I agree with Nick's concept of his own Noodle... yes... discussion automatically into the Discussion page with someone(s) extracting/distilling a more structured version of the topic into the main Article page. This is pretty much how Wiki's are designed to work, but the added concept of having the e-mail thread go right into the Wiki discussion seems apt, if unlikely to happen here.
Most of us seem to think best in (or at least prefer) the dialog mode... responding to eachother's statements with our own questions and counterstatements but as those of us who know and love places like WikiPedia/Wiktionary, etc... it is also satisfying (and useful) to see a coherent body of knowledge to grow. I spent a week in downtown Manhattan in the early 90's walking to the Tisch School of Design each morning. On the way I noticed that the "community" was collectively making an artwork of the streetlights and lampposts by gluing bits of colored glass, bottle caps and other hard detritus to the base of the posts, every day each bit of "cruft" would grow an inch.. I never saw anyone wielding glue and junk but the evidence was there every morning. I like to imagine Nick's Noodles to have that flavor... lampposts erupting with a blaze of interesting bits, each carefully (or not) chosen from the flux of discarded items normally sent down the storm-drains by street sweepers. Some listmembers here are particularly good at summarizing the discussion on a thread and when they do that, it is a little like adding to the bowl of noodles, excepting that it is somewhat transitory while Wiki pages (Nick's Noodle style especially) are persistence. As a matter of practice, I think most threads will never generate a noodle. Also as a matter of practice, I suspect that a dedicated noodler could cut and paste a thread (from the digested version more easily?) into a new Wiki/Discussion page in a few minutes and Noodle out the basic noodle hidden amongst the threads in a few minutes. And it should get easier with practice. Shawn Barr and I are Noodling on a Visualization concept for Noodles... but we need more *Noodlers* to Noodle out more noodles first! Noodle on! (Maybe we can surprise Noodleman Nick when he gets back!) - Steve > > All, > > I just want to thank everybody for the illuminating discussions on the > foundations of mathematics over the last week. I have to admit that > I have been overwhelmed by the response and unable to make the kind of > use of it that I had hoped. When I started the Noodling project, I > thought a few comments would come in and over a week or so, I would > integrate these into a new version of the original noodle, and so > incorporate into a developing text, the various gems that the FRIAM > list generated. In my wildest dreams, I thought, others might see > the value in this, and would help with the integrations. The wisdom > of the FRIAM list would be accumulated and the Complexity Noodlers' > Corner would be a place where the world could come to sample it. > > The response has been so enormous that I have been hard pressed to > read and respond to it, let alone to try and pull it together and > integrate it into a text that describes the different points of view. > And now I have to stop for a week while I drive to Atlantic Canada and > back. The Noodlers' Corner > (http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/ComplexityNoodlersCorner sits latent > on the web. And anybody is welcome to try their hand at re-noodling > the discussion. Or starting a new noodle topic . Best way in is > (http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/NoodlersIndex > <http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/NoodlersIndex>. ) > > One point. On the basis of this experience, I think, despite Steve's > marvelous arguments for a tangled bank of noodles (see > http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/MetaNoodles), I am convinced by "gepr" > (WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN?) who urged that comments go to discussion > and suggested texts go in the original articles. thus there would be > a movement of text from the discussion to the actual text as people > NOODLED it. I wonder if it makes anysense to try and get FRIAM to > automatically create a wiki for each of its threads. The discussion > on the FRIAM list would then automatically go into the DISCUSSSION > page for that wiki. THEN, anybody who wanted to NOODLE that thread, > could propose texts in the ARTICLE section of the wiki to draw > together the strands of that thread. > > One technical point. In the naming conventions of media wiki, a wiki > name is case dependent. I THINK I have used CamelText > (UpperAndLowerCaseWithoutSpaces) for all my WikiNames But be > advised: let's say you for get and, in trying to get to > http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/NoodlersIndex > <http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/NoodlersIndex>. you type in > "noodlersindex" instead. MediaWiki will cheerfully CREATE that page > for you and deliver you to its elegant blankness. You will then be > tempted to write in the blank page, at which point we now have two > pages of the same name dealing with the same material, but with > different typefaces. So please, please I beg of you, use CamelText > and no underscores when you name or when you address them. > > ok NOW I will shut up. > > Nick > > Take care, all, > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
