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jaycross
Posts:1
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| 10/21/2006 10:20 PM |
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Wikis enable one to be freeform, but freeform does not create a meaningful book. I suggest we develop guidelines about such issues as attribution, links, graphics, and format. Otherwise, you may end up with a book that looks like a ransom note and reads like William Burroughs.
jay |
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barry
Posts:72
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| 10/23/2006 9:04 PM |
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Jay
we agree and are working on them now.
any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Barry |
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iphazard
Posts:87
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| 10/25/2006 11:23 AM |
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Jay,
Good points all. Thank you. Among our early thoughts on how to make this work are to break the project into phases:
First, a phase of relatively free-form contribution from community members
Next, a phase of content editing and style revisions made by the community, expert/faculty advisors, and publishing professionals.
Next, a second, more guided phase of community contribution.
And finally, a clean up phase where the final manuscript is prepared.
Given that we need to provide some guidelines even for the first phase surrounding citations and individual credit, do you think the above model addresses your concerns?
We are, of course, open to any suggestions about structuring this project.
Isaac Hazard
Community Manager |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/09/2006 11:43 PM |
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I think we need some sort of notation for the wikis, in order to identify what would be considered to be real text, and what is comentary or editing notes.
Something to help identify themes to be explored. |
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melaclaro
Posts:17
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| 11/27/2006 1:40 AM |
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[quote]Posted By joe_flum on 11/09/2006 11:43 PM
I think we need some sort of notation for the wikis, in order to identify what would be considered to be real text, and what is comentary or editing notes...[/quote]
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I agree with that wholeheartedly. I just came onboard today. I'm excited about what I've seen so far. But, I imagine I'm not alone in feeling the need to first invest in a period of orientation and "community culture analysis" before deciding to jump into the fray. This orientation process invariabily lengthen's new-member ramp-up time. And, any points of confusion will lengthen it further.
One point of confusion I can I say I experienced immediately when reading through the book is in trying to assess where content ends and where discussion begins. In Chapter 10, for example, it was after not a little head-scratching that I discovered discussion *of* the content was embedded *in* the wiki chapter.
Currently, I see no less than 4 areas where discussion about content happens:
1) in the discussion FORUMS;
2) in the DISCUSSION TAB of individual wiki pages;
3) in the COMMENTS TAB of individual wiki pages; and now
4) in the CONTENT of the wiki book itself.
In hindsght, I think, ideally, discussions about chapters should have been confined to the Discussion TAB of the appropriate wiki page rather than having created separate forums. (BTW, in case you missed it, that last paragraph could be an example of REFLECTION, which I'll probably use in Chapter 11: How We Can Train Ourselves.) ;-)
In any case, I'd like to propose the following conventions:
1. That NO discussion text be embedded in the book. But, if it's critical that a contributor highlight a passage for discussion, then it be done so with a short reference within, say, brackets immediately following the passage. (For example, >>Contributor's note: Help! I need opinions about the previous 2 paragraphs. Please see discussion in...<<)
2. To mitigate the challenge of having multiple discussion areas, would it be possible to remove the Discussion TAB on the wiki pages? Or, at the least, agree to a short-list of "community ground rules" (with emphasis on *short*) that includes encouragement of limiting discussions to the forums only and not in the Discussion TABS?
Question: ARE there a set of contributor's ground rules someplace? |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/27/2006 12:18 PM |
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Mel,
I agree with your sound assessment of the situation. I think we have a little too much overlap between the various places in which we are being asked to contribute similar ideas. I personally would like to see all discussions taking place in EITHER the forums (preferably) or in the wiki, not both. Since the wiki only allows for direct discussion linked to a chapter, I would vote for using the forum.
I definately think that we need to open up a "Help Forum" in which we can create topics for helping newcomers integrate into the community as well as providing tutorials and direction for how best to use the site.
Isaac, could you give us the perspective of the Development team on these issues? How would you guys like to move forward?
The main thing is that we continue with pushing forward and organizing everything we see here into an manageable knowledge base in order to facilitate the contribution process.
cheers,
joe |
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melaclaro
Posts:17
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| 11/27/2006 3:31 PM |
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Removing visibility of the Comment and Discussion tabs for each wiki page would give better insurance for centralizing chapter discussions into the Chapter forums. But, I also anticipate the likelihood of this technical solution as being a greater effort than our wishing it to be. ;-) So, let me propose a workaround.
I think it should suffice to post a 'flag' under each wiki page's Discussion and Comment tab with a statement to the effect of:
"*** PLEASE POST DISCUSSIONS AND COMMENTS ABOUT THIS CHAPTER IN THE CHAPTER XX DISCUSSION FORUM. http://... ***
If there are no dissenting opinions from the community, I'll be happy to take ownership for posting these 'flags' in each of the wiki-chapter Discussion and Comment areas this evening (Pacific time). |
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melaclaro
Posts:17
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| 11/28/2006 12:31 AM |
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Well. I started to make the change I mentioned in my last post in this thread. I couldn't implement it. It appears that functionality to add a discussion item under the Discussion Tab has been removed. That's good.
But, I'd like to press the request to our tech team that, in addition to removing the functionality of adding Discussions in the wiki, that at least one "admin" discussion item be placed in each wiki discussion area that's similar to the first post under Chapter 1. (In Chapter 1's discussion, the first post is a link to the associated Discussion Forum.)
As for the Comment areas... well, we may have to let these ride for now and hope folks pick up on the Discussion Forum as we move along. With the exception of an "admin" comment I placed in Chapter 10, I was reluctant to continue placing them in the other Chapters. It appears a group norm has taken root. Comments appear to be used fairly robustly in some Chapters. I think this is an issue that our Community Manager may have to resolve. The challenge is that some comments may not get visibility to the general community. |
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