Futures Of Open Source Information (FOOSI), For All You FOOSI-NIKS, Wherever You Are !!! Options Rating

[Emperor]

Oxymoronic:

The free content site that could supercede Wikipedia:
...
2) Offers complete, thorough, virtually unbreakable anonymity and and only divulges names +/- IP addresses under court order.
...
5) Has light-handed, nearly invisible admins
6) Has a clear, workable plan to keep itself out of legal trouble (rather than just whacking problems as they come up) and sticks to it in a predictable manner.

You may as well add:
7) Changes human nature, society, and hundreds of years of legal evolution, and makes it possible for everyone to live happily ever after.

What's your alternative? No free content sites, and we go back to sparsely updated, uninformative, overly-commercialized ratholes with overteched and confusing design? If Britannica or Encarta could put up decent sites they would eat Wikipedia for lunch, but so far they haven't. And the world's scientific, historical, political, and other organizations are hardly doing any better.

I think it would be best if we stuck with American English (I can't stand those wacky British spellings).

Oh - so that's me excluded then.

Sorry didn't mean to be exclusive. You can pretend to spell like an American, right? I've just endured far too many pissing contests over at the WP to want to see the same policy again. There are better things to waste time on. Everyone will accuse the system of bias anyway, so might as well make some choices that make life easier and don't really amount to anything more consequential than spelling.

I think it would be best if we stuck with American English (I can't stand those wacky British spellings).

Groan. Yeah those English are so weird in the way they spell er... English. And who needs the British anyway? What have they ever contributed to encyclopaedia building?

The free content site that could supercede Wikipedia:
...
2) Offers complete, thorough, virtually unbreakable anonymity and and only divulges names +/- IP addresses under court order.

Please be aware that one of the most important and consistent complaints about WP is the anonymity of the contributors. It is often given as the core cause for its failings.

Sorry to sound negative, but I urge you to really consider whether you have the stomach to start something like this. That's not a good start.

I'm sorry, I guess I was confusing. My list of attributes wasn't necessarily what I hope that encyc.org will do, and I'm not at all sure that technically I could offer something like unbreakable anonymity. This is just a hobby/experiment at this point. If it catches on, great. If not, well then hopefully I've learned something about how hard it is to do something, and I won't be such a critical a-hole all the time.

As for the anonymity, I disagree. I think there will always be a place for anonymity on the web, or there should be. The sheer popularity of Wikipedia, anonymous web forums, and UseNet before that points to a desire on the part of many to remain anonymous. Give them what they want.

I don't think the answer is just to do the opposite of whatever Wikipedia does.

[guy]

Groan. Yeah those English are so weird in the way they spell er... English. And who needs the British anyway? What have they ever contributed to encyclopaedia building?

We invented the language.

And the British invented the Encyclopaedia Britannica - yes, I know it's now produced in America, but it hasn't half declined since we exported it.

[Emperor]

Well I guess that's sincere. I think you should solicit 2 or 3 very strong articles prior to roll out. Each with a very small team (2 or 3) editors and copy edited as more or less finished and polished pieces. You could refer to them as the standard you would like to meet in other article. Don't encourage a "granular" editing. The idea is to show collaboration doesn't need to be a hodge-podge.

Good idea. Thanks for the tip.

[Kato]

As for the anonymity, I disagree. I think there will always be a place for anonymity on the web, or there should be. The sheer popularity of Wikipedia, anonymous web forums, and UseNet before that points to a desire on the part of many to remain anonymous. Give them what they want.

I don't think the answer is just to do the opposite of whatever Wikipedia does.

The problem is that anonymous web forums, UseNet, and wikipedia for that matter do not provide comparative models for how we should construct encyclopedias.

Creating a good encyclopedia is a laborious, serious business that requires real expertise and good management. Getting it badly wrong, as wikipedia has done, and yet now dominating human information and knowledge is a disaster for us all.

This isn't something you can just play around with. Many, many great people have dedicated their lives helping educate future generations, helping us understand the world in which we live. Putting in hard work. Facing serious peer reviews. Being genuinely contentious about everything from the smallest detail to the largest theory. Being professional. It takes a bit of time and effort, but it works. And it benefits society.

Cobbling together a few scraps of transient information, much of it of dubious origin, calling it an "encyclopedia" and peddling it for free is not anyone's answer. Whether Der Jimbo is doing the peddling or someone new. Rather put the work in and get it right. Than toss something off, get it wrong, and spoil a generation of readers with cheap unreliable crap.

Groan. Yeah those English are so weird in the way they spell er... English. And who needs the British anyway? What have they ever contributed to encyclopaedia building?

We invented the language.

And the British invented the Encyclopaedia Britannica - yes, I know it's now produced in America, but it hasn't half declined since we exported it.

Hmmm. Was my sarcasm too cloaked Sir Guido?

[Emperor]

The problem is that anonymous web forums, UseNet, and wikipedia for that matter do not provide comparative models for how we should construct encyclopedias.

Creating a good encyclopedia is a laborious, serious business that requires real expertise and good management. Getting it badly wrong, as wikipedia has done, and yet now dominating human information and knowledge is a disaster for us all.

This isn't something you can just play around with. Many, many great people have dedicated their lives helping educate future generations, helping us understand the world in which we live. Putting in hard work. Facing serious peer reviews. Being genuinely contentious about everything from the smallest detail to the largest theory. Being professional. It takes a bit of time and effort, but it works. And it benefits society.

Cobbling together a few scraps of transient information, much of it of dubious origin, calling it an "encyclopedia" and peddling it for free is not anyone's answer. Whether Der Jimbo is doing the peddling or someone new. Rather put the work in and get it right. Than toss something off, get it wrong, and spoil a generation of readers with cheap unreliable crap.

I think that the kids are a little more resilient than you give them credit for. I used to read all kinds of crap growing up, and still manage to wake up and tie my own shoes in the morning. I think that the main problem is if we lose other, more traditional sources, so there is less diversity in what is available. However I don't see the death of book publishing as a result of my little project or even Jimbo's.

And forgive me but I'm not impressed by the great people, peer-reviewed, hard-working professionals argument. I spent enough years at a prestigious university to know what these people are really doing, and basically it's not pulling their own weight in society. Thus far the world's academics have failed to publish coherent, organized, accessible information on the web. If they ever want to get into that game, I don't know anyone who wouldn't welcome them.

In short, yes I do think that this is something I can play around with. Playing around with stuff is what made this country great.

[JoseClutch]

Oxymoronic:

The free content site that could supercede Wikipedia:
...
2) Offers complete, thorough, virtually unbreakable anonymity and and only divulges names +/- IP addresses under court order.
...
5) Has light-handed, nearly invisible admins
6) Has a clear, workable plan to keep itself out of legal trouble (rather than just whacking problems as they come up) and sticks to it in a predictable manner.

You may as well add:
7) Changes human nature, society, and hundreds of years of legal evolution, and makes it possible for everyone to live happily ever after.

I would definitely participate in an online encyclopedia that could do that!

Seriously, though, Citizendium has it right about having everyone reveal who they are. In fact, Citizendium (in principle) knows how to solve what's wrong with Wikipedia - it just isn't interested in duplicating what's right with Wikipedia, oddly enough.

[Jonny Cache]

Seriously, though, Citizendium has it right about having everyone reveal who they are. In fact, Citizendium (in principle) knows how to solve what's wrong with Wikipedia — it just isn't interested in duplicating what's right with Wikipedia, oddly enough.

Citizendium has reproduced every single fundamental flaw of Wikipedia except for the one about anonymity. And added a Borg Bureaucracy on top of that, just for good messer.

Jonny

[Kato]

I think that the kids are a little more resilient than you give them credit for. I used to read all kinds of crap growing up, and still manage to wake up and tie my own shoes in the morning.

You obviously don't have any children, have very little knowledge of how children learn, or have probably never read kids' essays these days. Despite edicts everywhere about wikipedia, kids still hand them in stolen piecemeal from WP. Kids overwhelming believe that wikipedia is reliable, and measures to teach kids that it isn't are being implemented world wide at some cost to us. There is a significant, growing movement against WP, made up of educators, academics and so on. You know... people who are actually qualified to assess this thing.

And forgive me but I'm not impressed by the great people, peer-reviewed, hard-working professionals argument.

You don't sound like the sort of person who would be. People like you never are. Hard work and expertise are just sooooo old maaannn.

I spent enough years at a prestigious university to know what these people are really doing, and basically it's not pulling their own weight in society.

Yeah. What have universities ever given us? Burn 'em down I say.

In short, yes I do think that this is something I can play around with. Playing around with stuff is what made this country great.

Which country do you have in mind?

Well if you want to continue with your ill fated project, on your head be it. But don't come running back here when it all goes pear-shaped, you find yourself out of your depth and regretting what you've unleashed on an ungrateful world. In future, when you people "play around" with knowledge, can you please do it in your own backyards. As far away from a google search - and my children - as possible.

[Emperor]

You obviously don't have any children, have very little knowledge of how children learn, or have probably never read kids' essays these days. Despite edicts everywhere about wikipedia, kids still hand them in stolen piecemeal from WP. Kids overwhelming believe that wikipedia is reliable, and measures to teach kids that it isn't are being implemented world wide at some cost to us. There is a significant, growing movement against WP, made up of educators, academics and so on. You know... people who are actually qualified to assess this thing.

Come on. Kids are ignorant, almost by definition. They will always have to be taught to consider the source, whether they grow up reading 1950's textbooks, pulp fiction, Japanese graphic novels, Harry Potter, encyclopedias, or the backs of baseball cards. There will always be someplace claiming to have easy answers, and kids who will want to plagiarize rather than do their homework. It's the job of parents and teachers to spend some time with them and not pin their kids' ignorance on a single boogeyman, whether it be a stupid online encyclopedia, the Man, Hollywood, pop culture, or any other lame excuse.

And forgive me but I'm not impressed by the great people, peer-reviewed, hard-working professionals argument.

You don't sound like the sort of person who would be. People like you never are. Hard work and expertise are just sooooo old maaannn.

I said if they show up to play, they would be welcome. There's a void right now, and the amateurs are filling it. The pros are too busy filling out grant applications, publishing in arcane journals that no one will ever read, and fighting with administrations to bother with anything so mundane as educating the public, despite the fact that they live largely off tax dollars and philanthropic donations.

I spent enough years at a prestigious university to know what these people are really doing, and basically it's not pulling their own weight in society.

Yeah. What have universities ever given us? Burn 'em down I say.

They used to be quite useful. Now they are just businesses, like anything else, and they function to funnel money to professors, administrators, and staff. A lot has changed since the marriage of PowerPoint and lazy burn-out professors. We need real universities more than ever.

Well if you want to continue with your ill fated project, on your head be it. But don't come running back here when it all goes pair-shaped, you find yourself out of your depth and regretting what you've unleashed on an ungrateful world. In future, when you people "play around" with knowledge, can you please do it in your own backyards. As far away from a google search - and my children - as possible.

Well I'm beginning to think that you think this is a bad idea. Fair enough.

[Jonny Cache]

Bumping this thread to the top again. It is a bit rambling — what are the odds!? — but it does appear to have a few decent exchanges in it where we discussed that Goverment Thing last time around.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 31st October 2007, 3:26am

[Moulton]

Could you give an example of one of these idyllic genuine learning communities?

I co-founded one such learning community back in 1990, and later wrote this retrospective on the experiment...

Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler

[Jonny Cache]

It's not so much that people at different levels of experience, knowledge, maturity, whatever are brought together to work toward the same goals. People who have been thinking about and working toward the growth of genuine learning communities since long before Wikipedia came down the wikipike have seen no reason why such a mix could not sort itself out in a natural way, and to the benefit of all concerned.

Could you give an example of one of these idyllic genuine learning communities? I used to mess around on USENET and found the signal to noise ratio was usually pretty low. As far as other wikis I haven't found anything remotely useful other than the documentation for some of them.

Oh gosh, I don't know of any Actual that achieves the Idyll, and UseNet would have been about the last thing that came to mind in that connection. The first requirement of a genuine learning community would have to be that its participants really want to learn, and more than they want a whole lot of other things that tend to get in the way. Given that, there's no reason why the rest of the structure cannot sort itself out in accord with who has the information and who wants the information about a given subject.

I know lots of people who appear, at least on the surface, to be as happy as larks in this or that setting. So the fact that I find the settings in question to be lacking in some respect is probably just that I'm asking too much.

Still, it seems that there are specific reasons for each of the less-than-ideal systems that I have known.

Jonny

Could you give an example of one of these idyllic genuine learning communities?

I co-founded one such learning community back in 1990, and later wrote this retrospective on the experiment …

Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler

Looking back over What I Did Last Summer — there's an absolutely classic MAD Magazine parody on that theme that I will hunt down for y'∀ ∃day — and inspired to many anamnisusesises by Moulton's Rouge reminiscences, I would have to say now that Centiare has the right floor plan to do the ®ight §tuff™, and I lament the fact that people are wasting so much of their lives and scared [sic] honours on Wikipedia and even Citizendium to see the brilliance of its potential.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 31st October 2007, 1:48pm

[Kato]

Could you give an example of one of these idyllic genuine learning communities?

I co-founded one such learning community back in 1990, and later wrote this retrospective on the experiment...

Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler

That's an interesting link, Moulton. Thanks for that. It has given much to think over.

See you in the New Year whilst I mull over the content.

[GlassBeadGame]

Could you give an example of one of these idyllic genuine learning communities?

I co-founded one such learning community back in 1990, and later wrote this retrospective on the experiment...

Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler

That's an interesting link, Moulton. Thanks for that. It has given much to think over.

See you in the New Year whilst I mull over the content.

It will take a while to work through the material this link point toward. I have began looking at a few. It seems that this is much the same path as taken by Jonny Cache. I will let him elaborate. Suffice it say that both you and he exhibited a high level of scholarship, an understanding of building "communities of inquiry" as Jonny would say, arrived with the best of intentions, worked diligently and are today both banned users. I believe that the commonality validates the view that something went wrong that neither of you caused.

My own vision is not to different.

[Moulton]

It will take a while to work through the material this link points toward. I have began looking at a few. It seems that this is much the same path as taken by Jonny Cache. I will let him elaborate. Suffice it say that both you and he exhibited a high level of scholarship, an understanding of building "communities of inquiry" as Jonny would say, arrived with the best of intentions, worked diligently and are today both banned users. I believe that the commonality validates the view that something went wrong that neither of you caused.

My own vision is not too different.

It occurs to me that the assembled outcasts on this site include a disproportionate number of academics with a background in systems science. Those of us who engage in systems analysis and diagnostic reasoning tend to evoke an allergic reaction in the old guard who embrace and defend the dysfunctional status quo.

My theory of what went wrong doesn't begin and end with Wikipedia. It begins and ends with something far more fundamental and anachronistic. I've written about it in other settings, but I've failed to translate the analytical theory into a compelling story.

Here is but one feeble attempt at spelling it out...

Disjunction Dysfunction and the Error Function

[Jonny Cache]

It will take a while to work through the material this link points toward. I have began looking at a few. It seems that this is much the same path as taken by Jonny Cache. I will let him elaborate. Suffice it say that both you and he exhibited a high level of scholarship, an understanding of building "communities of inquiry" as Jonny would say, arrived with the best of intentions, worked diligently and are today both banned users. I believe that the commonality validates the view that something went wrong that neither of you caused.

My own vision is not too different.

It occurs to me that the assembled outcasts on this site include a disproportionate number of academics with a background in systems science. Those of us who engage in systems analysis and diagnostic reasoning tend to evoke an allergic reaction in the old guard who embrace and defend the dysfunctional status quo.

My theory of what went wrong doesn't begin and end with Wikipedia. It begins and ends with something far more fundamental and anachronistic. I've written about it in other settings, but I've failed to translate the analytical theory into a compelling story.

Here is but one feeble attempt at spelling it out …

Disjunction Dysfunction and the Error Function

Random thoughts while I run back and forth to the door — and not a little sugar buzz from snitching the odd Box'o'Dots when the co-treater of the house lapses at watching the candy bowl.

Those of us Xpediots and Luvin' Miserables who once shared the Dream of a true learning community springing up where only the Wiki-Wind Howls O'er The Wiki-Prairie Now have shared these lemming-tations many times before — Hell Hath No Furies Like Willing Suspenders Of Disbelief Let Down.

Your ErrFunk is the type of Σoid Threshold Function that I used to use in many Decision-Theoretic (D-T) and Neural Network (NN) applications to smooth out the Hysteresis of Walking the Razor's Edge Barefoot In The Head (REBITH?).

Gotta Dash —

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 31st October 2007, 11:48pm

[Moulton]

One of the issues that comes up when one seeks to craft a learning community is that different people have different preferences and predilections for how they learn.

A colleague of mine who has done a lot of research on such differences has proposed a model of four different types of learners. Of the four types, the group that is hardest to reach is what she calls the Resistant Learner.

As near as I can tell, the Resistant Learner is the one most likely to become embroiled in emotionally turbulent personal drama.

[WhispersOfWisdom]

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/30/detai...ng-social-apps/

Hello?

Has anyone seen this one yet?

Google you do or Google you don't, Google will be involved!

Maybe WP won't be on top anymore?

[Jonny Cache]

One of the issues that comes up when one seeks to craft a learning community is that different people have different preferences and predilections for how they learn.

A colleague of mine who has done a lot of research on such differences has proposed a model of four different types of learners. Of the four types, the group that is hardest to reach is what she calls the Resistant Learner.

As near as I can tell, the Resistant Learner is the one most likely to become embroiled in emotionally turbulent personal drama.

There's a body of current research by a couple of Canadians on what they call the Certainty Orientation versus the Uncertainty Orientation.

Maybe I linked it here or here.

Links @ 11 …

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Thu 1st November 2007, 1:48am

[Moulton]

A Theory of Uncertainty Orientation