by Mark Ollig

Created on: August 18, 2008   Last Updated: September 19, 2008

Did you know our government has its own 'private' Wikipedia?

It is not available to the general public.

We can't even access it on the Internet.

It is used by the United States intelligence community and other organizations related to national security.

The State Department has its own private wiki site called: "Diplopedia."

Billed as being the "Encyclopedia of the United States Department of State," the Diplopedia is a wiki running on an internal private government "Intranet" network called "OpenNet." This network is inaccessible to those of us using the "normal" Internet.

A "wiki" can be defined as a type of web site which allows visitors to add, remove, and amend the available subject content. The wiki becomes an authoring collaboration tool which endeavors to present up-to-date and current information on specific subjects.

The wiki web site we are all familiar with is at http://www.wikipedia.org.

I have come to appreciate and will use Wikipedia to research a subject although I still suggest the sources be checked when appropriate.

So if Diplopedia is not available to the general public, does this mean your overly-investigative columnist is writing about "above-top-secret" or "eyes-only" information here?

Those nice government folks wearing dark glasses and the "ear buds" have not shown up for me just yet.

I was simply told Diplopedia does not contain any classified information; it's just not available to you and me.

Well, that didn't sit well with your humble columnist. Why am I not allowed to know what the government is doing with this . . . especially when it's not even classified?

I did some research on Diplopedia and discovered my highly apprehensive and overly-charged emotions were unfounded.

Diplopedia was started in 2006 by the State Department and is used as a "reservoir" of contributed information by folks only from inside the government.

Diplopedia is a project of the "Office of eDiplomacy," located in the Bureau of Information Resource Management within the Department of State.

One of the ways Diplopedia is used is when a U.S Ambassador is to meet with a foreign Head of State. Normally, information in the form of a memo is given to the Ambassador via an e-mail which probably has an autobiography attachment.

Stacie R. Hankins, a special assistant at the United States Embassy in Rome, said the memo is still sent, but "now they attach a link to the Diplopedia article" Diplopedia being a wiki, is open to the contributions of all who work inside the State Department.

The

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