Every service has a library of hundreds of Field Manuals that describe the best or official method to carry out a mission or perform a prescribed activity. The Army had 542 FMs as of July 2007. These manuals are created by experts in the field in which they are written, and experts in the over all operations of the service. They are vetted by commanders and by administrators to insure that they give the best, most reliable information possible. They are one part of creating the most effective military organization possible.
But, like all published documents, the process of writing, editing, proofing, approving, printing, and distributing the physical products leads to aging of the information within them. As a packaged product, they are also largely static and difficult to update. You do not just throw out a change to an FM because of a crisis situation that occurred last week.
Is it possible, practical, or valuable to have a version of these manuals that is created through a Wiki process? Can thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines contribute to a manual in such a way that it is a better resource? Or does mass authorship just lead to confusion, duplication, contradictions, and cyclical battles over content?
I do not think anyone knows the answer to this question. The Wiki Field Manual has not been tried as far as I know. It would be a bold experiment in collecting the share knowledge and skills of an organization with millions of active members and many millions of former members.
Should such a manual be created on the open Internet or behind the firewalls of a military-only site? The traditional mindset would not accept that it should be written this way at all. But a slightly more experimental mind might be interested in seeing this reside on a ".mil" web site with access limited to members of the service. Would it be acceptable for members of the Air Force to contribute to and edit information in an Army FM?
It would take a truely open spirit to suggest that such a project be written on the open Internet. Clearly you are as likely to get material written by 15 year-old kids who are experts at playing Americas Army with their buddies, as you are to get the expertise of a 25 year vetern of multiple wars. But, that is what happens on Wikipedia every day. They depend on the persistence of experts to overcome the ramblings of fools. This seems to work well enough that at least one study comparing Wikipedia with the Encyclopedia Britannica concluded that Wikipedia was equally accurate.
It is both fair and important to point out that FMs deal with life threatening situations, so experimenting with the knowledge distributed is a very dicey business. A ".mil"-limited Wiki of FMs may be as far as anyone could and should go in exploring this right now. But I think it is certainly worth the minimal effort required to post the contents of FMs to a Wiki and allow servicemen and women to contribute to it.
Note: A number of existing FMs can be found at: