Monday, August 26, 2002

I was just admiring Alison Fish's Glossary of Weblogging Jargon, and I sent her an e-mail defining some of the terms she planned to define some day, but had not yet posted there, and here comes someone else thinking about how to communicate these concepts. [Dixiblog] illustrates a problem with how some people fail to properly credit their sources. We see this a lot in humor forwarded by e-mail ... who was the original writer? [Ray Ozzie] wrote a great piece on how blogs are better than discussion forums. [High Context] commented on it. [Gurteen Knowledge-Log] commented on it thanks to [High Context] link. [Dixiblog] quoted this, but did not make clear which content was from [Ray Ozzie]  [High Context] [Gurteen Knowledge-Log] [Dixiblog] Part of the problem is a lack of weblog standards for how best to show that. Many people, such as myself, are experimenting with some, but we not really happy yet. Can we learn from the Journalists profession? Another problem is that most people are linking not to the actual quoted area, but to the home page of the person who posted something, so we have to scroll down a bunch of pages to see what they are referring to. In other words we have people who are struggling to figure out how to use this technology, and in the process are making it a struggle for other users, like people on the public highways who are highway illiterate - they do not know what the double yellow line in middle of highway on a curve means, they do not know what the speed limit signage means, they just do their own thing, and the result is anarch. [Dixiblog] QUOTE blogs vs. discussion forums UNQUOTE [Dixiblog] actually the following statement was from [Gurteen Knowledge-Log] QUOTE On the difference between blogs and discussion forums.  (Al insert clarification: this is hyperlink to [Ray Ozzie] article) Some people do not seem to be able to get their heads around the difference between blogs and discussion forums. To my mind, although at a surface level they have some similarities - at a deeper level they are fundamentally different. There are two dimensions to their differences - the first the psychological dimension and the second the technology dimension. One of the major psychological differences is that you own your weblog - it is YOURS - and it represents a history of YOUR thinking - so you take pride in its ownership - something that does not make a lot of sense in a discussion forum. UNQUOTE [Gurteen Knowledge-Log] [Dixiblog] says this is from [Architecture Matters: The Rebirth of Public Discussion by] by [Ray Ozzie] [Gurteen Knowledge-Log] [Dixiblog] QUOTE some interesting conversation on the blogging vs. discussing. but it doesn't seem to directly address the question of comments in blogs, although if you trace the source far back enough, maybe. UNQUOTE [Dixiblog] Well [Dixiblog] certainly illustrates how to cloud the topic of copyright by quoting someone and not crediting the fact of who is being quoted. As a person who has participated in Internet Forums, Discussion Groups, e-mail discussion, telephone tag, business meetings, team projects, and other attempts at a meeting of the minds, I see a progression of technology to help improve our ability to communicate effectively and in context.  Weblogging is to Discussion Groups what the Personal Auto is to The Horse and Buggy. Both the Personal Auto and The Horse and Buggy serve people as transportation. The horse has some sanitation problems, and it only goes so fast, but is inexpensive, and for those people who hate technology, totally natural. Both Weblogging and Discussion Groups serve people as communications. With discussion groups there are problems with context and agendas. We post something, and someone misconstrues what we said. We try to correct the misconception. Turns out that some people deliberately misunderstand everything you say because they want an arguement. You have to put up with those people as a cost of using the site. In both realities, if we make an honest mistake, someone can tell us and we can fix it. There is a concept of noise to signal ratio. Noise is these people who want arguements. Noise is when people ask a question that has been answered, so we answer it again. Noise is when person-A posts a bunch of stuff, then person-B is commenting on one element of person-A post, but instead of quoting just the context that they are commenting on, they quote the whole thing. Noise is today when I sent a post about the Scandal Map to a discussion group. It went to the discussion server which added a bunch of header info to the message. It went to one of the other people on the list, whose company has anti-virus software, which transcribed the message, adding a bunch of lines and replacing every one of my end of lines with its own characters. Then it went into the company's e-mail server, which added some stuff. Then it went into the e-mail client of this guy, which further messed it up. He forwarded the result to me which was absolutely garbage. For every line of text I had keyed, he got 5 lines of stuff. Noise is flames. Noise is when someone misquotes you by accident and then other people are on your case because they think you really said that bad stuff. Noise is when you have a discussion group for one purpose, and someone does not get it and we have a lot of off-topic posts. Signal is the good information that is new and interesting that you wanted to see. Most discussion groups have a high noise to signal ratio. Weblogging can also have a lot of noise getting in the way of signals, but it is much easier to tune out the noise with weblogging than with discussion groups. 11:28:49 PM

He's back [Russ Lipton Documents Radio] QUOTE I bought Eastgate's Tinderbox. This is a cool and extraordinarily powerful product. Mark Bernstein is another amateur. I want to use it. I want to master it. Honest. It could complement Radio/Frontier beautifully. But are there enough hours in the day? When it comes to those precious few hours, my real brainstorming returns to Radio and the notion of packaging a real book (online, natch) for ordinarily intelligent people getting into Radio for the first time - 180-200 pages? I will rework pages already done on this site and elsewhere and add another 100 pages ... with significantly more polish and care. UNQUOTE [Russ Lipton Documents Radio] 10:32:11 PM

[Radio Free Blogistan] QUOTE EPN World Reporter: Top Blogs. Here's someone's idea of some good blogs to check out. What interests me is this assertion: Further, the distinction between web diaries and web logs continues to become more blurred. Which, ultimately, makes for better reading. UNQUOTE [Radio Free Blogistan] How do we define top blogs?  Popularity, staying ahead of the crowd by dreaming up cute things to do, good writing? [EPN World Reporter] tackles some terminology.  QUOTES So long as the diary includes a healthy log of other sites and a log of events, it constitutes a blog. Writers’ web diaries could be described as the ultimate form of intellectual voyeurism. UNQUOTE Link to info about alleged time travelers. 10:29:36 PM

Radio Wishes: Pull on sides of Home Page Editing Box to make the size more harmonious, like I can do with many Windows Application boxes within boxes. When I have Posted something but not yet Published it, some icon flag color indication on my desk top editing area that tells me THAT post has not yet been published, or that it has been edited and posted, without the final version published yet.  Also put some counter near top of home editing area to remind me how many posts are in that condition. Top Command Menu include Categories.  Or perhaps make this a menu selection in the Cloud Links Status area down right side. When I click on it, would take me to something structured like Stories.  A chart of all my Categories, like the Categories Page. Calendar addition of a phrase to tell us which Category we navigating through. Use Calendar to navigate through posts to a particular Category post on a particular day, or that of the Home Page. When I learn how to have Navigator Links to my Categories, on right side below the Calendar, I would like an interconnection between Calendar and Categories. For example, suppose I am looking at Calendar for posts made to Home or a Category for Aug 20th.  I might want some icon to appear beside some other Categories to show that THEY also had some posts on THAT DAY. Or, suppose I am looking at Calendar for the month.  I might like some indication associated with individual days to show that there were posts those days for categories other than the home. Perhaps an expanded chart available that shows week horizontally and categories vertically and in the spread sheet intersections are links showing that for that day and that category there was one or more posts.  Click on the link to get to them. 12:34:22 PM

[Alison Fish of Blogfish] shared from [Seb's Open Research] Lessons learned from a large scale K-logging implementation. Most people don't like to write. We've had a difficult time designing interfaces that encourage adding information instead of just reading. There's no substitute for good, accessible writing. We have several people who write consistently for the system. The logs show that postings from one writer get far more attention and prompt far more linking than those from the other writers. " [Seb's Open Research] [Alison Fish of Blogfish] QUOTE I suspect that beginning bloggers and kloggers are often inhibited.. If we set up a k-logging community for our company intranet, I suspect there will be an initial _hump_ of hesitation among the employees. Maybe having a few designated posters at the beginning would ease the transition. Must think on this. UNQUOTE [Alison Fish of Blogfish] Al's suggestions Recruit co-workers who you think share your enthusiasm for the idea of having a KLOG on the company intranet, and would be good power users to serve as a kind of help desk and cheerleader squad when you launch it. With them, setup a system patterned on dws.Radio.FAQ model to discuss what needs resolution before implementing this, and inviting in the mass of users, so as to maximize odds of getting great value out of his project. Do so outside company intranet until you nailed down everything needed for implementation. That includes both technical know how and management approval. When management says Yes, they often expect results soon. So you use this outside discussion area to identify pre-requisites and get them resolved. Assuming you are the moderator Your team use a Category name like Radio Plot Twists which performs role like Radio Questions input to dws Your aggregation, like dws.Radio.FAQ, have name like The Plot Thickens Ask your co-workers if y"all want to invite into your discussion any non-employees from outside the firm Think Radio enthusiasts who have written relevant documentation Think other firms personnel trying to organize an company KLOG in which those people are not in competition with your company Just as dws has Topic headings like Radio Wishes Radio Tips Radio Questions Radio Alerts Your multi-author discussion would have its relevant Topic headings like Documentation and Tutorial Flow Chart of Learning Curve Topics that co-workers need to learn to be proficient in this. Will you want to host a seminar class to help people get up to speed Will you want to mirror some Radio documentation on your intranet Examples of KLOGS worth emulating Initially you just want anything that illustrates the concept Then you want some that are close to what you want for your company Implementation Challenges to Solve What OS does Radio Frontier etc. work on What OS are most heavily in use at your company People working from home PC and from work PC updating from either location Management Personnel Topics Distinct from documentation for users and Implementation issues This will eat some disk space and other resources There will be executives slow to accept some communication methods Everyone still needs to communicate with them by their preferred methods Paper, Fax, e-mail, whatever 12:15:47 PM

Sunday Topics: Copyright; Humor; Radio Education. Sunday Topics lost in Radio PC problems: Current Events, Deep Linking. Purpose of tracking this stuff is to Help navigate my overall site ... near each day break is directory of prior day topics. Help me work towards breaking up my stuff into categories. Help visitors see what I am into, before I learn better ways to communicate that. 11:06:29 AM

© Copyright 2002 Al Macintyre.