From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Thu Dec 16 2004 - 15:37:41 MST
I like the idea, but my first impression is that to make it work would
require one of
1) someone dedicated to doing curation, by hand, of the new,
nicely-organized SL4 archive. I estimate this would take about 10 hours per
week, on average.
2) someone to spend a lot of time creating a software framework that does
automated categorization of messages in a clever way (several months of
work, for someone really good with relevant knowledge)
3) someone to spend a lot of time creating a nice user interface that makes
it relatively effortless for posters to associated metadata with their
messages in a way that allows a fairly dumb categorization system to insert
their message appropriatel into a nicely-organized archive (probably a
couple months work, also)
Of course, in cases 2 or 3, the solution would probably be reusable for
other mailing lists. But I'm not sure anyone wants to volunteer to do the
work...
I'll be happy to have my first impression proved wrong, of course, and to be
shown that there's a simple solution....
-- Ben
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Clark" <clarkd@rccconsulting.com>
To: <sl4@sl4.org>
Cc: <sentience@pobox.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 4:21 PM
Subject: Organized list?
>I have been thinking of a way of getting more structure into the
>discussions
> of the SL4 group and/or other groups. I have contributed to the sl4 wiki
> and I have been to other wikis but even though they have more structure
> than
> just a mailing list, they don't show the reasons *why* the different
> theories are believed. They also don't show how many others share the
> opinion of the author of the information.
>
>
>
> One of the starting pages for the SL4 list says to study the SL4 archives
> to
> determine what has and hasn't been said before posting. With over 10,000
> emails, however, that is impossible for anyone. Also, the above complaint
> about how many others agree (or disagree but didn't make a rebuttal) is
> not
> there. Another mailing list I have been on has a word search capability
> that is nice but still no organized theories backed by the reasons you
> believe them and how many people agree/disagree. In some cases it would
> be
> nice to see 2 or more mutually exclusive ideas and their reasons
> for/against
> if no consensus can be found.
>
>
>
> I am wondering how many other posters to the SL4 would be interested in
> participating in a web system that solved the above problems. There might
> be other programs that can do what I have described and I would be happy
> to
> hear any information on these. I have looked at how the wikipedia was
> created and the ongoing battles when anyone can just write or change
> whatever they like. This is not the solution I envision.
>
>
>
> The end result of what I am talking about would show a collapsible
> structure
> of topics with the current theory specified and the arguments for/against
> right underneath. Rebuttals and changes to the theory would be voted on
> in
> such a way that multiple arguments that are essentially the same would be
> consolidated and only rebuttals/support to the current theory would be
> allowed. No off topic material would be allowed by voting out the
> offending
> material. If someone wanted to revisit a discussion that some had thought
> closed in the past, they could do so by posting new and significant
> material
> to back up their proposed changes. New topics and there position in topic
> structure could be started by many but not necessarily everyone. New
> posters would have the structure of current theories and their supporting
> reasons so that they could contribute quickly, even if only in a small
> area
> of the system. Whole sections could be ignored by disinterested people so
> that all topics wouldn't have to be answered by all posters.
>
>
>
> The SL4 list is *owned* by Eliezer and I am not proposing that that would
> change or that a rival site would steal it's members. If Eliezer doesn't
> like the idea then this list will hear no more from me on this topic.
>
>
>
> -- David Clark
>
>
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