Heh, heh, heh … it looks like all the bookworms are crawling out of the woodwork, and I mean that in the most admiring way. (Hey, look at the “logo” from my very first website, “Bookworm’s Study” ).
While it is getting more difficult to find exactly what you’re looking for, I must admit that the search function is not the worst one I’ve ever used. I don’t know if Boolean operators are possible (are they, Marco @madrush?) , but it is one way – at least for now – to get a better handle on everything that’s going on. As you point out, and as become clear to me setting up base pages for specific cafe sessions, the linking feature is also quite helpful.
I think the question you (and certainly @Geoffreyjen_Edwards) are asking, at least in part, is whether there is a way to add keywords to pages (or threads) that would help with the searching as well.
Or let me ask somewhat facetiously whether there’s a bot onboard that is going to take care of the indexing?
I think I will take a leave of absence from this thread and take care of some neglected tasks. I might miss the event tomorrow as I have a lot to do but I will tune into the video when it becomes available. I’m sure there are many creative mix ups starting to happen and I will watch developments from afar and maybe go back to Facebook for awhile. We learn through contrasts.
LOL. Yeah, definitely Dewey decimal logic going on in this head…
But I was thinking more of a “homepage” which lays out the ‘library’ more so than finding threads. Of which there aren’t really all that many here… yet. The library idea is simply organizational; I hope the abundance of thought will only grow.
And then again, I may not be giving the AI librarian the same benefit of the doubt I’m currently giving Sloterdijk, which would be a dictionary definition of ‘unfair’…
The books on the shelves of my study are arranged more or less according to Dewey. (My youngest daughter actually has her books labeled with Dewey numbers … as the Germans say, the apple doesn’ t fall far from the tree. I think it’s just a Virgo Rising thing.)
[And speaking of bots : I have the InfiniteCoversations Miss-Manners bot alerting me, even as I write, that I should let others join the conversation … tsk, tsk.]
Every once in a while, just to see if I might be missing anything important, and am amazed at just how long the site’s homepage is. I guess you’re suggesting that there could be “homepages” for, say, Reading groups and Cafe sessions, etc.? That might be something to think about, but site management – especially the technical side of it – can get really time-consuming really quickly. In that case, it is something that needs to be thought about hard, that’s for sure.
If one gives neither of them the benefit of the doubt, does that then count as “fair”?
We are definitely going to have to code a @johnbot now. But don’t worry; we won’t make it our librarian. In fact, we could see to it that it has all the madness, death, and fornication it wants. Pity the algorithms…
I delight in voicing a concern and seeing the discussion that emerges and the quite good ideas that get generated (even if no clear synthesis or shared conclusions emerge yet). I hope to see more of this: surfacing that which we sense and inviting reflection. Furthermore, I want to find ways that people can tangibly try any suggestion they generate for a solution–especially if that happens in a “sandboxed” way so overall functionality doesn’t change until we’ve troubleshot a satisfying solution. For instance: what of the above thread could be gleaned as something we might “test out” and evaluate for how it meets the needs identified (e.g., “keeping organized”). John’s suggestion of “And how does this discussion relate to the theme of [topic sentence]?” is great example of a lightweight technology (in the form of a habit we could adopt [the act of asking of that question]) to help better weave the divergent threads (overall I so appreciate John’s rich toolbox of light yet powerful interventions like this!) A bot or trained participants who can help “organize the beast” is another tack. Another is training ALL our participants with skillful use of this forum and its features, so they can more robustly build their own preferred systems for managing such concerns. (And more no one has yet thought of–or spoken up about–too!)
As Marco echoed, my main worry is on attention strain. The more content and the more divergent the content, the less someone who 1) comes in later, 2) has less time, 3) has equal desire to participate, will be able to orient and influence the conversation, which often manifests in the unspoken sense that they don’t have equal “permission” to take up space or affect influence here. Those who take up space are obviously brilliant and beautiful, and seem to be getting the most out of the Cosmos community thus far indeed! But only to note that our taking up of space is not neutral, and that we have hardly any norms among us yet about how to use the forum (such as for rotating voices, soliciting quiet voices, self-managing our threads)–we only have the raw deployment of the utility: compose a post (whereever and however you wish), and hit the “Reply” button.
The forum, by architecture, constrains and enables certain outcomes, and I’m not even sure that in the forum or through its configuration these concerns can be addressed–perhaps different structural interfaces and utilities will enhance diverse types of participation and better enable distributed participation. Like Ed envisions about the organic forming of “quieter” or differently paced groups, with time and according to need. Even if social norms are openly known and practiced with regard to utilizing the forum, I imagine that some people will never feel comfortable in forum-type conversation as their preferred method, nor that any “general” norms we evolve will suffice for every setting of diverse cohorts on Cosmos. Effectively, those who don’t prefer the forum of “the forum” to communicate, won’t do so–and IF this is our only method of communicating, sense-making and decision-making system-wide, then that’s, obviously, an issue. Beyond implementing agreed-upon constraints on using the forum: more sophisticated collaboration tools than just this forum may, eventually, be needed.
Of course conversations must become divergent before they can reach a rich synthesis in convergence–and this entire experiment is rooted in a mass mutual “sensing” and responding scenario. I appreciate that I am able to voice concerns and noticings/sensings (without any implicit or explicit need for immediate resolution), and the group responds with listening, considering, “chewing”/“digesting” the idea, throwing out some options and perspectives, and…
the “and…” is a feature I do appreciate of the forum, even though it can frustrate me at times. That it can go anywhere next from here, shaped by our participation in the form of original responses. Like being immersed in creative process itself: it’s exhilirating to never know what will happen next.
I just thought of one option for managing the flow of conversation on the forum that has pertinence to the Key Docs project. So, in the next batch of Key Docs, there will be some prelimary content–the sketchings of a vague outline of what we envision/desire–and there will be a great many “spurs” or “spinoff points,” such as Big Questions, points of further research/inquiry, etc. I’ll use the Key Docs as the example to illustrate what I’m thinking, but I’d be curious to hear your reflections on whether this could be useful in deep philosophical discussions as well…
To tie in with exploring the “questions before assumptions” norm/theme: What if each question in the text is viewed as a discrete forkable point, wherein a link would be created of the question to another forum thread page where responses, answers or reflections about that specific question could be registered? This is kind of like the “hide text” function (within a comment) that Doug brought up–it effectively conceals the “spinoff” on those questions, allowing a party to choose whether to read or respond to those spinoffs in constructing his/her understanding of the main topic. A question, or sub-thread, may receive many responses, or just a few… it can be a way to quickly rank and gauge shared perception (such as a “Do you experience this? Y/N” poll) or as expansive as forming the grounds for a long-term working group (such as “Should we have a policy of leveraging dispersed computing in powering the Cosmos system?” As a result of creating spin-off spaces that maintain the key linkage with their relevant topics, the “main” or “mother” thread’s comments could be reserved for “synthesis” or “meta” comments that try to move progress on the main issue forward. Thus keeping the “channeling” (as TJ said) suitably tight for enabling high productivity and generativity of conversations.
As a cultural pattern it would involve 1) Posing a question, 2) immediately linking the question to a separate discussion space, 3) developing comfort with, and the habit of, navigating from the main thread to sub threads and the sub threads to main thread smoothly while reading/responding to/of a conversation.
Feedback on this as a method for the Key Docs, and for other applications in the forum?
If we knew, it would be algorithmic, not human. There’s nothing more human, to my mind, than never knowing what will happen next. It’s a small price to pay for the freedom to choose.
Keeping organized when one is in the midst of, if not generating, chaos (a natural consequence of trying to do something new) is always a challenge, but there’s only so much one can do. But, believe me, a whole lot of organization is self-organizing. Water finds its own level, and we don’t need to be digging irrigation ditches or canals in the meantime. Issues, real issues, need to be addressed, but none ever have to be “identified”. Real issues make themselves more than known more quickly that anyone would like.
And my last point, if you will indulge me: no one here is taking up space. The awesome beauty of the virtual world is that it is space-free (aspatial). Anyone who comes in whenever they come in will only find that which is there, no more and no less. Anyone who wants to participate will find their space, their niche, to do so. Anyone who wants to get in the mix will find whatever time they have on their terms to do so. That is the true wonder of virtual spaces in virtual time. What is more, any norms that are to be true guiding and worthwhile norms can never be determined, let alone even identified, before the fact. You can have all the guidelines, rules, and norms you want, but in the end, the people who are doing will determine what is “obeyed” and what is simply ignored.
I think you (and I) want to see a place develop in which everyone who is here feels safe, comfortable, welcome and productive. That’s an ideal. That happens when everyone who is participating makes it so. With all due respect to those on the sidelines, if you’re not doing (and I’m echoing my inner Johnny Davis here), you’re not participating, and if you’re not participating, you may want to rethink your critique of those who are.
It is more than obvious, for anyone who has ever followed a thread or watched a video on this platform, that this is probably one of the safest places that has ever been created in the never-never-land of the internet. Does that mean that problems won’t arise? Hardly. Those who want quieter spaces are free to make them, and any observant participant will have not only seen that this has been encouraged in words, but they will have seen that it is encouraged in deed as well (just watch any Cafe recording to get a feel for it).
And those who will never feel comfortable here, I would surmise that they probably don’t feel comfortable wherever they are. I feel for them, but I’m not going to go out of my way to make sure they know that. If someone can’t read between the lines, I sometimes ask myself why they are here reading at all. Sometimes we just have to let people be people.
I think we’re heading in a good direction. I think we’re working out the kinks as we are going along. But I also think – and so far I’ve seen this practiced here as well – that there is only one rule that’s important (everything else is simply commentary): be a Mensch. Or, stated negatively, “Don’t be an a-hole.” If we observe that one, the rest takes care of itself.
But I do think it’s important to treat facilitated conversations differently than open ones. The ‘café’ metaphor suggests an open space with various different tables—some big, some small; some loud, some quiet—but there is no grand orchestration of the dialogue, nor requirement to follow it all. Nor would I expect it to lead (directly) to important decisions for the co-op. But it creates an atmosphere, a culture, which is generative. Chaos here is a feature, not a bug.
A technical process as described above could happen in a dedicated channel—and especially if it is a function of governance, the rules and protocols should be spelled out to be maximally inclusive. I do agree we should map out the various channels, topics, and ways to interact with Cosmos so they can be organized/indexed and presented more cleanly. And then people can simply choose where they want to play.
thanks for the distinction between facilitated conversations (and convos that need to try to “go somewhere,” heading towards to that more synthesized state) and open conversations (the cafe metaphor). That is a great distinction… I wonder how we might notate that distinction by the channel, topic name or insignia, or other marker? You’re right, the proposal of forking questions is relevant to the former (and could optionally be used by the latter per specific needs), but the latter requires more chaos to thrive.
For some even more futuristic conjecture: Imagine a dial that a user or a cohort could turn, between “MAXIMUM FIDELITY” and “MAXIMUM CHAOS” and would be exposed to information and spaces reflected of their preferences thereof? E.g. those with organizer tendencies might feel best and most fulfilled and productive in high-internal-fidelity and outcome-oriented conversations, whereas those with outrageous play-sparks under their proverbial butts can go buckwild to their throbbing hearts’ content diving into, among, through, up and out of a wild sea of media and personalities connected here. <3
It’s a long read, I know, and may or may not be appealing after a weekend of dreaming, but I would be interested in @annroberts’ thoughts on the latest turns in the conversation. Just putting it out there…
Quick thoughts on the summary option above (found at the end of the first post:
“There are 72 replies with an estimated read time of 33 minutes. Summarize This Topic”)
The summary is helpful and cleans up the length of the thread.
Potential drawbacks:
This may prevent other worthy comments from being recognized.
Those that post at a different time of day may not receive enough likes to be included in the summary due to others sleeping, etc.
Those with “technical difficulties” may not find the hidden posts or may become ‘stuck’ in summary mode, vice versa.
Overall, a welcome addition (unless it has always been there for threads with 50+ posts, in which…glad I found it)!
Thank you Madrush – I have been mulling over this topic and really appreciate your invitation for me to join in. I have come back from our Winter Dreaming time refreshed and ready to play. We had two feet of snow which made it quite magical.
I appreciate your summarising as way for me to enter the conversation.
What I was first struck by this thread is the dance of polarities. The awakened a memory for me when giving feedback to people using MBTI. For those who do not know it – there are four pairs of what they call dichotomies that capture preferences, The last pair is the continuum from being organised, planful and structured (J) to a preference around spontaneity, emergence and going with the flow (a P preference) . We can flex between the two but I found that this was the territory where there could be tension between people ( particularly in intimate partnerships ) with differing preferences. I sensed into differing preferences dancing within the flow of this conversation. What can sometimes happen as well is those with a J preference can be irritated with the P preference and the P preference tends to hold up their hands and say ‘ Chill man’. What I recognise about this enquiry here is that there is appreciation and space for both.
I loved the polarity of fidelity v chaos as a more evocative way to capture the above.
In moving to the technology to support the possibility of forking the threads this would ask for skilfull means to recognise when the time is right for this and the followership to say yes to the forking when is happens. I really liked the recommendation around the use of questions , developing our habits to be comfortable with this and being explicit with the decision so that new people can sense and respond.
Another of my ways of looking at things is to see if people are discussing content, process or relationship and this helps me to sense into if there is a mismatch of what we are talking about. I am laughing to myself here because I have a structured preference – can you tell? LOL!. What I noticed in this space was that sometime the pace of the writing felt fast and quite complicated. I was aware, as a new person, of getting lost in trying to follow that content of the postings (some of which were introducing new ideas, things to read, and inviting conversation ) and wanting to stay conscious of the process we are in and also starting to get to know the people who were posting. For a newbie it is a bit daunting and does link to Marco’s point about attention strain.
Looking forward to how this unfolds and feeling more able to join in.
It has come to my attention that my original comment-of-an-intervention two days ago could have been taken personally, and if anyone felt that, I am truly sorry for I value the individuals comprising this community’s contributions immensely. The ways we show up with our very thoughtful, inquisitive selves is the essence of what creates value here–not even the technological platform aspects (though that is what I sought to publicly contemplate with my comments pertaining to what needs the forum meets & how the cultural or technological structures of this space could better meet those needs).
Also, I regret that I did not give sufficiently deep attention to the content of comments coming before my own comment. This is part of the struggle: with less time but strong desire to participate, the temptation to cut attentional corners and not read carefully and closely others’ voices crops up as a symptom. Too, there are coemergent conversations happening in other threads that, had I read those AND this thread, and had I afforded more time to compose a deliberate response–I might have been able to provide a better contribution to the conversation. My lower bandwidth of attention thus is a key factor in contributing to confusion.
This feeds into my own chagrin about the pain points of managing attention in this forum and caring for the other intangible qualities that make conversations worth having, when there are participatory inequities which are the organic results of people having diverse lifestyles and needs, but which may complicate what and how a user gleans benefit from our currently-limited-functionality platform. The conundrum can be summarized as: I want to give others in this community my fullest attention and care. But can I manage to do so successfully with my limited resources? What defines successful conversations? Is there space and receptivity to what I can offer, here, even if it’s imperfect? And what does it look like for me to offer sufficient spaciousness to others?
I wish to offer a sincere thank you to everyone for your feedback–direct, indirect, in the many styles and on the many sub-subjects netted here: It is all so generative and full of learning.
I’m so with you, Caroline! The site is quite chaotic as a whole, and even though I spend, well, at least an hour if not more every day these days on the site, I still feel I am missing a lot of what is going on! For example, I missed the start of the writing thread until Heather (@hfester) mentioned me by name (or handle) and hence I got a notification about that thread and was able to join. And I missed it even though I was trying to stay abreast of developments. But as an interdisciplinary thinker, I abandoned long ago the idea that I would ever be up to speed on everything I would ideally need to say anything of value. I have learned to accept my limitations and jump in anyway…
This is a great comment (although I would prefer you spell out the reference, @annroberts, even though it is easy to check quickly on the net - I recognized the Myers-Briggs framework after a few moments but I am unfamiliar with the acronym). In the writing world, these two types are called “panters” and “plotters”. Plotters write by working out an extensive outline first and then writing according to the outline, while pantsers (the reference is to writing by the “seat of the pants”) write without an outline and see what emerges. I am more pantser than plotter, but in science fiction, you can’t only write via pantsing - you have to plan your world out. So there are definitely both types of writers (posters?) here, and there may be some frustrations between them. The point about Myers-Briggs is being aware of who you are, and also aware of who others are, so you can accommodate the differences and work better together. So maybe some could “declare” which type they are… if you know and care to do so.
What I like about this is it requires a thoughtful practice on the part of participants, but I also think that may be its downfall too. We could try it, though. Same for the summaries - I don’t believe that any software could do the job, but I think some of us could.
I’ve been thinking that part of the problem is that the site is a forum site, but has aspirations of being a wiki site. That is, it wants some of the functionality of a wiki, within the forum structure. The wiki is designed to manage knowledge complexity but is not so good with spontaneity, that the forum manages well. Not sure what I’m trying to say, though. I guess the point is, a wiki has lots of people tinkering at it, although not everyone feels comfortable becoming a wiki content provider. But those of us who like doing that kind of thing, we could attempt to fill out short summary sections, or modify the texts of others along those lines - provided we all had editing access to the summary text. I assume we can’t edit what other people have written, although I haven’t actually tested this out. So it would need a special set of accesses to work… Also, I don’t remember seeing any simple way to tag my forum posts, but I’d be willing to do that too, if it would help. Although that might lead to an explosion of tags, and add to the problem…
I think this is an ever present danger and we might want to pay attention to this.
I challenge the idea that we can create software that will correct for all too human wish to be more efficient. We are pressed for time ( I know I am) and we want to simplify the complex ( with techno-quick fix) and what do we get in return?
Chaos.
By trying to over simply complexity we drive the system into incoherence. The theory should always be simple, Mr. E=MC2 said, but not simpler than the phenomena.
In every conversation, I have led here, I have pointed out this part is structured, and this part is an Open Frame. This is, of course, a performance in motion which is then archived and then can be reflected upon by those who participated and those who couldn’t. Some of those persons in the video continue to write about what was originally spoken and then another level of attention ( paying attention to what we paid attention to) comes into a meta-attention. A level of self-reflexity of the members ( not the same as parts) starts to become a social reality. Inter-subjective depth is enhanced, rather than negated. Please refer to the videos, on the Cafe, Maps of Time and Maps of Intuition, as well as Clean Space demonstration with Marco and Writing at your Best, which graciously Carolyn participated in.
We can deal with our own metaphors and the metaphors of the Other and in very efficient ways. And no fancy technology, just carefully constructed interviews ( a call and a response ) and a box of crayons.
For those who didnt read the chapter or enter into the public space that was shared it may be easy to reduce what was happening as chaotic, when it is not chaotic at all, but working out a unity within diversity.
I am totally unconvinced that those who dont have the time to read the material or enter into the fray of complex discourse events are in a good position to monitor or moderate those who were actively engaged in the performance and who were prepared.
If you dont know your lines, and didnt even read the script, and you fast forward to the end, how can you make relevant contributions to what is actually going on? How can you read the subtext, when you didnt even pay attention to the text?
I sincerely believe that we are danger of treating a complex system as if it were simple and driving it towards chaos.
I appreciate the need to simply in order to save time, but I worry we are not saving time, we are killing it. We want to be free from time, ( endless time management schemes and software updates) and we never have freedom for time.
Are we simplifying by our software short cuts? Or are we dumbing down our language games? Turning the beauty of people struggling for the right word into a mindless tweet?
I still feel we are stuck in what Gebser would call the deficient mental. We are not modeling our complexity and reducing unnecessary suffering we are adding to our burdens.
Sharing attention and developing creative conversations is an art and it requires meticulous care and concern for what is beneath and beyond the surface.
I hear in this thread ( and I am using my third ear) the razzle dazzle of techno-mania run amok. If it aint broke dont fix it. We are observers but we are not objective observers. We are not just particles we are waves. We are, I fear, starting to treat each other as replaceable parts in a machine, rather than members of a community of saints and rascals, resting upon a swarm of the undefinable. Let’s escape from flatland. And you come too!
Can we enter into and give shape to discourse events that can create field effects, serendipitous learnings, synchronicities and ground those learnings in a social reality?
We are points and we are fields. If we try to connect to the field of all possibility without an active center we will crash and burn. Know thy brothers and sisters desired outcomes before you try to correct the system!
Thanks again, Carolyn, for your self-awareness and willingness to participate in the complexity of the Cafe. We may find allies rather than exhausting oppositions.
Thank you for the feedback. It is interesting to me that I did spell out MBTI in my original version and gave more on the preferences and then cut it back Mmmmm
Just wanted to let you know that I’ve noted this, @Geoffrey, and am working on sorting out these various permission levels and respective powers. As of now, I am pretty sure you (or any member here) can edit any wiki posts. You should also be able to add tags. I am not sure about re-categorizing posts or fixing titles—this might be a mod power. But all these settings are configurable.
We should be able to add some special styling to wiki posts to better indicate what they are.
I’ve also create a #sandbox channel for anyone who wants to play around with new posts and such features, without them displaying to the public or appearing on the home page. Feel free to experiment, and keep asking questions and sharing your feedback!
).
, but it is one way – at least for now – to get a better handle on everything that’s going on. As you point out, and as become clear to me setting up base pages for specific cafe sessions, the linking feature is also quite helpful.
: I have the InfiniteCoversations Miss-Manners bot alerting me, even as I write, that I should let others join the conversation … tsk, tsk.]
But don’t worry; we won’t make it our librarian. In fact, we could see to it that it has all the madness, death, and fornication it wants. Pity the algorithms…
) with differing preferences. I sensed into differing preferences dancing within the flow of this conversation. What can sometimes happen as well is those with a J preference can be irritated with the P preference and the P preference tends to hold up their hands and say ‘ Chill man’. What I recognise about this enquiry here is that there is appreciation and space for both.