[OSGeo-Board] Re: OSGeo-Board Local Chapters, Translation, etc

[Arnulf Christl (CCGIS)]

> Arnulf,
>
> We all like the Wiki. I think we as a group need to understand exactly
> what you are saying in your other email about motion and visibility -
> every link to the site adds to it and the foundation's' brand equity,
> which impacts a number of things, not the least of which is how much
> money we will  raise.
>
> So putting more of the social aspects of the foundation on another site
> is counterproductive to this. For the exact reasons you cite below, I
> suggest we use the Wiki for collaborative document editing but keep
> conversations in mailing lists that get archived and indexed on the
> osgeo site. Otherwise the value of the site is greatly diminished.

Hmmm,
I didn't suspect that it would be so hard to communicate what
possibilities the Wiki technology provides. So in this respect you are all
right and we cannot use Wiki for the purpose I am suggesting. Point taken.
But I still want to try to explain why it would work if people would
understand. :-)

It all boils down to the fact that a Wiki is nothing but a mailing list
that  is precisely organized by threads. Think this over, hesitate, think
again. Sorry for being an asshole but I already have said some of this
before and obviously it didn't sink in, so please pay attention now. ;.-)

One Wiki page really is nothing but the highly concentrated essence of a
mailing list thread. Think this over, hesitate, blablabla.

To make this more transparent I'll start a short explanation in the Wiki.
Problem is that I cannot connect from this place (CORP conference in
Austria) because the network provider has a strange DNS policy and I can't
connect to fossgis.

Just assume that I am correct about the following assumptions. What is it
exactly that people do in a Wiki? Somebody creates a new page (You all
have dones that). The title of this page is the same (think "identical")
as the subject of a *new* email to a mailing list. So creating a Wiki page
is like starting a new mailing list thread. Somebody answers to this
thread in the mailing list. To stay in context some (or all) of the
starting message is kept (xy: wrote). To get the *full* context it will
still be necessary to read all the mails!
How does it work in a Wiki? Just the same. Somebody hits <edit> and writes
something into the existing page. People can correct whats there, add at
the bottom or delete something. This is the current state of this
discussion. Just one glance at this page will show what came out of this
email thread. This is what makes it so incredibly blasting hell of a lot
more efficient than browsing email threads.

Now - important - the history of this thread is NOT (I repeat) *NOT* lost!
It stay fully intact. Additionally it does not only stay fully intact but
(depending on the software you use) it is a lot - immensly much more
readable than those troublesome email threads.

Why is that. Fairly easy, Wiki tech has some quality insurance mechanisms
"built in" that force people to communicate in an organized manner. The
most obvious and easy to understand is, that you cannot

"send an email" ( == (identical to) "create a Wiki page")

without a subject. Correct? Whenever you do "send an email/create a WIki
page" it either has to be appended to an existing thread (reply/edit page)
or it has to be new (new subject email/create Wiki page).

The next is that you cannot send a *new* email (== new Wiki page) as
<reply> to an existing thread (i.e. another Wiki page). This kind of
disrupting threads is simply not possible, so you don't have to bear with
people not used to sticking to conventions, because they are ignorant of
them. They will just stick to the way to do it.

Change subject: If an email thread over the period changes topic sometimes
this is reflected in the subjsect by saying:"New subject; Was: Old
subject" but this is an even less well-known convention. How does this
happen in a Wiki? You have to rename the Wiki page. This is a major act,
that is documented in the history of the Wiki as a special page so that
you can keep track of people changing subjects. Full control, full
history.

Fork and Spawn subjects (email): If the discussion on the ailing list in a
thread throws up new questions  - what happens? Somebody will start a new
thread by posting a *new* email (not reply) with a new subject. What
happens to the context (thread/Wiki page) from which this new email was
spawned? It is lost! Spawning of forking subjects from a Wiki page
(thread) are done by simply adding [[square brackets]] around the
'spawning subject' and saving the WIki page. Click on the now red colored
link(!) and the new Wiki page (email thread) is created. The context is
kept, it is not lost, because the parent thread (Wiki page) still exists.
Even if the orginiating Wiki page is renamed (moved) the context is not
lost because the Wiki automatically creates a redirect page and the <move>
process is documented in the history.

And so on. There is more to it like interwiki links (which I did not yet
fully understand) and Categories (to add structure to the Wiki - try that
one with a mailing list... :-).

> I can tell we're not super-thrilled with the technical aspects of the CN
> architecture and some other things, but it works and it's paid for. If
> we have nothing but announcements on it, and discussions all over the
> place, the foundation's site loses its focus and value. Please hit
> reply so that I can be sure you followed to this point (manual qs by
> me. Otherwise our visibility will be diffused, as per your other email.

Did you see my tinkering with what Garys email? Just two lines up from
here (qs by me). This *cannot* happen (== impossible) in a Wiki page
because there always is a full history. I did post this around before,
didn't I. Ponder this for a while please.

Once you are done look at this page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tschirl
(thats me, just scramble chrisTl)
What do you see? Nothing much. Now please go to the history and have a
look at the list yo see. There are three change within one minute, the
latest is commented as 'restored original version', the one before has no
comment (bad style!) and the one before says 'comments'. Hit <Compare
Selected Version now> and be flabbergasted! They use highly suphisticated
CVS functionality (simple code diff) to highlight what has changed. On the
left side you see the previous edit (previous email in thread) on the
right side you see the next edit. Click on <Previous Diff> or <Next Diff>
to read that "Bruce is a jerk!", then "Bruce is *not* a jerk!" (highlight
the change within a sentence) and that it then has been deleted
completely.

If you go further back in the history of this page you will see how I
discovered using Wiki. This is rather pesonal now: There you also see my
first tentative tries of letting got (let go, let go, let go) of the tight
relation of Mapbender and Arnulf. This is the process that Paul is
currently going through with PostGIS. How am I gonna drop the benevolent
dictating visibilty of this great piece of software and so on.

OK. Questions? Ask them.

Regardless of all the above I actually am thrilled at the perspective of
using the ColabNet infrastructre. To stress this fact some more:  I *am*
super-thrilled with the technical aspects of the CN architecture! No pun
intended, I think this is the best thing that can happen to the Mapbender
software. I just want a very modest and unobstrusive Wiki added, thats
all.

> Motion: I propose that the FOSS Wiki be the document editing environment
> of choice but that we stick with the lists and the CN infrastructure for
> other social activities, otherwise, the foundation won't have a focus.

The easiest way to focus is shoving the Wiki into the CN infrastructure.
And I am thrilled at the perpective of having been part of the process of
extending the CollabNet infrastructure for all CollabNet users by adding
the cool collaboration software that a Wiki is. Usually I get paid lots of
money to get people to use Wikis. ;-)

> BTW I said FOSS and didn't think of Frank Zappa. After a day at the OSBC
> where this term was widely used (it was not a year ago BTW), I guess I'm
> really hating it!
>
> Gary

Halt! Go back three lines and check what Gary thinks about the term FOSS.
Huh - did you really say that? Nope, but there is no easy way to check
back.

Hey, I just have an idea. What do think of describing Wiki as email
technology with CVS, diff and automatic summarizer.

Sorry for taking this long but I hope that I can now stop to talk about
why Wiki is so essential to me.

Best regards,
Arnulf.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Arnulf Christl (CCGIS) [mailto:arnulf.christl at ccgis.de]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 6:12 AM
> To: board at board.osgeo.org
> Subject: [OSGeo-Board] Re: OSGeo-Board Local Chapters, Translation, etc
>
>
>> Folks,
>>
>> What do you think of starting a mailing list for those interested in
>> translation of foundation pages (ie. PR), setting up local sites (ie.
>> Toru), or establishing connections with regional organizations (ie.
>> FOSSGIS, Geolivre, etc)?
>>
>> I am thinking of something like international-discuss at board.osgeo.org.
>
> Doing this is cool, but why not in the Wiki? I am really swamped with
> emails already and I don't need yet another one. The ColabNet
> infrastructure will spawn email lists like hell anyway. In most of our
> work groups we have managed to reduce use of emails to manage
> catastrophies. Everything else is done way better in the Wiki. Please
> just have a look at this simple diagram again:
> http://www.socialtext.com/images/email-vs-socialtext-20050320.gif
>
>
> It helps. Really!
>
>> I am seeing alot of interest in setting addressing the international
>> outreach issue.   However, I don't think we as a board can do this
> topic
>> justice in the near term with everything else going on.  What I would
>> like is to have a venue where folks interested in this area could
>> discuss and do some planning, perhaps coming back to the board with
>> recommendations.
>>
>> Addressing questions like:
>>   o Organizing translation of foundation pages.
>>   o Addressing local "chapters" or resources (ie. ja.osgeo.org?)
>>   o Addressing what sort of affiliation or outreach to regional
>> organizations
>>     makes sense.
>>   o Raising issues with the internationalization support in foundation
>>     software projects.
>>
>> If we want to do this we could either designated it properly as a
>> "committee"
>> or just set it up as a mailing list with no special designation.  If
>> we establish it as a proper committee I think we would need to provide
>
>> it with some sort of mandate and it would be expected to come up with
>> somewhat formal recommendations to the board.
>>
>> If you guys are supportive, I'll write up a motion in the wiki based
>> on the above, and similar to web masters group.
>
> Cool, do that. And wrap it in square brackets and make each one a link
> to a separate page. No need for initializing mailing lists. If they are
> neede we can still set them up.
>
> Arnulf.
>
>
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Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Arnulf Christl

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