Writers of the world unite… you have nothing to lose but your fences… and much to gain.
We claim that free-as-in-freedom writing is the moral equivalent of the 8-hour day, for us. Students have lived too long under the rule of the Examination Paper and the Grade Book, and the world has been too long dominated by information oligarchs.
Spread the good word. If you have access to a departmental mail room and photocopier, put copies of the FreeCulture.org manifesto in everyone's mailboxes. If you are a student, ask your professors if you can post notes you took in their class online under the terms of the GNU FDL or a Creative Commons license, and get written permission to do so – if they refuse, make this publicly known. If you write papers, submit them with an assignment of copyright to the Public Domain instead of an assignment of copyright to the journal. Focus some of your involvement in PlanetMath on helping create Free alternatives for all existing math classes.
Don't do anything stupid, but do many brave things.
Take part of this day to remember those for have died in the fight for freedom.
– Joe Corneli and Aaron Krowne
PlanetMath is working with Quadrock, an "edutainment" company, to obtain grants to foster the collaborative creation of rich, educational mathematics resources. We hope to use these grants to strengthen the pedagogy of PlanetMath and CBPP projects in general, and provide general funding for PlanetMath. Your ideas and commentary are very much needed, so please saunter on over to the discussion page to weigh in!
http://oddwiki.taoriver.net/wiki.pl/AsteroidMeta/PlanetMath_and_Quadrock_Grants
A number of AM users have successfully put together and submitted abstracts for papers for the Emory University conference on Free Culture and the Digital Library, to take place this October. Many interesting free culture topics will be explored, along with their connections to AM projects. For a sneak preview, see
http://oddwiki.taoriver.net/wiki.pl/AsteroidMeta/Emory_Free_Culture_and_the_DL_Symposium
Do you think the PlanetMath/Noosphere "encyclopedia" should be renamed? If so, to what? This topic is being spiritedly-discussed at
http://oddwiki.taoriver.net/wiki.pl/AsteroidMeta/Renaming_the_Noosphere_Encyclopedia_Section
As part of our efforts to raise funding and participation for PlanetMath and related projects, we are putting together "infopacks" for use in introducing people to the projects, as well as conveying our plans and needs. Your help in creating and propagating these infopacks could make the difference in getting support.
http://oddwiki.taoriver.net/wiki.pl/AsteroidMeta/AM_Infopacks
As a step towards automatic verification of correctness of proofs, the template utilities have been used to verify the correctness of some proofs of statements in propositional logic:
http://oddwiki.taoriver.net/wiki.pl/AsteroidMeta/using_template_utilities_to_check_proofs
Right now, this is being done "by hand" on a step-by-step basis to study how the process works; however, it should not be hard to automate this procedure, and this will be done in the near future. Then it will be possible to take proofs of these theorems written in h-code and check them for correctness. In particular, by combining this project with the parser for mathematical expressions, we will be able to exhibit a first "proof of concept" for part of the HDM project — we will be able to read in the proofs from the TeX file for the metamath proof explorer, automatically translate them into h-code and verify their correctness.
Things that it seems people may be interested in (doing more on and…) getting into the next bulletin.
Also don't forget to try to get any relevant data into the Schedule.
The Way of the Asteroid is a code that has been set forth to govern the behavior of AsteroidMeta authors. Although it has yet to be universally adopted on AM, like the Tao te Ching or the Hagakure, the WOA describes a way of being in the world with application to many situations. The WOA is based on the principle of critical self-evaluation, but is best practiced in public discussion – it combines elements of reflective philosophy with discourse. To get a sense of what the WOA is about, see
http://oddwiki.taoriver.net/wiki.pl/AsteroidMeta/the_way_of_the_asteroid
Also don't forget to add any articles you really want to see appear :) --jcorneli Tue Apr 26 00:41:29 2005 UTC
Added some more stubs - remember, this is supposed to go out tomorrow. I volunteer to write the May Day opinion piece, and note about the WOA. It would be great to see a summary of the discussion about abstracts and a discussion about encyclopedia naming, and I'll contribute to articles about those things (and maybe draft them). Anything else, I think you're on your own. --jcorneli Sat Apr 30 23:30:10 2005 UTC
On "the way of the Asteroid" - I don't want a "code of behavior to govern" me, especially not one authored by someone else on a Wiki (the key onerous word being "govern"). Joe, I believe we need to be more clear about drawing the line between this wiki as your personal organizer and diary, and it as a public, shared space. For one, if no one contributes to policy discussions you start, then I don't think its right for you to just propagate them as the final word of "the community" here. --akrowne
Everyone has behavior-governing codes, I don't think there is any way you can escape them, particularly when you participate in social interactions.
The WOA is meant to be completely "philosophy-agnostic" and "POV-agnostic" way of discussing, re-evaluating, and, if the motivation arises, modifying, these codes of behavior. It is really more of a meta-code for than a code. The only demands it places on people is that they should participate in some self-reflection, writing, and discussion.
If someone doesn't want to do some or all of these things, then they simply opt out, and if they wish, they can be completely relieved of the WOA. Personally, I think this would be a loss, but I recognize that some people may see things differently. That's why I said "set forth".
I also think that the WOA may not be understood by everyone on the Asteroid, and accordingly, I wanted to write more about it. Its primary purpose is to help people to better-realize and better-actualize their own goals. One way it does this is by promoting explicit thinking (made concrete by writing) and another way it does is is by promoting dialog. In addition to helping each individual work more effectively, it is my feeling that WOA participation would help Asteroid authors work more effectively together.
Furthermore, even though I have drafted the WOA, there is no reason why it can't be completely rewritten or massively revised by anyone else at any time. It is not the final word of the community, nor even my own final word. Indeed, the basic idea of WOA wasn't mine at all, it was Angus Errington's, communicated to me by private email; I just gave it a new name and deployed it here.
I certainly don't wish to use the wiki as my personal organizer in a way that excludes or bothers other people. The WOA is not irrelevant to this: it is primarily a code to govern behavior of site authors as site authors. If any given author (me for example) is doing something annoying, then the WOA can be updated to explain why that particular behavior is disruptive and how it can be avoided. We can't somehow communicate about these things telepathically.
Also, I'm not really sure about the idea of the wiki as a personal organizer for anyone. What exactly is "personal"? One of the things I hoped for when I introduced the WOA was that it would help me to better understand the lifestyles of my myself & my peers, not with prurient, scatalogical, or otherwise "personal" (or perverse!) interest, but with a fundamentally professional interest.
Specifically, I would like to see what sort of involvement people wish to put forth. I want to know how people spend their time so that I don't impose on them or expect something other than what they wish to deliver, and so I know exactly what sorts of things I can count on them for. I feel like my co-authors should have the right to know corresponding things about me.
In a volunteer and/or collectively run organization like AsteroidMeta, "personal" and "professional" certainly do seem to blur. No-ones motivation but my own governs my participation in the site or in the activities I have described here. But that doesn't mean I find the opinions, ideas, and activities of other people irrelevant. I think about these things a lot. The WOA was supposed to be a way to think clearly about the whole ensemble, and to help participating individuals better understand their relationship to the group and to the "collective" activities that we are pursuing.
To the extent that this means the wiki is a "personal organizer", I think it should be everyone's. But that was not the sole intent of the WOA. I meant it to be a space for constructive criticism, both originating with oneself and originating with others.
I am entirely welcoming to the idea of you using it to critique aspects of my participation that you think are annoying or counterproductive, or as a place to give your insights on the sorts of behaviors that you think are most useful and productive. If you don't want to put this into a "WOA" portion of the site, that's fine, but I thought it useful to put these sorts of things together, because they seem to share common, focused, themes of critical self-, other-, and group-evaluation, as well as a general "culture-building" theme. --jcorneli Sun May 01 17:40:33 2005 UTC
Given that there seems to be a lot of discussion we would need to have about the WOA for it to really be useful, I'm pulling the feature for this week. Maybe we can expand on the discussion above for an article for next week. But the key thing is to expand on the discussion. --jcorneli Sun May 01 19:07:52 2005 UTC
It may be that the WOA is sufficiently meta-level that it applies to anyone. But I have not had the chance to think on it enough to determine that. I don't want to keep you from posting anything to the Wiki. Rather, I think the "live" Wiki is to the Bulletin as PlanetMath is to the FEM. There is an implicit sense of "finality" to the Bulletin that isn't assumed for the Wiki. Your wording of the WOA feature, combined with this finality, seemed like it was saying to me that that the ideas had become some sort of commonly-agreed-upon policy, and I'm sure others could get the wrong impression from this. So, I think either with the presentation changed or some history of common deliberation, the feature would be suitable for the Bulletin.
As for the personal organizer stuff, the distinction for me between your somewhat detailed daily schedule and the WOA ideals is fuzzy. I can tell you right now I will never sketch out my schedule on a public Wiki, because I consider it private. I won't even put up the complete TODO list that I keep locally, because I consider it private. I also have an inherent dislike of schedule rigidity (even imposed by me). Instead, I strive to do what I feel like when I feel like it, as much as possible. I find I work more efficiently and happily this way. Where I'm going with this is… its perfectly fine if you want to put this stuff in the Wiki for yourself, but I won't be following suit, and I'd just like you to be aware that others who may be excellent helpers to AM projects may not feel comfortable using the Wiki as much like a personal organizer as you do.
Finally, as to the utility of putting up personal schedule information for project coordination purposes: I don't see myself ever getting around to studying your schedule to see if you can take on a new task. Rather, I will just ask you, or list the task publicly, so you can take it on if you want it. Similarly, you have been working with me so far using this very same model. I tell you when I can't take on a task and when I can. There is no need to see my schedule or the humongous list of tasks I always have in the queue. If you saw this, you might never propose new ones, but this wouldn't be the correct handling either. It is up to me to determine which ones I want to do, and when. This is kind of pull-based model for coordination, rather than a "push" based (you see my schedule, and "give" me a task, because you "know" I can handle it). Frankly I dont think the "push" method will work, but people who want to list their schedules to facilitate it certainly can do so. --akrowne Sun May 1 23:35:08 UTC 2005
As I have said before, I am a simulationist, also an anthropologist (of sorts), […], and only then a mathematician. Unless I can keep track of my schedule and my activities, I have to assume that stuff just happens by magic. My goals wrt the HDM include the goal of being able to simulate the behavior of mathematicians and mathematical communities. I can't accept magic as the driving principle.
The WOA is not about schedules or task lists. It is about understanding your goals and strategies. I don't care a bit about the stuff that you consider "private", that's 100% your own business. I care a lot about the stuff that you consider "public", because that's where I feel I can conceivably make a positive impact. If you prefer to have an unscheduled day, maybe you can write about why that works for you. My own schedule includes very broad chunks of unscheduled, semi-focused time.
The important thing about the WOA is to describe how you operate in terms that will help others work well with you, and help you clarify to yourself your own strategies for success. I would assert that everyone can benefit from some critical self-reflection like this. Too much, and it becomes overkill. Not enough, and people are just "wandering stars, for whom it is reserved, the blackness, of darkness, forever." Let's have a little light on this dark rock we call AsteroidMeta… --jcorneli Mon May 02 00:50:20 2005 UTC
I've edited the op-ed, changing some wording to be more general (and less GNU specific), and added my name to it. I think it is much improved, especially since the FDL is about as scary a thing as the typical EULA to show someone as an introduction to free culture. If you don't like that I mucked with it, you can change it back, but then I want to put in my own essay before this bulletin gets sent out. --akrowne Sun May 1 16:13:52 UTC 2005