Noosphere contains as its core feature a section called the "encyclopedia". It consists of interlinked expository entries, written in LaTeX. However, it appears that "encyclopedia" is a poor name for this thing. The key reasons are that Noosphere supports knowledge communities, which are much more than "an encyclopedia", and that even "the encyclopedia" itself isn't much like what is classically envisioned when people use this term.
Some ways in which the general site/software isn't an encyclopedia:
Some ways in which "the encyclopedia" really isn't:
Initially I thought there would be little to no harm in co-opting this term to define Noosphere's main section. However, now I think it is causing serious harm, because it seems to be limiting and altering people's conceptions of what Noosphere should be and what activity should take place within Noosphere sites.
I think the best thing to do is simply re-name the section. Here are some starter ideas:
I am leaning toward "knowledge base", since it is pretty clear that knowledge in some form is being stored in some other form, yet there is little restriction on either the type of knowledge or its format. Variants with the term "network", I think, lead to confusion with computer networks. And of course, "noosphere" is a nice way to describe a shared concept space, but there is potential for confusion with the software itself, and reducing this abstract term to a specific manifestation is unwieldy. Also, "noos" is hard to say and cumbersome =)
What do you think? Please help! A good name is important for both understanding and promotion!
"Knowledge Base", to me, typically means something that is computer-friendly. But PM is human friendly. Even "concept network" is stretching it as a name for the resource (though as a way to think about the resource it could be just fine).
I personally think that "Encyclopedia" is a fine name for the part of the site that is currently called "Encyclopedia". In terms of "publicity" stuff, I think you are quite right that discussion of the special advantages of Noosphere and PM are in order.
But I think people accept the "Encyclopedia" aspect of PM as an Encyclopedia – which I think it is. The special and "extra" things about PM are not an encyclopedia.
So, I would suggest focus on describing these features, which do, or anyway, should, describe the site as a whole. No "Encyclopedia" that I know of has papers, books, expositions and traditional articles all linked together – and this seems to be something that would "go beyond" the meaning of the word "Encyclopedia" more than any of the things you cited (to my sensibilities).
If you extend what happens in the encyclopedia to the rest of the site, the result might well need a new name.
I kind of like "hyperpedia" - and this could, I think, describe the expanded document. But then you'd have both an Encyclopedia and a Hyperpedia, and that might be confusing for some.
Personally, I guess I think that "Encyclopedia" is a fine name for that section… and if anything needs more description, it might be Nöosphere. (Of course, we could call the encyclopedia a "Noeopedia" – which would be accurate and rather nice, but unfortunately, people might get scared by all those vowels.)
Anyway… I think the features are what are important, much more so than the name. If the BPE was revised, then I think we could call the whole thing a "Digital Library" and call the Encycopedia the "Reference Section" ;). --jcorneli Wed Apr 27 03:45:36 2005 UTC
I agree, The Encyclopaedia on PlanetMath (w. capital E) is a good name. The average user will talk about Planetmath, anyway. Anyone who vists will get the idea. The only disadvantage is that it is a long name and difficult to spell (greek). On the other hand, exactly that might give it a more "authority". --matte 27 April 2005
I agree with Aaron that the choice of name has psychological implications and that choosing a novel name can help people to think outside the box. While the term encyclopaedia is a reasonable term to describe what is found there insofar as it is an attempt to account for the whole of mathematical knowledge, unforunately the term suggests that this website is meant to be like already existing encyclopaedias in other ways as well.
However, this work differs in two fundamental ways: 1. While conventional encyclopaedias are linearly ordered, this work is organized in a more complicated way using hyperlinks. (In particular, the traditional linear order is an option, but definitely not the only way of viewing the work.) 2. While conventional encyclopedias are static, this work is dynamic.
These differences are primarily due to the nature of media. Condition 1 is imposed by the nature of ink-on-paper writing (and is ultimately a relection of the linear nature of spoken language) but is lifted by computerized hypertext. To be sure, one can include cross-references, but these still require the reader to turn the page, so do not go quite as far as their electronic counterparts. Condition 2 is imposed in a rather sever form by the nature of printing. It takes a large effort to typeset a book and this effort is only worthwhile if hundreds of copies are to be printed and there is no practical way to make changes once the typesetting is under way other than adding errata slips. Thus one must regard works to be printed as essentially static. However, with computers, one can easily type in changes on an ongoing basis. As long as backups are available, there is little danger in this practise.
Unfortunately, after 500 years of printing, the results of these limitations of the technology have become so familiar that people take the them for granted as the way things are done and it takes a considerable mental effort to unlearn these habits of thought and make full use of the capabilities which hypertext offers. Sticking to the terminology of the printed era can reinforce this mental inertia and make it harder for people to realize that the constraints which were imposed by earlier technology no longer exist. Using new terms alerts people to the fact that something is radically different and helps break up outdated thought patterns by not reinforcing existing associations.
As Joe points out, simply changing terms will do nothing — there certainly are enough cases of stale old wine in new bottles (or in the same bottles with different labels). In fact, if one does not make an effort to make something new, new terminology can be downright misleading. However, I do not see that being the case here. Rather, what Planet Math has to offer is fundamentally different from a printed encyclopaedia, but people are having a hard time adjusting to the new features. One sees users semi-consciously perpetuating practises from the world of print which are no longer relevant here. The parable of the monastery cat which Drini once suggested is relevant here.
My proposal for a new name would be "Tree of Mathematical Knowledge". The rationale behind this proposal is that it emphasizes the new features. The term "tree" suggests a non-linear branched structure which is how Planet math is organized. A tree is a living organism which grows and changes, suggesting the dynamic nature of this resource. --rspuzio 27 April 2005
Oooh, the "tree" idea is really neat. I see it being shortened in places to "knowledge tree" or "math knowledge tree". I'll add this to the list. --akrowne Wed Apr 27 19:45:31 UTC 2005
I don't like the "tree" idea. IMO, knowledge isn't very tree-like - and, less metaphysically, the idea that PM is organized as a tree is misleading. "Web" might be somewhat better than tree.
But it also seems potentially misleading to say that PM is a <anything> of knowledge, because it doesn't contain "pure knowledge"; it simply contains writing (in hypertext, but so what?).
There is no law that says you can't have a "hypertext encyclopedia", just like there is no law that says you can't have a "hieroglyphic encyclopedia" or a "filmic encyclopedia". When thinking about names, my advice is to avoid getting caught get caught up in what words usually denote, and think instead about their etymologies. Etymologically, "encyclopedia" seems to work fine - and indeed, it seems like a good goal for PM's encyclopedia to become more "encyclopedic".
More interesting to me than the debate over the name would be some of the questions that it raises. For example:
--jcorneli Wed Apr 27 21:14:54 2005 UTC
I agree that "web" would be a bit more accurate, but there is the practical matter that this term has been co-opted, and for a confusingly close context.
Actually, "web" doesn't really express the "living" nature that "tree" does, and I think this is a useful aspect of PM to highlight.
I don't agree what you said about thinking of etymologies all the time. Etymologies are obscure things that normal people should be able to get by entirely without (I'm not denying that they can sometimes come in handy, though). For typical use of language, one should only need context and semantics.
Besides, to command people to switch to an etymological interpretation is to argue that "the world is wrong", not us. That is a battle that is not worth fighting.
What it comes down to, I think, is whether it would be more clear to re-define "encyclopedia" or to come up with a new term. Both will be semantically laborious to some extent, but I think "encyclopedia" is somewhat jarring.
Your questions are good, but here are some simple answers:
Finally, I have a problem with your point about the "pure knowledge" vs. "mere writing" distinction. I think this blurs a useful distinction between information and information which is written and encoded for ease of learning. And I think the hypertext is one of our extra-encyclopedic features that facilitates the learning of PM, hardly a "so what". In fact, I'd say that there is a profound similarity between knowledge in-people's-heads and external information which is highly organized and integrated. In a sense, this is just what your brain does with information that makes it "true" knowledge. I think knowledge bases like PM (beneficially) exert effort to do something similar.
--akrowne Thu Apr 28 00:19:54 UTC 2005
And maybe "education community" would work – getting back to a point you made earlier to me (by email). But "knowledge community" is also good. (And it spreads the weight evenly over knowledge creation, knowledge exposure, knowledge assimilation, etc., all of which are part of PM, I think.) "Knowledge ecosystem" or "information ecosystem" would also describe the living nature of the site (and probably do a better job than "tree" in certain respects).
As for the "pure knowledge" vs. "writing" issue, what I'd say is that no written resource can become pure knowledge; it will always be "writing" - but that doesn't make it "mere". ("And God said, let there be light, and there was light.")
I objected to "knowledge base" because traditionally, knowledge bases are actionable in some sense. I think PM is on its way to becoming actionable, and hypertext helps, clearly, but it does not suffice. I also think PM is becoming increasingly well written, and increasingly oriented towards ease of learning. But I don't think I would call it a "knowledge base" until we have software that actually uses it as a knowledge base. (It is a fluke of tradition that having people use it as a knowledge base "doesn't count"; etymology alone would probably say that the usage is fine.)
As for "the world is wrong" - maybe I just don't spend much time thinking about what the world thinks. If the world thinks that an encyclopedia is something that one finds on a (dusty) shelf in the reference section of a library, OK. Maybe they are wrong. Maybe not. Does it matter?
It is my opinion that PM's encyclopedia is an encyclopedia, and a good (and increasingly good) one at that. Am I wrong? Does it matter?
(You may also find "dictionary" in HDM to be jarring. In this case, I enjoy taking the old word and giving it new life in a new context. If it ends up making people think twice about "what is a dictionary?" then I'll probably be happy. Indeed, "HDM" is designed to confuse people & make them think twice or thrice or more.)
The "world-of-print habit" of requiring agreement might not be so bad. E.g., it might be good that APM-Xi isn't in the PM encyclopedia. (Here, however, I think that the relevant way to improve PM is already understood, and is fairly high tech: make parallel collections.)
In general, we need to work on making both technology and culture that further the goals we have for the site. (And culture may be just another technology.) Using aposite words to describe the site and portions thereof would have some cultural benefits. But let's not lose sight of the forest for the trees :). --jcorneli Thu Apr 28 03:16:18 2005 UTC
OK, how 'bout this idea to describe PM: "Learning community". This captures the things I like about "education community" w/o some of the stuff I don't like, and it has a good bilingual (English-Greek) pun, in that "mathematics" is "learning", and finally, it can also be said "community of learning", which is, I think, an idiom of sorts. See http://www.princeton.edu/~cbli/ for "Community Based Learning Initiative", and http://www.virginialearning.org/index2.htm for "Virgina's Community of Learning". --jcorneli
You can call PM "learning community" if you like. But I started this page to discuss what to call the encyclopedia section, not the entire site. Getting back to that, you may have a point as to "knowledge base" typically being actionable. I didn't think this was a requirement or expectation, but this is at least an empirical question. On the other hand, I like "knowledge tree" even more, so its not really a relevant question.
Oh by the way, when I explain HDM to people, I call it a database, not a dictionary (sorry??). I think they understand it much better for it and it makes it easier for me to explain. But I do always mention that the precise form of the acronym isn't important. --akrowne Thu Apr 28 15:26:46 UTC 2005
OK, I think I just might call PM a "learning community", so watchout!
I can't really argue about "knowledge tree" any more. (I've designated http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/Tree.html as my proxy for any further discussion of this term.)
You can call HDM a database, I don't mind that (because it is accurate). In the past, I myself have substituted "database" for "knowledge base", to the dismay of some AI people who feel that there is a big/important difference. But I don't think the difference is so important.
To me, "dictionary" seems to be a beautiful term to use – the idea of a structure that explains the meaning of every contained term & concept is exactly what I'm after. The possibility for unlimited refactoring, and self-explanatory text at any level is implicit (for me) in the conjunction of "hyperreal" and "dictionary".
I'm sure one could raise the same objections against "dictionary" that I've been raising against "tree" or you've been raising against "encyclopedia" – namely that the datastructure is wrong. But my thought is that it isn't: a dictionary is not a lookup-table, it is a hypertextual document (even if it appears in print form) that, at least in theory, reduces a lexicon – or even a whole language – by a more or less complex process, to its fundamental defining terms, whatever those may be, and also provides some useful "ideational landmarks" on the way up or down. Sure, your day-to-day English dictionary may do a somewhat crummy job at this, but we're only human, after all - and the better dictionaries do a pretty good job! The idea of a dictionary is a very powerful thing, but the power has yet to be completely realized in any existing implementation. (Accordingly, I do think that if you say "database" to describe HDM, you should also say "together with tools for interacting with the database", because this is where most of the "power" lies.)
But - yes - back to the "encyclopedia": just like HDM makes "transformative use" of the term "dictionary", I think that PM can (and does) make transformative use of the term "encyclopedia". If I was to take PM's use of the term & try to come up with a synonym, I think I'd start with
PM Encyclopedia : HDM ::~ text : code
In other words, the PM Encyclopedia is expository text, whereas HDM is just code (which may at some point be used for generating expository text, via some of as-yet-unwritten "tools"). If dictionaries are code for understanding written text, then perhaps the proposed analogy says that encyclopedias contain text to be understood. If HDM is a "database", "codebase", or "knowledgebase", then maybe the PM encyclopedia is a "textbase". Another more common term for this is "library" – but an encyclopedia is different from a library in that the former summarizes and overviews things you might find in the full library. If I'm allowed to use one of my favorite "Joeisms", then I might say that PM Encylopedia is a "summary-overview of mathematics". But what is this? Perhaps the best word is SYNOPTICON – like Carr's "Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics", or like the Synopticon described here
Indeed, at one point I thought about using this term to describe HDM - but that was before I really understood the concept of a map covering the territory.
So, we've reach base camp in our ascent; to summit, we'll need an appropriate modifier.
X : PM synopticon ::~ hyperreal : HDM dictionary
Well, at first blush, this seems not too difficult: we can supply "collaborative" (like the GCIDE) or go one step further and use "commons" like in "commons-based peer production". If you want a neologism, how about "synopticommons"? But IMO, the PM Collaborative Synopticon of Mathematics is a little better. You could also use the PM Common Synopticon of Mathematics -- nice, because like the "D" in "HDM", people have some options about how to interpret the acronym. --jcorneli Thu Apr 28 17:43:19 2005 UTC
Or PM Common/Collaborative Synopsis of Mathematics (which may have a bit of a better flow than Common/Collaborative Synopticon). --jcorneli Thu Apr 28 17:57:53 2005 UTC
But "synopticon" rolls off the tongue better - you can just say, the "PM Synopticon" and people would know what you were talking about (more or less). --jcorneli Thu Apr 28 22:51:59 2005 UTC