Following this discussion, I think this is the direction I’m going to look into. Wikis are probably better for the “research bulletin board” (I had experience administering one while helping run a KITP program last summer, and use one to help organize a big project i’m involved in), but blogs are probably better for the “research diary” side of things. A mixed tool might be perfect for me.

Jacques has posted about Wikis -his preferred collaboration tool- over at musings. From what he, and several of you have said, I’d like to learn more about Wikis too.

…but before we decend into a silly “A is better than B” type discussion, I’d like to advocate for also entertaining the possibility that “a little bit of A and B” might work for some people too.

-cvj

Research blogs, research wikis and math….

This linked paragraph to the source? A whole new culture.

I have been at this while as well in terms of developing ideas about how we communicate. I knew who Gavin was and what they did as well. Haelfix.

It does not take a scientist to know that we can intuitively ignite minds to think of other things and to bring them into a discussion. Let them go on their own and develope further.

I have used these types of software for social change. Political changes in the current systems. About how capitalisms overtakes humanistic values. About heath care and the distinctions of two levels in society being treated different, because one has more then another.

Indymedia, by understanding that getting the news out there at a local level can fuel perspective on a much larger level. Things that are censored.

Youtube a fascination of real time information getting out there for the bloggers and the general public. Youtube another name of what had been going on and is a revision of something that began before media was controlled by capitalism and their agendas?

And then their is science of course. I would have to respect the privacy of those young students “finding their way” and the tutelage under which they might develop. Why that type of blogging for your students would be appropriate. The Wiki is interesting.

I know most of the commentators over the years on the different forums/blogs and some have helped tremendously even with the “arrogant attitude” by putting it out there. Censoring of the Brilliant ****pots and all, saids one:)

But yes the future is changing and a whole culture exists about the types of software being developed and how this GNU line of thinking spread from what open communities should be? Copyleft?

How we might be protected, knowing the IP addresses are out there for moderators.
How do we protect privacy if you know our IP? How we can treat people respectfully without stereotyping people.

Some of the discussion spilled over to the n-Category Café, which you can visit if you follow the trackback link below.

-cvj

The wiki format caters to ideas that rapidly interconnect and build on each other. Here’s mine:

physicswiki.org

It’s all open source, with many tweaks. If anyone would like to play with a copy, drop me an email. The whole thing consists of one html file and the supporting javascript math rendering files. The downside of this particular wiki is that it’s set up as a personal notebook, not for collaboration.

geochemical.tex changed Tue 12/19/2006 at 1:08 AM by amaragraps
consistency.tex changed Mon 12/18/2006 at 6:05 PM by amaragraps
simulations.tex changed Mon 12/18/2006 at 6:05 PM by amaragraps
introduction.tex changed Mon 12/18/2006 at 6:04 PM by amaragraps

I did look at Trac, not least because my projects have a strong computational component, and even went as far as installing it (which is hell, by the way; it was a 20+ step process on a stock RedHat installation, and I did get through only with some suboptimal choices).

By the way, Greg Wilson at U. Toronto is spearheading a Trac derivative (https://www.drproject.org) adapted toward teaching software development in the classroom.

But I’m a bit skeptical about applying a software-development paradigm (tickets, bugs) to research (which has derivations and datasets). If we had the resources to create from scratch a system comparable to Trac to develop research papers, how different would it be? What features would it have? (Ability to annotate CVS submissions, to link directly to targets within the paper, to track and perhaps even notarize the appearance and massaging of datasets on different file systems, to keep TO DO lists and delegate them, and on, and on…)

In the end, it’s a choice between emphasizing a linear temporal structure that makes progress evident, and a tree-like structure that renders logical structure more obvious. It is possible to recover some of the temporal structure in wikis by pairing them with RSS feeds that report updates, although so far I haven’t found any way not to be alerted to the fact that somebody was disturbed by a single comma somewhere, and changed it.

Where both blogs and wikis are sorely lacking, so far, is in document management à la CVS; my dream wiki/blog, at the moment, would be CVS (even better, SVN) integration, so that I could upload a new version of a paper section, blog about the changes, and have an easy way to link to the new file and to its diff with the previous version.

Warren—: of course meeting in person is irreplaceable! But even at those meetings down the hall, somebody has to take notes, or copy the content of blackboards… and then probably displace those dateless notes anyway, or bury them between thousands of e-mails! It’s the (relative) permanence of research blogs and wikis that makes them so useful, as a record of achievements and thought processes, as seed material for papers and lectures, and so on.

On research blogging….

For collaboration on a specific topic, or set of topics, I find the wiki more efficient than a blog, for various reasons. One of them is that I think of blog posts as essentially Turing machines (with noise), easier to have simultaneous conversation on many topics in the wiki format. Another thing is that in wiki it is easier to erase mistakes and otherwise edit, so in the end you get a more or less coherent document.

For a virtual group meeting, I think either blog or forum are adequate. Forum may be a bit better in that it is more natural for any member to initiate a discussion, though I am sure that could also be done in a blog. Some sort of privacy is the key issue there, and I may seek further advice from you at some stage.

you know, this is really interesting because I’ve thought along similar lines recently. I’m about to set up a discussion group on the institute, and I have started to put some info together, some topics, literature, questions I want to discuss etc. I plan about putting these on a blog as well (actually, I’ve already done this). One reason why I can imagine this might be useful is that it’s sometimes just good to have arguments written down. But then, I’d also like to make the discussion available for people who can’t be here, like friends and colleagues on other institutions, or those who are travelling for some while. I’m not sure if it works out though. It depends on what the others think of the idea, we’ll see. Best,

B.

Love the idea of a group blog/wiki for larger projects. Thanks for the details!

And upon skimming the projects hosted by wiki farms, the Internet seems to be teeming with collaborative projects. Forget Time magazine’s “You” (You Tube) for Man of the Year. The blooming of wikis give us “We”!

-cvj

I’ve been thinking about doing something similar to this for my group, but more on the lines of a wiki. Did you consider a wiki type arrangement? If so, what made you choose a blog format rather than a wiki?

I’m still early in my thought process and have not committed to any particular arrangement, so any thoughts you can share would help me.