For now I imagine a compromise, which allows us to use federated wiki, and apply a convention, which adds the needed expression (metadata) to a page, in a practical and visually pleasing ways. Not perfect, but workable.
> Note: this might be an example of wiki front matter. Indicating this page is a raw first draft, full of typos and conceptual mistakes.
Next we would write a plugin specifically for this front matter, or find some way to build it into the current wiki-client and how pages are indexed. As that is without our control, we can describe the need here, prototype and see how this path unfolds.
# Why We require some additional structure to wiki pages, as we beign to work more in groups, and devise collective editorial and decision making practice.
Examples include marking pages with various stages of completion for publishing workflows, or marking teh context of a page according to a type of deliberative statement - is it personal opinion or a factual claim, has it been peer reviewed, or prudecd by AI? Is it signed, and if so by whom? What is the copyright status, and associated license?
Many or all of these things are needed as a wiki evolves from a simple social note taking system, towards a full deliberative interface for field researchers in a mutually ownded governance structure.
# Why not?
At the same time, much if not all such functionaility can be achieved simply by writing in wiki well. Good disciplined individual and collective practice, together with an almost infinitely flexible writing tool can deliver (in theory) almost everything required by the project.
In reality this is too demanding for an actual interdisciplinary audience. Good behavior, and a deep undertanding of wiki etiquet and practice will not happen over the forthcoming months of the project should we succeed in attracting a new audience.
# Second Paragraph I imagine standardising an optional metadata section on the second paragraph - perhaps combining it wih a Wiki Banner image. The combination of the visual flexibility to indivate what type of page to expect, and detailed metadata that software can parse and use, could work?
A right aligned svg icon, containing metadata perhaps - with expandable interactivity to enable an author to add and edit this metadata might make sense. How this works with the future of the journal and the page-json schema is not clear (yet).