I totally agree with John's assessment. (01)
By combining tools wisely, we can get results that no single tool can
provide. We do not have to lock our choice of tools in concrete
either, as long the content accumulated can be preserved and reused
(even when we migrate to newer and better tools.) That's essentially
the path we (Ontolog running on the CIM3 collaborative work
environment) have been doing. (02)
Just to recap, we now have generic tools like: (03)
o a set of archived mailing lists - as our conversation workspace
o a wiki - as a collaborative authoring* and "shared display" (to
keep everyone on the same page) workspace (* augmented by the use of
google-docs as need be)
o a set of webdav (cloud storage) servers - as our shared-file workspace
o some real-time tools (phone conferencing, screen-sharing, ...)
o some asynchronous, archival tools (virtual session-recording,
google-docs, ...) (04)
along with more specific tools (now or future) like: (05)
o a (federated) open ontology repository (OOR)
o an set of ontology editing tools (CODS, etc.)
o (svn repositories) version controlled shared-file repository(ies) (06)
Most of the above are providing "backend" capabilities or "workspaces"
... which will definitely be improved if augmented by a compelling,
user-friendly, aesthetically pleasant facade, which, I take, is part
of what Ali is planning to do ... of course, his proposal of having
that be "ontology driven" takes it to a new level, that we should all
be excited about. (07)
Bottom line (as I see it) ... (08)
* we will continue to work with a multi-modal input capture strategy
* there will not be one tool replacing everything any time soon (at
least, not for us)
* we will need to work on more effective means to get our message out
(which is what Ali et al. is trying to draw our attention to) (09)
Regards. =ppy
-- (010)
On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 10:12 AM, John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 8/15/2011 11:43 AM, Ali Hashemi wrote:
>> My main objection to a wiki was exactly the lack of that versatility
>> that you mention is now available. Going to a site that has the look and
>> feel of a wiki is good for some things, but wholly inappropriate for
>> many others.
>
> I agree. Email lists, such as Ontolog Forum and many others, have
> proved to be useful for many purposes since long before the WWW
> came along. And those of us who participate in Ontolog Forum are
> "voting by our feet" by continuing to participate in this forum.
>
> As just one example, consider the current thread for an ontology
> of self-interest. Much of that discussion consists of controversial
> items that nobody, not even the authors would want to preserve for
> posterity. But from time to time, there have been useful paragraphs
> and references that most of the participants would want to move to
> a wiki article on that subject.
>
> For the Ontology Summit, it would be good to have multiple articles
> in the wiki on a variety of related issues. Then the primary article
> about the 2011 summit could point to each of those articles and to
> the info about all preceding summits.
>
> For anybody who wants to find info, the SMW software is based on the
> Wikipedia software, and it's just as easy to use. But the ability
> to use the wiki for ongoing R & D projects would enable us to write
> and modify the articles without the restrictions imposed by Wikipedia.
>
> We need a wiki that serves as a home for ongoing R & D projects,
> which people who want info about those projects can use in the same
> way as Wikipedia, but which the developers of the info can update
> and extend as they please.
>
> But I would still prefer email for ongoing debates. The wiki
> articles should be more like a "local consensus" by the
> developers of each project. The Google software for editing
> documents is designed to produce a finished document.
>
> But I think the wiki format is more useful for
>
> 1. Editing the consensus by a group of developers who make
> updates at a slower pace than the Google software supports.
>
> 2. Making the current *local* consensus available to anybody
> in the world who would like to see the current status.
>
> John
>
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