TingWiki/ting49

TingWiki

ting49, Sunday, 12th of March 2006, 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET)
We are meeting half an hour before a ting on irc, server freenode, channel #onebigsoup. We use Gobby as a collaborative editor and teamspeak for VoIP. The collab-editor-server is kathigraben.mine.nu, port 6522 (default). You find the teamspeak login data on the gobby page ting49_talk or ask in irc.freenode #onebigsoup.

topic proposals

 * ting-radio
 * BlinkenApplet
 * add here or in gobby please

results will be exported to this page soon after the ting

ting49_talk

ting49_talk

12th of March 2006 18:00 UTC

participants:
 * ma: Mattis Manzel
 * sheep: Radomir Dopieralski
 * add yourself

This is a voice-ting, we use VoIP parallel with this collab-editor session.

teamspeak - server: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx possibly configure your teamspeak to push-to-talk please.

chat down - up here is the collab section

ma: we use document for summarizing (already during the ting) talk is for talk. The chat down isn't really interesting. writing ma: (in my case) helps to tell who wote what as - when exporting the ting to wiki - the colors get lost. Same when closing and reopening a document. That's why it's white above.

ma: we are used to let the pearls go down the drain on irc, because we do not know that it's possible saving them. Nor necesary on collab-editor.

sheep: There are still irc logs and stuff.

ma: k, but lots goes up in smoke nevertheless. On s23-wiki, when still using moonedit, we had an include-extention and could - during the ting - include the text into a wiki page. Else it's letting a day pass for people to check if there was anything that is not for public and remove it and then copy over from collab-editor to wiki.

sheep: They save the logs to wiki on #moin-dev too. The problem with logs is that they contain more ranting than real information -- even worse than thread mode in wiki. It's hard to find anything in them.

ma: I see.Making it mor easy is the thing. When copying an innteresting section of irc into wiki it's a lot of work to make it half-way readable, cut the timestamps, the x left y joined notes, stupid bot remarks, etc. It's easier here. So people would - probably - do it more often.

sheep: most of the cleaning can be done automatically by the script that includes it, but the script can't recognize what information is important and on topic. Plus, conversations contain too much of the talker's personality -- it's often distracting.

ma: Another step in this all open-personality-direction, agree. Many do not like it. I never really reworked the results of the former tings. There is distracting stuff in it. But one could rework and it could speed up working a lot, apart from the fun and kick of it. It inspires me when collaborating directly. real-time. I'm a former bass-player, know?

sheep: ah, jazz is collaborative music :)

ma: Miles invented wiki, beginning of the 70ies. ;) The end of the "you rhytm section, you chorus player"-time, one big soup.

sheep: there's definitely something important in it. Wonder how the rhytm is important in the wikis and collaborative editing. Every wiki has its own rhythm, have you noticed?

ma: I get what you mean. Different grooves. Gobby still doen't automtically scroll to the end, I keep not getting when new stuff is written. Anyhow.

sheep: If it scrolled automatically, you would have the screen jump up and down when several persons are working on an existing bulk of text. I think the best way would be to mark that something is happening on some sort of document map -- for example, on the scrollbar. Back to the rhythm of collaboration -- I think that is what makes newcomers have hard time starting to contribute. They have to learn how particular community works before their contributions stop appearing out of place.

ma: I propsed to the gooby folks that the top - where ting49_talk is written changes in the color of the one who last edited the page, pretty blinkenlights (?), I admit. Blinkenlights is a CCC project, pretty flashy lights. They did great project wih entire houses, lamps behind all windows using it as a screen, google. My friends love it, I keep teasing them.

sheep: I guess I've seen it as one of the splash screens to GIMP. And in the ALL Your BAse Are Belong To Us clip :D. Isn't it pretty old?

ma: runnig for some years already, but they improve on it. Did something in paris with a real big building and 10 degrees of grey. You could play videos on the housefront.

sheep: so, back to the topic, blinkenlights is just eye candy?

ma: Agree basically, small talk. But that's useful sometimes ;) Topic, well.

sheep: eye candy is important. the ftp serving the first live-cd with xgl got dos-ed by all people wanting to try it recently :D. It's much easier to work on something you think looks nice. It motivates and inspires.

ma: xql and dos-ed? I'm no programmer. I hope this doesn't disappoint you too much. played music and wrote two books. I've been pumping out ideas, many of them embarrasing but the tolerate an maybe even like me, at least on commuity-wiki.

sheep: sorry, xgl is OpenGl-accelerated Xserver, using really fabulous effects known before only from the Apples. DOS means Denial Of Service, which means the users got the server down because there were too many of them at once. I'm sorry, I got carried away with terminology. It's just one of the things that I hear recently a lot, and many people think it's a real step forward -- while it's only some eye candy. It was possible for years, but nobody did it because it isn't important for the programmers. But it turns out, that doing it makes a lot pepole interested and they start helping out and what not. So, it's important to have a nice-looking project, even when you don't care about the looks -- because it's more pleasant for you and for others to work on something nice.

ma: On the eye-candy thing: just see windows, looks better, works worse. All use windows (almost).

sheep: windows are ugly compared to macs.

ma: used mac til 98 when my gilfriend filled toilet cleaner in my powerbook 190. Swapped to win then, was one of my biggest mistakes ever. ;)

sheep: I think the eye candy is important, because good-looking product means that someone cares. It's like a washed car next to one all in mud -- even if the washed one isn't used so much, people tend to prefer it... And there's that broken windows thing -- if the program has some bugs or things left out that make parts of it look ugly -- it's like broken windows in houses -- people assume the thing is abandoned. Some with web sites.

ma: real-life psychology applies. But people learn -slowly -. I look at things different, linux, windows now. I slowly learn, and try to explain to others.

sheep: there are always new ones... and they will just jump on the largest bandwagon.

ma: Is it the first time you use a collab-editor? It doesn't really unfold in two. It's much more of a kick with 5, 7, 9 people. It buzzes.

sheep: yeah, it's the first time, but I think I can imagine how great it is, especially when you've got some ready text to work on.

ma: we are writing straightly up-down chronlogically now. With more people, even languages, we had english and french, centers turn out, above the french are hacking on an idea, below something on another topic crystalizes. It's fun. The first days on moonedit were madness. They did cursor races and all kind of painting, weaving carpets in different colors and stuff. All these serious guys turned into kids, it was one joyful sandbox.

sheep: I think it could be great for multilingual discussion, where some people only know some languages, and people can translate parts of text for others...

@**@_ Bee! (^^) } VvVvVvVv

I think I saw some of the old text files on that moonedit server, sphere-something, can't recall. It was very strange, like some afterparty room filled with leftovers, broken furniture and things...

ma: Strange, despite there were no real results in these days, it was when I felt the potential of it most intensly. If something creates that much relief, that much fun in the very beginning, there must be something deeper to it, dunno. Maybe it was the same when irc came up and I just haven't been around.

sheep: I think it's a little like with a Wiki -- you need a goal. A topic to work on, otherwise it's just playing around. They still have this kind of attitude at message boards, like on the 2ch. It looks like a real mess for outsiders. Shift-JIS art and flames everywhere...

ma: "looks like a real mess for outsiders". Agree. Problem is: participants learn that it is not messy and start getting this elite feeling, not really trying to build a bridge to new reades anymore. Our recent changes on community-wiki (or rc's elsewhere) it would be so easy to do something about that. Two lines of a clever cool summary, lineshift, another two lines of what is new on the page. Peaople new to the wiki could imediately undstand better what goes on. Takes just a activated in the summary and a little getting ued to think about and write for new readers.

sheep: It's always additional work, and sometimes it's the difference between contributing and not contrubuting. Agreed that people who are already accustomed to wiki should do it -- the "locals". On the other hand, it's not possible to really summarize things -- the image spreads amongst several pages, recent events, etc. It's always a community -- it might be pretty open for newcomers, but there's always the line (or fence) around it. Making it easier for others to cross the line takes additional work -- either on the side of insiders or outsiders -- depends on who cares more. I wonder about something like 'massive collaboration editing" -- like kids with pieces of chalk drawing things on the sidewalk... Are there also collaborative graphical editors? I know Cocinella has a whiteborad...

ma: I dream about music, made the global jam wiki. Similar in a way, painting, playing music, writing. Different technical issues, but getting people move is in a way similar.

sheep: Can't imagine the thing with music -- it's too much time-based. Honestly, I can't imagine creating music even by a single person. That's because I have "wooden ears" -- can't even whistle. Music is something magical for me.

ma: we tried on skype, good musicians, rightaway reacting on the limitations that grow out of the latency and there is "ninjam", a program that extends the latency to exactly one beat - you play a beat in front of what you hear, strange in the beginning, but possible to get used to. There are solutions. Admit music is (maybe apart from dance and theater) the one that's most diffcult to get online.

sheep: at first I imagined something more like a MIDI editor -- you've got timeline, with notes, and everyone can play parts of it when they want, and edit the notes in any part of it... You could make it as fast as text chat using the midi technology -- but you'd need instruments that can be connected to the computer, and the sound is artifical in a way... Could work with keyboards and drums, but can't imagine it with string-based instruments...

ma: midi and live don't go together very well. But the important stuff happens on text and voice, I think. That bit of art-stuff, interesting, but eye-candy in a way too. Ideas can to a great deal be formulated in words, written words, very well.

sheep: I find myself "translating" my thoughts when I try to explain them to someone. No matter what langugae I use. It's sometimes very hard, and an image, or gesture, or even a computer program is much better to illustrate what I mean. Agreed the last one can be presented with text -- but source code isn't really the best representation of a program. Images are fine, as long as you don't need additional 2 or 3 dimensions to show what you mean :). What's really hard is all the time-based things. The only established way to explain them is some sort of a time line, but it's really limited.

ma: Also this new ting-radio idea that goes around in my head is time based, the difficult kind. Agree.

sheep: I imagine you've got the 'dynamic' part ahead, that you work on, and it's "performed" when it crystalises, and the line moves on...

ma: yes. Play another tune in the radio when the next minutes aren't ready yet. But it's not a shame if there were silence for a minute as 1. It's not really radio, and 2. nobdy listens anyhow.

sheep: I wonder... there could be such a radio working 24h, playing mostly songs that got queued, but if someone would have someting to say, they could enter it. Like a real radio -- with listeners. I imagine there would form various "events" naturally (missing the word). And once someone has something to say, there would join others, and maybe they would discuss a while, and sometimes there would be only music for the whole day, because nobody has anything to say...

ma: 24/7 absolutely, the global-jam-session should as well be 24/7, kuban percussionists wihth chines guitar-playes. hehe. Music for a day as noone has ' to say. No problem, nooooo problem. Alex mentioned this internet-radio to real antennas, you could listen to in yur car, coming home full of ideas to join in rightaway. Half brazil could listen, radios are all over.

sheep: I think I would listed to such a radio. Not necessarily real antennas, but there are lots of internet radio broadcasts... Hmm... There's a studnet's radio station in our local Institute of Technology (politechnics). Wonder if they would be interested...

ma: I'm in Italy here and the radio is painful. I would 10.000 more likely listen to a non-perfect chaotic thing that might contain interesting ideas than to this commercial concentrated stupidity here.

sheep: There were some really cool communities formed back in the days of the morse code in radio. My father had a radio back then, and they would do all kinds of discussions or just "connect" to prove they can do it, really cool things -- they had their hardware built by themselves, of course. It's very similar to some communities I can see in the internet -- usenet, irc, some mailing lists, message boards, and now also wikis.

ma: radio-statio-daddy, cool. Ok, you back on irc.

sheep: not really station. it's more like cb-radio nowadays.

ma: multilevel, I like that. Tears my head apart. Teamspeak in addition, my concentration slips away. The page is saved and won't get lost. You should be with it on a ting with lion. He's a master in summarizing. So much to learn for me.

sheep: I can see Lion is very active on CommunityWiki. Like, fascinated.

ma: Veeery. He's an idea-geysir ;) Good ting, so far, not neccessarily over. Got to go out for one or two hous now, be back later.

sheep: It could be good to have some kind of 'typing notification' in gobby. Like the app name blinking on the taskbar, or something. So that you can tell when someone edits.

_   /\  _                          *****     / \  /  \/ \  _  /\                 *******   /   \/   /   \/ \/  \                *******  /     \        \ /    \                *****  /  _.**.  _.**.  _.**.  _.**.   @**@_    |O| { (..) { (..) ( (..) { (--)  (^^) 3   | |   VvVvVvVvVvVvVVVVVvvvVvvVvvVvvVvvvvvvVvvVvVVvVv

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Discussion
I love the ASCII pic at the end; It reminds me of Mario brothers. :)

I suspect it's a Ting, with the places for people to stand, but it looks more like Mario brothers type monsters, to me. ;D

Anyways: I wanted to say: I might be able to attend the next Ting (I'd like to,) aaand,...

With regards to:

''"looks like a real mess for outsiders". Agree. Problem is: participants learn that it is not messy and start getting this elite feeling, not really trying to build a bridge to new reades anymore. Our recent changes on community-wiki (or rc's elsewhere) it would be so easy to do something about that.''

...I want to point out that CommunityWiki is one of very few wiki that has a strategy of making a blog-like Front Page out of the pages of lots of activity, with a separate RSS feed dedicated to that front page.

This is something that I'm actually evangelical about: The more wiki that keep outside-readable blogs, the more wiki I can keep up with. :)

I don't want to know everything that happens in the wiki, or even most things that happen in the wiki. Not even half! I just want to know the things that the wiki thought were noteworthy, and wanted to announce to the general public.

On CW, we call the idea, "BlogControlledByWiki," though I suspect we're going to change that at some point; It's a horrible name. (I thought it up.)

@SIG@


 * BlogControlledByWiki - great idea!


 * sheep: I think it's a little like with a Wiki -- you need a goal. A topic to work on, otherwise it's just playing around. - ack! playing around is necessary cause having fun is the best motivator and playing around = open & creative brainstorming, but maybe for notable output a topic or goal might be useful. --cosmea 01:52, 13 March 2006 (CET)