User talk:Benjamin Mako Hill

Hi Mako,

Thanks for the feedback and for contributing so much to the site. We're up for another round of site improvements next month so will definitely try and address these with the resources we have. It would probably also be good to have a conversation at that point about these and other potential issues, ideas, etc. that come up.

Neeru

Lots of great ideas!

Hi Benjamin,

Really glad to have you contributing to AcaWiki! Thanks for all the great ideas. Sorry to be so painfully slow to get back to you--I've been away for awhile!

I put news about the Zotero integration onto the front page. Do you have Trac access to Zotero? If so, you could submit your style via http://www.zotero.org/styles , which would make installing a one-step process (though users still might have to do the "fire on acawiki.org" configuration). If not, I could submit your CSL if that's easier for you. (I've just applied for a Trac account.) Is that ok? and you don't mind. Let me know.

For 2: In terms of editing templates, do you have a specific example? For the user address info, for instance, it can be edited here. (If you can't access that, let me know!

For 5: Yes, we are using Semantic MediaWiki. The forms problem (e.g. user subpages) comes from that. Let me know if you get a chance to report this problem to them.

For 6: www.acawiki.org works now; thanks for taking the time to point it out!

I think that leaves CAPTCHAs, metadata, and outreach as things to talk about later--hopefully Neeru will have more to say there! Jodi.a.schneider 20:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

PS AcaWiki:Bugs might be useful too if you haven't seen that yet. Jodi.a.schneider 20:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Database dumps

It would be great to have you testing out the dumps; details at AcaWiki:Database Dumps, please make corrections or point out problems as you come across them. :) Jodi.a.schneider 23:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

WikiSym/WikiMania open space session?

Hey Mako - It looks like we're both going to be at WikiSym and WikiMania. Want to plan an open space session on AcaWiki? What flavor of open space do these conferences go in for, anyway? Jodi.a.schneider 23:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I've got no real idea but we can arrange a BOF and put it on the wiki and folks will come. Also, there will be lightning talk sessions at Wikimania for sure, and I can make sure we're on those. Those tend to be pretty well attended. Lets meet up at WikiSym and plan something for Wikimania. Also, lets try to get fliers printed up if we can to hand out at both places. WikiSym is just about the perfect place to do it. Is there any Hewlett money left to do that? If not, I'd throw down a little money personally to help make it happen! —mako๛ 23:01, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! I've asked Neeru about the Hewlett money, will let you know what I find out. Can also put some funds towards this, if needed! Are you any good with flyer design? I'm thinking 4up, heavy paper. But design, that I'm not so good at! Jodi.a.schneider 21:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I know my way around Inkscape (you've seen some of the figures I've reproduced, although that's not too fancy) and I think I can help from a friend who has done a couple Nature covers that looked quite good. [—mako๛ 03:38, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Awesome! Yeah, we have a budget for flyers/handbills. Let me know if you need feedback, or want me to handle the printing (would be in Poland, I don't have a good baggage allowance!). How many do you think we want? Jodi.a.schneider 12:00, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

OK. Let's try to make stickers and postcard sized things to hand out. I'll try to design both this weekend with my friend Mad's help. We can do it Poland or I can bring them in my baggage. I can talk to the FSF about who does their stickers (they've tried lots of places and have some great looking ones). Maybe it would be better to do the postcards/handbills in Poland. Can you find a place there? —mako๛ 15:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

My friend knows a place near the university for printing, so that's one possibility. Any word on stickers? Any time for designing? Jodi.a.schneider 15:29, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Tags

I notice that you're using mostly capitalized phrases for tags. I've been using lowercase ones (easier to type, differentiated from the 'subjects' which are capitalized). I think we should use lowercase tags, except for acronyms (e.g. HCI, CSCW). Want to persuade me that capitalized ones are always better? Jodi.a.schneider 09:41, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Either one is fine with me. My only suggestion is that if we go for lower-case tags we also lowercase the subject names which, at the moment, are all capital. They are essentially special tags and I type in both since I usually edit source. Is there no way SMW can handle case-insensitive tags? That would be my first preference. —mako๛ 13:51, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Items with only metadata: a third link type?

It strikes me that there's another way to envision items with only metadata. They're like redlinks, just with a little info. It would be swell to have a category (or something) for these items AND have them display differently -- so for instance if they displayed as yellow (instead of red or blue) it would be a signal to the reader. Lately as I'm adding references to articles, sometimes I'm creating a hyperlink (when I'm pretty sure I'll add the article later) but other times I'm adding a full reference, usually unhyperlinked. Seems like an opportunity for improvement/rationalization. Jodi.a.schneider 09:41, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that we'll find that adding a new link type requires changes to MediaWiki that we probably don't want to maintain. I think this would be the ideal solution, but unless we're going to develop and commit to maintain this, I think we need a solution that works with what we have.

Wikipedia has struggled with this same issue to some degree. Research (sorry, no AW article yet!) suggests that red links help Wikipedia grow. You should read WP:REDLINK for an in-depth treatment of the subject. Of course, Wikipedia also allows stub articles which are useful but very minimal. These are categorized as such and people can easily get lists of stubs that they might contribute to or improve.

I think the key question here is whether a empty summary on AW is more like a stub or more like an empty article on WP. If it's more like an empty article, we're probably better off with a red link. If it's more like a stub, we should probably keep them (and hell, encourage people to upload tons of metadata).

I tend to think that's it more like an empty page and that, even with categorization, the pages give the illusion of content when there is in fact little value there. I understand that adding metadata to AW is still useful, but with the two automated methods for doing so now, I think it is an increasingly low barrier to entry. More importantly, I think that AW brings essentially no value to users in empty summaries. There are lots of places to get bibliographic metadata on the web and AW is not about to become one of them. —mako๛ 14:33, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess we should delete the metadata-only entries. Jodi.a.schneider 23:07, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

EBSCO scraper doesn't always get DOIs

Watch out when importing from EBSCO into Zotero; the DOI often turns out as Article (like in http://acawiki.org/index.php?title=Social_network_sites:_Definition,_history,_and_scholarship&oldid=3702 ). Thanks for adding this article; added DOI and URL, plus a link to the special issue (they did edit it). Will take a closer look later. :) Jodi.a.schneider 09:54, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the hint. I haven't been paying any attention to the DOIs, for the most part. As you can see, many of my summaries are pretty rough (I'm not re-reading them before posting) and a bunch of them are missing DOIs. I figured that these can be added later either by me or someone else. At the moment, I'm just trying to get a bunch of stuff I've already read up on the site. Call me an eventualist. Thanks for helping clean these up! —mako๛ 14:16, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

collapsing two pages

Hey Mako (guess it's the day of many comments/questions). There are two pages that should be collapsed: AcaWiki:Communications and AcaWiki:Communicate. Does one of these make more sense to you than the other? Jodi.a.schneider 12:01, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I merged missing content from AcaWiki:Communicate into AcaWiki:Communications and changed AcaWiki:Communicate into a redirect. I don't really have a preference for which should be the redirect and which should be the "real" article. This just seemed easier to do. —mako๛ 14:37, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Zotero Integration Question

Hey Mako! While taking your awesome Zotero CSL file out for a spin this afternoon, I found that some of the AcaWiki markup didn't seem to survive the drag-and-drop transition from the body of my Zotero note. \Specifically, it looks like all the formatting (italics, bold, etc) made it, but the summary template markup did not. Does that sound right? From the look of things in your instructions the summary template should have made it too. If so, any tips on how I might go about diagnosing the problem and/or stuff I might tinker with in order to fix it? - Aaronshaw 22:59, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hey Mako -

Glad to meet you, thanks for the warm AcaWiki welcome, and thanks for AcaWiki! I'm looking forward to posting more, editing and perusing. Also interested in the Zotero linkup you've made possible, but I'm a Chrome devotee, so that may have to wait...

Matt

There are plenty of people who just use Firefox for Zotero. In any case, there's also a new funded project to create Zotero as a standalone application. I can show you how to use it in person, if you want. —mako๛ 17:40, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups, Mako!

Thanks for Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups, Mako! Nice--appreciate the alert, too! :) Jodi.a.schneider 18:36, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

How do emerging technologies conquer the world? An exploration of patterns of diffusion and network formation

Another request. :) http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3120 Jodi.a.schneider 21:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

How do spatial and social proximity influence knowledge flows?

Also this one: Agrawal, Ajay, Devesh Kapur, John McHale, 2008, How Do Spatial and Social Proximity Influence Knowledge Flows? Evidence from Patent Data, Journal of Urban Economics 64, 258- 269 . Jodi.a.schneider 04:41, 9 January 2011 (CET)

Talk page comments

The author of Individual knowledge in the Internet age made some comments on the Talk page for this article. Jodi.a.schneider 22:28, 25 January 2011 (CET)