From larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net Thu Jun 1 13:47:33 2006 From: larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net (Larry Sanger) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 13:47:33 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Textop wiki set up In-Reply-To: <004901c68423$87a272d0$6400a8c0@Quacky> Message-ID: <001901c685bc$9b654910$7e02020a@D6WD1391> I'd like to address something that Howard Burrows proposes on the wiki, here: http://tinyurl.com/r2mqy He proposes that we use the wiki (and the main page of the wiki in particular) to organize a whole set of collaboratively-developed pages covering the pilot project(s), general discussion of Textop, alternative proposals, funding strategies, and software. Movement in this general direction--putting proposals, policy documents, etc., on the wiki--is tantamount to moving the contents of textop.org onto the wiki. I'm not categorically opposed to this, but it makes me nervous, for a couple of reasons. First, at the start of any project there needs to be a clear core understanding of "what we're going to do." If essential components of the project are left up for active, on-the-fly negotiation--as opposed to the form of proposals and counter-proposals considered one after another--the result can be a lot of frustrated people and paralysis. Putting essential project documents on the wiki, *before* there is general acceptance among a core group of participants, would have the effect of a declaration, "What we as a group is entirely up for negotiation." But that just isn't the case: Textop as a project has, to my mind, *some* very carefully-defined parameters. Virtually everything's up for *discussion*, but discussion is different from negotiation. Matters are different, however, when we get into some details, such as the plan for the pilot project(s). That's why I've placed that plan on the wiki; I'm very comfortable with people using the wiki to supplement, change, etc., the pilot project plan, particularly after some discussion. Second, among Howard's proposals is that we use the wiki as a discussion platform. My own experience of using wikis for discussion, as opposed to collaborative document development, has been decidedly negative. Mailing lists are much better than wikis for purposes of discussion. I can explain in more detail if you like, but this is one thing I think we discovered fairly early on with Wikipedia. --- OK, all that being said, I am obviously (given what Part I of "Text and Collaboration" says) strongly in favor of keeping the whole development process as open as possible. So here's what I suggest: (1) If you want me to move a particular page to the wiki for general editing, ask me, and I'll probably say "yes" if it covers matters of detail. (2) We can use the wiki to edit Collation Project rules and various other things...I'll be moving certain documents myself to the wiki when it occurs to me and when I get a chance. (3) If you want to make a rewrite of *any* document on textop.org, you could always simply post your rewrite to this mailing list! And then, perhaps after discussion if necessary, I might replace the current document with yours, or merge the two, etc. Or, again, I might place both the original and your version on the wiki for further refinement. On the other hand, if you seem to be proposing something quite different from what I've had in mind, then I might not do anything with it. :-) (4) Feel free to place alternate pilot project proposals on the wiki, if they can be performed using the wiki, and if they are generally aimed in the same direction as Textop. Let's have some discussion of the above, and then I'll put some edited version of it on the website (or the wiki!). --- One last thing here, briefly: I'm thinking of having a discussion schedule, complete with telecon or podcast, to cover many different issues that we all just need to go over systematically. For instance, right now we're generally focused on governance... --Larry -----Original Message----- From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of Howard Burrows Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 12:59 PM To: 'General Discussion List for the Text Outline Project' Subject: Re: [Textop] Textop wiki set up Ruth and I and one other anonymous party are participating on the textop wiki. The wiki allows room for CV materials and statements of interest, as everyone gets their own public registration page. So far most of the discussion is focusing on how to use the wiki and can be found by clicking the "discussion" tab attached to Larry's Main Page. Howard Burrows -----Original Message----- From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of Larry Sanger Sent: May 27, 2006 Saturday 10:46 PM To: textop at lists.dufoundation.org Subject: [Textop] Textop wiki set up http://www.textop.org/wiki All, I've set up MediaWiki in the Textop space; see above. I've put up the pilot project proposal on the main page, ready for you to edit (or comment on, here: http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&action=edit). I'll be getting caught up on textop mailing list mail soon...in the meantime, the question foremost in my mind now is whether we ought to try out a pilot project soon, as outlined above, or whether we should (for some reason) postpone the pilot project. --Larry _______________________________________________ Textop mailing list Textop at lists.dufoundation.org http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop _______________________________________________ Textop mailing list Textop at lists.dufoundation.org http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop From larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net Thu Jun 1 14:11:54 2006 From: larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net (Larry Sanger) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 14:11:54 -0700 Subject: [Textop] FW: still not fine-grained and structured enough to bescalable In-Reply-To: <200605310537.k4V5bgqv002747@pc070372.sci.griffith.edu.au> Message-ID: <001b01c685c0$02a12c90$7e02020a@D6WD1391> Philippe, I agree with all of your remarks here. The next step is mainly just to start *doing*. I'll dig out some old handouts when I get home (if I can remember). --Larry From ghburrows at comcast.net Thu Jun 1 14:37:41 2006 From: ghburrows at comcast.net (Howard Burrows) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 17:37:41 -0400 Subject: [Textop] Textop wiki set up--Open development process In-Reply-To: <001901c685bc$9b654910$7e02020a@D6WD1391> Message-ID: <004301c685c3$9c8b7560$6400a8c0@Quacky> Hi Larry (and all), The listserve is *very* awkward for any sort of detailed discussion. Any of the wonderful entries we've had so far could/should be elaborated into many threads and many of those could digress further and/or loop back on each other. The wiki is incredibly flexible and can be used to support any of the types of open discussions you find effective. I think we could set up an environment (etiquette) on the wiki that would not look like "everything" is open for debate or "negotiation". I just want to have a detailed enough discussion to be sure we all have the same understanding as we launch the pilot. Thanks again for offering us this forum! Howard 603-868-3221 -----Original Message----- From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of Larry Sanger Sent: June 01, 2006 Thursday 4:48 PM To: 'General Discussion List for the Text Outline Project' Subject: Re: [Textop] Textop wiki set up I'd like to address something that Howard Burrows proposes on the wiki, here: http://tinyurl.com/r2mqy He proposes that we use the wiki (and the main page of the wiki in particular) to organize a whole set of collaboratively-developed pages covering the pilot project(s), general discussion of Textop, alternative proposals, funding strategies, and software. Movement in this general direction--putting proposals, policy documents, etc., on the wiki--is tantamount to moving the contents of textop.org onto the wiki. I'm not categorically opposed to this, but it makes me nervous, for a couple of reasons. First, at the start of any project there needs to be a clear core understanding of "what we're going to do." If essential components of the project are left up for active, on-the-fly negotiation--as opposed to the form of proposals and counter-proposals considered one after another--the result can be a lot of frustrated people and paralysis. Putting essential project documents on the wiki, *before* there is general acceptance among a core group of participants, would have the effect of a declaration, "What we as a group is entirely up for negotiation." But that just isn't the case: Textop as a project has, to my mind, *some* very carefully-defined parameters. Virtually everything's up for *discussion*, but discussion is different from negotiation. Matters are different, however, when we get into some details, such as the plan for the pilot project(s). That's why I've placed that plan on the wiki; I'm very comfortable with people using the wiki to supplement, change, etc., the pilot project plan, particularly after some discussion. Second, among Howard's proposals is that we use the wiki as a discussion platform. My own experience of using wikis for discussion, as opposed to collaborative document development, has been decidedly negative. Mailing lists are much better than wikis for purposes of discussion. I can explain in more detail if you like, but this is one thing I think we discovered fairly early on with Wikipedia. --- OK, all that being said, I am obviously (given what Part I of "Text and Collaboration" says) strongly in favor of keeping the whole development process as open as possible. So here's what I suggest: (1) If you want me to move a particular page to the wiki for general editing, ask me, and I'll probably say "yes" if it covers matters of detail. (2) We can use the wiki to edit Collation Project rules and various other things...I'll be moving certain documents myself to the wiki when it occurs to me and when I get a chance. (3) If you want to make a rewrite of *any* document on textop.org, you could always simply post your rewrite to this mailing list! And then, perhaps after discussion if necessary, I might replace the current document with yours, or merge the two, etc. Or, again, I might place both the original and your version on the wiki for further refinement. On the other hand, if you seem to be proposing something quite different from what I've had in mind, then I might not do anything with it. :-) (4) Feel free to place alternate pilot project proposals on the wiki, if they can be performed using the wiki, and if they are generally aimed in the same direction as Textop. Let's have some discussion of the above, and then I'll put some edited version of it on the website (or the wiki!). --- One last thing here, briefly: I'm thinking of having a discussion schedule, complete with telecon or podcast, to cover many different issues that we all just need to go over systematically. For instance, right now we're generally focused on governance... --Larry -----Original Message----- From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of Howard Burrows Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 12:59 PM To: 'General Discussion List for the Text Outline Project' Subject: Re: [Textop] Textop wiki set up Ruth and I and one other anonymous party are participating on the textop wiki. The wiki allows room for CV materials and statements of interest, as everyone gets their own public registration page. So far most of the discussion is focusing on how to use the wiki and can be found by clicking the "discussion" tab attached to Larry's Main Page. Howard Burrows -----Original Message----- From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of Larry Sanger Sent: May 27, 2006 Saturday 10:46 PM To: textop at lists.dufoundation.org Subject: [Textop] Textop wiki set up http://www.textop.org/wiki All, I've set up MediaWiki in the Textop space; see above. I've put up the pilot project proposal on the main page, ready for you to edit (or comment on, here: http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&action=edit). I'll be getting caught up on textop mailing list mail soon...in the meantime, the question foremost in my mind now is whether we ought to try out a pilot project soon, as outlined above, or whether we should (for some reason) postpone the pilot project. --Larry _______________________________________________ Textop mailing list Textop at lists.dufoundation.org http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop _______________________________________________ Textop mailing list Textop at lists.dufoundation.org http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop _______________________________________________ Textop mailing list Textop at lists.dufoundation.org http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop From larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net Thu Jun 1 15:24:27 2006 From: larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net (Larry Sanger) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 15:24:27 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Next steps: pilot project kickoff and discussion schedule Message-ID: <01d801c685ca$24dd2ac0$7e02020a@D6WD1391> All, Well, I'm caught up with my e-mail so I'm ready to get back down to business. A friend wrote saying, in essence, "Too much talk! Not enough action!" I want copious amounts of both, but his point is well-taken. So here are the next steps I propose. (1) Pilot project kickoff Today or tomorrow I'm going to revisit the pilot project wiki and plan, taking Howard Burrows' advice into account, and I invite you to do the same. The focus now should be to make sure that the pilot project "game rules" are clear enough that people arriving on the scene will be able to figure out how to play. One main part of the project kickoff will be a call for participation, which I'll send to a half-dozen or dozen philosophy mailing lists, asking for philosophers both to lead and to participate in a Collation Project pilot. (2) Discussion schedule I'm not sure if this will work, but I would like to create a discussion schedule, in which we will have a telecon, which is hopefully to be podcast (I'll consult with a couple podcasters I know), and during which we'll review some particular topic, or document, surrounding Textop. At the same time, we can hash the topic out on this list. The first topic, I think, should be governance, since we've been talking about that. The result of each discussion will be a revised (or newly created) document. So the result of the governance discussion will be a *draft* community charter. I do not propose to consider any community charter official until it has been reviewed and commented on (and approved) by a significant portion of the Advisory Committee. What other topics are you interested in discussing? --Larry From larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net Thu Jun 1 16:46:23 2006 From: larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net (Larry Sanger) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 16:46:23 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Please circulate Message-ID: <01dd01c685d5$97321d50$7e02020a@D6WD1391> All, I've drafted (below) a message that I hope you will forward to colleagues as well as relevant mailing lists you might be on--just by way of at least marginally increasing our numbers with good people. The lists might include departmental lists, disciplinary lists, info science lists, Internet publishing lists, etc., and Usenet newsgroups. NOTE: philosophers please contact me before posting to philosophy lists. Edit freely. ====== Hello! You've probably heard of a little encyclopedia project called Wikipedia. I conceived, started, and led the project in its seminal first year, and was probably more responsible than any person for crafting the set of policies that have made it the (qualified) success it is today. But I know Wikipedia has problems. The Wikipedia community's refusal to deal with those problems head-on is actually why I have distanced myself from the project. Well, I've had an idea for a reference project--for a brand new *kind* of reference--and I'd like to ask you to consider joining me in starting a better community. This *is* going to happen. I am more excited about it than I ever was about Nupedia or Wikipedia. This new project is actually a side-project of the Digital Universe (http://www.dufoundation.org). It's called the Text Outline Project or Textop (http://www.textop.org), and it is itself a set of projects, managed by a strong collaboration among a global group of scholars, with the aim of organizing the information contained in books, dictionaries, opinionated essays, and news articles--and perhaps other sources--into a single outline of human knowledge. It will be an "open meritocracy." Built by volunteers, the result will be free and noncommercial. Top-level summary: http://www.textop.org/textop_summary.html The Collation Project (http://www.textop.org/collation_summary.html), the flagship, will analyze various public domain works studied by scholars (e.g., Classics and history of philosophy) into approximately paragraph-sized chunks; summarize the chunks; and place these chunks into a single outline. Each node of the outline will not have more than, say, a half-dozen chunks, so the outline will be constantly expanding. This will provide a single reference point for comparing the detailed content of scholarly works from throughout history and eventually, it is to be hoped, more recent works as well. We have a really impressive Advisory Committee: http://www.textop.org/advisory_committee.html Also of interest: Proposed screenshot: http://www.textop.org/screenshot.html Project manifesto: http://www.textop.org/TextAndCollaboration.html Example outline: http://www.textop.org/outline_help.html Letter: http://www.textop.org/letter.html Proposed software requirements: http://www.textop.org/reqs_v1.html What next? What can you do? Please join me and some really smart people on the Textop mailing list: http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop That's where it's all getting started; get the "digest" (all posts in one day) if you want all the mails for a day at once. We're starting up a pilot project on the project wiki: http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page We'll begin by "collating" some classic works of philosophy. Please do join us! Larry Sanger Director, Collaborative Projects, The Digital Universe Foundation Director, The Text Collation Project From larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net Thu Jun 1 17:10:39 2006 From: larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net (Larry Sanger) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 17:10:39 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Please circulate Message-ID: <01df01c685d8$fb3c21d0$7e02020a@D6WD1391> Edited version below, amends dig at Wikipedia (sorry for the multiple mails). ====== Hello! You've probably heard of a little encyclopedia project called Wikipedia. I conceived, started, and led the project in its seminal first year, and was probably more responsible than any person for crafting the set of policies that have made it the (qualified) success it is today. Well, I've had an idea for a reference project--for a brand new kind of reference--and I'd like to ask you to consider joining me in starting another community. This is going to happen. I am more excited about it than I ever was about Nupedia or Wikipedia. This new project is actually a side-project of the Digital Universe (http://www.dufoundation.org/). It's called the Text Outline Project or Textop (http://www.textop.org/), and it is itself a set of projects, managed by a strong collaboration among a global group of scholars, with the aim of organizing the information contained in books, dictionaries, opinionated essays, and news articles-and perhaps other sources-into a single outline of human knowledge. It will be an "open meritocracy." Built by volunteers, the result will be free and noncommercial. The Collation Project (http://www.textop.org/collation_summary.html), the flagship, will analyze various public domain works studied by scholars (e.g., Classics and history of philosophy) into approximately paragraph-sized chunks; summarize the chunks; and place these chunks into a single outline. Each node of the outline will not have more than, say, a half-dozen chunks, so the outline will be constantly expanding. This will provide a single reference point for comparing the detailed content of scholarly works from throughout history and eventually, it is to be hoped, more recent works as well. We have a really impressive Advisory Committee: http://www.textop.org/advisory_committee.html Also of interest: Top-level summary: http://www.textop.org/textop_summary.html Proposed screenshot: http://www.textop.org/screenshot.html Project manifesto: http://www.textop.org/TextAndCollaboration.html Example outline: http://www.textop.org/outline_help.html Letter: http://www.textop.org/letter.html Proposed software requirements: http://www.textop.org/reqs_v1.html What next? What can you do? Please join me and some really smart people on the Textop mailing list: http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop That's where it's all getting started; get the "digest" if you want all the mails for a day at once. We're starting up a pilot project on the project wiki: http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page We'll begin by "collating" some classic works of philosophy. Please do join us! Larry Sanger Director, Collaborative Projects, The Digital Universe Foundation Director, The Text Collation Project From math at freemail.hu Fri Jun 2 07:17:37 2006 From: math at freemail.hu (Brendel Matyas) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 16:17:37 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Textop] Role-play-game In-Reply-To: <003901c68516$908be5e0$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Message-ID: Hi all, > While perhaps we could use *a* role of arbitrator or ombudsman, I think that > Wikipedia's system is broken here. Frequently, people are asked to go into > "arbitration" with people who are simply unreasonable--which is a waste of > time for productive users who have been made the target of ideologues and > trolls. I think we need a more efficient and effective way to identify and > remove troublemakers. I'm particularly opposed to a policy where > arbitration between individuals is required as a condition of further > action. I see what is your problem. I have been already thinking on this, I came up with the following ideas: 1) Let the role be "judge" not "arbitrator". The judge is a person (or comitee), who decides in disputed questions. He is a third party, who must not be involved in the question. He does not have to arbitrate. So judgement can be quick. The role of the judge has to be separated from administrators and editors. 2) In real world you would not go to the judge with every small question. Why? Because there are formal restrictions, because there is a "filter" before you go to the judge, ecause you are lazy, and finally, because it costs money. I was thinking if we could earn with our work some virtual money, which can be spent on fees of judgement. This way we could ensure that respected collaborators can have a fair trial if there is a serious dispute, but obody would spend money on silly questions jut to make quarell. Matthias _______________________________________________________________________________ Meg?jult az elektronikus piact?r! Mp3 lej?tsz?t?l a focimezig az [origo]-n! http://vasarlas.origo.hu/index.vm From math at freemail.hu Fri Jun 2 07:22:23 2006 From: math at freemail.hu (Brendel Matyas) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 16:22:23 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Textop] Textop wiki set up In-Reply-To: <001901c685bc$9b654910$7e02020a@D6WD1391> Message-ID: Hi all, I agree with Howard that to use a wiki to produce something from our discussions would e great. In Wiki you can branch the topics, and you have a result of a discussion. Using a wiki it would e sure that we always would ave discussions with some constructive result, we always work on something, which we dispute. Lrry, if you are afraid that some trolls would vandalise this wiki, then lets have it with restricted rights! Only registered memers see it and can edit it. I would be glad to see some policies worked out from these discussions, we have now. Matthias _______________________________________________________________________________ Meg?jult az elektronikus piact?r! Mp3 lej?tsz?t?l a focimezig az [origo]-n! http://vasarlas.origo.hu/index.vm From math at freemail.hu Fri Jun 2 07:30:25 2006 From: math at freemail.hu (Brendel Matyas) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 16:30:25 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Textop] Next steps: pilot project kickoff and discussio In-Reply-To: <01d801c685ca$24dd2ac0$7e02020a@D6WD1391> Message-ID: Hi all, > What other topics are you interested in discussing? Pls do not forget the question of what exactly do we require from collaborators to register. A new question: what kind of books (article?s) are allowed to be outlined in textop? What is the entry requirement for the book? I am a little bit concerned that somebody would start to outline for example the "Da Vinci code", or if you want a non-finction example, for example a book of some nobody-knows-him guy who wrote some religious book in Hungaian, and it was published in a small number by some small, local publisher, and the book is completly irrelevant, but he beleives in it, it is importnat to him, and he even insists that it is philosophy. So I would be hapy to see some rules on this. Matthias _______________________________________________________________________________ Meg?jult az elektronikus piact?r! Mp3 lej?tsz?t?l a focimezig az [origo]-n! http://vasarlas.origo.hu/index.vm From webmaster at gblane.com Fri Jun 2 07:45:28 2006 From: webmaster at gblane.com (gblane) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 07:45:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Textop] Next steps: pilot project kickoff and discussion schedule In-Reply-To: <01d801c685ca$24dd2ac0$7e02020a@D6WD1391> Message-ID: <20060602144529.81852.qmail@web30208.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Larry, the aspect of the project I am most concerned about is the possibility of "bottlenecks" being created during any approval process. I am aware that we are not operating under the constrictions that governed Nupedia, but I would like to see something concrete dealing with the role of editors and others involved with the actual text. GB Larry Sanger wrote: All, Well, I'm caught up with my e-mail so I'm ready to get back down to business. A friend wrote saying, in essence, "Too much talk! Not enough action!" I want copious amounts of both, but his point is well-taken. So here are the next steps I propose. (1) Pilot project kickoff Today or tomorrow I'm going to revisit the pilot project wiki and plan, taking Howard Burrows' advice into account, and I invite you to do the same. The focus now should be to make sure that the pilot project "game rules" are clear enough that people arriving on the scene will be able to figure out how to play. One main part of the project kickoff will be a call for participation, which I'll send to a half-dozen or dozen philosophy mailing lists, asking for philosophers both to lead and to participate in a Collation Project pilot. (2) Discussion schedule I'm not sure if this will work, but I would like to create a discussion schedule, in which we will have a telecon, which is hopefully to be podcast (I'll consult with a couple podcasters I know), and during which we'll review some particular topic, or document, surrounding Textop. At the same time, we can hash the topic out on this list. The first topic, I think, should be governance, since we've been talking about that. The result of each discussion will be a revised (or newly created) document. So the result of the governance discussion will be a *draft* community charter. I do not propose to consider any community charter official until it has been reviewed and commented on (and approved) by a significant portion of the Advisory Committee. What other topics are you interested in discussing? --Larry _______________________________________________ Textop mailing list Textop at lists.dufoundation.org http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.dufoundation.org/archive/textop/attachments/20060602/98ac314d/attachment-0001.htm From larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net Sat Jun 3 13:09:30 2006 From: larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net (Larry Sanger) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 13:09:30 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Textop wiki set up In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000c01c68749$9f6fbb60$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Matthias, and Howard, I've reworked the front page and divided the pilot project proposal into separate sections on separate pages: http://www.textop.org/wiki Having slept on it, I'm inclined to say that we should focus the wiki on pilot project development, which is really the only reason I set it up. We *can* also use it for collaborative document development; e.g., I will post a draft of a community charter on the wiki soon. But I'm inclined to think that even those documents should be removed from the wiki at some point and officially approved and "published" onto textop.org. In other words, I conceive of the wiki as Textop's *temporary* content production platform, not as its content publishing platform. Howard, I have to admit that I'm opposed to the use of the wiki *a la* Ward Cunningham's wiki, i.e., combining thoughts in a "discussion mode" which are then "refactored" and presented in "document mode." Long experience with wikis makes it clear to *me*, anyway, that this special method creates substandard and unauthoritative prose. We're better off each speaking for ourselves. Furthermore, it all too often allows the person who creates a discussion page to set the tone and agenda of a debate. By contrast, the tone and agenda of a debate can change constantly on a mailing list; mailing lists are much harder for people with special agendas to hijack, particularly if they're moderated. Finally, on this point, placing community governance on a wiki as Ward has done is essentially to declare a rule of the mob (of the loudest, of the most persistent). Mailing lists or any forum that allows *seriatim* contribution allows people to speak always for themselves; actual decisionmaking is more easily separable process, because people aren't working together on (allegedly) "consensus" statements. I am quite sure that, however collaborative the work on Textop will be, the *governance* of Textop will be a civilized, well-ordered representative democracy, subject area expertise a condition of certain positions. All that said, I *am* in favor of using wiki pages for collaborative document creation *a la* Wikipedia. But this sort of work should be outgrowth of discussions on the mailing list, conference calls, and other media where individuals can speak for themselves. If you couldn't tell, I'm *really* focused on moving this project forward decisively. That doesn't mean we're running ahead willy-nilly with no idea of what we're doing, but we are taking very decided steps in a definite direction. I don't want us to be bogged down either by excessive navel-gazing, or by battling with people with different agendas (to be clear, I've seen none of these here), or by bureaucracy that we set up ourselves. As I used to say quite often when organizing Wikipedia, this is first and foremost a content-creation project, not merely a community, and certainly not a debate society. And, as Wikipedia showed, when you get a lot of people *focused* on creating content in new, productive ways, the results can be really phenomenal. I do want to make sure everyone has the maximum opportunity to get their voice heard, to make counter-proposals, and so forth--I hope you can tell that. But I also want to make sure that we move forward decisively, not in a wiki-washy fashion! --Larry > -----Original Message----- > From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org > [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of > Brendel Matyas > Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 7:22 AM > To: General Discussion List for the Text Outline Project > Subject: Re: [Textop] Textop wiki set up > > > > Hi all, > > > I agree with Howard that to use a wiki to produce something > from our discussions would e great. In Wiki you can branch > the topics, and you have a result of a discussion. Using a > wiki it would e sure that we always would ave discussions > with some constructive result, we always work on something, > which we dispute. > > Lrry, if you are afraid that some trolls would vandalise > this wiki, then lets have it with restricted rights! Only > registered memers see it and can edit it. > > I would be glad to see some policies worked out from these > discussions, we have now. > > Matthias > > > ______________________________________________________________ > _________________ > Meg?jult az elektronikus piact?r! Mp3 lej?tsz?t?l a focimezig > az [origo]-n! http://vasarlas.origo.hu/index.vm > > > _______________________________________________ > Textop mailing list > Textop at lists.dufoundation.org > http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop > From larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net Sat Jun 3 13:11:31 2006 From: larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net (Larry Sanger) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 13:11:31 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Next steps: pilot project kickoff and discussio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001201c68749$e7a1f0b0$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> I would consider this to be appropriate issue for the Textop charter; so I invite you, Matthias, to make a proposal. If you don't, I certainly will eventually. :-) --Larry > -----Original Message----- > From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org > [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of > Brendel Matyas > Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 7:30 AM > To: General Discussion List for the Text Outline Project > Subject: Re: [Textop] Next steps: pilot project kickoff and discussio > > > Hi all, > > > What other topics are you interested in discussing? > > Pls do not forget the question of what exactly do we require > from collaborators to register. > > A new question: what kind of books (article?s) are allowed > to be outlined in textop? What is the entry requirement for > the book? > > I am a little bit concerned that somebody would start to > outline for example the "Da Vinci code", or if you want a > non-finction example, for example a book of some > nobody-knows-him guy who wrote some religious book in > Hungaian, and it was published in a small number by some > small, local publisher, and the book is completly irrelevant, > but he beleives in it, it is importnat to him, and he even > insists that it is philosophy. > > So I would be hapy to see some rules on this. > > Matthias > > ______________________________________________________________ > _________________ > Meg?jult az elektronikus piact?r! Mp3 lej?tsz?t?l a focimezig > az [origo]-n! http://vasarlas.origo.hu/index.vm > > > _______________________________________________ > Textop mailing list > Textop at lists.dufoundation.org > http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop > From larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net Sat Jun 3 13:21:54 2006 From: larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net (Larry Sanger) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 13:21:54 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Next steps: pilot project kickoff and discussionschedule In-Reply-To: <20060602144529.81852.qmail@web30208.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001301c6874b$5b5ebc30$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> I'm inclined to agree with both of these posts (below)--but in both cases the question is what *details* of project governance can be articulated that satisfies the requests. Among the next steps (http://www.textop.org/first_steps.html): * Set up textop-en-phil * Post draft rules and procedures for Collation Project pilot * Post call for participation to philosophers * Convert work on Leviathan into wiki format * Draft Community Charter (at least issues to be covered) * Plan scheduled discussions * Start scheduled discussions --Larry -----Original Message----- > From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of gblane > Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 7:45 AM > To: General Discussion List for the Text Outline Project > Subject: Re: [Textop] Next steps: pilot project kickoff and discussionschedule > Larry, the aspect of the project I am most concerned about is the > possibility of "bottlenecks" being created during any approval process. > I am aware that we are not operating under the constrictions that governed > Nupedia, but I would like to see something concrete dealing with the role > of editors and others involved with the actual text. GB AND: > -----Original Message----- > From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org > [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of > Brendel Matyas > Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 7:18 AM > To: General Discussion List for the Text Outline Project > Subject: Re: [Textop] Role-play-game > > I see what is your problem. I have been already thinking on > this, I came up with the following ideas: > > 1) Let the role be "judge" not "arbitrator". The judge is a > person (or comitee), who decides in disputed questions. He is > a third party, who must not be involved in the question. He > does not have to arbitrate. So judgement can be quick. The > role of the judge has to be separated from administrators and editors. > > 2) In real world you would not go to the judge with every > small question. Why? Because there are formal restrictions, > because there is a "filter" before you go to the judge, > ecause you are lazy, and finally, because it costs money. I > was thinking if we could earn with our work some virtual > money, which can be spent on fees of judgement. > > This way we could ensure that respected collaborators can > have a fair trial if there is a serious dispute, but obody > would spend money on silly questions jut to make quarell. From larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net Thu Jun 8 16:52:26 2006 From: larry.sanger at corp.manyone.net (Larry Sanger) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 16:52:26 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Getting ready to send mail out to philosophy lists Message-ID: <013101c68b56$984b2e30$7e02020a@D6WD1391> All, Now that Textop-en-phil (Textop English-language Philosophy List) is installed (soon to be configured), I'm getting ready to send a CFP (re the pilot project) to some philosophy mailing lists. I'll do it before the end of Saturday, anyway. Is there anything you can think of that we need to do before I pull the trigger on this? Two things I do plan on doing first: (1) Configure Textop-en-phil (I'm about to do this). (2) Add more info/proposals/plans to the wiki (to which there have been six contributors so far--not too bad for a mailing list that itself has only 26 subscribers so far!). You may feel free to start substantive work on elaborating pilot project rules, etc., without me (really!), but I'll be doing a fair bit of work there in the next few days. This is a collaborative project, so if you contribute, I am happy! --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Mon Jun 12 11:29:49 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:29:49 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Call for participation: Text Outline Project pilot Message-ID: <005d01c68e4e$30524890$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> All: If you are interested in the pilot project, whether or not you're a philosopher, do join textop-en-phil (Textop's English language philosophy list; see below). Also, I would be in your debt if you would forward this to appropriate (philosophy) lists I haven't hit. Seems the number of active philosophy lists is smaller than I remember. I posted the CFP to PHILOSOP, PHILOS-L, EIRE18-L at LISTS.PSU.EDU and these Yahoo Groups: hobbes, james_william, and scottish_philosophy. --Larry ========= Dear all, I'm writing to post-B.A. philosophers interested in (1) philosophical texts (especially philosophical classics in the English language), (2) online collaboration, and (3) free (*libre*) content. The Text Outline Project (or "Textop": http://www.textop.org) is starting up a pilot for a new online collaboration that will "collate" philosophical (and other) texts in a certain way. If you're interested, please join us on the pilot project's mailing list: http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop-en-phil and the general project list: http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop Details follow. Please forward this as appropriate! ======== THE PROJECTS AND ORGANIZATIONS: the project we're piloting is called the Collation Project (http://www.textop.org/collation_summary.html), which is a branch of the Text Outline Project , which is itself affiliated with the Digital Universe Foundation (http://www.dufoundation.org). Textop is a set of projects, managed by a strong collaboration among a global group of scholars, with the aim of organizing the information contained in books, dictionaries, opinionated essays, and news articles--and perhaps other sources--into a single outline of human knowledge. Like Wikipedia, it will be built by volunteers, and the result will be free and noncommercial. Unlike Wikipedia, it will be an "open meritocracy": inclusive but led by specialists. THE COLLATION PROJECT (http://www.textop.org/collation_summary.html), the flagship, will analyze various public domain works studied by scholars (e.g., Classics and history of philosophy) into approximately paragraph-sized chunks; summarize the chunks; and place these chunks into a single outline. Each node of the outline will not have more than, say, a half-dozen chunks, so the outline will be constantly expanding. This will provide a single reference point for comparing the detailed content of scholarly works from throughout history and eventually, it is to be hoped, more recent works as well. THE PILOT PROJECT: The pilot for the Collation Project will *probably* take place on a wiki (http://www.textop.org/wiki), which is where you can read a detailed plan for the pilot project. Where and how the pilot will take place remains to be decided by a rough consensus of the philosophers who show up on Textop's English language philosophy list: http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop-en-phil Later, we'll be using not a wiki but specially-written open source software that this community will help design. For logistical reasons, we are going to start with philosophical classics in the English language, in the public domain, such as Bacon's *Essays*, Hobbes' *Leviathan*, Hume's *Enquiries*, and Russell's *Problems of Philosophy*. Longer list: http://tinyurl.com/fw546 We will choose a small number of these works to "collate," based on who shows up. BACKGROUND LINKS: We have an impressive Advisory Committee, including several philosophers: http://www.textop.org/advisory_committee.html Top-level summary: http://www.textop.org/textop_summary.html Proposed screenshot: http://www.textop.org/screenshot.html Project manifesto: http://www.textop.org/TextAndCollaboration.html Example outline: http://www.textop.org/outline_help.html Letter: http://www.textop.org/letter.html Proposed software requirements: http://www.textop.org/reqs_v1.html Textop general mailing list: http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop PROJECT DIRECTOR: I'm probably best known as co-founder of Wikipedia, but I've been organizing Internet projects of one sort or another since 1995. I started the Association for Systematic Philosophy, Tutor-L (about college tutoring and degrees by exam), Reid-L (about Thomas Reid's *Inquiry*), and SEK (about Bonjour's *Structure of Empirical Knowledge*), as well as Nupedia and Wikipedia (see http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213). I earned my Ph.D. in Philosophy (dissertation in epistemology) from Ohio State in 2000. I am now employed as Director of Collaborative Projects for the Digital Universe Foundation in Scotts Valley, California. WHAT NEXT? Do join us here: http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop-en-phil And here: http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop --Larry ---------------- Dr. Larry Sanger Director, Text Outline Project Director of Distributed Content Programs, Digital Universe Foundation 100 Enterprise Way, Suite G370, Scotts Valley, CA 95066 larry.sanger at dufoundation.org http://www.digitaluniverse.net/ From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Tue Jun 13 15:15:22 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 15:15:22 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Welcome, and first steps for pilot project Message-ID: <009c01c68f36$dcd5e890$7e02020a@D6WD1391> All, A hearty welcome to the new folks! Please respond to this mail--five questions below, to which I would like your answers. I'm posting this to both the [textop] and [textop-en-phil] mailing lists. Please post any follow-ups to [textop-en-phil] (subscribe here: http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop-en-phil), because that's where the pilot project (for philosophical texts to be included in the Collation Project) will be discussed. Non-philosophers *are* (yes, you are!) welcome on textop-en-phil, precisely because important, generalizable pilot project preliminaries will be discussed there. I'd like us to reserve the [textop] mailing list for broader project issues. I'm happy to say that there are now 12 people subscribed to [textop-en-phil] (32 on [textop]!), and while perhaps this isn't a quorum to get serious work done, it is definitely enough to start talking about the following questions. As a preliminary, let's define "likely participant": you expect to have time actually to do work in the next few weeks (!), you feel motivated to participate, AND you have a bachelor's degree in philosophy *or equivalent study* (don't worry, we'll be flexible here for the pilot project at least). (1) This is a question for everyone, not just "likely participants." Now that you've seen the wiki, and you've seen how I propose to use it to do a collation (at http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Sample_outline), what do you think of the idea of using the wiki *for* this pilot project? There *are* other options. E.g., we might use writely.com (somehow). Maybe someone could quickly crib together some minimally usable software (although this I kind of doubt). Maybe we could use OPML Editor (although I don't think so--I just don't see how we can include the chunks under the nodes using OPML Editor, but it might be worth investigating). Your critical creativity here would be very useful. (2) Next, and this is important, ALL POTENTIAL PARTICIPANTS, please consult http://tinyurl.com/fw546 (which redirects to a wiki page) for a list of possible works to use. Feel free to suggest other works not listed. IN PARTICULAR, please send me (personally) a list of all English language works of philosophy (in the public domain) that you (a) have studied and (b) to which would like to give the Collation Project treatment (http://www.textop.org/collation_summary.html). I'll put together and post a list of candidate works, and we might do a vote or whatever. Once we've settled on a list of works, we'll try to get some more participants based on the list. (We should be able to get several more people, once we know which works we're going to tackle. It's very exciting!) (3) Again, if you regard yourself as a likely participant, I want your candid opinion, either privately or on the list: do you want to use the work I've done on Hobbes' *Leviathan*, partially wikified at http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Sample_outline, as a starting point? Or do you want to start completely from scratch? I can go either way, and I won't be hurt if you say you want to start from scratch. (4) If you're a likely participant, please create a user page using your own real name on the wiki (http://www.textop.org/wiki/) and say something (accurate) about yourself, if you don't mind...not a requirement. But if you've got a CV online, please link to it. (5) Finally, for everyone, let me know: would you personally be interested to have a telecon, perhaps a Skypecast (https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/home), for purposes of general chatting and getting acquainted and answering questions? ALL questions (and misgivings, criticisms, etc.) at this point are very welcome, either to me personally or to the list. Let's try to get on the same page. Free flow of communication is very important now. --Larry ---------------- Dr. Larry Sanger Director of Distributed Content Programs, Digital Universe Foundation 100 Enterprise Way, Suite G370, Scotts Valley, CA 95066 larry.sanger at dufoundation.com http://www.digitaluniverse.net/ From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Wed Jun 14 14:11:40 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:11:40 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Who's up for a "Skypecast"? Message-ID: <001501c68ff7$212fe980$7e02020a@D6WD1391> All, Who is interested in participating in a "Skypecast"? https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/home This would allow us to (1) have a teleconference with an unlimited number of people, (2) allow others to listen in without participating, and (3) make an archive copy of it. Please let me know if so. It'll require you to download Skype, but that's free and easy. If there's enough interest, we'll do it. *I* want to do it. I'm thinking now seriously about Textop governance...I think discussing this "out loud" would be a great idea. If you'd prefer a traditional (but not free and not so easily saveable) teleconference, let me know that, too. --Larry From ksen at eb.com Wed Jun 14 14:22:35 2006 From: ksen at eb.com (Sen, Kunal) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:22:35 -0500 Subject: [Textop] Who's up for a "Skypecast"? Message-ID: Larry: If the time works out for me then I'd like to join. Not being a philosopher, I may not have much to say about the pilot project, but I'd at least like to listen in. = Kunal -----Original Message----- From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of Larry Sanger Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 4:12 PM To: textop at lists.dufoundation.org Subject: [Textop] Who's up for a "Skypecast"? All, Who is interested in participating in a "Skypecast"? https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/home This would allow us to (1) have a teleconference with an unlimited number of people, (2) allow others to listen in without participating, and (3) make an archive copy of it. Please let me know if so. It'll require you to download Skype, but that's free and easy. If there's enough interest, we'll do it. *I* want to do it. I'm thinking now seriously about Textop governance...I think discussing this "out loud" would be a great idea. If you'd prefer a traditional (but not free and not so easily saveable) teleconference, let me know that, too. --Larry _______________________________________________ Textop mailing list Textop at lists.dufoundation.org http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Wed Jun 14 14:26:05 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:26:05 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Who's up for a "Skypecast"? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002701c68ff9$24d782d0$7e02020a@D6WD1391> Just to be clear: the purpose of the Skypecast I have in mind would be to talk about Textop governance, and thus would not be restricted to philosophers anyway. Anyway, there's two so far in addition to myself... --Larry -----Original Message----- From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of Sen, Kunal Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 2:23 PM To: General Discussion List for the Text Outline Project Subject: Re: [Textop] Who's up for a "Skypecast"? Larry: If the time works out for me then I'd like to join. Not being a philosopher, I may not have much to say about the pilot project, but I'd at least like to listen in. = Kunal -----Original Message----- From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of Larry Sanger Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 4:12 PM To: textop at lists.dufoundation.org Subject: [Textop] Who's up for a "Skypecast"? All, Who is interested in participating in a "Skypecast"? https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/home This would allow us to (1) have a teleconference with an unlimited number of people, (2) allow others to listen in without participating, and (3) make an archive copy of it. Please let me know if so. It'll require you to download Skype, but that's free and easy. If there's enough interest, we'll do it. *I* want to do it. I'm thinking now seriously about Textop governance...I think discussing this "out loud" would be a great idea. If you'd prefer a traditional (but not free and not so easily saveable) teleconference, let me know that, too. --Larry _______________________________________________ Textop mailing list Textop at lists.dufoundation.org http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop _______________________________________________ Textop mailing list Textop at lists.dufoundation.org http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Fri Jun 16 17:59:36 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 17:59:36 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Text frontrunners Message-ID: <007901c691a9$4d902270$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> All, Collating the recommendations from six different people, on- and off-list, and including suggestions made earlier on the [textop] list, here's the tally so far (number of "votes" in parentheses): Bacon, Essays (1) Hobbes, Leviathan (2) Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (4) Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government Berkeley, Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1) Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1) David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1) David Hume, Essays concerning Human Understanding and morals (1) Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1) Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women (1) J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism (1) J. S. Mill, On Liberty J. S. Mill, On the Subjection of Women (1) C. S. Peirce, selected essays William James, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking Herbert Spencer, The Data of Ethics G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (1) Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy (3) Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind (1) Hoppe, "Democracy: The God That Failed" (1) The numbers represent the number of people who have said, sometime, that we might use the text in question. Each person may "vote" for as many texts as he or she wishes (just not more than one vote per person per text)--and very strong suggestions will count for something too. As you can see, the frontrunners are currently Locke's Essay, Russell's Problems of Philosophy, and Hobbes' Leviathan. Do feel free to vote, if you think you might be participating, and in that case you really should join [textop-en-phil], here: http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop-en-phil --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Sat Jun 17 01:45:53 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 01:45:53 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Textop as a potential archive of well-edited free texts Message-ID: <000101c691ea$711ba610$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Blog post: http://www.dufoundation.org/blog/?p=46 --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Sun Jun 18 15:26:54 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 15:26:54 -0700 Subject: [Textop] The possibility of Tycho Message-ID: <000a01c69326$4dae80c0$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Blog post: http://www.dufoundation.org/blog/?p=51 It's probably a little dull for most people, but if you're interested in the more abstract aspects of the project, and might find an example from Tycho Brahe engaging, you might find it useful. --Larry From math at freemail.hu Tue Jun 20 08:52:49 2006 From: math at freemail.hu (Brendel Matyas) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 17:52:49 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Textop] Who's up for a "Skypecast"? In-Reply-To: <002701c68ff9$24d782d0$7e02020a@D6WD1391> Message-ID: Hi all, I was on holiday the last 2 weeks, and on the HOPOS conference. I am for Skype. I would only listen to the conversation. I'll try to catch up with recent developments. Matthias _______________________________________________________________________________ ?lvezd az internet ny?jtotta szabads?got! V?s?rolj k?nyelmesen ?s biztons?gosan Virtu?lis k?rty?ddal! [origo] klikkbank di?k sz?mlacsomag http://www.klikkbank.hu/lakossagi/termekek/diak_szamlacsomag/index.html From math at freemail.hu Tue Jun 20 09:39:05 2006 From: math at freemail.hu (Brendel Matyas) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:39:05 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Textop] Welcome, and first steps for pilot project In-Reply-To: <009c01c68f36$dcd5e890$7e02020a@D6WD1391> Message-ID: Hi, My answers: > (1) This is a question for everyone, not just "likely participants." > Now that you've seen the wiki, and you've seen how I propose to use it to do a collation (at > http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Sample_outline), what do you > think of the idea of using the wiki *for* this pilot project? I am for it, since I know how to use Wiki. I think that the software of Wiki was very good for that purpose, only the management was wrong. It is not good for textop, but ok for a pilot project. > (2) Next, and this is important, ALL POTENTIAL PARTICIPANTS, please > consult http://tinyurl.com/fw546 (which redirects to a wiki page) for a > list of possible works to use. Feel free to suggest other works not > listed. IN PARTICULAR, please send me (personally) a list of all > English language works of philosophy (in the public domain) that you (a) > have studied and (b) to which would like to give the Collation Project > treatment (http://www.textop.org/collation_summary.html). > I have only read: Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy from the list. In general I have read works of Rudolf Carnap, logical positivists, Nietzsche (Zarathustra is fine for me). I can give a complete list if there is any chance that they could be included. > (3) Again, if you regard yourself as a likely participant, I want your > candid opinion, either privately or on the list: do you want to use the > work I've done on Hobbes' *Leviathan*, partially wikified at > http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Sample_outline, as a starting > point? I would not prefer it since I did not read it. But if tha is the decision, I may read and contribute. That is slower of course. > (4) If you're a likely participant, please create a user page using your > own real name on the wiki (http://www.textop.org/wiki/) and say > something (accurate) about yourself, if you don't mind...not a > requirement. But if you've got a CV online, please link to it. Done. http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=User:Math > (5) Finally, for everyone, let me know: would you personally be > interested to have a telecon, perhaps a Skypecast > (https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/home), for purposes of general > chatting and getting acquainted and answering questions? Yes. My id on skype is math_0 anybody can contact me for chat. I have no microfone. Matthias _______________________________________________________________________________ ?lvezd az internet ny?jtotta szabads?got! V?s?rolj k?nyelmesen ?s biztons?gosan Virtu?lis k?rty?ddal! [origo] klikkbank di?k sz?mlacsomag http://www.klikkbank.hu/lakossagi/termekek/diak_szamlacsomag/index.html From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Tue Jun 20 12:29:08 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 12:29:08 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Proposed voice discussion time - RSVP soon Message-ID: <002c01c6949f$cd21e7a0$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> All, We definitely have a quorum of people interested in Textop telecons. Having thought more about it, and given the inevitable difficulty of reconciling many schedules for meetings, I think the best way forward is just to set a regular time and use turnout data to decide how often to meet. Personally I'd like to meet every week. What I propose TENTATIVELY is: Fridays 9 AM Pacific Noon Eastern 5 PM GMT PLEASE RSVP PRIVATELY SOON, SO I CAN ADJUST THE MEETING TIME IF NECESSARY. Please let me know what other days of the week might work for you, and if this has a *regular* conflict with your schedule. As far as start times are concerned, I don't think we should deviate much from the range of 8-10 AM (Pacific) for a start time, so that we can get Europeans involved. But on weekdays other than Friday, I think we could start as late as 11 AM Pacific (7 PM GMT). LET'S USE SKYPE: I know long distance (even international long distance) is cheap for most of us, but it probably isn't for everyone. So, to make it as inexpensive as possible for people to participate, and also to be able to record the proceedings for others to enjoy, I propose to do a "Skypecast," accessible via this page: https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/detailed.html?id_talk=1274 4 (I've linked this from the textop.org homepage.) EASY DOWNLOAD NECESSARY: To participate, you'll have to download (for free) Skype (http://www.skype.com/download/) and make a user account. If you've never used Skype before, don't worry--it's unusually user-friendly. If you don't have a headset or microphone (I have a headset that I find very convenient, $15 at an office supply store), you can always just listen through your computer speakers. AGENDA: for the first meeting, let's get acquainted, do a Q&A about the project as a whole for those who simply want to ask questions, and (if we have time) talk about governance. Let's aim for one hour (unless people are motivated to go longer). Next time we might divide our time between governance issues and the pilot project kickoff. Comments? Questions? Proposals? --Larry From davcormier at upei.ca Wed Jun 21 05:04:16 2006 From: davcormier at upei.ca (dave cormier) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:04:16 -0300 Subject: [Textop] Proposed voice discussion time - RSVP soon In-Reply-To: <002c01c6949f$cd21e7a0$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> References: <002c01c6949f$cd21e7a0$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Message-ID: <449935C0.1040402@upei.ca> I'd also like to add that you are welcome to use any of our facilities if you wish.(http://edtechtalk.com) I'm thinking that at least the chatroom might be useful in the discussion dave. -- dave cormier Project Manager, Digital Library Tech Coordinator, CMTC phone: 902-566-6007 email: davcormier at upei.ca skype: coarsesalt From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Wed Jun 21 09:27:07 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:27:07 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Proposed voice discussion time - RSVP soon Message-ID: <002e01c6954f$8a28ea10$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Dave, Thanks, this is a great idea! But whether it will be necessary depends on how many people show up. Already I've had confirmations from a good number of people. By the way, someone pointed out that if the Skypecast is at 9 Pacific/noon Eastern, then the GMT time is 4 PM, not 5 PM! I'll send a reminder and pointers tomorrow. --Larry > -----Original Message----- > From: textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org > [mailto:textop-bounces at lists.dufoundation.org] On Behalf Of > dave cormier > Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 5:04 AM > To: General Discussion List for the Text Outline Project > Subject: Re: [Textop] Proposed voice discussion time - RSVP soon > > > I'd also like to add that you are welcome to use any of our > facilities > if you wish.(http://edtechtalk.com) I'm thinking that at least the > chatroom might be useful in the discussion > > dave. > > -- > dave cormier > Project Manager, Digital Library > Tech Coordinator, CMTC > > phone: 902-566-6007 > email: davcormier at upei.ca > skype: coarsesalt > > _______________________________________________ > Textop mailing list > Textop at lists.dufoundation.org > http://lists.dufoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/textop > From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Thu Jun 22 17:35:13 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 17:35:13 -0700 Subject: [Textop] First voice discussion (Skypecast) soon Message-ID: <002601c6965c$e41273d0$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> All, A reminder: please join me for a kick-off discussion, via "Skypecast," of the Text Outline Project tomorrow (or later today, for those of you in Europe): Friday: 9 AM Pacific Daylight Time Noon Eastern Daylight Time 4 PM GMT To join the discussion, you'll have to download Skype (for free) if you don't already have it: http://www.skype.com/download/ If you just want to listen, your computer speakers should do fine, but if you want to participate, you'll need a microphone or better yet, a headset (with a built-in microphone). Then join the discussion by clicking on the "Join this Skypecast" link on this page: https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/detailed.html?id_talk=1274 4 Agenda: let's get acquainted, do a Q&A about the project as a whole for those who simply want to ask questions, and (if we have time) talk about governance. Let's aim for one hour (unless people are motivated to go longer). --Larry ---------------- Dr. Larry Sanger Director of Collaborative Projects, Digital Universe Foundation 100 Enterprise Way, Suite G370, Scotts Valley, CA 95066 larry.sanger at dufoundation.org http://www.dufoundation.org/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.dufoundation.org/archive/textop/attachments/20060622/081a7664/attachment.htm From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Fri Jun 23 23:58:31 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 23:58:31 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Report about our first Skypecast Message-ID: <000c01c6975b$9aab3f10$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> All, I thought I would share my impressions with you about our discussion this morning via the "Skypecast." Others who were involved said (promised??) that they would elaborate certain things they were saying in e-mails to one or more of the lists. In attendance were Anat Biletski, a Hobbes specialist and distinguished professor from Tel Aviv University now visiting at Boston U.; Kunal Sen, Executive Director, International Digital Product Development for Encyclopedia Britannica; Philippe Martin, who researches knowledge representation; Howard Burrows, physiologist, information theorist, and project manager who has lived in much of our problem space; and Dave Cormier, EducationBridges moderator who gave me useful advice about how to manage the Skypecast. My apologies if I left anyone out, but as you can see it was an excellent (and very international!) group, if small. Prof. Biletski asked about how feasible the project is, anyway. (It was more complicated than that, but that was the gist of it, I think.) My answer in brief was that there are aspects of the project that are obviously feasible, because I've shown how to do them (e.g., chunking texts and providing summaries of the chunks), while the feasibility of other, probably more interesting aspects remains obviously unproven. (I always hedged my bets in a similar way about the prospects of Wikipedia, you know.) I don't think we really began to explore the question of feasibility, though. I think another point that was brought up in some back-and-forth involving Philippe and Kunal and myself was the following. Given that the Collation Project will involve chunking small (paragraph-sized) parts of texts, rather than encyclopedia articles or books etc., and putting them into an *extremely* detailed outline, some of the more obvious concerns about feasibility connected to the difficulty of dealing with vague and ambiguous categories might be finessed. Kunal Sen asked two excellent questions (and showed himself to possess professional expertise on two or three completely different aspects of this project): (1) while it is simple to map chunks onto a pre-existing ontological (or taxonomic) structure, how do you create the ontology in the first place? My answer: nodes of the outline (ontology/taxonomy) are created at least initially on a more or less ad hoc basis, just to categorize chunks. Nodes are *not* created "a priori," i.e., before any chunks can be found to put into them. Beyond that, it's (a) a practical matter of deciding on a procedure for arriving at agreement among the outline-builders, and (b) deciding on (or, better, elaborating and refining) principles according to which the outline is built out. Not that either (a) or (b) is easy, but they are both issues I've thought a fair bit about...and, I would add now, a main purpose of the pilot project is to start working out solutions to these problems. (2) For nonphilosophical or mathematical subjects, such as Russell's Principia, how could that be chunked? My answer was that, for a lot of proofs in logic texts, it might end up one chunk per proof, to which Kunal said that that is what he thought, but that then the chunks might end up being pages long, because the proofs are sometimes pages long. I then suggested that sometimes it will be possible to identify subproofs, or discussions of particular premises, which can be placed at subheadings underneath the heading for the main argument. (This did not, I see now, answer his main worry, that taking proofs apart in this way would render the original argument hard to follow. But I don't think so: proofs that require pages generally speaking have typical *parts* that are discussed by other theorists, i.e., subproofs and key premises that are discussed at great length by many different theorists who present their own versions of the proof in question.) Howard Burrows and Kunal Sen also discussed the similarity and differences between the Collation Project and Mortimer J. Adler's *Syntopicon*. Howard urged me to read Adler's introduction to the Syntopicon, which is very relevant to our endeavor. I think we agreed that the main difference between the Collation Project and the Syntopicon is that the latter is much more coarse-grained in two ways: its outline is not as detailed as ours will be, and it indexes sections of works, rather than individual sentences and paragraphs. (And, of course, the Collation Project will be digital and use lots more books!) Toward the end of the call, there was a (for me) somewhat difficult-to-follow exchange by two very subtle thinkers who have (it seems) different approaches to what we're doing, Philippe Martin and Howard Burrows. Philippe defended his notion that an *extremely* fine-grained approach to (some of) Textop's projects is possible, while Howard emphasized some conceptual difficulties inherent in interpretation and classification. One thing that came out of that last exchange was that there is in principle nothing wrong with making initial outline nodes "placeholders" ("placing a flag in the sand" I think someone said) useful for an initial categorization, not bound by any strict rules of ontology. My own conclusion was that, if the outline ever can be made to follow some formal or semi-formal rules of ontology, it will happen only after a great deal of "data" (text chunks) is found in a particular area. In other words, the more chunks are placed in some part of the outline, the more conceptually coherent the outline will become. I think you can see this with my outline of Hobbes' *Leviathan*: the "Metaphysics" part is skeletal and puzzling, while the "Law" part is relatively well-developed. Of course, that's just a reflection of the fact that Hobbes himself discussed law a great deal more than he did metaphysics, in *Leviathan*. We didn't get to talk about project governance at all. Next time, perhaps. Let's do it again next week, same time; if not so many people show up next week, maybe we'll make it every other week and/or try a different time. But I was happy with the showing, considering the relatively small number of people on the Textop mailing lists (total of 40, maybe?). By the way, if you want to participate, please do get your hands on a headset. It makes it easier for you and you reduce the chance that your hardware set-up will cause noise that will force me to mute you. :-) --Larry From widdows at maya.com Sat Jun 24 13:31:14 2006 From: widdows at maya.com (Dominic Widdows) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 16:31:14 -0400 Subject: [Textop] Report about our first Skypecast In-Reply-To: <000c01c6975b$9aab3f10$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> References: <000c01c6975b$9aab3f10$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> Message-ID: <467ec9ea6406ddf0ed87b7adbd2e4c39@maya.com> Dear Larry et al, I hope it's appropriate to post feedback to the whole list ... if not I apologise. > (2) For nonphilosophical or mathematical subjects, such as Russell's > Principia, how could that be chunked? My answer was that, for a lot of > proofs in logic texts, it might end up one chunk per proof, to which > Kunal > said that that is what he thought, but that then the chunks might end > up > being pages long, because the proofs are sometimes pages long. I then > suggested that sometimes it will be possible to identify subproofs, or > discussions of particular premises, which can be placed at subheadings > underneath the heading for the main argument. (This did not, I see > now, > answer his main worry, that taking proofs apart in this way would > render the > original argument hard to follow. But I don't think so: proofs that > require > pages generally speaking have typical *parts* that are discussed by > other > theorists, i.e., subproofs and key premises that are discussed at great > length by many different theorists who present their own versions of > the > proof in question.) One of the reasons that mathematicians like using the TeX typesetting system for writing their papers is that it gives you very rich and detailed control over dividing your manuscript up into parts, supporting both internal cross-references and fine-grained external citation. You can label section and subsections recursively, and within sections, you can label equations, figures and tables, etc. Generally I agree with your statement to the effect that proofs requiring complex decomposition will normally be so structured by authors - it's necessary to enable anyone to follow a difficult abstract train of thought. Carefully nested chunks aren't specific to mathematics, of course. They're provided by many authors of formal works (e.g., Wittgenstein's Tractatus and Buckminster Fuller's Synergetics). Important works are sometimes finely subdivided by later scholars, e.g., book, chapter and verse in scriptural texts may be the most canonical example. There are deliberately different layers of chunking for such works - you want to cite at the verse level, and to read at the chapter or book level. For many of the most important works, there is a well accepted tradition that specialist editors will doubtless preserve in their own fields of scholarship. It should be possible to have your cake and eat it too, using techniques like standoff annotation (e.g., reference plus offset) for citation within a chunk, and having software that supports on-the-fly recomposition for presentation of contiguous chunks. Best wishes, Dominic From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Wed Jun 28 16:45:11 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 16:45:11 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Skypecast #2: some governance questions Message-ID: <001c01c69b0c$e5277900$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> All, Let's have another "Skypecast" discussion, same time, access via this link: https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/detailed.html?id_talk=1430 4 Friday 9 AM PDT, 12 PM EDT, 4 PM GMT I propose that we talk about the following two governance questions (and feel free to start talking about these questions on the [textop] list). (1) What more generally ought to be the source and top-level flow of authority in the project? Who, and by what method, decides how the most responsible roles are filled? Here is my own vague thinking on these questions. Generally, I think there should be (as was said on [Textop] earlier by others) a separation of powers, and the "powers" in question will probably include: (a) an outline editor (see question (2) below), who acts as project director for the Collation Project; (b) other project directors; (c) subject/discipline editors (e.g., the Philosophy editor); (d) text editors and other editors (e.g., editor of our treatment of Hobbes' Leviathan, or the editor of the Debate Guide's treatment of Economics debates); (e) the rank and file. I'm toying with the view that project directors and subject editors should be chosen by partition from among text editors and other editors, while the latter are chosen based on merit by subject editors, with input as necessary by other subject editors. My own role in the future project will be unclear. This is by design: unlike certain other Internet projects I could name, I do not want Textop to be a cult of personality. Instead, by vesting genuine authority in participants, the (2) How should decisions be made with regard to the outline? How are disputes to be resolved? On this, I have been toying with two ideas: (1) final decisions are made by an outline editor, serving a one-year term, who is chosen by sortition from among (willing) text editors; and (2) the outline editor (and those advising him or her) must create, consult, refine a body of rules in making decisions about the shape of the outline. Previous "important" decisions are, as they are in law, enshrined in the rules. New outline editors are bound (generally but not strictly) to follow precedent. On such questions, see: === To be clear, we are not *settling* these questions in this discussion, and you should feel free to weigh in on these questions anytime. In terms of settling on project governance, ultimately the procedure I intend to follow is this: we will discuss and collaborate on a charter on the [textop] list and the wiki; then the charter will be put before the advisory committee, which will be invited to debate and revise and, ultimately, approve it. --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Wed Jun 28 17:14:00 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 17:14:00 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Skypecast #2: some governance questions [revised] Message-ID: <001d01c69b10$ebd49f40$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> [I accidentally sent this before it was finished. Sorry! Here is the complete version.] All, Let's have another "Skypecast" discussion, same time, access via this link: https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/detailed.html?id_talk=1430 4 Friday 9 AM PDT, 12 PM EDT, 4 PM GMT I propose that we talk about the following two governance questions (and feel free to start talking about these questions on the [textop] list). (1) What in general ought to be the source and top-level flow of authority in the project? Who, and by what method, decides how the most responsible roles are filled? Here are my own vague first thoughts on these questions. Generally, I think there should be (as was said on [Textop] earlier by others) a separation of powers, and the "powers" in question will probably include: (a) an outline editor (see question (2) below), who also acts as project director for the Collation Project; (b) other project directors (e.g., the director of the Debate Guide Project); (c) subject/discipline editors (e.g., the Philosophy editor); (d) text editors and other editors (e.g., editor of our treatment of Hobbes' Leviathan, or the editor of the Debate Guide's treatment of Economics debates); (e) the rank and file. (a)-(c) might, or might not, serve on a committee of project leaders; but perhaps that wouldn't be necessary. Finally, some grouping of all of these people serves as an appeal committee. I'm toying with the view that project directors, subject editors, and appeals committee members should be chosen by partition from among text editors and other editors, while the latter are chosen based on merit by subject editors, with input as necessary by other subject editors. The reason I am leaning toward *some* sort of partition (for all but text editors), rather than top-down appointment or bottom-up democratic election, is that I very very much want to avoid the sort of political problems that have plagued such projects as DMOZ and Wikipedia. Given the amount of influence a really successful Textop could have, I want to ensure that its management does not fall to people who do not have the best interests of the project, and humanity generally, at heart. Power, even power in Internet projects, does tend to corrupt, and it tends to attract people who want to use it for their own personal purposes or idiosyncratic ideologies rather than, as in this case, for the good of the project according to its own lights. Persons chosen by partition, who are surprised that they must lead (so to speak), will be more likely to serve out of a sense of duty than out of a sense that they can use the project to save the world, or make their mark, or whatever. Furthermore, a process of partition might reduce the unpleasant politicking and formation of cliques (or parties) that comes with elections. People might still have acrimonious debates, but they will be over policy, not over who should be in charge. My own role in the future project is unclear to me. Unlike certain other Internet projects I could name, I do not want Textop to be a cult of personality. Instead, by vesting genuine authority in participants, we thereby increase the motivation to take responsibility for some part of what, to succeed, must become a vast enterprise. I think I will ask you, however, to make me project director of the various subprojects as they get started: I want to make sure that they get off on the right foot. After that, I might claim a reduced or limited role; that's the only thing that is consistent with partition as a method of selection. Obviously, this has to be decided and articulated. (2) How should decisions be made with regard to the outline? How are disputes to be resolved? On this, I have been toying with two ideas: (1) final decisions are made by an outline editor, serving a one-year term, who is chosen by sortition from among (willing) text editors; and (2) the outline editor (and those advising him or her) must create, consult, and refine a body of rules in making decisions about the shape of the outline. Previous "important" decisions are, as they are in law, to be enshrined in the rules. New outline editors are then bound (generally but not strictly) to follow precedent. On such questions, see: http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2006/6/22/22936/7559 === To be clear, we are not *settling* these questions in this discussion, and you should feel free to weigh in on these questions anytime. In terms of settling on project governance, ultimately the procedure I intend to follow is this: we will discuss and collaborate on a charter on the [textop] list and the wiki; then the charter will be put before the advisory committee, which will be invited to debate and revise and, ultimately, approve it. --Larry From larry.sanger at dufoundation.org Fri Jun 30 09:14:29 2006 From: larry.sanger at dufoundation.org (Larry Sanger) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 09:14:29 -0700 Subject: [Textop] Skypecast switched to telecon Message-ID: <000401c69c60$43fd8740$a0f5fea9@D7WRQ591> All, Howard and I are the only ones in the Skypecast after ten minutes, so we're switching to a telecon. If you'd like to join us right now, use dial-in number: 831.227.2509 x3602 Also, please let me know what you think of using regular phone rather than Skypecast in the future. --Larry