Hello Dickon (& others): Poking around, trying to decide how to organize my work, coming off the holiday break, I came across this post, and figured it was as good a place as any other to sort out the things I need to do, and things I'd like do to, in the new year. So here goes with some answers (with the familiar lament that Tiddlyspace remains hard to figure out how to do things like answer questionnaires in a social space, so rather than try to figure out the "reply to tiddler" thing that continues to baffle me, I decided to sketch out answers inline below):
On Thursday, December 6, 2012 7:29:27 PM UTC-5, dickon wrote: > > This is a set of questions prompted by Chris Dent. > > - I am non-technical, so please don't scare me with unique features of > TS coding... I am a TS "user" rather than a developer (see > http://tiddlymanuals.tiddlyspace.com or http://dickon.tiddlyspace.com) > - I am really interested in the *FUNCTIONS* of Tiddlyspace, what it > CAN be used for, or how it MIGHT be used (given a bit more tweaking) > - I am asking readers of this post to allow themselves to muse a > little.... > - I am struck by the fruitful diversity in the TS community, its > content, and its ideas about what this is or should become... but also the > risk that TS becomes a kind of 'developmental catherine wheel', sparks > flying in all directions, but not going anywhere... > > > *1. What do you think TiddlySpace DOES for you, that other corners of the > webiverse haven't yet done...? * > What is distinctive about TS? How are you using it? Why are you/would > you use it, rather than some other web solution? > > > For me, what is distinctive about tiddlywiki (not so much tiddlyspace), and what keeps me coming back to it year after year, is the ability to write hypertextually, using the full complement of hypertextual features including linking, tagging and transcluding. Every time I start to write something -- for a class, for a project, whatever -- in some non-tiddly platform, I find myself constantly reaching for the tagging toolkit, or wanting to create the potential for a FutureTiddler by simply using CamelCase; or wanting to reference through transclusion a bit of text I've already created. Secondly, beyond the writing, is the knowledge that by writing hypertextually I will create the opportunity for my readers (mostly, but not exclusively, my students) to read hypertextually -- so that they are not stuck with reading in a linear way that which has been written for them. Again, that requires the platform with full range of hypertextual functions. Every other web solution that I've come across is limited, mostly to just links, or a very limited implementation of tagging (such as wordpress). > *2. Why are people working so hard at building this - what drives them...? > * > Clarify if you are a developer/programmer or a "lay user". > First, I'm a lay user, not a developer. That said, I'll dabble in code as necessary, usually frustrating myself because I simply don't have the background to write the code. And I am way far from a developer. So I'm a lay user, with enough programming ability to waste a lot of my time not getting too far :) What drives me is an increasing belief that we have relatively little understanding of what is necessary to read and write hypertextually for maximum effectiveness. From a reading perspective, I don't understand how individuals navigate an increasingly complex terrain involving links, tags and transclusions. From a writing perspective, I don't understand how to construct texts so that readers can navigate this complex terrain. And when those activities (reading & writing) happen in the same space at the same time (as in taking notes, annotating, etc.) I know even less. So this lack of understanding becomes interesting, and in my experience, tiddlyspace provides one of the best platforms for exploring and analyzing questions in this vein. So what drives me is the opportunity to use tiddlyspace as a way of increasing my understanding of reading and writing hypertextually. > > *3. If the community of users and developers of TiddlySpace could be said > to share a vision about WHAT IS BEING CREATED here, could you summarise > this?* > Alongside your answer, can you please rate (0 - 5) how actively involved > are you in the technical development of TiddlySpace. > > > I couldn't begin to answer this question. To be honest, my uses of tiddlyspace has usually been reduced to an instrumental situation: set a goal of using tiddlyspace to accomplish a task, and then focus on that task, without opportunity for reflection on what tiddlyspace is or what is being created. I am grateful for the community and its ability and willingness to help solve problems, but have not been actively involved at all in the development of tiddlyspace. Perhaps I make some small contributions by trying to do different things and asking questions, and writing a few macros here and there that others may find helpful, but I generally lack the large scale understanding of what tiddlyspace is, or how it is supposed to work. > *4. What are your INTENTIONS in creating (or just using) this > thing/place...? * > What's in it for you personally/professionally? > > I am hoping to use tiddlyspace as a platform to deeply explore issues in reading, writing and teaching hypertextually. One of my goals is to bring together my explorations in tiddlyspace over the past 7 years, and especially over the past 3, into an academic paper (written in tiddly, of course!) so that I can formalize this work. This paper would take the form of grant applications, I figure, as I am trying to write grants to support this exploratory activity. Grants would support sabbatical employment with another institution and provide funds to pay graduate students and support my leaves from teaching, enabling me to devote more time to exploration and development of teaching / learning platforms using tiddlyspace. I think the concepts developed from using tiddly as an experimental platform might be replicated in other platforms: I remain unconvinced that tiddlyspace (and tiddly in general) can move beyond a development platform. I might be wrong: mediawiki has demonstrated that the broad public community can particiapte in using the wiki world, but I'm not sure that tiddlywiki (and perhaps especially tiddlyspace) can or should become that kind of platform. > > *5. Where/How would you like to see TiddlySpace developing in the next > years? * > *"Perchance to dream..."* W.Shakespeare > > I'd be very interested in seeing advances in rendering of tiddlyspace in a more friendly html context, so that my readers woulnd't necessarily feel like they were in tiddly, but more in familiar html land. Something like a media-wiki skin for tiddlyspace: so that as an author, I could still use tagging and transclusion, but as a reader, it would be more html-ish. I've seen some themes that do this, and I probalby need to explore more because my sense is it exists already... And then: more important: I'd like to see tiddlyspace move a bit into creating a new role for the "group" -- to be useful in a higher education setting, which for better or worse has significant issues with copyright and privacy, I need for students in my classes to be able to have a private space for reading, without the ability to write. Less access than members, more access than public. So I could mark each semi-private tiddler public to a limited number of readers. And then I'd need some systems to manage access across a list of account holders. > Really interested to hear peoples thoughts about these questions. > > Best wishes, > Dickon Bevington > Dickon: I enjoy moving through your spaces to see what you are doing, though it is only in this thread that I've seen reference to your thoughts on "writing in 3D" -- can you send me a pointer? More broadly: I wonder if we -- the tiddlyspace user community -- should work towards some kind of conference or gathering of tiddly users ... while I do lots of interaction online, there is still something powerful and special (if rather expensive) about actually meeting and working with people for a few hours or days in the same room.... Best wishes to the tiddlyspace community for a productive new year! Steve Schneider SUNY Institute of Technology @stevesuny -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/tiddlywiki/-/5RKnMkycXisJ. To post to this group, send email to tiddlywiki@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki?hl=en.
