Tuesday, May 7, 2002

Visualizing Repetitive Document Structures (and what pattern recognition should feel like) BayleShanks  suggests... not that i have any time to implement this myself, but i wonder what a TouchGraphWikiBrowser that used GeonDiagrams to display nodes would look like. [...somethting] that allowed a wiki page to specify its icon in the graph (this is already done on the web somehow, right? in the latest mozilla certain sites get their own icon if i put them in my personal toolbar). If the page did not specify its own icon, a unique geon with texture could be generated from some sort of summary of the page, in such a way that everyone saw the same auto-icon for the same page, and that the icon would not change much unless the content of the page changed radically (so that you could, over time, learn to associate each page's auto-icon with the page). Because right now each page "looks" the same in the graph, and you have to read the names to tell them apart. Having pictures with each page might give parts of the graph more of a "feel". It may also let you navigate the graph quicker; your brain may be able to better ignore pictures that it isn't interested in at the time, whereas i bet it has to read through the words a lot because they all "look the same". -- BayleShanks A thumbnail along the lines of Wiki:SignatureSurvey would be perfect. which  inspired me to resurrect a section revised out of the original MacroScope paper: [Visualizing Repetitive Document Structures]   comments? [] 1:34:36 PM     Blogging Wikis and Authorship Credit Apropos of last night's Blogging Blogging entry, there's a good discussion of AuthorshipCredit on Meatball. My 4 cents: *  personally controlled (non-volatile) Weblog as the complement to the communal and plastic wiki. Why just last night I [blogged], "...there is a not-just-self-indulgent complementarity between wikis and weblogs. A Weblog is an archival chronicle of development. A Wiki is an instance of a developing system. ..." This lets me (and when the spider comes, Google) "sign" and date-stamp a contribution, provide a person-o-centric (rather than wiki-centric) context and move on. The [WebSeitz website] incorporates something like this, but there are perhaps advantages to having the data on two separate systems, especially given how easy it is to cut and paste from one browser into another. Well, I guess I'll copy this nugget to my weblog now...   * In response to BayleShanks, this whole credit grab thing is of course very selfish in the first place, which is why, i think, it will be hard to mesh with the wiki framework. unfortunately, academics are expected to actively accumulate respect and name recognition while they pursue their research. i think getting credit for time spent helping with a wiki is a necessary for academics to be able to justify spending significant time in a wiki. i don't think wikis will take off in academia without some sort of credit framework being in place. I say This is probably true, which is why the "credit grab" thing is not really selfish. We invest our personal resources (time, attention, money, etc.) based on our estimate of personal Return on Investment (gratification, improved environment, money, etc.). If the only payoff is personal gratification for narcissists, most content would have a particular (and socially undesirable) character. If you can foment construct a payoff system (monetary, social, intellectual, emotional...) that rewards quality contributions, that's what you'll get. I think that (and the study of contribution propagation) is what drives me.  (Which is not to get all Ayn Randian and capitalistic, nor is it to argue that it all comes down to monetary payoffs.) --JonSchull And finally, a weblog exclusive: There are some things money can't buy.  But have you ever tried buying them without money? --Woody Allen, I believe comments? [] 10:41:28 AM     A picture of a Picture of Weblogs http://www.metastatic.org/wlm/ (Only the original is a java program) + Very interesting approach to the damnable problems of layout and line-crossing + Good exposition of what he did ? Is this enlightening or bedazzling? comments? [] 9:42:46 AM     Blogging Blogging Bill Seitz sighted Jon Udell citing me and so he cited me on the WebSeitzwiki website, which site elegantly combines a wiki and a weblog. This fact duly logged by me, not merely because I can, but because I'm beginning to think there is a not-just-self-indulgent complementarity between wikis and weblogs.  A Weblog is a chronicle of development.  A Wiki is an instance of a developing system.  (Seitz's site is both).   All of this ought to be visualized. At least that's how I justify this entry.   See also The Evolution of the Blogging Community        http://kumquat.weblogs.com/2002/02/17 comments? [] 12:53:44 AM     Macroscopy vs InfoVis SunirShah (WikiMaster of the MeatballWiki) wonders about the relation between the Macroscope and InfoVis.  Me too. I've been interested in creating an InformationVisualization PatternLanguage here for a long time. In fact, my library is full of infoviz books waiting to be mined. I gather this exactly what you're after? -- SunirShah To which I reply I'm not sure if its exactly the same. I think of PatternLanguages? as archetypes. In contrast, I'm seeking to drive real empirical data through an appropriate rendering system so we'll be able to take in more of the real phenomena. But I'm not sure. I went to the [InfoVisualization 2001 Conference] in San Diego last October to see if that discipline was what I was groping for. I came away thinking that InfoVis was an essential foundation...but a different enterprise. Perhaps... InfoVis is to the Macroscope as Optics is to the Microscope. Microbiologists use microscopes to celebrate and study microbiology, their true passion. Macroscopes could let us begin celebrating and studying, um, macrobiology. Just think: a whole new science! ...or perhaps not! What do you think? comments? [] 12:30:37 AM     The patterns are propagating and I don't have my macroscope yet! Jon Udell (bless him) replies Thanks for getting in touch! I've corrected the title for that story in a follow-on posting to my weblog. It seems amazing that with so many points of connection I wasn't aware of your work in these areas. He's in good company.  When DigitalGoods was in center ring,  I couldn't these ideas too agressively, even though they have fascinated me for (gulp!) decades.  But its spring, the ground seems fertile, I'm at liberty, and the patterns seem to be propagating.  I started this weblog in part because I thought it could be a good arena for exacty this kind of idea-propagation.   So now it's starting and we don't have all of our tools together!  All the more reason to recruit collaborators.  It could be a lot worse (and is clearly going to get a lot more recursive) Udell writes: Writes Jon Schull: I  want to develop a perspective and a community which could help some of the most brilliant minds of the era grow and cross-fertilize their disciplines, and apply some of the most exciting ideas in contemporary science to some of the most pressing problems of our day. That's something I'd love to watch happen, learn from, and perhaps play some role in. Very encouraging! comments? [] 12:21:11 AM

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