(Note: I've run out of time to clean this up as much as I would
have desired. I've decided to send it out rather than wait any
longer. Your comments and suggestions will help to improve the
next one.) (01)
Blue Oxen Collab Collaboratory Summary -- 2002-02-02 (02)
In which a summary of recent activity on the yak@collab,
tools-yak@collab and CollabWiki is provided. (03)
Please respond with corrections, comments, and questions. (04)
I've implemented a two new sections at the end. One is called
Dangling Threads. These are some of the issues left unresolved,
re-presented to inspire further discussion. The other is
Resources, listing resources that were suggested by participants. (05)
Thanks to everyone who participated and moved the conversation
along. (06)
First, though, some notes on style: many people are quoting
entire messages when they respond. This is not necessary nor
desired. Please edit your messages to only quote the relevant
portion and/or purple number back to the archive for more
context. The URL of the message to which you are responding is
provide in the message. Remember, though, that that link can take
as much as 10 minutes from delivery time to become live. That
should give you time to compose your thoughts. (07)
Second: I can't decide between using the more stable message ID
based URLs for links to the archives versus the shorter static
links. I've tended to use the one that is most available.
Suggestions appreciated. (08)
Third: some of this is just a repeat of what was on the list or
in the wiki, but that's generally considered good for review, yeah? (09)
-=-=-
Yak: (010)
There was very little activity on the yak list, only a wry
comment from Slashdot via Eric Armstrong on the the value of
debuggers in the Open Source model: (011)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=yak&i=3E3AF754.5E1B230F@sun.com (012)
-=-=-
Tools-Yak: (013)
The tools list, on the other hand, saw a fair amount of activity: (014)
====
Compendium: (015)
Simon Buckingham Shum announced the long-awaited public release
of Compendium, a "semantic hypertext concept mapping tool". (016)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=5.2.0.9.2.20030130200438.03ea8fa0@owa2000.open.ac.uk (017)
Downloads and more information about Compendium can be found
at: (018)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/tools-yak/2003-01/ (019)
====
Chandler: (020)
Eugene heard Mitch Kapor talk about Chandler, a new model and
application for personal information management. He provided
his impressions of the talk: (021)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=20030130083030.GB7651@douge.blueoxen.net (022)
Eugene feels the most important aspect of Chandler is the
approach: (023)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/tools-yak/2003-01/msg00074.html#nid06 (024)
====
Cheerios and other solids in viscous fluids: (025)
Peter Jones proposed a research project to study the
clustering properties of floating geometric solids in viscious
fluids as a "driver for tool testing and other collaboratory
research". (026)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=000701c2c7e5%24e4a2ade0%2459f4193e@vaio (027)
====
XMFL, Community measurment, Topics maps, etc (028)
Eugene's posting of an article on XFML (Exchangable Faceted
Metadata Language): (029)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=20030124185212.GB32672@douge.blueoxen.net (030)
generated a number of interesting subthreads. Eugene compared
the momentum of the XFML community with that of the Topic Maps
communitiy. (031)
This led to discussion of how to measure size and activity
of a community. Jack suggested methods he uses on mail
folders: (032)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=5.1.1.6.0.20030124114607.038af1e8@thinkalong.com (033)
Eugene responded with what he felt is a fundamental question:
what constitutes membership in a community: (034)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/tools-yak/2003-01/msg00037.html#nid04 (035)
followed by some commentary on the difference between a
"community of practice" and a "network of practice".
Identifying which is currently active can help to manage
expectations: (036)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/tools-yak/2003-01/msg00044.html#nid05 (037)
I (your summary author) provided some possible measures of
membership in email communities based on analysis of only the
email: (038)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=Pine.LNX.4.30.0301281559130.2416-100000@hot.burningchrome.com (039)
Eugene pointed out that many communities exist in multiple
arenas and thus their "performance" on such metrics would not be
representative. (040)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=20030129073528.GB14966@douge.blueoxen.net (041)
Eric Armstrong raised some questions questions about the
relevance of homogeneity of response in communities (042)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=3E3436C7.FA78ED@sun.com (043)
that led to a subthread of debate about the value, usability,
history and importance of XTM that did not seem to resolve
itself but did provide some relevant resources on XTM, Topic
maps and XMFL (listed near the end of this message). (044)
Eric also asked Eugene to explain the Squirm Test, a measure
of shared understanding: (045)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=20030128082733.GB24077@douge.blueoxen.net (046)
-=-=-
CollabWiki (047)
See (048)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?RecentChanges (049)
for recent changes on the wiki. Here's a summary: (050)
FacetClasification was updated with a link to an article
introducing XFML: (051)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?action=browse&diff=1&id=FacetedClassification#nid08 (052)
TopicMaps was updated with a link to "The Abridged
'Understanding Topics Maps' Part I": (053)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?action=browse&diff=1&id=TopicMaps#nid07 (054)
-=-=-
Dangling Threads (055)
(A subjective interpretation of what was left hanging.) (056)
====
Throughout the discussion about XFML and XTM there was very
little said about what one does with these things. I had asked
whether XTM was a protocol or a language: (057)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/tools-yak/2003-01/msg00050.html#nid05 (058)
I think this is one of the fundamental issues of collaborative
tools. One can make a tool to do something, or one can make a
tool to facillitate something. (059)
Chandler has people's attention because it is going to _do_
something with tools that were built to facillitate. (060)
Thus far the talk on the lists has been mostly talk and little
action. Do we, as a group, wish to set some action oriented
goals that will drive collaboration research and tools
development? Peter suggested an investigation. Other
possibilities that might fit in this context include further
development of PurpleWiki, and experiments with implementations
of XTM and XFML. (061)
====
Measurement of membership, momentum and success in a community
(or a network of practice) is an issue raised this week but
left without a complete answer. A complete answer will probably
never come, but we can fill in the lines as we reveal them. (062)
-=-=-
Resources (063)
====
Jack recommended _The Silicon Valley Edge_: (064)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/tools-yak/2003-01/msg00039.html#nid01 (065)
====
Matthew Schneider provided some links to XML-RPC resources that
he's gathered: (066)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=002001c2c4c5%245288e5a0%2478479a40@ibmaa0051d (067)
====
Peter Jones gathered several resources related to XTM, XFML and
TopicMaps: (068)
XFML spec intro: (069)
http://www.xfml.org/spec/1.0.html#introductiontoxfml (070)
Topicmaps home: (071)
http://topicmaps.org/ (072)
Published Subject Indicators in Topic Maps (073)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/tools-yak/2003-01/msg00052.html#nid02 (074)
http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/document/0322_files/iso13250-2nd-ed-v2.pdf (075)
The Abridged "Understanding Topic Maps" Part 1: (076)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=003601c2c7ce%24a5e2f4a0%24abc5193e@vaio (077)
====
Discussion of email visualization systems pointed out Apache's
Agora: (078)
http://cvs.apache.org/~stefano/agora/ (079)
and Warren Sack's Conversation Map: (080)
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~sack/CM/ (081)
====
Aldo de Moor provided a reference to a paper that uses norm
fields to describe the performance of interacting people: (082)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/tools-yak/2003-01/msg00065.html#nid05 (083)
--
Chris Dent <cdent@burningchrome.com> http://www.burningchrome.com/~cdent/
"If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are
opportunities to change things, that hope is possible, then hope may be
justified, and a better world may be built. That's your choice." N.Chomsky (084)
--
This message is archived at: (085)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=Pine.LNX.4.30.0302041558440.9400-100000@hot.burningchrome.com (086)
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