![]() StartingPoints Referenced by
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Future Use Of SL
Senseis Library hopes to become a central place of Go knowledge and discussion on the web - in true internet spirit; open to anyone and made by everyone. To this end, the open approach where anyone can edit and create everything is central in attracting contributions.
Discussions can be on any topic and with contributions from anyone.
Often, discussions of the first two types will after a while 'converge' and end. In that case, it is possible, and we hope it will be done, to reedit the discussion (called a WikiMasterEdit) to make it more informative and move it or copy it to the reference section. All this takes in theory is to edit the relevant page and add a link to it from the ReferenceSection page. Others may feel that there are clear holes in the ReferenceSection, and some pages may be created specifically for the ReferenceSection. (E.g. the SecretArtOfWar was inserted 'directly'). Hopefully, the combination of these two processes will mean that the ReferenceSection will fill up and stay updated. Please add your thoughts here or comment on my thoughts above - use the 'Edit' link! I am wondering what is the right way to think about and develop SL for future users. In particular I am interested in the collaborative nature of the Wiki Wiki approach. It is clear how we can use this in the initial stages of developing the content in SL. However, as stated above, there seems to be the idea that the contents will become 'mature' and be re-edited into a more-or-less final form. This does not seem necessary or necessarily desirable to me. Perhaps we are partly trapping ourselves with the name Sensei's Library. A library has books. To use an ordinary library to study you go there, take down the books from the shelves, and read them. But SL is different. Here each and every user should not only study the books but also correct mistakes in them, modify and extend the contents, start whole new ones, ask other authors to clarify what they have said, etc. Should SL become something like a collaborative set of notebooks on Go? One of the hardest things for me in studying Go on my own is to clearly identify my opinion/assessment of a position or concept. Normally it is more like, "OK, if Cho says black is slightly ahead, who am I to disagree..." Even when I make some special effort I virtually never get a second opinion to verify my assessment. I see the greatest potential in SL to provide a more or less permanent (right Arno, Morten? :-) record of work on problems, games, concepts, etc. Each person participating in SL would have the ability to build up a written record of her thinking on Go over a long period of time together with written criticism of that thinking from others. The use of user names together with SL's search capability will make the site much better for this than rec.games.go which is also collaborative but is more transitory in nature despite the existence of archives. If this is a reasonable approach, then a question arises of how to structure the materials so that they do not mature, rather the opposite of the thread mode/document mode approach. I think that one of the fundamentals is separating the analysis/answers from the problems. If they are together and a significant amount of analysis has accumulated, then new readers will probably read the old materials before working on the original problem, etc. on their own. I have been thinking that a reasonable basic structure for a problem would be:
What do you think? DaveSigaty Your comments about reediting (WikiMasterEdit) pages is valid. In many cases, it is not only the 'result' or 'conclusion' of the discussion which is interesting, but also the discussion itself. But the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. If I were to WME a page, I would, if the discussion warrants it, keep the old page and put it in a ThisPageBeforeEditing place. This has the benefit that users can both read the abridged version and the discussion. Like you say, the benefit of SL over rec.games.go is that the information here is permanent - others can (and should) be able to retrace old arguments, and this is often more valuable than just being presented with 'the answer (TM)'. Then again, with the current SL, there is only one page I can think of which has been WikiMasterEdited (Dame - and a DameBeforeMasterEdit page was made) - with the current level of contributions, I do not think that this is (yet) a problem in practice. Your suggestion on how to present and discuss problems is sound. It will be up to posters, when they set a new problem, to also create some dummy 'solution', 'hints' and 'analyses' pages to incite subsequent posters to use these. There could be an automatism in the Wiki to do this, but I am not sure whether we want to 'impose' restrictions on the use of the wiki :-) You could make a 'PostingProblems?' page which gives these guidelines, and make the page part of the UsingAndContributingToSenseisLibrary path :-? On a more general note: does anyone have any suggestions for how to attract more posters/contributors to SL? -- MortenPahle Dave, I agree with you on most accounts. We don't know how SL will turn out, and it's up to the visitors and contributers to make it a place they like to visit again. As SL is rather young, we all are still experimenting with different styles. My hopes are that eventually a set of informal rules and styles will emerge. People are quite happy to copy good ideas. Kind of servival of the fittest :o) The idea of how to structure problem pages is nice. On the issue of attracting more posters/contributors, I think there are two basic philosophies:
What do you think? I haven't contributed much yet, but I have some experience in web site promotion, so I'll chip in anyway... As a veteran usenet contributor, I'm somewhat critical about regular announcements about specific web sites. It's usually considered bad style (though active services like IGS and the GTL are a somewhat different story). In fact, casual mentions in other posts can be much more effective, especially if many different people do it. Yahoo is important, but not as important as it used to be. It also will take lots of time time until it really gets in.
I just submitted SL to the Apart from that, I think that the "build it and they will come" approach should work fairly well here. The SL already has enough critical mass to attract players from almost any level. It may also be good to remember that anchoring a web site in the public perception without a huge PR budget doesn't happen over night or even within weeks. Expect something around 6 months from the official launch until it really catches on. This is a copy of the living page "Future Use Of SL" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |