hey all,
If I wanted to get a new sister project started off of the home page, who would I talk to? What would I do? The project I have in mind doesn't exactly fit any of the categories listed, yet I feel it would be a useful addition.
so - do I write a proposal? Discuss it on this mailing list? Go through meta-wiki? Or some other method?
Thanks,
Ed
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 16:45:44 -0700, Edward Peschko esp5@pge.com wrote:
hey all,
If I wanted to get a new sister project started off of the home page, who would I talk to? What would I do? The project I have in mind doesn't exactly fit any of the categories listed, yet I feel it would be a useful addition.
so - do I write a proposal? Discuss it on this mailing list? Go through meta-wiki? Or some other method?
Thanks,
Ed
You could elaborate on your proposed sister project here on the mailing. I'm personally curious what you have in mind and I'm sure if we knew more about it we could better direct you to someone.
-John
If I wanted to get a new sister project started off of the home page, who would I talk to? What would I do? The project I have in mind doesn't exactly fit any of the categories listed, yet I feel it would be a useful addition.
so - do I write a proposal? Discuss it on this mailing list? Go through meta-wiki? Or some other method?
Thanks,
Ed
You could elaborate on your proposed sister project here on the mailing. I'm personally curious what you have in mind and I'm sure if we knew more about it we could better direct you to someone.
ok, here goes.. (I'll keep it brief)
I'm pretty dismayed about the energy situation out there, and in particular, how popular literature has distorted the energy picture for either economic or political agendas.
Hence, I'm trying to create a 'comprehensive energy picture' that is as free as agendas as possible. The idea is to get the 'big ideas and numbers' and put them in a format that makes it easy for the average educated reader to understand, and give ideas to mitigate the upcoming disruption as much as possible. Then, to distribute them as *wide* as possible - the goal is to make it a focal point for people's discussion, and cover energy issues from all perspectives.
I've talked to a hell of a lot of energy analysts in various disciplines, and have come to the conclusion that the best way to do this would be via wiki. The project would consist of two parts:
1) an open, public wiki that is in the form of hierarchical discussion pages which sort out basic facts and principles.
2) paper publication(s) based on the first wiki, also in wiki form (I'm in the process of writing a wiki based on the mediawiki schema which provides services like pagination, typesetting and index support. When its ready I'll release it under the GPL).
The second one(s) would be endorsed, supported, and if possible edited by as recognizable names as possibly can be found - hopefully due to the large public reach of wiki, we could get someone or someones *very* recognizable. Anything to make the public at large listen.
Anyway, comments are welcome, but right now what I'd like to do is create an outline for #1 online - basically dump my brain of all the research that I've done, and make a framework for further research. Could I get a public wiki-space - separate from the home pages and other sister projects - to start with?
Ed
( ps - ultimately, this project could encompass other topics - like education, health care, etc... call it 'policywiki' or 'wikipol'.
But to me, energy is by *far* the most important and IMO deserves an icon by itself off the main page. Energy issues could seriously derail us - anyone who has heard of Hubbert's peak and then looked at American energy policy knows that.
We are so seriously out of whack with reality that its bound to hit us. Its just a question of how hard. )
Edward Peschko wrote:
The second one(s) would be endorsed, supported, and if possible edited by as recognizable names as possibly can be found - hopefully due to the large public reach of wiki, we could get someone or someones *very* recognizable. Anything to make the public at large listen.
Wikimedia is not a wiki hosting service. For wiki hosting services, try:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiFarms
-- Tim Starling
Wikimedia is not a wiki hosting service. try:
... yes I looked at the wiki home page, and I realize now that it would be improper to link a specific subject off of wikipedia.org.
That being said - I still think there is a big hole that could be filled in the wikimedia foundation, whilst providing good public service. And that is in the area of free-form research.
The thing I had in mind was a place where freeform discussion is done on energy - or other policy - issues, which is copyleft and meant to ultimately produce multiple books (which may or may not as have an ongoing online presence). Its also not really an encyclopedia - example subject(s) might be:
graph - oil use since 1900 the solar energy constant - space versus earth the perils of energy forecasting the efficiency of photosynthesis in C3 and C4 plants photovoltaics versus solar towers percentage of clean coal installations EROEIs of various fuels oil versus hydrogen as an energy carrier Energy feed costs of different types of domesticates the shortcomings of windmills
ie - the topics might relate multiple subjects together and talk about them in tandem as opposed to being talked about separately. And each is meant to be a research project, they are not meant to be viewed as text in a book.
As far as I'm concerned, this type of activity is just as basic - and just as needed as a free encyclopedia or dictionary, because it brings people of multiple disciplines together on scientific issues. And IMO it belongs front and center - I truly believe that the right interdisciplinary research projects could change the world. For example, just look at Vaclav Smil's 'Biospheres' or 'Energies'. If everyone in the world truly understood what he had to say, we would be a lot better off.
Anyways, I'm not sure what I would call this type of sister project: wiki research? wiki policy? wiki interdiscipline?
Ed
(ps - is the foundation-l list the right place to talk about this stuff? If so, I'll post there.)
---- context
ok, here goes.. (I'll keep it brief)
context
I'm pretty dismayed about the energy situation out there, and in particular, how popular literature has distorted the energy picture out there, for either economic or political agendas.
Hence, I'm trying to create a 'comprehensive energy picture' that is as free as agendas as possible. The idea is to get the 'big ideas and numbers' and put them in a format that makes it easy for the average educated reader to understand. Then, to distribute them as *wide* as possible - the goal is to make it a focal point for people's discussion, and cover energy issues from all perspectives.
I've talked to a hell of a lot of energy analysts in various disciplines, and have come to the conclusion that the best way to do this would be via wiki. The project would consist of two parts:
1) an open, public wiki that is in the form of hierarchical discussion pages which sort out basic facts and principles. 2) paper publication(s) based on the first wiki, also in wiki form (I'm in the process of writing a wiki based on the media wiki schema which provides services like pagination, typesetting and index support).
The second one(s) would be endorsed, supported, and if possible edited by as recognizable names as possibly can be found - hopefully due to the large public reach of wiki, this would be someone or someones *very* recognizable. Anything to make the public at large listen.
Edward Peschko wrote:
That being said - I still think there is a big hole that could be filled in the wikimedia foundation, whilst providing good public service. And that is in the area of free-form research.
I would second Tim's suggestion to look at wiki hosting providers. If the free ones don't cut it, one of the MediaWiki developers offers a paid, supported service at http://www.wikidev.net. If you would like to easily include links to wikipedia articles inside your wiki, your installation of MediaWiki could be trivially extended to do so.
Cheers, Ivan.
On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 04:16:41AM +0200, Ivan Krstic wrote:
Edward Peschko wrote:
That being said - I still think there is a big hole that could be filled in the wikimedia foundation, whilst providing good public service. And that is in the area of free-form research.
I would second Tim's suggestion to look at wiki hosting providers. If the free ones don't cut it, one of the MediaWiki developers offers a paid, supported service at http://www.wikidev.net. If you would like to easily include links to wikipedia articles inside your wiki, your installation of MediaWiki could be trivially extended to do so.
I understand that there are alternatives, but I don't get it... I'm asking for feedback on an idea (one that I think would do a lot of good IMO)
In any case, in making a:
a) generic research platform inside of wiki b) specific research platform on energy issues
I think I would be doing a great public service. Why should I have to pay for it (more than any other contributor to wikipedia) I mean, I'd be willing to donate for equipment to the wiki foundation, but moving it to a paid supported service seems like the wrong place for it. And in any case, the subject covered is of utmost importance and should get as much traffic as it could possibly get IMO.
What am I missing here?
Ed
Edward Peschko wrote:
On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 04:16:41AM +0200, Ivan Krstic wrote:
Edward Peschko wrote:
That being said - I still think there is a big hole that could be filled in the wikimedia foundation, whilst providing good public service. And that is in the area of free-form research.
I would second Tim's suggestion to look at wiki hosting providers. If the free ones don't cut it, one of the MediaWiki developers offers a paid, supported service at http://www.wikidev.net. If you would like to easily include links to wikipedia articles inside your wiki, your installation of MediaWiki could be trivially extended to do so.
I understand that there are alternatives, but I don't get it... I'm asking for feedback on an idea (one that I think would do a lot of good IMO)
In any case, in making a:
a) generic research platform inside of wiki b) specific research platform on energy issues
I think I would be doing a great public service. Why should I have to pay for it (more than any other contributor to wikipedia) I mean, I'd be willing to donate for equipment to the wiki foundation, but moving it to a paid supported service seems like the wrong place for it. And in any case, the subject covered is of utmost importance and should get as much traffic as it could possibly get IMO.
What am I missing here?
Ed _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
The articles that you propose are imho relevant within Wikipedia. There are two ways to create the identified content within Wikipedia. One way is by using the category system. The other is to create a Portal page as well. This would be a page to structure the information.
The benefit would be that it remains within Wikipedia and it would ease people interested in the subject to create similar information in their native wikipedia.
One objection is that wikipedia is not the platform for original research. However you were talking about bundling the known facts. As such it would not be research. Write some articles, get some people to cooperate, link to your pages, categories where applicable and write your "Main page".
Thanks, GerardM
Hello Ed,
This sounds like a fine idea.
Hence, I'm trying to create a 'comprehensive energy picture' that is as free as agendas as possible. The idea is to get the 'big ideas and numbers' and put them in a format that makes it easy for the average educated reader to understand.
This could be said of the a great many Wikipedia articles and subprojects.
As for the "two parts" of your proposed project:
The project would consist of two parts:
1) an open, public wiki that is in the form of hierarchical discussion pages which sort out basic facts and principles.
I think the first part would make an excellent wikiproject (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject ), which you could promote on IRC, via the mailing lists as you are doing, or on the individual user pages of contributors who are working on related subjects.
2) paper publication(s) based on the first wiki, also in wiki form (I'm in the process of writing a wiki based on the media wiki schema which provides services like pagination, typesetting and index support).
The second part seems like it should be its own separate affair, as your other comments suggest this would veer towards original research/analysis, and as it requires new software innovations for its realization..
+sj+
Gerard and SJ,
I'm responding to both of your posts here to save time.
Hello Ed,
This sounds like a fine idea.
Thanks! I appreciate it.
I think the first part would make an excellent wikiproject (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject ), which you could promote on IRC, via the mailing lists as you are doing, or on the individual user pages of contributors who are working on related subjects.
well, I'm not sure if wikiprojects would work for what I had in mind. I want to get some heavy-hitters in on this, and I've talked to a few of them (Freeman Dyson, Lynn Margulis, Jared Diamond) as well as some of the more popular writers like Richard Heinberg and Colin Campbell, some EIA energy analysts, the IEA, etc.) to ask them for advice. One of the things I asked them about is their opinion on wiki.
And they aren't too keen on it as it stands. Aggregating what I've heard, in particular, they have 5 major issues with it:
1 - no ready road to publishing. Its very hard to get a cohesive physical paper out of wiki.
2 - no editorial control. Since anyone can edit the page, the background is constantly shifting and not able to be given as a reference. Plus they think it is 'impermanent'.
3 - No guarantee of attribution.
4 - lack of features for research collaboration.
5 - work in progress unable to be kept private amongst a group of researchers until publication.
Now, I'm not saying that these are true, but the perception is there. (in particular, from my reading of the GFDL I think that 3 is false). My own feeling is #1 and #4 and #5 are the real show stoppers. Mediawiki as it stands does not create good copy or something that can be handed to publishers. In addition, the interface is not 'free form' in the same way that an editor is free form; you click on a link to type into it it takes you to a different screen. And AFAIK, you can't upload and display Adobe illustrator graphs or collaborate on graphs.
And finally, to a serious academic, #5 is crucial because of the 'publish-or-perish' attitude in academic circles, as well as competition. I personally don't think that privacy before publishing contradicts the spirit of the GFDL, simply because the researchers in using wiki should make the commitment to make the paper/book GFDL *after* its ready for publishing.
All this is really a pity. For its quite hellish to make an academic paper nowadays; proprietary formats, incompatible versions of software tools, inability to garner easy public comment *before* publication and error checking, etc. In my opinion, a good wiki interface would revolutionize the scientific publishing industry.
Anyway, to me all this says to me that what I'm proposing doesn't fit inside of regular wikipedia. And IMO Its really counterproductive to exclude original r and possibly important research because of cultural or technical reasons.
[ .. about wikiprojects being excellent .. ] This could be said of the a great many Wikipedia articles and subprojects.
Yeah I agree. In my mind its important that they have some place to go once they reach critical mass, possibly get serious researchers attention, and maybe get published.
The second part seems like it should be its own separate affair, as your other comments suggest this would veer towards original research/analysis, and as it requires new software innovations for its realization..
In my mind this is another reason for a disconnect. I wouldn't want to burden Mediawiki with creeping featurism; hence my sister wiki software project which uses the mediawiki data model and is interchangeable with it ('publishwiki').
Ed
( ps - a couple of comment on Gerard's statements..
One objection is that wikipedia is not the platform for original research.
see above..
However you were talking about bundling the known facts. As such it would not be research. Write some articles, get some people to cooperate, link to your pages, categories where applicable and write your "Main page".
here I must disagree with you. Some things are straightforward in the project I propose, some things require a *lot* of research - possibly original research - on the part of the contributor.
For example - again from Smil - he states on 'Energy at the Crossroads' that the gross domestic product is in a linear relationship with the Total Primary Energy Supply (the total amount of energy used by a nation), and has been so over pretty much every country in the last 100 years.
Now this fact was hell to calculate - he had to wade through hundreds of graphs and normalize the GDP based on purchasing power parities (to translate money into a constant unit), etc, just to get the graph on page 66 of this book.
And IMO its an absolutely *stunning* conclusion. Think about it for a sec - it basically says that all the improvements we make to efficiency of engines, all the technology and time-saving labor devices that we produce, the idea that a 'service economy' brings more GDP per unit energy, all of that all that is a smokescreen. The gross amount of energy we use directly determines the size of our economy, plain and simple. Which is bad news if oil producton plateaus and we don't have a decent substitute.
Now, although I like his work, this is a big conclusion and I'd personally like independent verification of this. And the research may or may not be out there which does confirms this. But I'd like to be able to give someone the incentive via publishing credit or even money incentive to check it out, as well as attract people who can publish the aggregate and distribute it to people who are in positions of power. For as much as I'd like to think so, I don't think a congressman is going to read a wiki.
)
"Edward Peschko" esp5@pge.com wrote in message news:20040827044829.GA6979@mdssdev05...
well, I'm not sure if wikiprojects would work for what I had in mind. I want to get some heavy-hitters in on this, and I've talked to a few of them (Freeman Dyson, Lynn Margulis, Jared Diamond) as well as some of the more popular writers like Richard Heinberg and Colin Campbell, some EIA energy analysts, the IEA, etc.) to ask them for advice. One of the things I asked them about is their opinion on wiki.
And they aren't too keen on it as it stands. Aggregating what I've heard,
in
particular, they have 5 major issues with it:
1 - no ready road to publishing. Its very hard to get a cohesive physical paper out of wiki. 2 - no editorial control. Since anyone can edit the page, the background is constantly shifting and not able to be given as a reference. Plus they think it is 'impermanent'. 3 - No guarantee of attribution. 4 - lack of features for research collaboration. 5 - work in progress unable to be kept private amongst a group of researchers until publication.
Firstly, with regards to objections to using Wikipedia for your project, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies
#1 - Just copy and paste the text of a page you think is good enough
#2 - You can link to / reference old versions of a page, which are guaranteed to not change.
What do you mean by #4?
- gracefool
Firstly, with regards to objections to using Wikipedia for your project, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies
well, you've got to realize that they primarily aren't my objections, but objections of researchers that I've talked to in sounding out about doing this. Since they have been working in research and publishing pretty much all their lives, I thought it wise to give them credence.
I think that we can have two possible attitudes to this. One, we can say - 'no, you're wrong, look it up here'.
Two, we can say - 'hey look you've got a point. Wiki's never been used for collaborative research and publishing before. why not acknowlege this, set up a new separate forum to try it and you can give us feedback on what works and what doesn't.'
Personally, what I'm aiming for is two. If they find out that they're fears were really unfounded, we'll find that out too. But I doubt that'll be the case - just looking at mediawiki I don't see it being completely suited to the task for the reasons I mentioned in the last email, as well as those below.
#1 - Just copy and paste the text of a page you think is good enough
... and go through the headaches of taking yet another input source and merging it on an ongoing basis with the already revision addled manuscript that they have when passing it around to other collaborators? That's pretty much the last thing they want to do.
I think you assume that its easy to get text out of a proprietary document that has revisions turned on and format it for the web and submit it there via wiki. This isn't so. They have their hands full just dealing with bugs in word.
The one chance that wiki has is to make it far simpler to collaborate online than it is to collaborate via email. Its strength is to *replace* the current bug-ridden system with something new. And that's where people would listen.
#2 - you can linkto/reference old versions of a page, which are guaranteed not to change.
good point - what's the syntax for this?
What do you mean by #4?
1) no way to input data for graphs
2) no set way to see how close a page is to publication (rating/editorial system)
3) no way to specify 'questions' - topics plus hints on how the topic should be answered.
4) no simple way to guarantee that you have your own namespace and hence don't collide with other topics.
In addition, the ability to poll and collect information by form would be helpful, as well as the ability to moderate submissions.
Anyway, like I said IMO the best way to do this would be to make a new sister project, where we were free to experiment.
And the best, best thing possible would be if mediawiki was modular enough that more than one frontend for editing/publishing could be written in terms of it - that would save a lot of headaches when it comes to writing the wiki that is a word replacement and actually turns wiki content into publishing material (PDFS, etc).
Ed
Good points, all. Clearly I didn't think much before sending my reply ;/
#2 - you can linkto/reference old versions of a page, which are
guaranteed not
to change.good point - what's the syntax for this?
http://serveraddy.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=pagename&oldid=xxxxx
Unfortunately, the "oldid" isn't human readable, and current versions are not given IDs - the latter is bug 181 (http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=181)
And the best, best thing possible would be if mediawiki was modular enough
that
more than one frontend for editing/publishing could be written in terms of
it -
that would save a lot of headaches when it comes to writing the wiki that
is a word
replacement and actually turns wiki content into publishing material
(PDFS, etc).
Would be nice... good luck finding someone to do the work...
- Chris Wood http://grace.2ya.com/ New Zealand
On Wed, Sep 01, 2004 at 09:17:43AM +1200, Chris Wood wrote:
Good points, all. Clearly I didn't think much before sending my reply ;/
#2 - you can linkto/reference old versions of a page, which are
guaranteed not
to change.good point - what's the syntax for this?
http://serveraddy.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=pagename&oldid=xxxxx
Unfortunately, the "oldid" isn't human readable, and current versions are not given IDs - the latter is bug 181 (http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=181)
And the best, best thing possible would be if mediawiki was modular enough
that
more than one frontend for editing/publishing could be written in terms of
it -
that would save a lot of headaches when it comes to writing the wiki that
is a word
replacement and actually turns wiki content into publishing material
(PDFS, etc).
Would be nice... good luck finding someone to do the work...
well, I'm assuming by your response that mediawiki isn't that modularized.. ah well, it'll be harder. Getting someone to do the work won't be difficult since I'll probably be the one ending up doing most of the up front stuff.
Ed
( ps - but getting wikipedia to host the new sister project, and link it off the homepage might be something else. I have a static IP, but it unfortunately is not very stable, so I'd ultimately want to move it to a central location )
"Edward Peschko" esp5@pge.com wrote in message news:20040827044829.GA6979@mdssdev05...
well, I'm not sure if wikiprojects would work for what I had in mind. I want to get some heavy-hitters in on this, and I've talked to a few of them (Freeman Dyson, Lynn Margulis, Jared Diamond) as well as some of the more popular writers like Richard Heinberg and Colin Campbell, some EIA energy analysts, the IEA, etc.) to ask them for advice. One of the things I asked them about is their opinion on wiki.
And they aren't too keen on it as it stands. Aggregating what I've heard,
in
particular, they have 5 major issues with it:
1 - no ready road to publishing. Its very hard to get a cohesive physical paper out of wiki. 2 - no editorial control. Since anyone can edit the page, the background is constantly shifting and not able to be given as a reference. Plus they think it is 'impermanent'. 3 - No guarantee of attribution. 4 - lack of features for research collaboration. 5 - work in progress unable to be kept private amongst a group of researchers until publication.
Firstly, with regards to objections to using Wikipedia for your project, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies
#1 - Just copy and paste the text of a page you think is good enough
#2 - You can link to / reference old versions of a page, which are guaranteed to not change.
What do you mean by #4?
- gracefool
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org