From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Fri Aug 4 13:21:06 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 13:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Textop-en-phil] New proposal for an executive committee (please read) Message-ID: <005501c6b803$843b4f90$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Dear members of the Textop Advisory Committee, and the Textop community at large, I would like a large amount of feedback on the following *important*, *project-changing* proposal. Please read, with these questions in mind: do you think this is a good idea generally? Is it something we should do soon, or defer until, say, the pilot project is further along? Can you think of a useful "twist" on the approach I've suggested? Do you have any comments on the details of the proposal? I will not act on this, e.g., make any calls for applications, for *at least* one week. Please give me your feedback by next Wednesday, August 9, anyway. ========= RATIONALE It seems to me that we could be doing so much more. I am a firm believer in motivating by conferring responsibility. That is why collaborative and self-publishing projects online are thriving: the individual is empowered through responsibility. Well, it occurred to me that we just need to define the right framework for empowering individuals, one in which responsibility is shared among like-minded peers. ======================= THE PROPOSAL IN SUMMARY So here is what I propose: I will appoint, with feedback/approval by the Textop Advisory Committee, a number of people who are given *very broad* authority to work on different aspects of Textop. They become full stakeholders in and essentially co-founders of the project, and become a new Executive Committee. Work then proceeds in parallel on a number of fronts. =================================== GENERAL FEATURES OF EXECUTIVE ROLES The general requirements and features of these roles would be as follows: * This is a nonprofit, knowledge-oriented project. Our brief is to enlighten the world. This should not be expected to be a lucrative hobby. So, while we will attempt to do some innovative kinds of fundraising, these will probably be volunteer positions for the foreseeable future. We ought to consider our involvement as an important hobby, much as the volunteers at work on the Gutenberg Project or Wikipedia do. I assure you that (unlike Wikipedia!) I would still be working on Textop in my spare time even if I didn't get the plum support deal with my employer (thanks Joe). * You agree to commit some significant amount of time to the project, on the order of at least five hours per week. You also agree to let me (or whatever person or body is so designated) replace you if you drop the ball. * In the not-distant future, the governance of Textop will be settled and defined by a Charter, that provides that *all* positions of responsibility, yours and my own included, become electable and governable "by law" so to speak. You will be bound by the requirements of that Charter when it is adopted. * The Charter will include items to the following effect: - The main products of Textop are and will always be *open content*, and the project will always remain under the control of a noncommercial and nonprofit entity. (Just forget about Textop being your personal vehicle to wealth. We are creating something for the world to share.) - Decisionmaking about significant matters of content will be left to subject matter experts. They will not *drive* and *assign* work, but we all agree to respect their authority to *oversee* it. - Nonetheless, the project will adhere to a broad principle of collaboration, i.e., distributed, asynchronous effort, in which all people *who can make a positive contribution* (given the different requirements of different tasks) are enabled to do so. This is a "big tent"; it is "open"; it is generally "flat." Textop is and always will be aggressively opposed to unnecessary, irrational, and/or closed bureaucracy, and strongly in favor of supporting individual initiative. * These positions are "executive" positions in the sense that you will be expected to make plans proactively, get approval for them, and put them into effect. You will also be leaders of workgroups that will have more or less open membership. As with subject matter editors, you will be expected to let work in your area be as "bottom-up" as possible. Your job is *not* to give orders, but to herd cats! Leadership and bold proposing is essential to our success, but tendency to become dictatorial and peremptory will be grounds for dismissal. * These positions will also serve on an Executive Committee that will probably have a fairly regular conference call and/or its own (open archive, exclusive subscription) mailing list, in which *only* the most important decisions affecting the entire project will be vetted. The Executive Committee Will Not Be A Bottleneck! Initially, I will serve as the chair of the Executive Committee, but this will be a temporary, not permanent arrangement, subject to the decision of the committee itself. * Henceforth I will always refer to myself as a "co-founder" of Textop and you will share the billing with me. The project in a very real sense becomes *our* project, and no longer in any meaningful sense *my* project. I'm inclined to call these people "Directors," but tell me if you would prefer another moniker. ======================= SOME POSSIBLE POSITIONS I propose next to recruit for the following positions, to begin with. * Director of Website and Wiki Design. This person is given broad authority to organize the writing, design, and other features of textop.org and the textop wiki. Main brief is to solicit, upload, update, and otherwise manage the documents and other media of Textop. I'll give you a login to the web space and permit you to give logins to others, as necessary. * Director of the Collation Project. This is what I've been doing. I will continue to do this. * Director of the Analytical Dictionary Project. Plans, prototypes, recruits for, and otherwise manages the nascent Analytical Dictionary Project. * Director of the Debate Guide Project. Plans, prototypes, recruits for, and otherwise manages the nascent Debate Guide Project. * Director of the Event Summary Project. Plans, prototypes, recruits for, and otherwise manages the nascent the Event Summary Project. * Director of Software Development. Plans and directs the OSS needed to support the various Textop subprojects. * Director of Oversight. Has two complementary roles: (1) keeps track of a project log, reporting on the latest developments on behalf of everyone; and (2) ensures that work is proceeding apace and according to the plans developed by the other directors on all fronts. Eliminates unnecessary bureaucracy and other such silliness. In other words, a low-key COO. * Director of Innovation. The local solver of deep problems. Drives and moderates a mailing list on which new Textop projects, or radical innovations to existing projects, are discussed. Represents the community that participates in the discussion to the Executive Committee, which vets proposals. * Director of Recruitment. Works with other Directors to determine the most pressing needs for volunteers, and crafts and implements a creative plan to get volunteers on board. Posts on mailing lists, does research into possible volunteers, drafts press releases, does networking, etc. Eventually might help organize a conference. * Director of Finance. Crafts and implements innovative fundraising plans; directs grantwriting as and when appropriate; receives and prioritizes reimbursement and grant requests from project staff. * Architect of the Text Outline Project Charter. A temporary position, devoted solely to crafting Textop's Charter, leading a broadbased discussion of the Charter, and articulating the result to the Executive Committee. This person should be a mature and respected philosopher, political scientist, policy analyst, legal scholar, historian, or other intellectual who can think very deeply about a huge range of issues. (My current thinking is that the Charter is officially adopted after *both* the Advisory Committee *and* the Executive Committee adopt it.) Any other positions you can think of? To be embarrassingly honest, I'm amazed that I was actually considering trying to do all this myself for any length of time at all. Obviously, I should have delegated this sort of managerial authority from the very start. I don't even *want* to do some of this stuff; mainly, I want to work on the Collation Project. And, clearly, there are people out there who would love to step into positions like this. Live and learn. Clearly, if Textop is to get anywhere, we have to view this project not as Larry's project but as **our** project. ===================================== HOW TO LAUNCH THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE While there are strong candidates for many of these positions already with us, I doubt that we will be able to get a full complement of suitable directors. So I want to cast our net widely. I propose to do a press release announcing that we are building an Executive Committee for the Text Outline Project, and that we hope to interest some people who want to lead the construction of some radically innovative new reference works. I would distribute this press release very widely, and encourage you to do the same. (Other ideas about how to get the word out?) ========= FEEDBACK? Well, what do you think? If you want to discuss it with others, do so on the [Textop] list. Otherwise, just e-mail me, and I will summarize the results sometime after next Friday. If anyone wants to upload this proposal to the wiki, feel free to do so. --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Sat Aug 5 14:40:35 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 14:40:35 -0700 Subject: [Textop-en-phil] Variant proposal: working groups (please read) Message-ID: <001b01c6b8d7$c930b610$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> All, I have heard back from some people about my proposal for an executive committee. One of them expressed gentle skepticism that I would be able to find suitable directors, and another made the very useful point that the people who might be interested in becoming directors need to know that they're not the only ones at work in their area. By contrast, if we can guarantee directors that a quorum of people are interested in participating, that will be much more attractive to them. This means (I think) that before recruiting any directors, we ought to form some workgroups that they can direct. I would like to present prospective directors a list of names and bios of people who are interested in working on some part of the project. So I have two proposals: (1) Please e-mail me your name, e-mail address, short one-paragraph bio, and the name of at least one workgroup you're interested in participating in. (List below.) I will **not** post this information publicly. (2) For Textop's first press release/general announcement, we will call for general participation, mentioning the search for directors as part of a more general recruitment drive. Now what do you think of *that*? Please do (1) in any case! --Larry Workgroups you could join (feel free to suggest others): Collation Project http://www.textop.org/collation_summary.html planning, prototyping, recruiting Analytical Dictionary Project http://www.textop.org/TextAndCollaboration.html#dictionary planning, prototyping, recruiting Debate Guide Project http://www.textop.org/TextAndCollaboration.html#debate planning, prototyping, recruiting Event Summary Project http://www.textop.org/TextAndCollaboration.html#eventsum planning, prototyping, recruiting Software Development Workgroup collecting and articulating technical requirements, writing code, testing Website and Design Workgroup keeping the website up-to-date, graphic design, logo, configuring wiki, etc. Innovation Workgroup discusses new Textop projects, or radical innovations to existing projects, proposes innovative solutions to standing problems Recruitment Workgroup crafts and implements a creative plan to get volunteers on board; osts on mailing lists, does research into possible volunteers, drafts press releases, does networking, etc.; eventually might help organize a conference Finance Workgroup crafts and implements innovative fundraising plans; grantwriting as and when appropriate; when money arrives, prioritize reimbursement and grant requests from project staff Charter Workgroup discuss and draft the project Charter From math at freemail.hu Sun Aug 6 15:06:28 2006 From: math at freemail.hu (Brendel Matyas) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 00:06:28 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Textop-en-phil] Variant proposal: working groups (please read) In-Reply-To: <001b01c6b8d7$c930b610$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Message-ID: Hi, I chekced the other projects and read about this "Debate Guide Project ". I think this could be very interesting. I mean if such a debate would start, it could grow very quickly, because people are very motivated in debates. The thing is to keep it somehow very organized and to guarantie natural "moderators". In WIkipedia for example the most frequently edited articles are those, where something is debated. Of course high frequency does not mean high quality, but at least motivation is there. So: Matthias Brendel, Debate Project. Bio: I have a PhD in information technology. I also have an absolutorium in history of science. This means I attended courses for 3 years of the PhD program, but have no degree yet. I am working on this. I work in Nokia as software developer. Currently I am in Bochum, Germany. Matthias Larry Sanger ?rta: > All, > > I have heard back from some people about my proposal for an executive > committee. One of them expressed gentle skepticism that I would be able to > find suitable directors, and another made the very useful point that the > people who might be interested in becoming directors need to know that > they're not the only ones at work in their area. By contrast, if we can > guarantee directors that a quorum of people are interested in participating, > that will be much more attractive to them. > > This means (I think) that before recruiting any directors, we ought to form > some workgroups that they can direct. I would like to present prospective > directors a list of names and bios of people who are interested in working > on some part of the project. So I have two proposals: > > (1) Please e-mail me your name, e-mail address, short one- paragraph bio, and > the name of at least one workgroup you're interested in participating in. > (List below.) I will **not** post this information publicly. > > (2) For Textop's first press release/general announcement, we will call for > general participation, mentioning the search for directors as part of a more > general recruitment drive. Now what do you think of *that*? > > Please do (1) in any case! > > --Larry > > Workgroups you could join (feel free to suggest others): > > Collation Project > http://www.textop.org/collation_summary.html > planning, prototyping, recruiting > > Analytical Dictionary Project > http://www.textop.org/TextAndCollaboration.html#dictionary > planning, prototyping, recruiting > > Debate Guide Project > http://www.textop.org/TextAndCollaboration.html#debate > planning, prototyping, recruiting > > Event Summary Project > http://www.textop.org/TextAndCollaboration.html#eventsum > planning, prototyping, recruiting > > Software Development Workgroup > collecting and articulating technical requirements, writing code, > testing > > Website and Design Workgroup > keeping the website up-to-date, graphic design, logo, configuring > wiki, etc. > > Innovation Workgroup > discusses new Textop projects, or radical innovations to existing > projects, proposes innovative solutions to standing problems > > Recruitment Workgroup > crafts and implements a creative plan to get volunteers on board; > osts on mailing lists, does research into possible volunteers, drafts press > releases, does networking, etc.; eventually might help organize a conference > > Finance Workgroup > crafts and implements innovative fundraising plans; grantwriting as > and when appropriate; when money arrives, prioritize reimbursement and grant > requests from project staff > > Charter Workgroup > discuss and draft the project Charter > > _______________________________________________ > Textop-en-phil mailing list > Textop-en-phil at lists.dufoundation.org > http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop-en-phil > ?rje el az ?ll?skeres?ket munkaid?ben! http://allas.origo.hu From math at freemail.hu Mon Aug 7 07:46:30 2006 From: math at freemail.hu (Brendel Matyas) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 16:46:30 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Textop-en-phil] Debate Guide Project In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi all, I was thinking about the debate guide projcect. It is similar to the Outline project, but it has some additional structure. In The Oultine projects some chunks of texts are inserted as nodes and they are organized according to topics and according to the source. In the debate projects there are also chunk of texts, whivch may be organized also according to topics and according to source. Further there is an argumental structure also. There are: 1) Question 2) thesis nodes. 3) Argument nodes. (i) For each question there are at least 2 theses, whihc have a debate. There may be more. (ii) For each thesis there are arguments. An argument is usually also a thesis, which can be debated. (iii) For each thesis there may be text-chunks, which formulate that argument. There may be more, since several philosopher could write the same argument in his/her way repeatedly. An argument may also be factual, in this case the text chunk may be a reference, which describes the fact. (iv) An argument may belong to more theses. For example one single fact may support more theses. How do you find this structure? I was also thinking of another structure, where arguments and counter arguments. Are grouped to one question, but I found that not so well structured. Matthias ____________________________________________________________________ FotoMarket - nyaral?si k?pek ak?r ingyen! Minden digit?lis f?nyk?pez?g?phez 3.000,- Ft aj?nd?k fot?kidolgoz?s. http://ad.adverticum.net/b/cl,1,6022,99786,162268/click.prm From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Mon Aug 7 22:46:30 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 22:46:30 -0700 Subject: [Textop-en-phil] Debate Guide Project In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001e01c6baad$ffe64f30$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Let's discuss this on the main [Textop] list, where I'll forward Matthias' mail together with a reply. My apologies to the others who are waiting for replies...I've got quite a backlog I'm afraid. I'm mostly done with a reply to Clea though. --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Tue Aug 8 15:12:51 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 15:12:51 -0700 Subject: [Textop-en-phil] Constructing workgroup lists Message-ID: <013e01c6bb37$ca6e4ee0$7e02020a@D6WD1391> All, I'm amazed at the amount of mail I've received over the last few months about Textop, and from some very impressive people. Based on these many mails, we (i.e., I and a trusted volunteer...thanks) are now constructing a private, not-to-be-publicized list of people **preliminarily** sorted into these groups: Collation Project Analytical Dictionary Project Debate Guide Project Event Summary Project Software Development Workgroup Website and Design Workgroup Innovation Workgroup Recruitment Workgroup Finance Workgroup Charter Workgroup If you have sent me much e-mail that evinces your interests, we will *tentatively* put your name under the appropriate heading. NOTE: if you haven't been in touch with me about how you want to get involved, or if you think it isn't obvious, now's the time. After constructing a draft of the lists, we'll contact everyone who's on the lists and get their explicit permission to continue to use their name on the lists. Your name on the lists won't require that you *do* anything; it will merely be your declaration that you're *interested* in helping with the area in question. When the lists are finalized, then we'll see what the next step should be: recruiting more rank-and-file members, or recruiting directors, or what. Ultimately, I hope the workgroup lists will be able to be used to recruit and motivate directors, by demonstrating a quorum. It will also help us with more general recruitment: we can tell the world (quite truthfully), "We've got a growing group of excellent people interested in building Textop. Here are some numbers... Come join them!" BTW, to about the half-dozen most active Textop members like Howard and Philippe, of course I'll be contacting you individually. --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Tue Aug 8 15:57:49 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 15:57:49 -0700 Subject: [Textop-en-phil] Top level outline headings Message-ID: <014101c6bb3e$12717630$7e02020a@D6WD1391> Sorry for the delay replying. But here goes! > From: Dr. Clea F. Rees [mailto:cfrees at imapmail.org] > I just think there ought to be some way in via the labels - > however crude and misleading these may be. It may actually be > more important for non-philosophers than philosophers, for > example. Suppose somebody has come across the term > 'metaphysics' and wants to know what that is about. Whereas a > specialist might be able to find the relevant sections by > studying the outline (and what is beneath the outline), > somebody whose question is of this kind will not be able to do that. > > Maybe disciplinary maps could be included with brief > explanations of terms and relevant links. (Not all the links, > obviously, but good "starting places".) This is a good idea. We can have what I would call "outline overlays," in somewhat the same way there are overlays on Google Maps. For that matter, you could take the table of contents of any book and link to the relevant nodes in the outline. Could be very useful for education and research: as you read through Hobbes, or whomever, you can see what others said about exactly the same topics. I can easily imagine coders going wild over what can be done with the data, once it's compiled. But I think we need to have a single "master outline" to begin with. I'll explain more about this when I get around to responding to Brittney. > I think it is important to think about "ways in" for both > specialists and non-specialists. If the outline really > requires extensive study in order to find anything, few > people will take the trouble - at least on the web. Well, there will be multiple "ways in." Not only can there be multiple overlays, there can be multiple types of search (of outline headings, of summaries, of chunk text, and combinations of these). This said, I really doubt that the outline, when mature, will require extensive study for people who are already familiar with a field. For others, no doubt, going through the outline will be an education unto itself. You shouldn't expect to understand the details of an outline of a subject you're not familiar with. > They will > quickly move on to the next link Google threw up for them (or > whatever non-Google engine they use). This is partly why I > asked about the intended audience. The essential purpose of the Collation Project is to analyze texts deeply and, as an outcome, group closely related texts together. That's what people who arrive from Google will see: a heading, such as "felicity or eudaimonia," together with several texts that talk about that topic: http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Felicity_or_Eudaimonia (Eventually, that will be only the top level node of many more nodes that go into the details of the topic. We'll add more children nodes as we collect more texts on a single topic.) Once the software is written and running, there will be links from this page that invite the visitor to explore more of the outline and to view the chunks in context. The result will be enormously interesting and useful to scholars and students, as well as the average intelligent, curious person (the same sort of person who spends hours and hours on Wikipedia). > How accessible is it > supposed to be? It could be accessible, I think, even if one > needed to study the outline a great deal to get the most out > of it. I think the best way to answer your question "How accessible is it supposed to be?" is "About as accessible as the texts and the concepts they contain." Which is to say of quite variable accessibility. Parts of the outline will be obvious. Other parts will be total mysteries to everyone except specialists. Who other than people familiar with Leibniz should know what to make of "monads" as a heading? Also, again bear in mind that we can have simplified overlays if necessary. It's just that I would like the actual work of chunking and original outlining to be done on a "master outline." (Again, to be explained better in response to Brittney's mail.) > I suspect it may also matter in terms of recruiting > specialists. I'm not quite sure how this is meant to go with > these nodes since it seems unlikely that it will be possible > to get people who are really specialists for a particular > node (or even sub-sub-sub-node). I'm not sure about this - it > is more of a question than anything. I'm trying to fit what > you're saying here together with your picture of how the > editing may end up working. I'm not sure what you're asking here. I'm not sure we will be recruiting people to manage subjects, i.e., individual nodes or branches of the outline (although eventually we might). We'll be recruiting people to chunk texts and thus will hope to find experts on those texts. The hope is that, to begin with anyway, people who are familiar with a text are also adequately familiar with the conceptual structures contained in the text. > > As a result, for many months now I've been thinking that > students will > > eventually actually *study* some mature version of the outline, > > because they will find such study to unravel the structure > of various > > topics, and because it will make their research easier. The people > > who work on the outline will eventually be "experts" on the outline > > because they'll know right away "where" something can be found (or > > placed). I don't think there is any way to avoid this sort > of initial > > confusion. > > I think there has to be or (most) people just won't use it. > But I do think it might be provided via multiple "ways in". So I think we're agreeing now, as long as we agree that overlays are "ways in" to a master outline. No? > I'm thinking of some sort of set of guides to the outline > aimed at particular audiences. Searching is good, but a > decent guide would let people feel more comfortable with the > whole system, I think. Yep, sounds good. I have no problem with that, given the above caveats. > > Now if a philosopher, after more than cursory examination of my > > outline, does not know what I'm going on about at all, then clearly > > that's my fault. But I don't think that's a reflection on the > > viability of the enterprise. We just have to accept that > interpreting > > outlines is not as obvious as one might think at first. > > At what level should this be true? Just looking at the top > level nodes? How many layers of nodes should enable a > philosopher to make sense of it? This is a real question and > not rhetorical. I'm having trouble understanding the > standards by which the outline should be judged. (As with the > intended audience question.) Well, you're a philosopher, so I'm asking you (and others) to help me to articulate the standards by which the outline should be judged. If those are equivalent to the rules by which the outline is to be constructed, see http://tinyurl.com/o8r2g The general problem that I'm trying to solve with the outline is this: what hierarchy of nodes can accommodate a potentially limitless number of texts (books, essays, etc.) divided exhaustively into pretty fine-grained chunks (as I've defined them), such that (1) there are not more than, say, ten chunks per category, and (2) there is a minimum of nodes duplication or overlap (thus requiring the same chunks to live at two places in the outline)? (Note: it's not a bad thing for the same chunk to be filed in multiple places because *it* concerns several distinct topics; it *is* a bad thing for a chunk to be filed in multiple places because *the nodes* have an overlapping coverage.) > "Human conduct" sounds merely descriptive. In any case, it > certainly rules out virtue ethics and much of feminist ethics. We'll discuss this more later. > ... I actually dislike "human conduct" > more than "right and wrong" here. At least the latter > captures much of Kant's normative theory, for example. The > former would mean putting the "top-level" of Kant's view > elsewhere since it is supposed to apply to all rational > beings. I don't think this is a problem only in the case of > Kant, but Kant springs to mind as an especially pertinent example. > > "Human conduct" sound much more to me like > anthropology/psychology/social science/history/etc. I think > any replacement (or partial replacement) for "ethics" needs > to capture the normative aspect of the discipline. What would you suggest? > I'm also wondering if it doesn't make sense to have a very > general heading such as "value" and then several very > significant sub-nodes. Right now, "several dozen" top level > nodes does not sound anywhere near enough to cover multiple > disciplines. Aha! Perhaps we will do that! But how would the rest of it go? Feel free to propose this on the wiki. > >> Where will feminist philosophy fit? I don't think that the various > >> subjects discussed in this discipline can be properly > subsumed under > >> the other headings. > > > > Feminist philosophy is obviously an interdisciplinary area, and so > > feminist approaches are going to be spread throughout the outline. > > I see this as both welcome and problematic. On the one hand, > I agree that feminist ethics, say, should fall under whatever > "ethics" becomes. (Another reason to reject "human conduct" - > some feminist ethical theories don't address (all) human > conduct or (all) human virtue at all e.g. some kinds of > maternal, feminine and lesbian ethics.) On the other hand, > people often take this line as an easy way of ignoring the > whole thing or, else, as a route to tokenism. I think the > same is true of non-Western approaches. Moreover, it isn't > obvious to me that these approaches can fit neatly into the > outline. Well, remember that there can be a feminist "overlay," linking into the outline to the parts that are of special interest to feminists. Also, the extent to which feminist thought is represented is a function of the texts included in the resource. The only possible danger of "tokenism" for any kind of thought rests in the selection of texts to include. But if the project is *collaborative*, then what texts are included depends first and foremost on the interests of the collaborators. There is one special problem re feminism that is worth bringing up in this connection: most feminist philosophy is still not in the public domain. So we will not be able to use it until we have made some special arrangement, if ever we are able to do so, with copyright owners & publishers. > If somebody working in a very different tradition > drew up the outline, would it look the same? This is an empirical question. I think the answer is, "Eventually, yes." Certain conceptual schemes fall rather neatly out of certain texts and textual traditions. They may not be organized all the same way, but a lot of the same categories will eventually appear, simply to make the most elegant, simple presentation of the texts. > How static is > the outline intended to be? Not very, especially in the beginning. > What conditions will need to be > met in order for the top level nodes to be changed later? > (Adding nodes is one thing, but changing them will be much > more complicated.) Well, sometimes it's relatively easy, and involves just a few subcategories. Other times it requires drilling down into particular parts of the outline, and it's not very easy at all. > This is one reason I think we need to > think about as many fine-grained details as possible ahead of > time. Of course, there are limits to this, but it still seems > important. Yes, if what you mean is that the fine-grained, specialized parts of the outline should determine what the higher-level nodes will be. I think I've already discovered that in what work I've done. Bottom-up outline-building. But you have to have some top-level *placeholders* anyway. > >> Where does mind fit? Is "Human Being" intended to cover this? > > > > Yes--I haven't made a "mind" subcategory but I probably > will. Here we > > have a bit of a problem in that we don't want to prejudice the > > question whether nonhumans have minds, but most discussions of "the > > mind" are about the human mind, after all. > > If "mind" will include psychology, it better not be limited > to humans. In any case, it seems misconceived to put it under > a human-only category. Arguably, not all humans have minds > and many non-humans have minds. Right. > ... I know nothing > whatsoever about continental philosophy, though, so I cannot > say much. I'd like to know, though, how somebody trained > primarily in this tradition would think about the outline and > how well texts from the analytical tradition would fit into > it. It isn't that I'm especially attached to the distinction > - indeed, it is arguably quite problematic. So one way to get > at my question would be to ask how somebody specialising in > Hegel/Habermas/etc. would think about the outline. Well, if you're conceiving what we're up to as trying to put, say, "the paradox of analysis" into a table of contents from Derrida, then by golly you might have some trouble. I agree. But such a conundrum represents a misconception of where I would take this. In particular, it would clearly be problematic to try to merge the tables of contents of ten books from analytic philosophy and ten books from continental philosophy, and expect to have anything that makes sense. It is *precisely* because the outline headings will be so specialized--*not* at relatively vague, loose, imprecise level of chapter headings--that it is possible to collate texts from very different traditions. To think otherwise is to think that there are chunks such that we *cannot* identify any main point of it at all, or, once we have the point articulated, that we *cannot* say what logico-semantic relationship the point has to existing outline headings. And to say that is, I think, just to say that we fundamentally cannot make sense of the text. Some people of course think that (indeterminacy of translation and all that), but not for any good reasons that I have ever encountered. Ultimately, I think this is just a matter of empirical testing. It's one thing to put stock in incommensurability or indeterminacy of translation as principles about how concepts and language works, it's quite another to say that those principles mean we simply *could not* produce a useful and interesting reference work. > I think of "enquiry" here in terms of investigating, trying > to find truth etc. So I'd include epistemology here (e.g. > parts of Hume's _Enquiry_). Especially since some parts of > philosophy of mathematics are epistemic (and some are > metaphysical etc.). Presented with "knowledge" vs. "enquiry", > I'd go for the latter if interested in say, what counts as > 'knowledge' or how to obtain it. Presented with "knowledge' > vs. "methodology", I would probably go for the former, though > I'm not sure about this. "Knowledge" sounds as though it will > contain facts - things known. I would expect "enquiry" to > lead me to links about what standards govern knowledge, how > the knowledge is gathered etc. etc. (and more, but I'd think > epistemic questions would be here at least). Well, it all depends on what we are trying categorize. As to "knowledge" vs. "enquiry," let's return to that later. Sorry for the length--I hope this helps. --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Tue Aug 8 17:19:54 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 17:19:54 -0700 Subject: [Textop-en-phil] Outlining vs. tagging and indexing In-Reply-To: <6e1a89c80607291312t6772425cm8120119211500f54@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <023901c6bb49$89ef5cd0$7e02020a@D6WD1391> (Was RE: [Textop-en-phil] [Textop] FAQ posted) Since this came up in Clea's mail, and since I know it's an important topic, I thought I would discuss it next. > As far as I understand you ARE asking experts to tag > information just in an inefficient manner - not to imply > that's necessarily a bad thing. The tags you are asking them > to give are: a fine-grained categorization, a linguistic > function, a summary, and the source information - all meta > data and each can be represented as a tag. > > I understand why you need to have an agreed set of tags for > the categorization, but the highly touted ESP game results in > an agreed set of tags for images http://www.espgame.org/. So > that can't be the biggest barrier. There is a very definite and straightforward, although not completely simple, answer to this. To oversimplify: extensibility is *the* reason that outlining is necessary for the Collation Project (CP). The basic aim of the CP is to group similar *chunks* (as I've defined them) together. Furthermore, as the number of texts in the database grows, the similarity of any two chunks in the database grows: we do not want the number of texts under a given tag or index word to become so great that the user is presented with an undifferentiated mass of chunks. ("Undifferentiated mass of chunks"--this is making me nauseous!) If we make categories that have more than a dozen or so entries, we wind up ignoring the very purpose of grouping chunks in the first place. Furthermore, for the same reason--we want to make it as easy as possible for people to find chunks that concern the precise same topics--we cannot use categories that overlap too much. Perhaps we can tolerate *some* overlap, but we cannot tolerate much. Again, consider what happens when we place thousands of books (and millions of chunks) into the system. Unless there is a way of delineating categories so that they are for the most part mutually exclusive, we will end up with a del.icio.us (but not very tasty) "tag soup," in which tags, or index items, are constantly added to the mix, and previously-collated works constantly need to be revisited in order to make sure they are completely tagged. So there are sorts of two constraints here: vertical constraints, which require us to create more specialized, "tailor-made" categories in order to accommodate growing numbers of chunks; and horizontal constraints, which require us to make sure there are reasonably clear "boundaries" between categories. *The* way to meet both constraints is to create an outline of increasingly specialized information. An outline, in which categories are sorted hierarchically according to definite relations (eventually!), at once allows for easy "vertical" expansion as necessary, into more specialized topics, and allows for a sort of "conceptual bookkeeping" necessary for making sure there is no unnecessary duplication or overlap between categories. Basically, tagging systems and index systems both must behave *like* an outline if they are to satisfy the constraints. For instance, to avoid new users creating new tags, that are virtually synonymous with old tags (or unnecessarily overlapping), users must be presented with a way to search through the old tags. A mere search engine will not do the trick, because people may not know what to search for. So there needs to be groupings, or some other device that allows people to discover what similar tags already exist. An outline is far and away the most efficient way to achieve this purpose. The appeal of both tagging and indexing is clearly the *apparent* efficiency of the process. You simply slap a tag on a widget, and enough people do that with enough widgets, and interesting patterns emerge. I don't deny that. What I do deny is that, simply because interesting patterns emerge from collective tagging, the two constraints above can be met via collective tagging. It's virtually impossible for the usual sort of tagging system, anyway, to satisfy the constraints. > The question I've had is why you chose to break apart an > existing text and put it into an outline, as opposed to > marking up the text with tags which is similar to the > low-tech method I used in my textbooks. First, notice on the screenshot (http://www.textop.org/screenshot.html) that I envision the software working so that it's nearly as simple as tagging. You select a bit of the text, write a function and summary, and then drag the resulting chunk into the (editable) outline. The reason that we need to break up the text and group chunks under headings, as you can see in the second ("Current Node") column of the screenshot, is that there is a mutually dependent relationship between headings and nodes filed under the headings. Particularly if we must constantly edit the outline, we will have to revisit the chunks that are filed in the parts of the outline we are editing (I've already had to do this with the Leviathan outline). Collecting the chunks together makes this easy. Furthermore, collecting the chunks together provides an excellent explanation of what an outliner means by a given heading. If we merely slap tags onto chunks, even if we must pick from a list, and we do not compare the chunks to the other chunks filed under the heading, we can easily misfile the chunk. I am constantly looking at what I have filed where to determine where a new chunk should be filed. > The conclusion I came to was because of the benefits of the > unique view, allowing people to make new connections within > and between domains. And that collaborative tagging > technology just isn't there yet for the purposes of text-op. That's right (if I understand you correctly). A unitary outline can bring together people of differing viewpoints, disciplines, and languages in a way that tagging and indexing cannot do so easily. > My husband is working on his masters thesis in a related area > and we've brainstormed on many parts, and found that there > are really no tools we know of that allow you, even > personally, to tag text at the paragraph or sentence > level...let alone have many people collaborate on it. I > think the closest we get to this is something like > del.icio.us http://del.icio.us/. I've looked too, and I agree, there just isn't anything. > I think you could accomplish the goals of text-op through a > smartly designed tagging system, however the current > technology fails to meet the criteria of collaborative, > limited categorization and sentence level granularity, thus > another method, at least for the pilot project, needed to be found. Well, if you (and/or your husband) could explain *how* a tagging system could be "smartly designed" so as to satisfy the above constraints, I'd be very interested. Or if you think my constraints are not precisely what they should be, and that I should have slightly different constraints that you *can* satisfy, I'd be interested in that, too. > In my experience wikis are best used for rapid co-creation of > content, but I don't view text-op as a content creation > problem, rather as a meta-data problem (maybe this is wrong, > but in my head it seems a better fit) - which seems to be the > bottleneck in loads of web-based research at the moment. > Hopefully some better tools for this type of problem will > arise in the next few years - maybe even out of my husband's > research lab or one of my many pet projects . We're using a wiki ONLY for the pilot project, simply because we presently lack the tool we need. You can read about the software I think we need here: http://www.textop.org/reqs_v1.html The Collation Project involves many challenges, some of them are definitely content creation problems (how do you motivate a lot of people to read carefully and summarize texts according to a very specific standard?) and some of them are definitely metadata problems (what metadata should be included?). > So that was my internal argument, and I thought you might > garner something from that, even if it is just how off base I > am. As I found out if you have to try to convince computer > science people of the validity of this project...tagging will > be one of the major hangups. I agree, it will be difficult. Eventually, though, I think people will understand. As in the case of Wikipedia, it is the vivid example that teaches the concepts to those who don't get them right away. Basically, people analyzing "what makes Wikipedia work" are reverse-engineering the actual thought that we put into deciding on and implementing the policies of Wikipedia. ;-) --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Wed Aug 9 13:30:23 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 13:30:23 -0700 Subject: [Textop-en-phil] The viral potential of Textop Message-ID: <004301c6bbf2$a43f9d30$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> All, A short report: I was looking at the search queries that brought people to the Textop wiki, and among them were "causes of insanity" (result #5 on Google), "explanation of religion" (also result #5), and "ought implies can" (#14)--all names of outline nodes. It's clear to me that, just as with Wikipedia, the more nodes we have, the more traffic we get from Google; the more traffic from Google, the more people we get interested in the project; and thus the cycle gets started. Think next of the viral potential of debate summaries. They would be "hot items" to link to from blogs and centers of controversy, thereby driving up traffic. So I think we should get to work on the Debate Guide Project. Join me on the wiki; I'll be drafting some policies for it, which need your review. Then some of us can do some prototypes; and then we can make an announcement. This could be big! --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Wed Aug 9 21:22:47 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 21:22:47 -0700 Subject: [Textop-en-phil] Two Debate Guide Project questions posted Message-ID: <000601c6bc34$a2624bb0$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Please see http://tinyurl.com/kn6ko if you'd like to help develop a prototype. Both first questions concern philosophical topics. --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Thu Aug 10 14:10:25 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 14:10:25 -0700 Subject: [Textop-en-phil] Debate summary topics: Knowledge and God Message-ID: <000501c6bcc1$66399e80$7e02020a@D6WD1391> The Debate Guide Project pilot is kicking off. It turns out that all four of the proposed debate guide topics so far are philosophical, but not enough actual philosophers! So, join us, and let's do this right. There is almost a quorum for the topic "Is knowledge possible?" There's also interest in "Does God exist?" See: http://tinyurl.com/kn6ko The Debate Guide Project will not be nearly as demanding as the Collation Project might appear. Proposed rules here: http://tinyurl.com/kq5dt I've volunteered to work on the affirmative side of "Is knowledge possible?" (the exact formulation of the proposition to be defended remains to be established), and we've got one more person on each side, but we lack a moderator. Any Ph.D. philosophers with some interest in that topic available? Shouldn't be a terribly huge amount of work; it's a prototype, and you won't be writing the arguments, anyway. Also, other summarists, of whatever qualifications, are welcome on both sides. The moderator will choose a "lead summarist" for each side from among those available. Once a few credible prototypes are crafted, I'll post a call for participation to PHILOSOP and PHILOS-L and we'll see if anyone else joins. --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Fri Aug 18 12:10:31 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 12:10:31 -0700 Subject: [Textop-en-phil] Vacation Message-ID: <000001c6c2f9$fa441950$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> All, I haven't had a vacation since starting at the DUF, excepting the time off spent with the new baby, and that wasn't exactly a vacation. So I'll be taking next week off. I still might try to put in some time each day on the wiki, though. --Larry