The lead editors for the Free Encyclopedia of Mathematics project are:

Joe Corneli (jcorneli) : elisp, editorial process, content editing…

Ross Moore : latex, layout/design, content editing…

Aaron Krowne (akrowne) : perl (interface to PM/Noosphere), business/publication, content editing…

The associate editors are:

Ray Puzio (rspuzio) : differential geometry, differential equations, special functions, …

Alvaro Lozano-Robledo (alozano) : number theory, algebraic geometry, abstract algebra (group theory, ring theory, field theory)…

Oscar Masaveu (omasaveu) : topology, topological groups, nonstandard logics, …

We are currently looking for additional associate editors. If you are interested, please get in touch. Feel free to add thoughts here about how you would like the editorial process to work, or ask questions about how things have been going so far.

Assignments

Dear editors,

I would like to ask all of you to try to find someone who is currently outside of PlanetMath to join on as an associate editor. Your candidate should possess some expertise in her or his field, and should be know for good writing/editing/math skills and an interest (or potential interest) in free software and free documentation (and free math in particular). After version 0.1.0. is released, a team of 10 should be about right. I would prefer to limit the number of editors from inside the PM system - which is not to say that PM people shouldn't participate in the editorial process. But I would like most of the editors to have a dispassionate view towards the material; to be able to say things like "it would be good to see some articles about XYZ" without feeling like they have to go and write that material themselves.

For now, please just think about people you would like to ask. When we have the release ready, you can show it to them, and talk the project over with them to see what thy think. I'd be interested to hear back about these experiences, whatever happens.

Thanks, --jcorneli Tue Mar 01 16:06:40 2005 UTC

Ummm, I'll try to think of somebody, but I can't think of an ideal person right now. --alozano

That's fine. Just think about it. By the way, I don't know if you've seen the draft that's going to become the release (once we get a few more details worked out)? Its here: http://www-texdev.ics.mq.edu.au/FEM/book.pdf – maybe it will remind you of someone who might be interested ;). I have a couple of people in mind to ask myself, so if not everyone is able to come up with someone, that will be fine. --jcorneli Tue Mar 01 19:16:43 2005 UTC

The plan...

As the project of the FEM takes shape, I would like the lead editors to write assignments here and propose a distribution of the assignments, i.e. we need a manager (is that Joe?). For now, I am not very sure how the editorial process is going to happen. Maybe we can split the FEM in chapters and assign a bunch of chapters to each one of us, who can browse over it and list the specific problems one sees, together with the general problems of the whole FEM. One of the tasks I am interested in and willing to undertake is organizing the entries in a reasonable order (inside each MSC group). – alozano

Remember that most everything on Planet Math is based on the principle of "if you see something to be done, go ahead and do it". I would assume that this also applies to this particular project. For instance, the other day, I decided to do something about the fact that there were entries filed under -XX classifications and Joe decided to do something similar about quotation marks. I would say, if you have an idea for organizing entries, go ahead and start organizing. The important thing here is for us to stay in communication so we don't keep bumping into each other. – rspuzio 2 March 2005

I think you are both right. The lead editors are going to work on creating assignments for associate editors, but associate editors are also free to work on things out of their own motivation. Basically anything that can be done on through the PM site is 100% fair game for anyone to work on, and I won't object to anything constructive that takes place there. The FEM core documents, the Emacs file that compiles things, and the parts of PM/Noosphere that relate to this project will be maintained by Ross, me, and Aaron, respectively; we may or may not agree with certain changes that might be suggested. So if you're thinking about working on something that requires changing one of these pieces of the build pipeline, it would be best to be in touch with us throughout the process. Also, if you wish to make use of our streamlined way to submit corrections in bulk (highly recommended!), I'd like it if you would send the corrections (marked up using the bulk submission format that I will describe shortly) to me for review & possible discussion with the other lead editors, first. In terms of Alvaro's specific thought about organizing entries, and Ray's comment about just get started - I tend to agree, that's the right thing to do. What I'd like to see would be a document that imposes an order/organization on one MSC, for now. I also agree with the point that keeping up communication is very important. The Tasks page can be helpful for this. Thanks, --jcorneli Wed Mar 02 23:35:04 2005 UTC

For an example of a document which imposes an order on one MSC look at http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/ArithmeticOfEllipticCurves.html which links to all entries in MSC 14H52 ( and 11G05 which is pretty much the same), and a couple related others. I am not sure if this is what you are looking for, but this is the idea in my head of how every MSC section should start in the FEM: some kind of Meta-Entry written in prose (as much as one can do but brief and concise) that gives hints of the theory and where to go (as opposed to a bare list of names of concepts/entries). – alozano

It may be a while til I can take a good look at this and give my critique – I'll need the relevant PM snapshot, and the snapshot system is currently broken. --jcorneli Thu Mar 03 02:41:54 2005 UTC

See Discussion of ArithemeticOfEllipticCurves. --jcorneli Fri Mar 04 00:31:17 2005 UTC

Discussion

I would like to collaborate in the FEM project. I do not have immense amounts of free time, but I think this is worth it and I wouldn't mind helping out as much as I can. I would prefer to do tasks content-related rather than tex or coding related, such as review of content, or logic organization of content (which seems to be a big issue in the pre-release). – alozano

Sure! Thanks! I'm adding you to the list (which I am just now making). If you know anyone else who might like to be involved as a content-editor, please refer them to this page. --jcorneli Mon Feb 28 22:55:47 2005 UTC

Thank you! I downloaded the book. Oh boy, this thing is big. :D --alozano

I would also like to help out with the FEM project. Like Alvaro I do not have much free time but I am also willing to help out as much as I can. I would also prefer to do content related tasks. On the internet I am better known as loner. --omasaveu

Oscar - I read a little bit more about you on your homepage. The IRC classes certainly sound interesting - I'd like to know more about them. I'm adding you to the list of associate editors. Please create a user page on this wiki for messages, and sign in when your submit things here next time (see the Policy)! Thanks. The wiki is (for now anyway) our primary means of communication about the FEM. Welcome aboard. --jcorneli Tue Mar 01 23:35:11 2005 UTC

FEM