Broken Comments October 31, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : meta-blog , add a commentComments on Ultralab Movable Type blogs are broken again.
“Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: Oh “
blummy - The bookmarklet management bookmarklet October 30, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : tools , comments closedblummy - The bookmarklet management bookmarklet
blummy is a tool for quick access to your favorite web services via your bookmark toolbar.
It consists of small widgets, called blummlets, which make use of Javascript to provide
rich functionality (such as bookmarklets).
Technorati Tags: blummy, tools, bookmarklets
Blummy October 30, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : internet , add a commentblummy - The bookmarklet management bookmarklet
blummy is a tool for quick access to your favorite web services via your bookmark toolbar.
It consists of small widgets, called blummlets, which make use of Javascript to provide
rich functionality (such as bookmarklets).
gapingvoid: the global microbrand rant October 30, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Microjobs , add a commentHugh over at gapingvoid has been talking about the concept of global microbrands:
gapingvoid: the global microbrand rant
Of course, “The Global Microbrand” is not conceptual rocket science. You don’t need a Nobel Prize in order to understand the idea. What excites me about it is the fact that I now live in a small cottage in the English boonies, and careerwise I’m getting a lot more done than when I lived in a large apartment in New York or London, for a fifth of the overheads. For one fiftieth of the stress levels.
to Wikiversity or not to Wikiversity? Vote now. October 25, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning, Wiki , add a commentI noted with interest when the Wikiversity project started up last year some time, wondering how quickly it would develop, and if the emphasis entirely on content rather than process ( roughly an opposite position to that taken by Ultraversity ) would prove problematic. Now it seems there is a need for a vote in order to justify the very existence of the project amongst wikimedians. I haven’t been following the debate and I may be incorrect in surmising that the essential question seems to revolve around whether the wikiversity is a premature distration from the wikibooks project, or a larger project which will encompass wikibooks within it. It’s always interesting to see how people attempt to constitute rules for online voting though.
Voting rules:
1. Voting starts on 15 September 2005 at 00:00 UTC. You can still translate the voting instructions and the proposal page into other languages after the start of voting.
2. To vote, you need a registered account here on Meta with a link on your meta user page to the user page on the wiki you edit most.
3. Voting will end on 1 November 2005 at 00:00 UTC (voting may be extended one week if deemed necessary).
4. The proposal needs a two thirds (2/3) super-majority in favor in order to be passed to the board for consideration to start as a beta project (the higher the support, the shorter the ensuing beta period will be).
5. If, after one week of voting, there is more than 90% of overall agreement, and more than 10 votes, the project can be launched immediately, pending approval of the Foundation board.
6. NOTE: This is a vote to determine if Wikiversity should be started as a Wikimedia project at all in any language. Whether or not Wikiversity will be started in your language will be determined separately if this vote succeeds and if the board approves the project.
You can only vote once. Please read the full Wikiversity proposal before voting. You can ask questions about Wikiversity on the #Wikiversity IRC channel (irc.freenode.net). If this vote is successful and the board approves the creation of this project, then de.wikiversity.org and en.wikiversity.org will be launched as experimental pilots. After 6 months the board will review the progress of these pilots and determine if they should become beta projects, shut down, or if the pilot period should be extended. If the board approves Wikiversity as a beta project, then at that point other language versions could be launched as betas. Existing Wikiversity projects in languages other than English and German will continue on Wikibooks as a temporary home, and development can continue there until after this beta period is over. No new Wikiversity projects should be started in other languages on Wikibooks. During the voting period you may change your vote. If you choose to do so, please remove your previous vote. Voting both yes and no will be removed from both.
Should we launch the Wikiversity project as described on Wikiversity?
Please indicate by your vote if you would be interested in participating in this project
many-2-many comment re wikipedia October 24, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Wiki , add a commentIn a comment on Ross Mayfield’s post at many-2-many, photographer Kevin Bjorke writes
Sadly but not surprisingly, wikipedia is not much favored as an acceptable resource for academic papers, even at the high-school and middle-school levels (much less grad school). This seems to me a harmful trend — even as students grow up with a lot of experience-based trust in large-scale databases and search engines, their teachers deny the viability of this information. I can’t help but feel that the net result is not students who view the internet skeptically as much as students who view their teachers skeptically.
The interesting thing to me is that I’ve been observing recently at a school for younger students, the children are finding Wikipedia coming up in relevant search results quite often now, and the teachers are actually recommending the site without even knowing (or perhaps caring) what wikipedia is or how it works. I’m just waiting for the day when somebody point out an error on a page so I can say “well, you see this little edit tab here…let’s put it right shall we?”
pilot October 22, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : exhibition , 15commentsAh, there you are 
Thanks ever so much for entering my pilot exhibition page and agreeing to take a look around.
What you are about to explore represents only the very early stages of the DAR project. I’m letting you in through this password protected page because I really value your opinions and ideas and I want you to get an idea of what I’ve been getting up to over last couple of months or so.
I’ve been putting together this DAR website which at present consists of a Blog and a Wiki, and I’ve been conducting some research on the internet into my favourite online community. The big idea is to find out more about the special qualities of internet based research, which is something I think more and more people will be needing to do these days, not just by studying the subject but by actually doing it.
As I said already, this is only the very beginning, and I’ve only had time to do two quite small cycles of research so far, but I’ve put what I learned from them onto the Wiki and I’ve found that this works for me as a way of getting started at building what I hope will develop into a really useful resource not just for myself but for other online researchers as well. That may take quite a long time, so I’ve made a start on now.
OK, the chances are if I carry on writing more and more text about it here, you’ll lose patience with me and start clicking around already so before you do that, I’ve recorded a little “podcast” style sound file which you can listen to, to save your eyes from strain and your attention span from boredom.
When you’ve listened to the podcast, do please have a good look around the links I’ve provided to the research findings, explore the Wiki a bit and the blog if you like, but the most important thing for me is that you come back here and leave me some feedback in the box below where it says “leave a reply”. Otherwise there will be no evidence that you’ve actually visited, and I’ll be left without any ideas and opinions other than my own….. here’s the audio file:
……… (xml)Thanks for listening. Now here are the links to the research and stuff - it’s up to you how far you look into it, don’t get lost now
Cycle OnePLAN - LOG / DATA - a reflection - research Findings Derivative DAR Wiki pages: Asynchronous Groups - Research CyclesCycle Two
PLAN - LOG - DATA - research Findings - Report Back to group - More reflections
Derivative DAR Wiki pages: Wiki Facilitation - Record KeepingResearch Proposal
Now if you would be so kind, could you please leave me some feedback by using the comments box below. It may help to structure your feedback if you use two sections:
1) about the DAR idea, the research and the proposed Wiki
2) about the presentation of this ‘pilot exhibition’ and your experience of it.
One last thing, if you’d like to take your participation further and stay involved with this project then please do join the DARnet googlegroups email list.
Full Circle Online Interaction Blog: Wiki October 22, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Wiki , add a commentOver at Fullcirc, Nancy White is thinking about Wikis and community:
Full Circle Online Interaction Blog: Wiki “Communities”
“Earlier this week I blogged about Ward Cunningham’s speach on wikis and community. This idea of “did the community create the wiki, or did the wiki create the community” has been rolling around in my head and bouncing the corners a bit.
My values and past experience usually lead me to conclude that it is always people who form communities, but his statement asked me to check my assumptions. And it helped me reframe the question to “did the community create the wiki, or did the wiki CATALYZE community.”
And I think it can work either way round, it all depends what you start off with. An existing community, such as ukcider can go on to create a wiki for itself, but in other circumstances an individual can create a wiki for a topic and that can then go on to gather a completely new community around it. In reality, there will probably always be a bit of both of these alternating processes going on more or less at the same time. I see no contradiction here, or rather.. I welcome it
12 months ago October 21, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : hi res photos , 1 comment so far
P1010005
Originally uploaded by Andyrob.
The view from Angel’s little hotel at sunrise, near Bakio, Basque country exactly 12 months ago.
definition October 21, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , comments closedDistributed Action Research
Research into or using online communities and digital tools. Although many people have started to conduct research in this manner recently, it doesn’t seem to be described as a separate discipline yet, but I feel it needs its own category because internet communities have their own unique customs and associated ethics due to the technology enabling new means and modes of communication so I invented the term Distributed Action Research to cover it. Examples of issues unique to DAR are
* a blurring of precise copyright conventions where people’s writing is freely quoted in replies.
* the relationship between online identity and ‘real’ identity
* the weight of consideration given to those who express an opinion compared to those who ‘lurk’.
* the need for the researcher to join or already be a part of the community and not just observe it from without.(differing from some ethnological approaches)
Technorati Tags: distributedactionresearch
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
