eiron wrote:
] In Memestreams, each link is considered a seperate Meme,
] despite the fact that two links may be involved in the same
] concept or idea. For example, the recent tsunami disaster has
] generated a wealth of links for donations sites, news updates,
] weather data, etc. It would seem that many of these links are
] part of a larger Meme, a greater idea. Despite this, the
] memes, that is, the individual links, as represented by
] Memestreams, remain separated, independent of one another.

[ This is a general issue, i won't say problem, necessarily, which Tom and I have talked about before. I have an interest, though not a great deal of actual expertise, in the application of knowledge management technologies to collections of raw data. It's something I've encountered in my work, and something I've devoted a good deal of time thinking about for personal use. The concept here would be that the greater Meme, as you call it, is a somewhat emergent property. In the best possible scenario, the software is intelligent enough to group data (links, commentary, or articles) based on recognition of common topical elements. Of course, and this is why KM is so necessary when dealing with a large corpus of information, a Meme of this sort can, and will, have multiple facets. The stories, and subsequent discussions, linked up regarding the tsunami cover matters related to Aid Organizations, Disaster Relief, Missing Persons, Philanthropy, Human Trafficking, GeoPolitics, Geology, Earth Science, etc. These all, generally, tie back to what is effectively a single event, which occurred, but I don't really see that as the meme. Rather, the memes are the things people are thinking and, more measurably, saying about the event. Thus, each discrete aspect of the story is a meme in and of itself, once it attains the critical mass to have a distinct existence.

As it turns out, this stuff is all pretty hard, and completely different than the existing infrastructure. Not to mention, the things I'm describing may not actually be the vision for this community. As it's not my project, I wouldn't presume to argue strongly for such a shift. As a concept, only a bare germ at this stage, i think there's merit, but I know there are other priorities right now, even if this was a direction for the future.

Anyway, I found your proposal interesting -- essentially a non-automated version of what I'm describing, in which the users, by grouping links, are responsible for building up the larger context. As a purist, and based on my experience and minimal research, i think this mechanism is fraught with peril, because people tend to be, fundamentally, bad at handling complex categorization tasks. Actually, that's not true. People have trouble, particularly when faced with the vast quantity of data they see daily, maintaining an object in multiple contextual frames. This leads to strict hierarchical scheme... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

First, Eiron, thank you for raising this question. This is something that I have thought about at length. I appreciate your insight.

Second:
] the things I'm describing may not actually be the vision for
] this community. As it's not my project, I wouldn't presume to
] argue strongly for such a shift.

Do not let this dissuade you from engaging the conversation. A community cannot be owned. There is a delicate balance. I cannot simply take everyone's suggestions. Everyone always thinks their perspective is the right one. But I strongly encourage people to think about how this community should evolve. If I was as good as I wish I was this thing would be bigger then Google. I strongly encourage this kind of conversation, especially on the site.

] As it turns out, this stuff is all pretty hard, and completely
] different than the existing infrastructure. As a concept, only a bare
] germ at this stage,

Exactly. Thats why this dialog is useful. I don't know the answers here.

] i think there's merit, but I know there
] are other priorities right now, even if this was a direction
] for the future.

Thats true, but there is no reason this conversation cannot proceed while other priorities are pursued.

There are several perspectives on this, and each one presents problems.

1. There is a tremendous power involved in associating everything on this site by particular URLs, and one which has not really seen much application yet because of the scale of the site, and that is the discussion bookmarklet. MemeStreams associates a discussion with every url on the internet, and using the discuss bookmarklet you can jump right from any page to it's thread on memestreams. Once the site is sufficiently large this will be extremely powerful. Anytime you are reading an article and you want some more insight or critical commentary you'll be one click away from it. I think this is something the internet really needs that no one is doing right. I want to see it happen.

Having said all of that, you clearly need to have a way to put multiple URLs in a post and at least have them be clickable. Thats a basic, basic thing that I need to implement.

2. The topic system. The problem with topics is that there aren't enough of them and things need to be filed into multiple topics.

If we created enough topical granularity to be able to discuss something as specific as the tsunami the topic system would be unwieldy. Also, the topic system reflects a cultural bias. We have a 9/11 topic. We don't have a tsunami topic. If we lived in South East Asia our priorities would likely be reversed. We'd see 9/11 as a transient event and the tsunami as something that would impact our culture for years and require its own discussion space.

If we allow for things to be put in multiple topics this creates some significant user interface problems. Do you really want a way to file som... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]