> How do you purpose to coordinate the information gathering effort so
> people don't waste their time putting the same white paper together

3 or

> 4 times by accident. Answering the same question over and over

again,

> etc, etc.
>

It's rather self-coordinating since you have to put that white-paper,
answer, etc. on the right place (page, topic, section, etc.). It's
pretty hard to have duplicate info since you have to seek for a place
to put it first, you can't just make a new topic. And if you did put
it twice, the first person who notices can delete/merge that duplicate
info with a click. There's no faster way to consistency.

> And there is one available for free from Atlassian to go along with
> Jira. That is what we use at my office. (Jira and Confluence).
>
>

I have no opinion on Confluence (just glimpsed at it -- is the source
open? can't tell from their site). I'd personally stick to a free/open
source solution with a small core and that can be extended through a
mainstream hi-level language (personally I used and extended wikka).