moved from QuestionsAboutPurpose


Q: Am I on the same page in thinking that you are suggesting we shift some of this 'deeper' discussion onto the wiki (from the OSWorldORG:OSLIST) so that we have an ongoing public record of it? --JustusLewis

A: As for the online discussion, not looking to shift anything. rather, there are things that we cannot work on via the list because there would be too many messages back and forth to too many who don't care about a smaller issue.

the iberian wiki development is a good example. it's good to have the discussion, but oslist is not the place for such a narrow topic. and still, if we have the discussion of questions happen only by individual email, all the learning is lost to the larger community. by having the .net wiki, artur and his team can bring questions and i (and others) can help answer them. then others who might start a wiki later can review those QandA?'s. this example is a bit complicated by the fact that the team discussions are on a separate list in portugues and spanish, but otherwise, the whole thing, project plan through documentation could be sprouted right there in wiki. [Only a small clarification. We are no longer using that list very much. We have set up an Iberian Wiki Dev Page within the Iberian Wiki, and we are using that for team comunication in Portuguese and Spanish and for registering there what has been done and who is doing what at any given moment - this could be interesting to others later, but we will first have to translate it to English someday. We are still using the Iberian Wiki Dev in this wiki only to put you, Michael, the questions we are not able to solve ourselves - ArturSilva]

this is what i will do with the NetSpaceDevelopment? page for work on .net and .org. As you develop your workshop, you can record your progress and evolution and others can follow and comment on your steps. if you do a community os on some big issue, then you can post the proceedings right there on the wiki and follow work can be archived there by your participants. they get a free wiki website facility and we get a full-blown ost story live and in action.

project development, website development, other resource development, community development... these are all things that happen in addition to what happens on the oslist. nothing shifted, though somebody might choose to archive a particularly rich oslist thread into the wiki as a new resource... or might invite postings on the oslist specifically to create such a resource archive. in this way the two feed each other, so no shifting and much potential. --MichaelHerman


Q: I'm not sure what others are thinking about the word "practitioner," but now that I'm paying more attention, I can see how the use of that term in the opening page to this web site serves to create some exclusivity on this site. Seems pretty clear that practitioners (whoever they are) are invited to communicate here, which implies that non-practitioners aren't. That's a chillier approach than the OSLIST, seems to me, where it feels like all comers are welcome anytime. Is the exclusive approach what we want? How do we "know" what we want? How do we know who "we" are? --JulieSmith

A: This site is not the OSLIST, which is for everyone. It is also not OSWorldORG:EnglishHomepage site, which is also for everyone. The opening page of .NET does not even say 'practitioners' though the CallForOnlineLeaders is addressed to 'practitioners.' That is because this site is for practitioners ...it is for them to post the proceedings from their OST events (something only practitioners lead) and also for convening ongoing follow-up and project groups in an OST-informed way. This is specifically a space for practitioners to work AND for them to invite others into for the purposes of working in OST in a more visible way. The organizers of this site are inviting practitioners to invite others. In this way, all are welcome. Once we have more stuff here, the invitation might be made directly to others to surf around and read, but it may or may not make sense for visitors to be directly invited to join whatever projects are going on here. That is likely left to each individual practitioner and workgroup to decide. --MichaelHerman


Q: I really like the OSLIST. I like that everything that gets said comes to all of us at the same time. I like that I don't have to go to a web site and look under a variety of different topics to see what's happening. This structure feels much more cumbersome to me. I don't feel nearly as connected. I understand that this can be a place to post things about workshops and such, and that makes sense. What I don't really understand is how this is better than the OSLIST as a forum for discussion and learning about OST. --JulieSmith

A: It's not better than the OSLIST. Nor does it replace it. It is different. The OSLIST supports ongoing conversation. This supports working together on projects, which move at a much different pace and bring their own depth of connection. This is not meant to be a conversation. It's meant to be a living archive of various projects and conferences. Individual projects can be developed here with the results announced on the OSLIST, rather than every little communication passing through that list, burdening project and non-project participants alike with a flurry of detailed emails. Here, small changes, additions, comments, questions can be accumulated and addressed, with the most current state of the project always immediately available and most recent past versions also accessible for those who wish to see how we got to a certain point. --MichaelHerman

A: Comparing the online world to an OST event... The OSLIST is the big circle, evening and morning news. The .ORG site is the proceedings document, the cream of all that we've done. And this space is the breakout sessions. All of the events and projects that we work on are breakout sessions, of course, snipets of which are reported on the OSLIST, in the big circle. But this space is for making those previously invisible things visible. For example, previously "where does the website come from?" was invisible. Now it is becoming visible, as I post all my notes about development here and invite others to participate. But even if it's still only me working it out, if i post this session and nobody else comes to work with me, i can still do my work and document my thinking for others who will come later on. And, thinking about the differences between this space and the OSLIST, notice that blurting out some idea in the middle of a news circle and posting/hosting a discussion group on that idea are two very different things. This space is for posting topics, working things out, whole conference proceedings, etc... it's deeper space, for longer postings, longer lasting postings, and can hold and invite much more responsibility on the part of those who would play here.

.....oh, well, you should have SAID so! Playing is my favorite thing of all! :) JulieSmith