will be candidates for wikification.

Re:This is a good idea

[adamchou]

The problem is precisely that the editors are self selecting! I'm certain you've met numerous ignorant people that think they know everything. Those people that think they're smart that aren't really are the ones that worry me

I didn't read the article but I did at least read the summary which does mention that. Regardless, there's no way they can do something to verify claims posted by soldiers. When i say "tried, tested, and true facts", that means it being tested by way more than just one person or even one platoon of people. Just because something might work in Iraq doesn't mean it'll work in Afghanistan.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there better technology than a wiki to organize collective experience?

Having run static web sites with "how tos" AND document management systems AND wikis, I've found that if anything catches on, you'll spend more time editing out off-topic comments than getting anything useful. Wikis are fantastic, but only once a dedicated core group is engaged AND recognized for the extra effort authoring wiki articles requires.

I'm still hoping some better method will be found. Even trivial wiki-text is too complex for my users. Getting anyone to modify an article they didn't start has been impossible too.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. Two ways:

A simulation that can be watched like a football game with commentators.

An interactive simulation that can be played like a video game.

Both of these ways are familiar with soldiers.

The input will be gathered by drones in the field.

Re:This is a good idea

[tacarat]

A wiki has it's advantages for certain jobs and personality types, but so does the X-Prize foundation's approach. I can see the X-Prize method being great for not only improving various practices, but also being good for troop morale. The main thing is they keep trying different techniques rather than just throwing money at a situation. A little bit of fun and well placed change can be the best way to improve things.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The quality of the intelligence reports generated by squad and platoon leaders is directly related to the emphasis placed on it by their immediate command. The last thing you feel like doing after returning from a patrol is writing up a report for some self-important REMF asshat back at headquarters. If your command doesnt force you to do it correctly then you whip up something quick and hand it off so you can get back to what is being emphasized, ie. making sure weapons get cleaned, everyone is fed, all the equipment is accounted for, etc so you are ready for the next patrol or whatever.

Besides, if you leave your troops alone too long while you are off writing reports they will invariably start doing something stupid like making a still, lighting their farts or running with scissors. Then you have to do more paperwork explaining how someone in your platoon got second degree burns on his ahole. I mean you can only invoke the dont ask dont tell policy so many times.

Re:This is a good idea

[sumdumass]

Misinformation is the best compromised information. It wouldn't take long to see that something was compromised, especially if they were monitoring access well enough to know it happened. Issuing new orders in the field and changing battle plans is something the military is relatively good at. Compromised information may actually be an objective here.

Also, an objective could be a new types of field reediness evaluation. I can't imagine this not being followed up with strict access controls and knowing who is posting changes, perhaps deliberate changes, could effectivly evaluate the quality of training and point to any particular trouble spots before a combat situation ensues. Imagine a platoon looking at obviously wrong information several months after training but also several months before a combat rotation. You would know where and what to fine tune in addition to normal mission preparedness. A lot of potential issues or problems could be addresses before they happen.

Re:This is a good idea

[belmolis]

Just wait till they discover that the best material for cleaning your weapon isn't moist towlettes but "feminine hygiene products".

Re:This is a good idea

[More_Cowbell]

The problem is precisely that the editors are self selecting!

No, no it's not.
Pick any really popular wikipedia article. Invariably morons or kids will add stupid edits, but they never stay long. The more intelligent entries always win out because enough people care to fix them.

Re:This is a good idea

[adamchou]

Ok, you're right about the other wiki's. But what happens when you couple problem 1 i mentioned with problem 2? If you have someone posting stuff that can't be verified and the guy posting is a complete bonehead, how do you know what to keep and what not to keep?

Re:This is a good idea

[adamchou]

Sorry, I should probably clarify that what this bonehead is posting sounds very correct when in fact its completely utterly wrong once you go out in the field and apply what he says.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

On this topic ive found that 4"x4" gauze pads (the kind that dont break up and arent stringy) make great cleaning patches. Also extra long q-tips (easiest to get from medical suppliers) work great for cleaning the forcing cone in a shotgun barrel because they are long enough.

Re:This is a good idea

[iamhassi]

"I can say this with experience that most of the grunts I have worked with have a reading / writing level of less an 8th grade student. "

I served, and I think you're full of it. "Most" is a rather definite word, that's a majority, more than half, and from my experience I would strongly disagree with that assessment. They weren't all wonderful writers like your average programmer (lol) but they could write up a patrol report that made sense.

And what was the point of your little soldier bashing post? That they shouldn't have a wiki because they suck at writing? That those that want to write shouldn't be allowed, that only the technical writers should have the ability and the grunts should just shut up and get shot at? I'm even more pissed mods marked it Score:5, Insightful. Shame I used all my mod points up yesterday, I had mod points good until tomorrow.

I think a wiki is a fantastic idea and I'm shocked the Army would even consider it, very un-Army like, to give the grunts a voice. This is not the Army I remember, only good can come of this, and developing the wiki and similar programs should be encouraged.

Re:This is a good idea

[internettoughguy]

I think he was very careful in his wording not to bash them, but it's just a fact of life that serving in the lower ranks of the military requires the lowest standards of education out of almost any job. (the police are the same here too) Although i would say that most of the soldiers here (NZ) would have a standard of literacy high enough to provide each other with useful written intelligence.

Re:This is a good idea

[Carrion Creeper]

I actually found that new kitchen cling wrap stuff quite useful for keeping sand out of my grenade launcher. Perfect wiki material.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people in the world aren't educated, yet Wikipedia is does fine.

Re:This is a good idea

[haystor]

He went and said that useful information came out of the poorly written patrol reports and then says a wiki won't work. Someone doesn't understand how wiki does work. It's not like someone comes along and writes a pristine document. It's a give and take.

If a soldier comes in and writes that a lubricant used in maintenance, "fucking freezes when it's cold", they can ask him when and where and find out of if that corresponds with doctrine.

A soldier with a beef about how the manual is wrong will quite likely want to be heard. And the way I would see it working (through personal experience in the military) is they would pester the guy in their platoon who can write to submit it. Or if this sort of thing is getting tracked, the Lt's will be all over this, soliciting ideas from the troops.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

What Army were you in? I started in the Infantry, went to Ft. Huachuca to the Intel school and served on a high level Intel Staff. I finished as a recruiter. I think with such a varied career I have a good notion of what the army looks like.

The average enlisted soldier is better educated than his civilian counterpart. In a 2004 article Fred Kaplan wrote" More than that, the aptitude of U.S. military personnel now exceeds that of American civilians.Scores are divided into five categories. Categories I and II score in the 65th to 99th percentiles. Category IIIs score in the 31st to 64th percentiles, Category IVs in the 10th to 30th percentiles, Category Vs in the bottom 10th percentile. Here's how the scores break down, for recent recruits and for civilians:

  Recruits
  Civilians

Category I & II
(65th to 99th percentiles)
  41 percent
  36 percent

Category III
(31st to 64th percentiles) 58 percent
  34 percent

Category IV
(10th to 30th percentiles) 1 percent
  21 percent

Category V
(bottom 10th percentile)
  0 percent
  9 percent

On balance, by this measure, those who volunteer for the military are smarter than those who don't."

Your contention that soldiers in the enlisted ranks do not posess the requisite writing skills is pedestrian nonsense. You MUST have been an officer.

Re:This is a good idea

[PopeRatzo]

This is a good idea.

I'm surprised that there's not an outcry that "Wiki's are Socialism". After all, it's the opposite of privatized, profit-driven approach that America is supposed to be about.

Next thing, we'll hear that Obama wants to kill our excellent free-market military by making it government-run and use our taxes to pay for it.

It's time to get the government out of our fine US military. Or something.

Re:This is a good idea

[PopeRatzo]

You know, if they could write, they probably wouldn't have taken up soldiering.

I don't think you realize how many great writers were once soldiers. Norman Mailer and Tim O'Brien come to mind, but there are many many more. Joe Haldeman was a grunt in Viet Nam. John Steinbeck was in the Army in WWII with a commando unit but was denied a commission because of his left-wing politics. If I wasn't half-drunk, I'd go look in my literary biographies and list a bunch more. When I was fresh out of grad school, I taught a writing class at a land-grant college not far from a very large military base. I remember one retired staff sergeant who'd been in Saigon around the time of the fall and he could write the birds out of the trees. He was writing a novel when I got an appointment to a tonier school and I heard he died before it was finished, from illnesses probably related to Agent Orange.

All kinds of people enlist in the service, for lots of different reasons. There was a time in this country when most young men faced the possibility of wearing a uniform, including yours truly. It was only a lucky pick in a lottery that kept me over here smoking weed and playing student. Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that they're all stupid just because they might have fought in a stupid war.

Re:This is a good idea

[SeaFox]

Don't you find it amusing that web page is headed with this quote:

"The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of distinction between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards" -- Sir William Francis Butler

Then goes on to divide the reading list based on the rank of the reader?

Re:This is a good idea

[tcopeland]

> Then goes on to divide the reading list based on the rank of the reader?

Some truth to that... but I don't know. Seems to me that the senior officer books are more around strategy (see the Navy reading list 'Senior Leaders' section) while the junior folks' books are more general stuff and easy reads. For example, look where Ender's Game shows up on several lists...

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

They should use something like WikiServer on the iPhone. Http://www.mobilewikiserver.com

Re:This is a good idea

[Rei]

I wonder how far they'll go along the "no original research" route?

"Guns fire bullets.[citation needed]"

Re:This is a good idea

[troll8901]

I think some soldiers here in Singapore use mosquito repellent to clean their weapons, believing that the acidic gel will somehow dissolve the carbon.

Most definitely, we use black shoe polish to make our weapon butts and rifle slings shine after a field exercise.

Re:This is a good idea

[ahabswhale]

Ordinarily I would agree that this would be a good idea (since I'm pro-wiki for this kind of thing) but I think this will fail due to culture. Lower ranks will be very reluctant to change something written by someone higher rank especially in cases where the lower rank is enlisted and the higher rank is an officer. You could even argue that it's a sign of disrespect and the enlisted could end up on charges of insubordination.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll probably get moderated down to the invisibility level, but I say this is a bad idea, cause it allows for unofficial or speculation of rules on what should be written and officially published. I can see it being used to obscure crimes which couldn't be committed if an official manual was published. For example with one edit (ignoring if it's right or wrong) could allow fingernails to be yanked out. Leaving the whole thing open for courts and prosecutions and other nonsense like blame for just long enough where time is used as a weapon while everyone is arguing. Who edited it, Who approved the edit, What day did the soldier read the manual etc.

In short, it allows for smoke and mirrors when everyone should have a clear SOP (Standard Operating Procedure.)

Re:This is a good idea

[Kirijini]

If you actually read GP's post, at no point does the coward actually say that soldiers shouldn't write a wiki. What he(?) actually says is:

I wouldnt trust them [soldiers] to write a document I'm going to hand to fresh recruits... [some wikis] will probably end up being white washed by field experienced officers."

The GP's point is not...

That those that want to write shouldn't be allowed, that only the technical writers should have the ability and the grunts should just shut up and get shot at

...but:

I expect most soldiers will also expect the white wash to occur, but I think this is a very good compromise and positive adaptation of technology to shape doctrine and benefit from collective experiences.

You know, when you said...

I think a wiki is a fantastic idea... developing the wiki and similar programs should be encouraged.

...it sounds a lot like the GP's

I think this is a very good compromise and positive adaptation of technology to shape doctrine and benefit from collective experiences.

hmmmm.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you realize how many great writers were once soldiers.

I'm confused, are you talking about the past or present? If you're talking about the past then you're posting to the wrong thread, because this is about wikis and the modern forces. If you're talking about the present then what makes you think the same kinds of people would join the military as those 50 years ago?

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

... I would mod you down but I'm out of points, so here's my own contradicting experience.... (end paraphrase)

Did it ever occur to you that the debate benefits from you contributing a post instead of a down-modding? I certainly think this post did way more for your cause and the general information level.

Re:This is a good idea

[misexistentialist]

Most of the people you listed were drafted. Some may have volunteered, but everyone was doing that in WWII. Now that the military is a smaller self-selected group, literary talent will be much more limited.

Re:This is a good idea

[hab136]

Yeah but there may be compelling reasons why they want it done the official way that your common foot soldier doesn't know about

If that's so, then the manual needs to state why it should be done the official way and not the unofficial way.

Re:This is a good idea

[slimshady945]

Actually, I know of a few medics that keep tampons on hand for plugging bullet wounds. Works pretty well, but a problem that comes up as much as others.

Re:This is a good idea

[slimshady945]

That is probably because people of different ranks tend to have different responsibilities.

An infantry platoon leader (2LT/1LT) has drastically different duties than an infantry team leader (SGT/SSG). And these are different from that of team members (PVT - SPC). When you get into general grade, now you're talking about commanding large elements, which involves a vastly different set of skills than leading a few dozen people.

Re:This is a good idea

[Tiger4]

I worked alongside a Logistics Test squadron once. These are the guys that write Technical Orders for maintenance and repair. They take the recommendations from the engineers and turn them into repair manuals. The hardest part of the job is two fold: first, you make sure the necessary stuff gets said the right way and clearly, and second you take good ideas from the field and get them implemented. AND you make sure bad ideas get stopped cold (e.g. don't substitute Vaseline for high temp silicone grease).

A wiki will be great for getting good ideas spread around. The front line maintainers very quickly come up with faster, better, cheaper ways to do things. It makes sense that 1000 guys will eventually think up a better solution than the 10 guys that wrote the manual. BUT just as often, the 1000 will go off on the wrong track and emphasize speed or simplicity over reliability or functionality. They don't know it is causing damage because they don't see the long term cause and effect. If the subject matter experts are closely reviewing this wiki, it could be a win for both groups.

And then there is the matter of rewards and retaliation.

Re:This is a good idea

[hcdejong]

But I wouldnt trust them to write a document I'm going to hand to fresh recruits. Thats work best left for the officers.

Um, no. Officers aren't much better equipped to write a comprehensible manual than are enlisted men. Writing a manual is best left to a technical writer, someone trained to extricate information from the experts and convert this into a format readable by a novice.

That said, the second most valuable resource for a technical writer is feedback from the field (the most valuable is actual field experience, but that's not always feasible). This wiki would be a real boon in that area.

hdj
(technical writer)

Re:This is a good idea

[tibman]

The Geneva Convention isn't up for edit, only 7x US Army FMs. I looked but couldn't see which 7 were up. I'll log in on monday to look but i'm sure they are already well polished manuals. Anyways, as far as i know Field Manuals are never rules, just guidelines.. like FM 7.0. Army Regulations are rulebooks though, like AR 670-1. You can access almost all of the US Army manuals (google will turn them up). If you compare an FM to an AR you'll see the big difference. ARs are very formal and written like legalese. FMs are laidback and talk to the reader in a very informal matter.. like a nice teacher instructing a student.

Also, i should point out that every unit has an SOP as well.. their own sub-set of rules and guidelines. These are crafted and edited by members of that individual unit and usually never get outside of that unit. This will allow all the best parts of those SOPs to be added into the Army-wide knowledge base.

The CAC card has your fingerprints, a public/private key-pair, and all kinds of goodies on it.. i have no doubt the CAC will be used to authenticate and track contributors to this wiki. It will be very easy to find out where contributions came from.

Re:This is a good idea

[Nathrael]

People of different ranks in the military need to know different stuff. A grunt or junior NCO should mainly know about combat and to some degree tactical leadership. A Special Forces NCO or officer needs to know more about how his enemy operates, a soldier in a senior leadership position should focus on strategic leadership. I think the lists are based on what a soldier of a certain rank would find most useful, not what is easy to read and what not (or do you really think having read The Clash of Civilizations will help a Private do his job?).

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

And what was the point of your little soldier bashing post?.....way to overreact. If you take that as "soldier bashing", I would say you haven't heard soldier bashing. Don't take such criticims so harshly.

I served too, and I would make an assessment similar to the OP. He said quite specifically "I can say this with experience that most of the grunts I have worked with have a reading / writing level of less an 8th grade student." He said that it was his experience, can you really argue that. Can I argue with your experience?

"And what was the point of your little soldier bashing post? That they shouldn't have a wiki because they suck at writing? That those that want to write shouldn't be allowed, that only the technical writers should have the ability and the grunts should just shut up and get shot at?"

Those are remarkably broad assertions to make. I don't think that's what he was saying at all. I do agree with your last point, that the Army using a wiki is a good idea, as the Intelligence Community does now....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellipedia

Re:This is a good idea

[Marcika]

I would point out that when Charlie Rangel and some other politicians started denigrating the volunteer soldiers as a bunch of lower class, uneducated people with no prospects, as study found that they were generally middle class and better educated than the citizenry as a whole. http://www.heritage.org/research/nationalsecurity/cda05-08.cfm

Yes, but if you actually look at the study, you see how Heritage distorts the results. 98% of military recruits have High School diplomas -- because the military enlists very few people without. So the study is disingenuous in that it doesn't compare populations _with the actual opportunity_ to enlist.... And even then, they find that the top quintile (the smart kids) are underrepresented, and they find that Asian kids are underrepresented, while there is a higher fraction of black and latino kids.

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like a 90 day wonder. The type of "officer" that got fragged in Vietnam because of their great respect for the "grunt."

Re:This is a good idea

[Brian Gordon]

You sound like you're condoning murder and insubordination.

Re:This is a good idea

[quotationspage]

"Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing." --Dick Brandon

Re:This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

People tend to write if/when they have something they feel needs to be said,

(A different AC here)

This.

If Joe Sixpack can't write that the Foobar 5000 doesn't work in the heat, he'll ask one of his buddies. "Dude, we all know the Foobar 5000 sucks in the heat. I heard about the wikithing but didn't know what it was about. Jed Sickpack tried playing with it but they didn't let him fix it. Can you help?"

"Lemme guess. You said 'It sux in the heat', Jed said 'it jams when its hot'. We all know what the problem is - it jams because part 123 is made of copper, and part 456 is made of steel, and one expands more than the other, just like the coil in an old thermostat, and the idiots who designed it thought we'd be fighting the Russians in the middle of winter. Lemme take out the word 'idiots who designed it', and it'll probably go through."

Problem solved. Many eyes make all bugs shallow. Let me expand on that. Many bug reports - however inarticulate - make all bugs shallow.

Re:This is a good idea

[PopeRatzo]

My response to the poster who suggested that soldiers can't write. Spend a little time with the mil-blogs and you'll learn different.

Re:This is a good idea

[PopeRatzo]

Now that the military is a smaller self-selected group, literary talent will be much more limited.

Because someone who chooses to serve would automatically be illiterate?

I guess the saddest part of the all-volunteer army is that people who don't serve tend not to have the first clue about those who do.

I grew up in a time when it was extremely uncool to be in the military. I've had leftist, liberal, progressive tendencies since high-school, and I'm now a full-fledged, pro-union, anti-war, believer that the US could benefit from some "socialistic" policies. But you know what? I've had the opportunity to spend time with people who are past and current military, I call several of them "friend" and I've learned that they are quite a diverse group. More diverse, I'd suggest, than American techies, and certainly more diverse than specific nerdy groups, say Apple users, for example.

Further, if as an employer I encounter two equally qualified candidates and one of them is a veteran, I'd select the vet every single time. I have done so in the past and I've never been disappointed by an employee who was a vet. I can't say the same for the non-vets.

Re:This is a good idea

[bhiestand]

I think it's fair to say there is truth on both sides of this. To begin with, in present American society highly intelligent people are less likely to see the military as a good option. I'm talking the top 10% here. This means there is some self-selection bias, as they rightly know they're more likely to do better (higher earnings potential, more mentally challenging job, more stable home environment) by going to the private sector.

In addition to the self-selection bias, the military actively screens based on aptitude as well. Recruits who score high on the ASVAB will be encouraged to take jobs that make better use of their skills. All branches actively push these people into jobs with harder requirements such as intel, linguist, EOD, air traffic control, nuclear, etc.

The few outliers who make it through all of these selection criteria are very likely to be encouraged by their superiors to consider becoming an officer or take a more challenging role. If they don't, they're likely to be able to rise through the enlisted ranks in short order, quickly becoming NCOs and Senior/Staff NCOs. This also takes them out of the grunt job and pushes them more into the kind of position that, well, writes manuals.

None of this is to say that the American soldier is dumber than the average American. Because of the cut-offs and selection criteria, the American soldier is, on average, brighter than the average American. But our top 2% in terms of IQ are highly unlikely to join the military and even less likely to serve as grunts. The military actively tries to keep the brightest from becoming grunts, and that's the smart thing for them to do. Frankly, I'd be worried if our system worked any other way.

--

As a quick aside, I should note that I'm sharply aware of the differences between different kinds of intelligences. It's difficult to have this conversation without generalizing and making some broad sweeps, but please note that I try to do it objectively and without any contempt.

Check please

[Wowsers]

Wiki entry:

In case you come under attack, shoot back. [clarification needed]

Re:Check please

[More_Cowbell]

Don't you mean [citation needed]? Seems pretty clear to me already... :)

Re:Check please

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean [citation needed]? Seems pretty clear to me already... :)

Wiki entry:

In case you come under attack, shoot back. [clarification needed]

I read those instructions as a free pass to be a team-killing bastard.

Re:Check please

[frosty_tsm]

If you check back later, you'll find the following edit:

"... unless in a peace keeping mission where you were ordered to walk around with your weapon unloaded and ammo stored back at base."

with the history showing the name of some bureaucrat who's never served in the military.

Re:Check please

[Brian Gordon]

...Not at all a good idea if you're vastly outnumbered and opening fire just draws attention to your retreating team.

Wow

[wb8wsf]

That is absolutely one of the most intelligent things I have ever heard
of the US armed forces doing.

Well, that and letting Haynes design T-shirts, and letting go of the 20+
page specifications for fruitcakes.

Re:Wow

[19thNervousBreakdown]

This is an incredibly good idea. This may sound weird, but I'm going to compare this to my experience with Internet spaceships.

My corporation in EVE has a wiki where we dump ship fittings and tactics. That alone is a huge benefit, but what really makes it shine is that combined with a killboard, which tracks all of our combat statistics, and a forum where we can discuss the entries there. Everybody can see who is actually successful, and obviously when the highly successful people speak, others listen. The end result is that we have a central database of battle-tested equipment loadouts, that are collaborated on and refined through discussion, and backed up by an objective reputation system.

That exact setup is fully within the Army's grasp, and they should pursue it wholeheartedly. What seems intuitive in battle is rarely the most effective choice, and resources like this can drastically reduce the time it takes to becoming a veteran, as well as increase odds of survival until they reach that level of expertise.

Queue nerds flaming about how real war isn't a videogame.

Re:Wow

[More_Cowbell]

Queue nerds flaming about how real war isn't a videogame.

I would say modern warfare is quite often exactly like a video game... (e.g. drones that can be piloted from thousands of miles away.)

Re:Wow

[bogjobber]

That exact setup is fully within the Army's grasp, and they should pursue it wholeheartedly. What seems intuitive in battle is rarely the most effective choice, and resources like this can drastically reduce the time it takes to becoming a veteran, as well as increase odds of survival until they reach that level of expertise.

It's a good idea, but you are wrong. First of all, it is significantly harder to perform statistical analysis on combat procedures in real life. It's easy to record data off a computer program, you already have a large amount of the information in the correct form stored electronically, and even if you have to write something down or take a screenshot you're already sitting at a computer connected to the internet. GI's in a firefight aren't going to have perfect comprehension or recollection of specific details (especially regarding things like enemy troop placement, movement, etc.) and they can't really be expected to.

The armed forces already do a ton of statistical analysis on various things, but gathering good data about specific encounters is much more difficult in wartime than you seem to understand. As I understand it, most analysis they do is at a higher level.

Second, the armed forces are extremely conservative about experimenting with combat tactics, for obvious reasons. While you might consider trying some different configurations and tactics risky in EVE, the risk of losing some ISK over losing a squad of men aren't really comparable.

Real war isn't a videogame :)

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not original poster, but I believe he was referring to (amongst other things) the natural hierarchy that exists in the military. If you have a little stats menu with basic details (rank, unit/field, time spent in army, etc), it would be quite effective in weeding out Private Too Many Video Games from Major Buff Hardthrust. Of course, there's room for an inexperienced person to look experienced (or visa versa), but by in large, it would be an effective tool (think of it like /.'s karma moderation - clearly subject to abuse, but still provides more good than harm).

Re:Wow

[Jedi Alec]

(e.g. drones that can be piloted from thousands of miles away.)

thousands of miles? 60km with max skills is pretty much it ;-)

Re:Wow

[prichardson]

If you don't mind, what corporation are you a member of?

I play EVE, and am currently a member of one of the default corporations and I mostly just run missions right now. Anyway, I'd like to get into some moderately serious PvP.

All my mission running has left me with a decent wallet, and I'd really enjoy getting a cheap ship blown up in a massive PvP battle.

Of course, I don't know if you guys are recruiting or what the situation is, but I'm interested, mostly because it sounds like you have your stuff together.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Join Goonfleet.

We don't read field manuals

[cenobyte40k]

The problem with american military doctrine is that the American military does not read it's field manuals, and even when it does it doesn't follow them.

Re:We don't read field manuals

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that is the precise problem this is meant to address.

Re:We don't read field manuals

[cpghost]

and even when it does it doesn't follow them.

and even when it does it doesn't understand them. There, fixed for you.

Re:We don't read field manuals

[Dravik]

No, they understand them perfectly. They just happen to be years out of date and not applicable to the current equipment and/or enemy.

Re:We don't read field manuals

[greyhueofdoubt]

You mean army. The *army* might not read their FM's.

The Air Force has T.O.'s and I assure slashdot that we do in fact read them. There is work out there that is running/jumping/bang bang-stuff, and there is work out there that is "putting all 10,000 pieces of this engine back together within 0.0005" tolerances'.

So as an airman, I'd appreciate it if I didn't get lumped in with all of the army anecdotes. I respect the army but comparing the army to the marines to air force etc. would be like comparing soccer to baseball to football.

-b

Re:We don't read field manuals

[bhiestand]

You mean army. The *army* might not read their FM's.

The Air Force has T.O.'s and I assure slashdot that we do in fact read them. There is work out there that is running/jumping/bang bang-stuff, and there is work out there that is "putting all 10,000 pieces of this engine back together within 0.0005" tolerances'.

So as an airman, I'd appreciate it if I didn't get lumped in with all of the army anecdotes. I respect the army but comparing the army to the marines to air force etc. would be like comparing soccer to baseball to football.

-b

You really think mechanics in the Army, Navy, and Marines don't have TOs? Let's take this one another step further... you think aviation mechanics outside of the military, or in foreign militaries, don't have TOs? You need to lay off the Kool-Aid, Airman.

Perhaps the Key Difference

[kevinatilusa]

between this and Wikipedia is that each edit will be linked to an ID which in turn is linked to a known service(wo)man.

Combine this with the way that the final manual will be the product of review teams rather than the wiki-style entries themselves, and this seems as much a very efficient public feedback/comment system (using wiki software and formatting) as a true wiki.

Re:Perhaps the Key Difference

[cybrpnk2]

Actually, the edits are not limted to just soldiers. There are lots of civilian contractors (like me) who have CACs. Guess I need to go over to Army Knowledge Online and check this out - they've been hassling me to change my password there anyway....

Shouldn't it be like this already?

[Turzyx]

tap more experience and advice from battle-tested soldiers rather than relying on the specialists within the Army's array of colleges and research centers

Forgive my ignorance, but by definition a field manual should be exactly that - a tool relevant to experience in the field of combat.

I fail to see how some "researcher" no doubt with a worthless degree in "Ancient Medievil History" or the like is more qualified that some who's, gasp, actually been in the field?

By open-sourcing information, they have basically allowed for a large influx of new, refreshing and indeed relevant ideas and ideology.

Re:Shouldn't it be like this already?

[infinitelink]

[quote]I fail to see how some "researcher" no doubt with a worthless degree in "Ancient Medievil History" or the like is more qualified that some who's, gasp, actually been in the field? [/quote] Large battles have been won by officer who know that kind of history, because of that history, even from accounts recorded in the Hebrew Bible. I wouldn't be so brash as to discount battle history: often much is very applicable; oftentimes such knowledge is a harbor of tactics which, if recalled, are redeployable even in modern arenas.

Re:Shouldn't it be like this already?

[belmolis]

Because in many cases the person experienced in the field has only his or her own limited, personal experience to go by, whereas the researcher is able to draw on a large number of examples in a wide variety of situations, which gives him or her a better picture of what is really going on. The person experienced in the field may indeed have valuable information and insights, but at the same time, he or she may have a narrow perspective or limited information. And of course researchers are usually people with special aptitude, training, skills, and resources for doing research, which is not true of the person in the field.

CAC Card

[Anonymous Coward]

The Common Access Card (CAC Card. yes, it's redundant) is not unique to the Army, the entirety of the U.S. Armed Forces uses them to varying degrees because it's integrated into the Military ID (which is a Smart Card)

Re:CAC Card

[martas]

so it's CACArd?

Re:CAC Card

[Anonymous Coward]

*groan*

General sockpuppet disagrees too

[ring-eldest]

This just in: the military command structure has decided to put ARPANET to use as originally intended a scant 40 years after development!

On a (slightly) more serious note, the rank and file and upper brass have differing views on how their opinions are going to be received by the other side. Of course they do! The higher level officers have always expected their suggestions to be taken seriously and responded to with a prompt, "Yes, sir!" They see no problem here. The grunts have a long history of learning exactly how much their input is both required and appreciated by those men, especially when it comes unsolicited. This is one of those rare situations in the military where both sides' reactions are perfectly understandable and even... rational.

Re:General sockpuppet disagrees too

[greyhueofdoubt]

I'd like to point out that in the air force I know of at least two programs that serve this niche, albeit more slowly.

There's the air force idea program, where you can be paid money for your ideas. Any ideas, really, as long as they are safe and save the air force money. Examples might include "training one person to repair part X on location would save $X per unit compared to sending it to depot, thus saving this base on average $Y/year". Stuff like that that could only come from someone experienced in their career out in the field.

And we have a program for changing T.O.s (Technical orders; they're the manuals we use for maintaining aircraft- among other things- and can fill a large room just for one airframe). If you find a missing step, an unsafe step, ambiguous language, a more efficient process, etc, you submit the paperwork (I believe it's done electronically now) and the primary TO manager gets it. If it's not a safety issue, it is released with the next TO revision, and if it is a safety issue, the revision can be issued to every relevant unit within days, to be implemented within days. It's a system that has worked pretty well since the 50's.

-b

infotopia

[martas]

there's a book called Infotopia (http://www.amazon.com/Infotopia-Many-Minds-Produce-Knowledge/dp/0195189280), about how information is generated and shared in an increasingly tech advanced society, and this is one of the things it mentions in its "vision for the future" in the intro. interesting book. quite optimistic.

Re:infotopia

[electrosoccertux]

The efficiency gained from the information age is the only thing that will save us from an increasingly inefficient and spend-happy bureaucracy.

To be honest, Clinton did little to balance the budget. IMO, our GDP grew so fast as we replaced typewriters and recordbooks with MS Word and Excel that the government couldn't help but run a balanced book. They may not have caught up just yet, but as we saw, fear not, they certainly do not struggle with spending more than they take in...and I used to think Bush was good at spending...

In other new.

[Steauengeglase]

Standard SOP for solid waste burning is SERGEANT MAJOR IS A COCK SUCKER!

Re:In other new.

[Dunbal]

Standard SOP for solid waste burning is SERGEANT MAJOR IS A COCK SUCKER!

[citation needed]

Re:In other new.

[MartinSchou]

Standard SOP for solid waste burning is SERGEANT MAJOR IS A COCK SUCKER!

[citation needed]

Alright, Sergeant Major will also receive a citation for not standing at attention as ordered.

Re:In other new.

[denzacar]

Standard SOP for solid waste burning is SERGEANT MAJOR IS A COCK SUCKER!

[citation needed]

That sounds like original research to me. Umm... How was it?

Such a good idea. Maybe they SHOULDN'T do it?

[MarkvW]

This is a supremely excellent idea.

Only problem is that it will provide a supremely excellent manual for OPFOR.

Wikiality

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, Stephen Colbert is now commander-in-chief of US forces in the middle east, and the number of elephant attacks has tripled in the last 6 months.

Re:Wikiality

[MartinSchou]

Nothing to be overly concerned about. But start worrying when the enemy is seen to keep and arm bears!

Re:Such a good idea. Maybe they SHOULDN'T do it?

[Anonymous Coward]

OPFOR already has access to US Military doctrine. A great many documents are not classified in any way. For exampe, if you are OPFOR in Iraq and want to know how Petraeus thinks he is going to beat you, read FM 3-24. http://usacac.army.mil/cac/repository/materials/coin-fm3-24.pdf

Later,
Jason

Who to believe?

[Sir_Sri]

This would seem to pose a problem when there are conflicting viewpoints - esspecially among higher ups. Wikipedia has this problem too, but wikipedia articles on controversial topics aren't really actionable (and you can't plead your case that oh, you read this on wikipedia it must have been true! when something is wrong that you did act on wikipedia from). Army doctrine is.

If you take a look at the current US army and marine corps counterinsurgency field manual Chapter 2is titled "Unity of Effort: Integrating Civilian and Military Activities". I bet with 200k troops or so active at any given time on recolonization (I term I would prefer to counter insurgency), there are going to be at least a dozen different high level officers with different ideas on how to get things done, and some with contradictory ideas both seeing success (or failure). Figuring out which goes in the manual, which doesn't, and why is the sort of thing that requires people at the top to act as editors, pick sides and end up essentially censoring one group of people is likely to build dissent - and public dissent. It's different when they're silenced in a research lab, the only people who've know they've been shut up are immediate colleagues, but when you make opinions widely public (or in the case of an army wide wiki, mostly public), even wildly wrong ones, you're giving the people who dissent a voice to end up on faux news touting how their solution to 'counter insurgency' would have been to gas the lot of them! It even made it into the field manual before it was pulled! The government isn't supporting our commanders who want to use more/less/different whatever.

Certainly a military wiki has its place, but I'm betting there are going to be some kinks to be worked out yet. One of the virtues of the military structure is deffering responsibility for being wrong. If I'm colonel A and General B tells me to do something I know to be wildly misguided (but not illegal), I go and do it, and when questioned about it, can say with honesty, and possibly with written orders to squarely place the blame on General B. On the other hand with the wiki system if Generals C, D, E and F all say things on a topic, not all of which is consistent, and the one I happened to see was General E's opinion which happens to be wrong who's fault is it now? Colonel A for not researching enough Gen. E for being wrong, or the Lt who was moderating the discussion for not blocking the wrongness of E that was agreed upon by C, D and F.

Re:Who to believe?

[greyhueofdoubt]

The bickering in the labs would have little impact on the grunts. The way that chain of command works means there is an almost straight line of responsibility from the lowest airman or private all the way to the president.

Here is my own personal chain of command, from lowest-ranking to highest. No one outside of this chain has responsibility for anyone lower than their rank unless they are acting in the function or in the stead of someone in this chain.

-My guys
-Me
-Shop supervisor (obvious)
-Element supervisor (super of my shop and the rest of fabrication like machine shop)
-Squadron commander (in charge of all the backshops)
-Group commander (in charge of all maintenance)
-Base/wing commander
-State adjutant general----->State governor (when tasked by our state during disaster or whatever)
-Joint chiefs of staff at the pentagon
-President (CINC)

I'm not part of the air force chaplaincy or the fuel analysis program or the drill team, which is why none of them are included in this chain. Nothing they do has any bearing on my work unless someone higher up accepts the responsibility for ordering a change, in which case the chain of responsibility is as clear as day. And in most cases in the air force, rationale is given as citations from the applicable tech data, which is quickly verifiable, and which leaves the ultimate burden on the shoulders of the author.

In reality, tactical-level decisions (Should we open fire? Which building should we drop a bomb onto?) are made by field-grade officers who already have command over possibly thousands of people and there will be NO question of who ordered what or why. We have rules of engagement and SOFA and LOAC and a whole bunch of other rules to follow to help ensure that mixups like you describe don't happen in the field.

-b

-b

end-run around accountability

[Speare]

1) define legal rules for prisoner treatment as "use only techniques listed in the Field Manual"

2) wikify the Field Manual

3) ...

4) oppress it!

oooooohhh...

[sootman]

... prepare for edit wars unlike any you've ever seen before.

RTFM

[westlake]

I fail to see how some "researcher" no doubt with a worthless degree in "Ancient Medievil History" or the like is more qualified that some who's, gasp, actually been in the field?

To view the active list of Army Field Manuals - excluding engineering and medical: Doctrine and Training Publications

You won't be able to access the files.

But it might just buy you a clue to what an Army college is all about.

Here is a sampling of Army field manuals in the public domain: Army Field Manuals

 

Added benefit

[Runaway1956]

The added benefit should be, that doctrine is more understandable. Back in my day, I read a LOT of manuals, and completed the correspondence courses associated with many of them. There were times that I questioned my own understanding of the English language! Worse, sometimes the questions in the course were apparently targeted at an earlier revision, because NONE of the multiple choice answers agreed with the current revision!

Given even 10,000 soldiers (or sailors, or airmen) are willing to participate in such a project, the end product HAS to be more intelligible than some manuals that I read. Had there been an internet back in my day, I would certainly have gone online to help correct errors. (I should note that such shoddy manuals were the exception, rather than the rule - most manuals were pretty straight forward, assuming prerequisites have been met.)

too broad.

[TechnoVooDooDaddy]

as a consultant that has such CAC card (no, it's not repetitive)

I believe the access too broad for this to be effective.. Although there does exist STRONG accountability within the credentialed system, no anonymous access or anything allowed on the network. This will probably work ok, but there will be much more overhead in the moderation and administration than exists even in wikipedia out publicly.

Re:too broad.

[jpstanle]

as a consultant that has such CAC card (no, it's not repetitive)

Yes, it is.

Re:Hurry up and mod me down biatch!

[PopeRatzo]

Is it my imagination or have there been far more racist trolls on /. since Obama got elected?

No, it's actually Obama posting these things to try to make racists look bad.

In the past...

[DaveAtFraud]

In the past, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) looked at the threat, defined and acquired the means of dealing with the threat and then trained the people at the sharp end how to use what TRADOC or the other commands had acquired to dispatch the threat. Since everything but the threat was theoretical, the only way to do things was to have the FM written by TRADOC. No one had any real experience on which to base a FM. This made a lot of sense when the overall threat was assumed to be the Warsaw Pact armies rolling through the Fulda Gap with their latest collection of toys.

Fast forward to the 21st century and both the overall threat and the specific means of implementing the threat aren't as clearly defined. On the other hand, we have people in the field getting real experience dealing with the current threat. It just makes sense to get the people with the experience to data dump into a FM that represents how things really work. Conversely, no one but the analysts and people at TRADOC had any idea of how to deal with the cold war threats. Asking the people at the sharp end back then to write the FM wouldn't have made any sense either.

Cheers,
Dave

It used to be editable without an ID

[ryanisflyboy]

...then they started getting entries like this:

"this is your gun dont point hat ur face lol"
"ponies shoot the poniesll!LL!Lol"
"oh gawd they took my liver"
"dis is f'd up yo no one reads da stoopid books"
"tak ur POGEY BAIT and ASRAAM it up ur HOOCH! lol"

After they added the ID requirement they realized the person making all the edits was Dick Cheney.

First Aid and Field Medicine

[Tekfactory]

A while back I was reading a survival page from a practicing guide and Park Ranger working in the Texas desert. He had made a point about the standard "suck out the poison" from a snakebite advice still being in the army field manual long after anyone in the medical community, or desert survival park ranger community had given up the practice.

http://ridgerunnersurvival.tripod.com/da1.htm

Now the page is from 2000 and he's quoting the various field manuals up to 1992. There's also advice on why water rationing as described in the manuals is a bad idea. Digging a condensation trap will cost you more sweat than it will gather in drinking water, etc.

So I wonder what other areas it might be better to enlist some subject matter experts in, the idea of opening it up to more voices outside the war colleges is good, maybe they should open it up even more.

And like a good wiki-citizen he cites the books he references and his credentials.

Re:Such a good idea. Maybe they SHOULDN'T do it?

[u38cg]

If all it took to run an army was a decent book, anyone with The Art of War could have rolled over Western Europe by now.

The best soldiers have initiative.

[tjstork]

This isn't really new, per se, but it is a reassertion of one of the best values of American soldiery - the guy on the ground should have some room to make some decisions for himself or herself. Good commanders have always encouraged their subordinates to lead, and given them tools to do so. Bad commanders don't.

Yes, but

[Anonymous Coward]

this is actually how things get done. For example, Condoms were ORIGINALLY handed out PURELY for sex. Some soldiers figured it out that they were also nice for closing muzzles and keeping the barrel clean. Ultimately, that info made its way up the chain and then it became a standard. There are lots of tricks that guys in the field will do. If this information can be disseminated QUICKLY, it may help more. Also, if as you say, perhaps there are reasons to NOT do something, this will get it stopped quickly. The DOD is finally back on track.

ID REQUIRED

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch the ID card issue.

I believe that the military ID system is the early test for a coming soon new US passport/drivers license/health care card.

positive biometric that can be validated against central database, trackable, and required for internet access.

So there will be NO anonymous cowards in the future.

And no I don't think I am being overly paranoid or own a tinfoil hat.

Although after seeing "Enemy of the State" anyone have links for the RF isolation cage plan?

Effective? Nay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we really write effective military doctrines through collaborative effort?

I beg to differ.

While I'm no expert per se, there are simply way too many differing opinions when it comes to military strategies. A field manual is only good as a guide, but not as a bible. No two platoons are the same, and every commander will have their own ideas on how to run their own men.

Having trained under numerous platoon commanders, I have seen various methodologies in action and from my pov, it is simply impossible to say if one is better than the other. Heck! Even methods of building a tent is sure to garner varied opinions. But no man's claim can truly be correct unless it has been tested and proven on the field.

To build a wiki based on topics that sits on a great array of beliefs is not going to be easy. Such tasks are better suited in a message forum or perhaps at the discussion table. That said, a wiki is best suited for factual information, not so for subjective opinions.

2LT Anonymous Coward

Aurthor Dent

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is 42. dont forget your towl.

Sounds Good On Paper...

[IonOtter]

...but in practice, this could have potential for serious disaster.

There are just some things that should NEVER be subject to change without extensive and careful review.

Case in point: MRCs or Maintenance Requirement Cards.

Basically, they're mini manuals on how to perform preventative maintenance on your gear, some of which can be outrageously deadly if you don't follow the instructions to the exact letter. You really wouldn't believe how much stuff on a ship gets the label "MANKILLER", and I've no doubt the Army is little different, quite probably much worse. MRC cards have, quite literally in many cases, been written with the blood of those who discovered the "wrong way" to perform maintenance or took a "shortcut".

Army field manuals are much like MRC cards; they've been written either by those who've shed the blood, or by those who had to mop up the mess from those who didn't survive. They might look nice and boring in the way they read, but that dry tone of the manuals carries many, many lives behind it.

I hope these edits are subject to extensive review, and won't just pop up for everyone to follow with a click of a mouse? Otherwise, someone might try to get their lulz, and we might see subjects like...

Maintenance Requirement for the M33A1/M59 High Explosive Fragmentation Grenade

Hoo hah this is fun!

[A nonymous Coward]

I would have prefered not to write this anonymously, but because what I have to say is not very "pro soldiers"[There's a new phrase!]. Its not anti-soldier either, its[apostrophe missing] an observation from having been in the armed forces myself.

I have worked on a deployment as an intelligence analyst in the Balkans. My job was to read "patrol reports"[unnecessary quotes] squad leaders / platoon leaders would write up after their patrols. I can say this with experience that most of the grunts I have worked with have a reading / writing level of less an 8th grade student. Their ability to translate experience into the written word is often very poor, and hard to translate. A lot of the work was shoddy at best, and required additional "questioning"[unnecessary quotes] of the patrol leader and its members in order to find out any information of value. Probably 20% of the time, the additional questioning[dropped the unnecessary quotes, I see] yielded actual useful information.

This lack of literacy does not entail[This verb fits not the situation] that these individuals are stupid or incapable. That is a very dangerous assumption to make, and is often not true at all. Its[apostrophe] very simple, most of the infantrymen learn by doing, and not by reading. They are experts at executing breaches and urban combat operations once instructed, and can adapt very well. But I wouldnt[apostrophe] trust them to write a document I'm going to hand to fresh recruits. Thats[apostrophe] work best left for the officers.

For some of the listed field manuals (in particular Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations) this will probably work, for others, it will probably end up being white washed[it's a single word, not two] by field experienced officers. I expect most soldiers will also expect[I expect you are overusing this word] the white wash[it's still a single word] to occur, but I think this is a very good compromise[this seems to end the sentence] and positive adaptation[without an "a" before the noun, it seems to start a new sentence or clause requiring its own verb] of technology to shape doctrine and benefit[then this shows up like a noun without a verb or a verb without a subject] from collective experiences.

My question for the slashdot crowd is this: Is there better technology than a wiki to organize collective experience?

You might start with some individual expertise of that which you denigrate.

Great idea, circumstances involved

[amn108]

Taking into account what happens on Wikipedia sometimes - vandalism - I gotta say it occured to me that the percent of vandals re-writing and thus spoiling good articles goes down in proportion to the size of the public for the amount of pages said Wiki would contain. Simpler put, Wikipedia being a Wiki for the broadest possible public - the general public, no restrictions - is substantially more suspectible to vandalism than say a Wiki shared, written and accessed by 10 individuals (an intranet Wiki, for example). Add to that a relatively simple fact that probably any soldier with his sanity in behold will refrain from mal-editing Wiki entries on semi-automatic rifles because he knows he may be shot in the head by one held by his comrade - this makes the Army somewhat more of a unity than the general public, which generally does not care much for one another - everyone being anonymous and all. In the army, they would think twice before resorting to Wiki vandalism, because they know they may have to fight side by side, in which case you need all experience you can get from your buddies. The two factors should make for a very useful implementation indeed.

Re:Great idea, circumstances involved

[greyhueofdoubt]

Well that, and- We use a smart-card as our computer login these days. Everything we do on the network is logged and tied to our identity. Official websites sometimes even require that I login again with the card and password, meaning that if you make an edit on this wiki there will be no question about its authorship.

-b

Offtopic: How do you get to be a cop in USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was very careful in his wording not to bash them, but it's just a fact of life that serving in the lower ranks of the military requires the lowest standards of education out of almost any job. (the police are the same here too)
Although i would say that most of the soldiers here (NZ) would have a standard of literacy high enough to provide each other with useful written intelligence.

This is completely offtopic but... I have seen that claim often and a while ago I tried to research that what do you need to do exactly to become a cop in USA. My own knowledge of that bases on a few police academy movies that I saw long ago but I doubt that is accurate...

I tried to find out what are the entry requirements for police academy, how long it takes and if it is mandatory or not but details were somehow much more difficult to find than I would have expected... So what education exactly do the cops need?

Here in Finland it is finishing highschool or appropriate vocational school (three years long education to become a security guard or such) and then going through a college ran by the police forces to get a degree (comparable to a bachelor's degree. I think it takes 4 years to complete).

But based on /. comments, I get the feeling that in USA people become cops after having been 5 years in the elementary school or something and I find that really hard to believe.

Re:Offtopic: How do you get to be a cop in USA?

[Shadow of Eternity]

High school diploma to apply to the police academy i think, my community college (cheap gen-ed classes wooo) has an attached police school that's basically a 2 year degree.

Re:Offtopic: How do you get to be a cop in USA?

[tibman]

There is a minimum age as well, usually 21.

Opportunity for improvement

[vuo]

There lies an opportunity for improvement. Whereas field manuals contain only the instructions, for example, "make sure that no sand gets into the barrel", the opportunity to add citations to e.g. real accident reports would improve the believability, that is, the same followed by [5], and [5] goes to "Soldier A sustained injuries including loss of head when sand got in to the barrel and was not removed before firing the weapon".

There is also a lot of miscellaneous information about locations that soldiers gather; it's not necessarily official military intelligence but can help with practical survival. This is not written down but taught unofficially.

This is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Cleaning your weapon with moist towelettes may be great, but it may also corrode the weapon over time. On the other hand, it will help get a wider variety of information in the hands of someone who can put that out to everyone else, because maybe moist towelettes do a great job and nobody was willing to mention it in any official capacity.

The moist towelettes at KFC leave my hands slippery and feeling greasy. Next they will claim tampons make cleaning the inside of a gun barrel easier.

Open edits, but whose duty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I work for the US Government. Based on our experiences with Intellipedia and other Wiki initiatives, the main issue with allowing open edits is that, while anyone can edit, nobody has the responsibility to do so as part of duty hours. Multiple topics on existing wikis have remained stubs or barren for months at a time, despite the program progressing along normally, simply because nobody on the program has the time or the responsibility to edit the Wiki to bring it up to date.

If this depends on soldiers being tasked from higher to submit to the manual, or worse, requires they do so on their own free time, contributions will be much less useful.

Right Anyone need a SAS manual

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.sas22.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=56