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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."
Favorite NIGGER joke - What do you call a bunch of niggers hanging around a farm? Antique farm equipment!
Favorite JEW joke - How was copper wiring invented? Two jews fighting over a penny!
Favorite DEAD BABY joke - What's black and bubbly and taps on glass? A dead baby in the microwave!
Favorite BEANER joke - Have you heard of the Mexican car races? Yeah, the first one to get the car started wins!
Favorite FAGGOT joke - Four fags walk into a gay bar but the bartender has just one stool. He turns the stool upside down!
Favorite BITCH joke - What do you say to a woman with two black eyes? Nothing, you already told her twice!
Favorite DUNE COON joke - why did the Muslim go apeshit and singlehandedly destroy a whole enemy army? He heard they were drawing cartoons of Mohammed.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Extra nigger joke story!
A Chinese dude walks into a bar. The bar has a black bartender. The Chinese dude sits down and says "Hey, gimme a jigger, nigger!" The black guy didn't like that one bit. He says to the Chinese dude, "hey, that's not fair. how would you like it if somebody did that to you?!" The Chinese guy says "I wouldn't give a damn if they did." So the black guy wants to prove his point. He gets the Chinese guy to sit behind the bar so he can be the bartender. Then he leaves and comes back in. The black guy sits down and says "Hey, gimme a drink, chink!" The Chinese dude just smiles and says "we don't serve no niggers here."
Now wait for the stupid easily offended mods with no sense of humor. They're jokes, get over it. I can laugh at a nigger joke but if I ever saw someone harassing a black man because he was black I would come to the black man's defense. I bet you fucks wouldn't understand that. You see, it's easy to separete the reality of racism from the fantasy of a joke, unless you're a moron. The reality of racism is a horrible thing that must be resisted but the jokes are quite entertaining. I bet you dumb fucks think violent video games are anything other than a non-issue too, for all of the same reasons. Now go pat yourselves on the back for sitting in your computer chair and wasting a mod point and thinking that you're doing a god damned thing to further the cause of human equality. Or just admit you'll mod this down too because the truth hurts when it exposes how shallow and stupid and conformist you are. Quick, go serve the media by defending the hypersensitivity and political correctness they have tried so hard to instill in you, like a good little orthodox citizen.
Meanwhile, I CHALLENGE ANYONE to come up with a GOOD and FUNNY white joke. I've never ever heard one. I want to. May wanna post it anonymously because the frothing-at-the-mouth easily offended politically correct droids will probably mod down even a white joke. So much for tolerance and free speech. Oh they say they are for those things then they only support speech they like because they are hypocritical little bastards who should have been blowjobs.
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.
Infuriate left and right