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WAS:: Cliques, public, private. IS: Preserving email correspondence

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lrudolph

Re: WAS:: Cliques, public, private. IS: Preserving email correspondence

Nick writes:

> Larding is the
> practice of distributing ones response in the text.

Larding is not a problem, it is best practice (in my highly considered opinion): it simulates
(somewhat) a naturally structured conversation, between or among a group of people, on one
topic or several related topics; the most common alternative, attaching an entire response-
post to the entire stimulus-post, doesn't simulate conversation--it simulates a pair (or more)
of windbags lecturing to each other in sequence, or (essentially equivalently) the dreary
academic custom (in some fields, notably the humanities) of having "respondents" read aloud,
one after another, pre-written papers about the respondee's just-previously read-aloud paper.

Now, hypertextual tools *might* improve larding. I would have to see them well-implemented to
form a considered opinion. (My unconsidered opinion is that they'd be a net negative.)

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Nick Thompson

Re: Preserving email correspondence

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

Roger,

Thanks for taking the problem at face value.

I agree with the thread idea. No problem. I have been in at least one very interesting correspondence where one of the most creative participants insisted in changing the thread with each new message. Such people will need to be severely disciplined.

It would be nice to pull the name, date and time out of the header and throw everything else away. Sometimes the formatting isn’t as consistent as one would like it to be.

Distinguishing body content of replies from the things they are replies to might be accomplished by deleting everything between two >’s, and also the >’s themselves.

Something would have to be done about the practice of larding … i.e., interspersing one’s responses amongst other people’s messages in reply, or quoting, ie, interspersing pieces of the message one is replying to in one’s reply. I find these practices really helpful, but they undermine everything above.

I toyed with, and tried out with one small group of people, having each writer designate the parts of the body that they would want preserved with some symbol plus their name. NST==> for instance….<== NST. The Macro would preserve everything within the symbols, even if it included some foreign embedded text, thus preserving the larding and the quoting. I couldn’t get people to do it, however. I even kept forgetting myself. There is something spontaneous about email that resists any discipline.

A decade ago, I was pretty good at writing Word Macros to do this sort of thing. Word has down graded it’s macro writing abilities recently, and/or, I have become stupider. Has anybody else out there fooled with word macros?

Thanks, again, Roger.

Nick

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 2:51 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Preserving email correspondence

So, the thread exists in the archives at redfish, or where ever, and will continue to exist there for quite a while.

The first tool is one which given a mailing list archive and a thread "subject" extracts the messages posted on the "subject".

The second tool would take the raw messages in the thread and arrange them as a tree of replies to the original posting.

Both of these are part of every existing program that displays mailing list archives by threads.

The third tool is one that identifies quoted material and replaces it with a reference to the original text or to the previous level of quotation. This is where it gets hairy, but for any section that's marked as quoted there either will be a successful identification of the source or there won't.

At this point you can view the thread as a sequence or tree of original contributions with all quoted material represented as ellipses, which may render the original contributions unintelligible, but that's Nick's problem.

-- rec --

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 1:14 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

I don't think I ever said, "why cant we just...". Did I?

I had forgotten about "noodles". I can't even remember how it worked. Or
where it is.

N

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 12:23 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Preserving email correspondence

All -

In defense of Nick, I appreciate how he could come to "why cant we just...".

As a systems developer with a little experience around natural language
processing, I agree with Doug and Owen that it is a naive question with only
extremely complex answers. I understand why Nick asks these questions and
value the naivete that he is willing to expose to us.

I also appreciate Marcus' point. I've been on both ends of the system
development question around documentation and helping others understand
what I've done or trying to understand what others have done. I'm
often eclipsed by highly efficient and capable (usually) young programmers
who are (naturally) impatient with the rest of us for asking them to explain
what the've done.

I'm also often frustrated by others who want me to walk them through every
detail of something that is "obvious" to me, despite realizing it
wasn't obvious to me until I'd gone through the steps of creating it.
Their ignorance is often no greater than mine was when I started, and asking
them to essentially re-develop the same algorithm or code is possibly the
only way they will come to my level of understanding. I can guide them
through the shortcuts, but ultimately there is hard work for them to do.

As I remember it, Nick tried to coin a Wiki based conversational forum I
think he called "Noodles" a number of years ago. I don't remember the
details, I do remember being compelled by his conception of it. I do
remember trying to participate with him (and maybe a couple of others?) in
using it, following the conventions. I guess I could probably dig it out of
the archives, thanks to Owen, et al. who have made sure we even
*have* archives.

Lacking brevity as usual,
- Steve

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Russell Standish

Re: Preserving email correspondence

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 01:14:24PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> I don't think I ever said, "why cant we just...". Did I?
>
> I had forgotten about "noodles". I can't even remember how it worked. Or
> where it is.
>
> N

In some ways, the new social media are attempts at moving email
conversations into a hypertext format. However, the big, big problem
with all of this, (for me at any rate) is that essentially unless it
is in email, it is invisible to me. I don't have enough time to read
and digest all my emails as it is. If an email is just a digest of
something taking place on a website, I'm very unlikely to follow a
link to a web-based discussion unless there is a sufficient asbtract
of the discussion embedded in the email to pique my interest. The
likely pay off for firing up a web browser, copying& pasting the URL
is too low to do it for every URL that passes my eyeballs. As an
example, I'm a member of many LinkedIn groups, for instance, but one
by one, LinkedIn has been gradually removing my email subscriptions,
rendering them effectively invisible to me.

On another note, for one of my projects (Theory of Nothing) I
essentially summarised (somewhat selectively, it should be admitted),
email conversations spanning nearly a decade. All that I needed was an
efficient archive (which most email lists have), with a search
function that can be limited by date. Yes, it is hard work, but that
is what scholarship is all about. It is probably still easier than
trying to sift through mountains of hand written letters that
pre-internet scholars have to do.

Cheers
--

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Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email]
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Owen Densmore

Re: Preserving email correspondence

Administrator

A few minor tech points:

- Threads are often broken (i.e. a new email w/o reply or forward) created with the same or slightly altered subject but not recognized by the mail system.

- Threads are also often "hijacked" .. someone reading a thread sees a person they'd like to send an email to so they reply or forward the threads email but with an entirely different topic. This also is not managed by the mail system but the different subject is a help.

- Many of us use "digests" so a response to the digest can be to any of the emails within the day's conversations.

- Attachments or mixed media in the mail may pose a problem in terms of whether or not they should also be included. PesterPower definitely wants to include the comics! But not signatures that carry a company logo or something similar.

Here's what I recommend: take an important conversation we've had lately and think about turning it into some other sort of media: blog, forum, wiki, outliner, specialized web page, triple-store (semantic web), and so on. Programmers and designers often do this to find all the surprises like the few I listed above. The first Treo was a block of wood with cash-register paper around it "used" for 2 weeks to prototype the mobile PDA experience.

I think this is very possible. There are some nifty "aggregator" apps .. FlipBoard is one I really like. Evernote too.

Good luck, I think this might be a nifty design experiment and who knows, end up with the next Big Thing!

-- Owen

Steve Smith

Re: Preserving email correspondence

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick -
> I don't think I ever said, "why cant we just...". Did I?
Only in Doug's mind, then in mine... and gawd knows who else's mind it
has infected by now.
> I had forgotten about "noodles". I can't even remember how it worked. Or
> where it is.
It was what you referenced in another subthread from the early SF_X
days. I don't remember where it is either... maybe on the sfcomplex.org
site somewhere... I'd call it a successful experiment with a negative
result.

Lardingly yours,
- Steve

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Steve Smith

Re: WAS:: Cliques, public, private. IS: Preserving email correspondence

In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2

Doug-
> Marcus, are you trying to suggest that we are not as fascinating as we
> think we are?
>
I find that endlessly fascinating!

Let me expound on the myriad ways that fascinates me, should fascinate
you, and let me provide an endless list of personal anecdotes about why
I find that fascinating!

I'm simply fascinated!

- Steve

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Douglas Roberts-2

Re: WAS:: Cliques, public, private. IS: Preserving email correspondence

I feel strangely self-important. I wonder why?

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 5:53 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Doug-

Marcus, are you trying to suggest that we are not as fascinating as we think we are?

I find that endlessly fascinating!

Let me expound on the myriad ways that fascinates me, should fascinate you, and let me provide an endless list of personal anecdotes about why I find that fascinating!

I'm simply fascinated!

- Steve

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Steve Smith

Re: WAS:: Cliques, public, private. IS: Preserving email correspondence

Doug -
> I feel strangely self-important. I wonder why?
Don't make me open up a big can of Comic Art on you!

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Douglas Roberts-2

Re: WAS:: Cliques, public, private. IS: Preserving email correspondence

I can take it, but can you dish it out?

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 6:04 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Doug -

I feel strangely self-important. I wonder why?

Don't make me open up a big can of Comic Art on you!

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505-455-7333 - Office
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Steve Smith

Re: Preserving email correspondence

In reply to this post by Owen Densmore

When Nick first unlimbered his "big bold naivete" in asking the question or suggesting there was an answer, I rolled my eyes just a little, sighed and thought "not again!", but as it has unfolded, I have to give him credit, along with the other participants in thinking a little harder about it and at least niggling out a few of the important possibiities. Even if we *don't* change anything, I feel better for having had the conversation.

On the technical side, I agree that a hypertext system with "transclusion" would seem somewhat ideal. What I remember of Nick's "noodles" was that it was just a wiki (by implementation) with a few conventions of use that he suggested to try to richly (following the metaphor of a bowl of noodles) interconnect the myriad individual noodles and threads. I tried honestly to participate in that with Nick, but I think it died from lack of participation (myself maybe included).

I think one or another of us *does* try to provide an editor role from time to time, compiling a summary of the thread to date... not unlike a forward in a collection, etc. The volume of traffic here (during one of our tsunamis) would overwhelm any one individual (even if they loved the job and were paid for it) and it would be hard to find a single person whose editorial position would be acceptable to all anyway.

Another challenge (even for a good editor) is the nature of this group (especially the vocal subset) is that we tend to be explosive, going off in all directions at once (like Underdog).   I'm probably one of the more guilty parties, hijacking not the thread (technically) but the topic itself.

My recent dabbling (at Doug's expense) with the Comic format represents an attempt on my own part to move out of the linguistic realm (where I am obviously prolific if not always competent) to get some perspective on the threads.   Comics (for me) lend themselves to satire, so that may not really be the answer.

A few minor tech points:

- Threads are often broken (i.e. a new email w/o reply or forward) created with the same or slightly altered subject but not recognized by the mail system.

- Threads are also often "hijacked" .. someone reading a thread sees a person they'd like to send an email to so they reply or forward the threads email but with an entirely different topic. This also is not managed by the mail system but the different subject is a help.

- Many of us use "digests" so a response to the digest can be to any of the emails within the day's conversations.

- Attachments or mixed media in the mail may pose a problem in terms of whether or not they should also be included. PesterPower definitely wants to include the comics! But not signatures that carry a company logo or something similar.

Here's what I recommend: take an important conversation we've had lately and think about turning it into some other sort of media: blog, forum, wiki, outliner, specialized web page, triple-store (semantic web), and so on. Programmers and designers often do this to find all the surprises like the few I listed above. The first Treo was a block of wood with cash-register paper around it "used" for 2 weeks to prototype the mobile PDA experience.

I think this is very possible. There are some nifty "aggregator" apps .. FlipBoard is one I really like. Evernote too.

Good luck, I think this might be a nifty design experiment and who knows, end up with the next Big Thing!

-- Owen
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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: WAS:: Cliques, public, private. IS: Preserving email correspondence

In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2

On 1/19/13 2:24 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:
> Marcus, are you trying to suggest that we are not as fascinating as we
> think we are?
I suspect some academic folk are so indoctrinated that they can't see
value in anything other than than creating papers and proceedings
volumes. And like this activity, it is typically focused on a small
group of colleagues anyway.

Marcus

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lrudolph

Re: Preserving email correspondence

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick,

I have avoided larding by quoting nothing whatever.

That should help my concentrate your attention on the point that I think is most important,
which I have not seen you address at all (but I may have missed it): WHAT IS YOUR END-IN-VIEW?

My previous claim, that (larded) e-mail correspondences are very like (properly conducted, if
somewhat anarchic) conversations, suggests an ancillary--and behavioral!--question for you to
consider to aid you in responding to the question above: what would you do (and why, or why
not, would you want to), to achieve that end-in-view, if instead of an e-mail correspondence
you had a recorded (or transcribed) conversation?

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Eric Charles

Re: Preserving email correspondence

In reply to this post by Owen Densmore

Owen,
Depending on how you implemented the program, I think most of these concerns could be avoided. In particular, I did not take Nick to be suggesting that everything we say is of importance, only that sometimes we seem (as a group) to produce something worth sharing. Thus, I was imagining that the person who wanted to make the summary began by selecting the emails to be integrated. This would avoid the problem of thread breaking, hijacking, and of using digests; well, it wouldn't avoid them, but would make them an problem for a human rather than the program.

Marcus,
Stop being a jerk. 1) Many academic types think about writing papers because it is what they know how to do. Would you criticize a repairman who, upon seeing a broken vehicle, thought about how to fix it? If not, why would you criticize an academic who, upon witnessing the development of a good idea, thought about how to share that idea with others? 2) Are you asserting that such things don't have value? While they certainly have limited value, I think history, even recent history would show that at least some of those papers and proceedings have been incredibly valuable.

Eric

--------
Eric Charles
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State, Altoona

From: "Owen Densmore" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 6:19:34 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Preserving email correspondence

A few minor tech points:

- Threads are often broken (i.e. a new email w/o reply or forward) created with the same or slightly altered subject but not recognized by the mail system.

- Many of us use "digests" so a response to the digest can be to any of the emails within the day's conversations.

I think this is very possible. There are some nifty "aggregator" apps .. FlipBoard is one I really like. Evernote too.

Good luck, I think this might be a nifty design experiment and who knows, end up with the next Big Thing!

-- Owen

Steve Smith

"Academics" and other Stereotypes

Not to fan any flames, but I am curious about the stereotypes we all
carry... "Academic" being the current one at issue...

The only other profession I know to get the same level of
dismissal/resentment in my experience is Law Enforcement.

I have a chip on my shoulder about Law Enforcement which I feel I
"earned" even though I have known plenty of people in Law Enforcement
that don't fit those stereotypes very well. I believe my own reaction
to be inherited from my general resentment and mistrust of authority
complicated by the relatively low pay and poor treatment most LEOs tend
to get. It *does* attract a certain mindset which isn't always what I'd
want to be doing the "Protect and Serve" routine.

Most of us here spent 4-12 (or more) years being taught by Academics.
Even if most of what we actually apply today was learned outside that
context, on the job, etc. We were shaped by Academics. The same
resentment of authority that helps fuel my anti-LEO attitudes is
probably part of what makes me (sometimes) resent "Academics". I
actually did not have a very adversarial or subjugated experience during
my education, but I know many who did... and I've seen what was
tantamount to *hazing* involved which can't help but leave a mark. Not
surprisingly, these folks are either out there passing on the hazings or
completely out of Academia with some strong resentments of the system.

The more notable bone I think many have to pick with Academics might be
closer to what Marcus was referring to which is that most of Academia's
professional peers are tasked with producing more tangible results than
"mere" published papers. Of course, Academia generally does more than
that as well, but maybe not as obviously.

I happen to value published papers a great deal. I mine the publication
record *all the time* for useful and actionable information. Since the
dominance of computer science and engineering, Universities have been
*huge* contributors to the open-source code base. BSD UNIX and C being
just two screaming examples. Engineering examples of all stripes abound.

When Doug (or Marcus) or anyone else makes dismissive reference to
"Academic Types" or "Philosophers" or "..." I take it with a grain of
salt... because I'm pretty sure they are talking about a stereotype
based on a few bad experiences and not (most of) present company.

When someone makes disparaging comments about "National Lab Types" I
know that Doug, Marcus, myself, Ray, and many others here who have done
time at LANL or SNL or ORNL or LLNL or PNNL or ... know *exactly* what
they are talking about. We've all worked alongside the breed of prima
donnas, ivory tower wankers, deadwood, entitled, NIH weenies ... that
those stereotypes were inspired by. Doug is an expert on this topic.

Similarly, I suspect that those here who are retired or working
Academics know exactly the type of Academics that have inspired the
stereotype Marcus disparaged. In fact, I suspect you have suffered
more by their weakness or failure than the rest of us have.

Now... what are we going to do about all of those wingnut conservatives,
kneejerk liberals, goofy greens, and loony libertarians?

Present company excluded of course!

- Steve

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: "Academics" and other Stereotypes

On 1/19/13 10:24 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> Not to fan any flames, but I am curious about the stereotypes we all
> carry... "Academic" being the current one at issue...
Peer review is the mechanism for determining quality work in academia.
Researchers that can get their work past peer review get jobs, and
others do not. A common way for junior people to get work through peer
review is to have senior researcher (typically their mentor and boss)
guide the process. The senior researchers do this for their own
benefit, becoming senior authors on the papers, and in this way they
accumulate an impressive publication record and prominence and for a
good bang for the buck. At the end of the day, in certain academic
cliques, one will find that peer review means that a few powerful people
see that it is in their interest to get papers published. This is not
to say that the papers are wrong, or haven't been reviewed, but they may
not be particularly innovative. It's an economics based on reputation
and professional networking amongst the Players, and it depends on
having a pipeline of junior people of various investment to do the work.

The idea of taking mailing list discussions and converting it into a
publication has a similar smell.
Instead of having students do the work, there's the brainstorming,
analysis, argumentation of the community as an energy source. It just
needs to be refined.. where the `refinement' is presented as the
crucial contribution of the grown-ups. I could go on, but it gets more
cynical from here on out..

Marcus

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Nick Thompson

Re: "Academics" and other Stereotypes

Well, Marcus, I certainly agree that bad academics can be very bad. I saw my brother destroyed by his mentor at a Big Eastern University. I share your distaste for the Cult Of The Individual. Ted Talks Make Me Puke.

What about good academics? Or is that an oxymoron?

What would Good Academia look like? Sometimes I think, sitting around the FRIAM table or reading the list, THIS is what good academia looks like: a bunch of people, with many talents and deep training in different fields, exploring an idea closely.

And when I see that happening, I want to get it out to the world. Now that part is perhaps silly, because the World it would get out to is barely larger than the world of FRIAM itself. But it is a different world. And I Just Plain Believe in collaborative essays as a tool in the development of thought.

Do you have a model for Good Academia?

NIck

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 12:43 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "Academics" and other Stereotypes

On 1/19/13 10:24 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

> Not to fan any flames, but I am curious about the stereotypes we all

> carry... "Academic" being the current one at issue...

Peer review is the mechanism for determining quality work in academia.

Researchers that can get their work past peer review get jobs, and

others do not. A common way for junior people to get work through peer

review is to have senior researcher (typically their mentor and boss) guide the process. The senior researchers do this for their own benefit, becoming senior authors on the papers, and in this way they accumulate an impressive publication record and prominence and for a good bang for the buck. At the end of the day, in certain academic cliques, one will find that peer review means that a few powerful people

see that it is in their interest to get papers published. This is not

to say that the papers are wrong, or haven't been reviewed, but they may not be particularly innovative. It's an economics based on reputation and professional networking amongst the Players, and it depends on having a pipeline of junior people of various investment to do the work.

The idea of taking mailing list discussions and converting it into a publication has a similar smell.

Instead of having students do the work, there's the brainstorming, analysis, argumentation of the community as an energy source. It just needs to be refined.. where the `refinement' is presented as the crucial contribution of the grown-ups. I could go on, but it gets more cynical from here on out..

Marcus

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Prof David West

Re: "Academics" and other Stereotypes

Nick asked Marcus, so my response might be superflous - but "good academics" would be nothing more than the oft espoused, never realized, "community of scholars" that every grad student is invited to join. We have the ideals, just lack the actual practice.

As to the more general notion of collaborative essays grounded in Friam discussions - what might be learned about such an endeavor from The Reality Club?

"Since 1981The Reality Club has held evening meetings once or twice a month usually in New York ... a one hour presentation followed by lively, challenging, and often impolite discussion..."

I have three volumes of essays that came out of the Reality Club meetings on my shelf.

Some essential differences between Friam and RC that might affect the possibility/probability of publication:

RC is an exemplar of the kind of individual egoism of TED talks and therefore anathema to some.

I have only seen three or four occasions at Friam where anyone has held the floor long enough to completely articulate a thought/question where RC gives the speaker an hour to present his/her case.

There is no indication that the published essays in the RC series actually reflect any of the feedback arising from the conversation at RC meetings - a fatal flaw in my opinion.

davew

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013, at 10:43 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

Well, Marcus, I certainly agree that bad academics can be very bad. I saw my brother destroyed by his mentor at a Big Eastern University. I share your distaste for the Cult Of The Individual. Ted Talks Make Me Puke.

What about good academics? Or is that an oxymoron?

What would Good Academia look like? Sometimes I think, sitting around the FRIAM table or reading the list, THIS is what good academia looks like: a bunch of people, with many talents and deep training in different fields, exploring an idea closely.

And when I see that happening, I want to get it out to the world. Now that part is perhaps silly, because the World it would get out to is barely larger than the world of FRIAM itself. But it is a different world. And I Just Plain Believe in collaborative essays as a tool in the development of thought.

Do you have a model for Good Academia?

NIck

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels

Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 12:43 AM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "Academics" and other Stereotypes

On 1/19/13 10:24 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> Not to fan any flames, but I am curious about the stereotypes we all
> carry... "Academic" being the current one at issue...
Peer review is the mechanism for determining quality work in academia.
Researchers that can get their work past peer review get jobs, and
others do not.   A common way for junior people to get work through peer
review is to have senior researcher (typically their mentor and boss) guide the process. The senior researchers do this for their own benefit, becoming senior authors on the papers, and in this way they accumulate an impressive publication record and prominence and for a good bang for the buck. At the end of the day, in certain academic cliques, one will find that peer review means that a few powerful people
see that it is in their interest to get papers published.   This is not
to say that the papers are wrong, or haven't been reviewed, but they may not be particularly innovative. It's an economics based on reputation and professional networking amongst the Players, and it depends on having a pipeline of junior people of various investment to do the work.

The idea of taking mailing list discussions and converting it into a publication has a similar smell.
Instead of having students do the work, there's the brainstorming, analysis, argumentation of the community as an energy source. It just needs to be refined.. where the `refinement' is presented as the crucial contribution of the grown-ups. I could go on, but it gets more cynical from here on out..

Marcus

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: "Academics" and other Stereotypes

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick wrote:

"And I Just Plain Believe in collaborative essays as a tool in the development of thought. "

I think a little recognized outcome of open source software development is the development of thought, and perhaps for some of the same reasons as a collaborative essay.

Creating and maintaining a useful program often involves an understanding of a large network of artifacts.
The understanding needs to be precise enough to make correct small changes, and general enough to be able to approach re-design and re-implementation of those artifacts that aren't adequate. It requires being literate, because the artifacts will have designed and built over time by a team. Some artifacts will come from third parties.

Open source software development is different than closed proprietary development in that the people that are participating are not trained or motivated to do a particular job. Two people may see completely different uses, or infer completely different purposes for an abstraction. Some programmers see things in terms of use and abuse of abstractions, depending on the author's intent. As a functional programming enthusiast, I prefer to think about the discovery of abstractions rather than the design of them. Useful combinator libraries seem to arise through an iterative process of construction and deconstruction, not one-time design.

Unlike collaborative essays, computers are unforgiving but patient. If two authors can't reconcile interfaces, dependencies, etc. the program or framework just won't work. It won't be a `interesting but flawed' argument.

Marcus

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: "Academics" and other Stereotypes

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

On 1/20/13 10:43 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

What would Good Academia look like?

Overall, I'd say "Good academics" are just members of the set of people that develop skills to satisfy their curiosity.

Now the problem is not the difficulty of getting word out, it's the active obstacles to free access to information (e.g. the JSTOR lawsuits against Aaron Swartz), or the enduring pay walled scientific journals. The professional incentives that result in non-disclosure agreements is the problem. I'm less bothered by /. and arstechnica.com type "Hey, this is neat!" content than I am by half of Science being marketed to pointy-haired manager types -- paraphrased, dumbed-down article summaries that aim to communicate the essence of a discovery. (It's almost meaningless considering the original article is already working within such a tight word limit that it's virtually impossible to really communicate the research anyway.)

I'm happy when I see professors starting companies, or traditional academics publishing with colleagues at Google or IBM research, etc.. The more options individuals have for pursuing their intellectual interests, the less likely is it that their organizations will be incentivize them into to varies sorts of exploitation and corruption. The productivity of the world economy ultimately depends on intellectual freedom.

Marcus

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Douglas Roberts-2

Re: "Academics" and other Stereotypes

In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels

The peer review process itself is flawed.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/

From the article:

"Slow and expensive"

"Inconsistent"

"Bias"

"Abuse of peer review"

--Doug

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 12:43 AM, Marcus G. Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 1/19/13 10:24 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

Not to fan any flames, but I am curious about the stereotypes we all carry... "Academic" being the current one at issue...

Peer review is the mechanism for determining quality work in academia. Researchers that can get their work past peer review get jobs, and others do not. A common way for junior people to get work through peer review is to have senior researcher (typically their mentor and boss) guide the process. The senior researchers do this for their own benefit, becoming senior authors on the papers, and in this way they accumulate an impressive publication record and prominence and for a good bang for the buck. At the end of the day, in certain academic cliques, one will find that peer review means that a few powerful people see that it is in their interest to get papers published. This is not to say that the papers are wrong, or haven't been reviewed, but they may not be particularly innovative. It's an economics based on reputation and professional networking amongst the Players, and it depends on having a pipeline of junior people of various investment to do the work.

The idea of taking mailing list discussions and converting it into a publication has a similar smell.
Instead of having students do the work, there's the brainstorming, analysis, argumentation of the community as an energy source. It just needs to be refined.. where the `refinement' is presented as the crucial contribution of the grown-ups. I could go on, but it gets more cynical from here on out..

Marcus

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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--
Doug Roberts
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