[FM Discuss] wikimania and foo part II

[adam hyde]

ok...phew...i was off the plane from foo, straight to a wedding, and now
back after a much needed day watching 6 straight episodes of the
sopranos...

now, back to bees knees...

wikimania continued...After Erik Moeller I saw a great presentation
about student authored texts by (I forget their first names) P. Baker
and D. Allen (I think)...anyways...names aside...they were really very
interesting although I was to discover later that they are running some
kind of (slightly) cheesy business off their ideas which didn't quite
sit well with the wholesomeness of their presentation...I might be being
too harsh maybe...also, there was a certain lack of clarity about
licensing of their 'platform', but more on this later...

in essence these guys have been working with students since 2006, using
wikibooks to create student authored textbooks. essentially the students
spend 3 weeks writing chapters for a textbook they will use for the rest
of the semester. each chapter is assigned to 3 students, each of which
writes their own standalone version of this chapter. there is no, as far
as i could tell, collaboration in writing the chapters (although I
imagine this occurs behind the scenes) but rather, students are set up
in competition, the 'winner' of which has their version of the chapter
included in the textbook.

i wasnt so keen on the competitive component, but i did like the more
general idea that students write, and then use, the textbook

some notes i made on the process:
* the textbooks are outlined by the teachers, and written by the
students
* the textbook becomes the primary textbook for the course
* the highest rated (by other students) text gets included
* a chapter is 500 - 1000 words
* they have to include a sidebar to illustrate a point
* they need to incorporate assessment questions
* 5 references must be included (2 popular, 2 academic, 1 of either
type)
* the text is written in wikibooks (mediawiki)
* outlines are included in each chapter
* articles have a number of criteria that they are rated on


so...they talked a lot about their experience and how students found the
exercise. Interestingly, some of the students freak out because they
just cannot adjust to this model - they expect 'authorised' works and
the teacher to be the authority and not 'merely' a guide...many students
become very confident during the process, much more (in their opinion)
than in 'traditional' teaching processes. Some students become so
enthusiastic they become critiques of the platform and then there is a
lot of time battling 'feature creep' (suggestions for new software
features). The teachers found that there is a lot more 'hand holding'
required through this process than teaching from a published textbook.
They also found that this process exposed the fragile nature of the idea
of what a 'credible source' is...I found this point to be very
interesting...

the teachers have found that there is a lot of ground that needed to be
navigated between the open writing process and the rather closed and
rigid nature of universities themselves...

The textbook is in its 13th 'edition'...the teachers believe that since
they have gone down this path they need to find a new definition for
'textbook'...they believe textbooks are not to be written for mass
audiences, but should be niche orientated....they like also to focus on
material that is easily adapted, over material that is widely adapted (a
vote for open licenses perhaps?), also wikitextbooks are never out of
date (if maintained as part of the coursework),....they also believe
they need to change students expectations..the wikitextbook engaged
students more, and there has been an unexpected and noticable pride of
authorship, also the students have an increased sophistication in
critiquing textbooks

in the presenters minds (and I can see their point) the idea of a
credible source really comes under the hammer. since its not possible to
call a group of students 'a credible source' yet the work is good, then
the idea of credibility in text book authoring falls apart. however, the
view of the teachers is that credibility should be attached to the
process, not the product (interesting)

their new project, funded by some big US funder, is wittieproject.org

i think its some kind of extension to mediawiki to improve the usability
of the platform for their purposes. on this point - i got some very
mixed messages about the openness (license) of the development. i think
they are saying it is open but its not really, but i could be wrong

next up i went to see Florence Devouard (ex chair of the wikimedia
foundation) speak. Florence has always seemed very community orientated,
and strong on her views about wikipedia remaining as open as possible
but still needing to be pragmatically managed. the point of her talk
today was about wikimedia usability but i just couldnt get into it,
maybe it was the jet lag

so...i went to a nice vege restaurant that night then went to bed very
early

day two...

jimmy wales, wikipedia founder, hit the stage with a quiet and
interesting presentation. it was titled' the state of the wiki' but it
was actually about (surprise) the state of wikipedia. I actually find
the slight misrepresentation of the topic in the title in itself quiet
illuminating.

so...this talk was mainly about all things wikipedia, and built on the
recurrent theme about what are they going to do now that there are
'just' 100,000 'editors'...ok...some facts...

* there are (in wikipedia) 13 million articles in 271 languages
* there are 17 million pages
* 330 million visitors monthly
* 100,000 active contributors
* 50 books published on all things wikipedia
* august 05 there was 73 languages, august 08 156 languages, and august
09 - 177 languages
* lowest wikipedia population is in china

some notes from jimmy points :
* there has been a low down in uptake in new languages, 
* most languages 'take off' after 3-4 years
* is the leveling-off of contributors due to wikipedia being too geeky
or not welcoming?
* what is the target market?
* there are a large number of reverted edits - is this wikipedia being
too unfriendly? or is the content crap?
* what emphasis should be placed on endangered languages?
what emphasis should be placed on languages whose population also speak
a larger, more popular language (eg. Maori)

Jimmy then invited everyone to participate in these discussions via the
wikimedia foundations strategy wiki : strategy.wikimedia.org

so...coffee, then i checked out the program and it looked a little
boring for the rest of the morning, so i went to the lightening talks.
these are 5 min talks given by anyone on anything they want to talk
about. its good to go to because they are full of new people trying to
jump onto the radar. so, i put FM down to do one and talked for 5 mins
about book sprints...i got a lot of +ve response and I think I attracted
a few new members

in the afternoon i attended and extended lunch, then ran off to see Mako
(Benjamin Mako Hill) talk about the state of wikimedia scholarship. It
was a great talk, but my mind was too fried from a crazy travel
itinerary. I did meet up with Mako later however and drink some good
Malbec :)

In the afternoon I saw Naoko Komura present about the usability of
mediawiki. If I understand her right, its not very usable ;) I think you
can learn alot about her experiments from usability.wikimedia.org (they
are testing new skins there etc).

That was the last session, i went to dinner with a few people and then
hit the Malbec, and then practices the presentation I would give the
next day with my co-presenters Melanie and Shun-ling


The last morning was us! wohooo! Shun-ling Chen, Melanie Dulong de
Rosnay, and me talking about how copyright is boring and no longer
useful. I posted the notes to the talk I gave to the list before the
event so I won't elaborate here. I hope I can also convince Melanie and
Shun-ling to post their notes here too...there was very much good
feedback from this talk. I also met, immediately after, fellow FM-er
Yaco, who is in Buenos Aires and came along to wikimania so we could
meet. It was cool to meet Yaco, and he gave me a Mate cup with FLOSS
Manuals engraved on the side!!! :) I will post a photo of the cup to the
FM blog, but I think at the very least this should be our communal mate
cup for book sprints :)

then Yaco and I walked a little around the city for an hour and talked
about many things free culture-ish including FM and the SELF platform. 

I returned in the afternoon to do a talk with Frank Schulenburg. Frank
is part of the Wikimedia Foundation and he is doing some documentation
and education projects and so he invited me (on the 2nd day) to share
the stage with him. It was very nice of him and at the end of the
presentation Frank invited me to host a Book Sprint for the
foundation...lets see how that goes :)

and that was wikimania...I made many good contacts, and renewed old
ones. I hope the invitation by Frank will being something
interesting...while in Buenos Aires I also managed to interest some very
nice locals in FM and they will begin translating soon i hope!

ok...next, i took a taxi to the airport, and flew to san francisco. 15
hours later, with little sleep, i hired a car at the airport and drove 3
hours north to Sebastapol, the home of OReilly and the
'foocamp'...arriving on the first morning, shaggy, unshowered, unshaved,
and less than awake...

still, i was determined to make the most of it...foocamp, for those that
dont know, stands for 'Friends Of OReilly' - camp. i didnt know much
about it except 2 good friends had told me they had been invited but
turned down the invitations due to the exclusive nature of the event. It
apparently is some kind of 'a-list' techosphere schmooze but in tents. I
was completely unaware of all this, coming very unprepared (not even
bringing a tent and slept in the car that night...ugh)...I think i was
invited because I presented at the Tools of Change in NYC. TOC is a
OReilly event about the changing nature of publishing, and I did a 5 min
lightening talk there this year. At the end, seated amongst the 25
audience members, there was Tim OReilly - founder and owner of OReilly
media. I went up to him and gave him a copy of "How to Bypass Internet
Censorship' and in return he said he should invite me to foo. I thought
he had forgotten, but perhaps not...also, weirdly, whenever I mentioned
I was going, often people would say 'oh! but thats interesting! as FM is
the competition!' (to OReilly)...weird...are we really? i don't think
so...i'd be interested in anyone elses thoughts on this, as the point
was made 3 or 4 times but i still don't see it

anyways...so there i was...more millionaires per square meter than
moscow, and all looking kinda shabby, but alas, not as shabby as i.

so, first up...coffee...then red eyed to see a nice easy talk about
kindle hacking...phew...Jesse Vincent gave this talk, and his brain is
enormous. i couldnt keep up on one coffee alone but it was extremely
interesting. Essentially Jesse is hacking the kindle to see whats up,
and trying various hacks. The kindle is basically a linux box, but it
does all sorts of strange things...if you dont know, amazon can delete
any content from your kindle _remotely_ and also the operating system
automagically updates as well...famously there was a mass deletion
of...1984...(can you believe it)...

so...the kindle is not the free culture advocates friend, but
thankfully, jesse is...and hes working hard to free the platform from
the long fingers of amazons DRM protection (etc)...

next i went to something about how publishers determine what books are
to be written. i dont know. it was too 'inhouse' for me...i didnt know
who the famous author was, and i didnt get their point - something about
how books should be written for people (duh)...was i just too tired or
was this just weirdly convoluted? no idea, but it didnt make much sense
to me. I had the feeling I had just come out of the jungle and
discovered a crumbling civilisation - one that spoke the same language
but all the concepts were untranslatable

so, i actually thought perhaps i should try and understand this point of
view, and i made it a point to attend discussions that might give me an
insight on how the publishing industry works. 

by the way, foo is deliberately informal. there is an open schedule -
anyone can put their name on the board to talk about whatever they like.
i put up my name to talk about Book Sprints.

Anyways...next event was called 'Happiness Hacks'. I thought it might be
more publishing insights...OReilly has a book series called 'hacks' and
maybe this was about how to improve it or something...i dont know...so I
turned up, one of 6 people. I sat in the circle...hellos all
round...then the discussion...it turned out to be some kind of west
coast IT group therapy session (oops! only 6 people! i cant escape!).
The first high profile personage that i didnt know talked about the
problems of being a high profile personage. well, actually they were the
4th high profile personage and only really talked about it by being
asked by an (apparently) high profile start up CEO about "did being in
the public eye create an expectation by friends that you would not have
any time for them"...i dont know...i dont want to be mean, so i will
cease my critique...suffice to say i felt very weird...my
'offering' (happiness hack) to the group was to say i am very happy now
I dont have a net connection at my home...they looked at me like i was
an alien...

next next next....i walked into a discussion about the Google Book
Settlement...first person I see is Tim OReilly he said (quote) "Hi! who
are you!"...it was very friendly, but I guess he must have forgotten he
invited me ;) ...also, by the way, a hacker friend (who shall remain
unnamed) spent the evening making his own name tag as he wasnt
invited...he even gave a presentation and then thanked Tim personally
for inviting him...

the Google Book Settlement was very interesting...way to dense to relay
here...but essentially, Google scanned a whole lot of books, now the
rights holders are represented in a 'class a suit' against google and
google, rather than going to the wall at $150,000 per violation settled
out of court...the result being that all rights holders can now get a
little money from google, but google can commercialise their
books...this is even more whacky than it sounds...the implication being,
that because google violated copyrights, and because the joined suitors
was meant to be 'all book rights holders', then googles settlement
applies to everyone..so google now has the right to do what they want
with all books..i would appreciate it if anyone can explain this more
completely...it was far to dense a legal discussion for me...it was
interesting to see Brewster Kahle there (Founder of archive.org) who has
a much bigger picture of the issue but his point of view generated a lot
of friction in the oreilly crew...anyways....my presentation was meant
to be in this same room at the end of this discussion, but the
discussion ran over time so i moved mine to the next day...

while at foo i met with Leslie Hawthorn from Google (summer of Code).
Leslie saw to it that the Ogg Theora sprint was sponsored and she also
helped with the Inkscape Sprint. I gave Leslie a hand-bound (by Cara,
the FM book binder) copy of the Theora book as a thank you (I will post
photos of the book) and we had a good talk. It might be that we do a
sprint with google about their summer of code...Leslie will get back to
me about it..Leslie (who is a big fan of FM) also said quite directly to
me (and I appreciate her directness) "I dont want you to take this the
wrong way, but I dont know why you were invited". I didn't take it the
wrong way, and it reinforced my own slight bemusement

so...i slept the night in the car. ugh...then up next to do my
presentation...2 people turned up...the head engineer of OReilly and Tim
OBrien (an OReilly writer). I talked about Book Sprints and Tim got it
immediately. He was so excited that he went around introducing me to
people for the rest of the morning. Tim is a really cool guy. He also
introduced me to Ingy who is a coder that I really hope we can involve
in Booki. 

Tim did such a good job promoting FM to people I didnt know, that at the
end Tim OReilly, in his thank you speech. name checked FM - we were the
only organisation he mentioned in fact...weird days...

i also went to a discussion (all events at foo are discussions, its
kinda like a unconference format) about 'reimagining the book'. It was
hosted by someone else from OReilly (I cant remember who). I was a
little frustrated - it seems to me that the point is not to reimagine
the book, but to reimagine the entire industry...so the conversation
seemed a little ponderous to me...i said a few things about
collaborative content creation but I'm not sure anyone got the point.

At the end Jesse (kindle hacker) came up and said he loved FM :)

so, lastly, Brewster Khale came up at the end and we started talking
about how to host FM material in archive.org...then we started talking
about Booki, and then he got so excited he invited me to meet with him
and the coding crew of archive.org the next day...this was a great
meeting and an announcement about the outcome will follow shortly...

so, i then drove to my crappy airport hotel, slept the fourth night of 9
in a bed while on this brief and crazy FM promo tour...

the next night I went to town with my NZ buddys Adam and Zita. We
brought lots of mexican herbs and spices (I have a great mexican cooking
book but i cant get all the herbs they mentioned in berlin) and then
then drank a few margaritas and i flew out early the next morning...

...it was a short trip, but extremely productive...watch for more
news...

adam














-- 
Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals
German mobile : + 49 15 2230 54563
Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
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