During the summer we have been working on a 'scavenging' approach for public authoring that would not depend on having access to custom systems or services (such as Urban Tapestries). Our idea is that it should require no central resources but enable people to stitch together knowledge, experiences and information using free online resources – a kind of Guerilla Public Authoring.
Our concept of scavenging is to break down the core components of public authoring and devise a methodology for linking them together and sharing them. The method will be one that requires little or no expert knowledge to set up and which can be adapted to the local conditions depending on what resources are available to the community.
In the next few months we will be testing and refining strategies and tactics for guerilla public authoring with some of the communities we are working with. Our aim is to create and publish a 'handbook' or guide on scavenging for guerilla public authoring.
Update: David Wilcox has blogged a further exchange on scavenging over at
Designing for Civil Society