This summer, I developed the Threatwiki Analyst and Administration Guides as a final project in Seneca’s Technical Communication Graduate Certificate program. I haven’t had a chance to write about the project, because since then I’ve started at a new job and moved to a new apartment.
The Threatwiki Analyst and Administration Guides are the first end-user guides for the Threatwiki system. They also explain Threatwiki’s role in the Sentinel Project’s ongoing genocide monitoring efforts. The Analyst’s Guide shows our volunteers on how to monitor events from a situation of concern (SOC) which are indicators of operational processes (seven processes that underlie every historical instance of genocide), and enter them into Threatwiki. It also covers how to add new datatags, locations, and hyperlinks into the system. The Administration Guide is an internal document that trains administrators on how to support Threatwiki and initiate new SOCs.
In the process of creating these documents, I worked closely with the Sentinel Project’s co-executive directors, both of whom also lead some of our core teams. I received tutorials and walkthroughs on the technical aspects of Threatwiki from Taneem Talukdar, who also heads the Tech Team, and I worked to develop and standardize the analytical processes behind Threatwiki with Chris Tuckwood, who is also head of Research. After completing the draft, reviews were done remotely by Chris, Taneem, and Troy Powell, as well as by several other members of the Research and Tech teams at one of our weekly meetings in Toronto.
Even if you are not a member of the Sentinel Project, feel free to read through the Analyst’s Guide (available here). Threatwiki is open source software released under the Apache license, and all accompanying documentation will carry the same license. As Threatwiki continues to develop and improve, there will be an increased need for people to write and update documentation for it. If anyone is interested in volunteering to help out with Threatwiki documentation, please write to us. Don’t worry if your background is not in this area, as I can teach you the basics of developing technical documentation.