[Textop] Welcome, and first steps for pilot project

[Larry Sanger]

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/