[Inquiry] Arisbe ~> Inquiry

[elijah wright]

started this quite a while ago, and forgot to finish and send it:


> Subject: [Inquiry] Arisbe ~> Inquiry
>
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> EW = Elijah Wright
> JA = Jon Awbrey
>
> JA: Mind still fuzzy/flexible on the collab idea, just the notion that it
>     would involve something a little bit more like "working together" on a
>     common concern or toward a common goal, and something a little bit less
>     like combat.
>
> EW: more thoughts/details would probably be good ;)
>
> they never learn ...

of course not.  my task in life is to provoke those around me into action.
(i consider this a good thing, one that is generally very useful ;) )

> EW: it might be a good idea to start a new space here, rather than trying
>     to layer it onto the top of the Arisbe list.  I can make a new list
>     rather quickly, if you let me know what you want to call it.  ...
>     and am happy to do so.
>
> JA: Hmmm, the word "inquiry" comes to mind ...
>
> EW: list created.
>
> EW: http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/inquiry
>
> wow!  thanks!  and so nifty, too!
> i've already unblanked the slate.

i noticed.  was greatly entertained by the "how will i answer this
question" post sent to a list called, "inquiry".  very recursive.


> EW: what sort of collaboratory experiments do you have in mind?
>
> JA: Pretty open, I guess.  Jack Park had a nice idea with his
>     Nexist project, and I put a half-year's work into that,
>     but after a while the database system just couldn't
>     handle the load, complexity, connectivity,
>     or something, we never could figure.
>
> EW: i have some loose familiarity with jack park's stuff ...
>     fairly interesting.
>
> yes, he's onto version 2+ last i heard,
> but the idea of retyping the text and
> rebuilding the structure i had before --
> brrr! -- so he was supposed to let me
> know when he got a good export package
> up and running ...

can he dump his database out so that i can re-import it and then do useful
things with it?  (is he working in SQL these days or what?  or is it still
wiki-text?  if he can just give me a dump of the whole directory, i might
be able to suck it into some other system.  it would probably break all
the links, sadly...)


> EW: episodically -> narrative, at least for me.
>     or maybe i'm just inured in that tradition.
>
> yes, chunking and storytelling, stepwise e-laboration by any other name ...

e-labor-ation ;)

> EW: tools to support narrative would be fairly interesting to
> investigate. especially across very complicated problem domains.  (like
> peirce :) )
>
> i used to lurk a lot on ohs & unrev & various satellite sites of engelbart's planet,
> where people are always talking about the fancy new tools that they have in the works,
> but it has always been a bit hard for me to see the transition from talk to action ---
> though i know that it always happens, eventually --- still, i have grown impatient ...

a couple of my fellow students here (chris dent and kathryn labarre) were
working on integrating 'purple numbers' into mailing list archives through
post-email annotation by the participants.  i seem to recall that this had
something to do with collaboratively developed systems for faceted
classification (or something similar), though i confess to not seeing how
;)  [i don't understand - not that there's anything wrong with their work
;) ]


> where was i?
>
> idea 1, was to try and develop a working "theory of inquiry" further.
> this is what i'm supposed to be doing in my dissertation, and i still
> have some slim hope left of making that more understandable and viable.

i think that this is a Hard project, but one that is probably worthwhile.


> idea 2, that i had started up at the nexist work site, if you know
> anybody who is up for a transport from pascal to a web-footed language,
> would be to documnet and develop the ideas in my "theme one" program.
> i may try that again soon.

i need to read it.  (the nexist site, i mean...)

elijah