tcmpedia info permission? and related topics

[Guest guest]

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:41:56 –0000, " David Botton " <david wrote:

 

1) >>…idea of " proprietary medicine " from the orient…

 

1) Could you elaborate on this? I may know what you mean, but am not sure.

 

>> In regards to links vs. content, I disagree completely. The idea is

to create a consolidated source of information that can eventually be

managed by editors, etc. This is not possible with links. I am sure

though that there will be ready donors of knowledge just by asking for

permission and quoting with attributions and links.

 

2) Links, I would argue, are indispensable. Starting with the

traditional mechanism of footnote references. Any scholarly or

scientific discussion regularly refers to " prior [relevant] research " .

(Not to imply that everything here is to be scholarly or scientific,

except in the general sense of science as knowledge.)

 

The ability to link (by various names) is integral to internet media.

In fact, was the key idea back in Ted Nelson's original notion (in the

1970s-1980's) of " hypertext " (as in HTML – hyper-text markup

language). The " hyper " referred to the ability to embed links.

Internal linking is a key feature in wikipedia, as is external

linking. (Granted, external linking runs the risk of becoming " stale "

– the link target disappearing from cyberspace.)

 

3) Maybe you could elaborate on " the idea is to create a consolidated

source of information " ? In what sense consolidated, other than being

in the same " garden " ? One flavor would be that anything anyone puts in

there could be allowed to stand (not necessarily to be thoroughly

checked out or validated) unless it were totally inappropriate (spam,

smut, etc.), or inflammatory. Because, if it's incomplete or

inaccurate, others will see to it that it's expanded or corrected. And

the parties can negotiate to an understanding, or retreat to separate,

alternative threads/viewpoints. If nobody notices, or cares, then so what.

 

4) This brings up an issue that perhaps there can be home page

disclaimer, that not everything is to be taken as absolutely the last

word, or even necessarily " true " . (What that can mean is another

discussion.) Similarly, some form of disclaimer that if there's some

copyright issue with content, that it's on the shoulders of the

contributor, and not the website. (Some legal counsel may be needed.

Or browsing around various sites for examples of how this is variously

handled. Attilio may have been through this for his online periodical.)

 

5) Another side-issue that came to mind in drafting contributions.

Would it make sense to have a single locus of literature references?

I.e. author(s), title, [periodical], date, publisher, chapter/pages,

etc. And derivative references, i.e. like the use of " ibid " , where one

refers to a book already cited there, but different chapter, page,

etc. This could include URL references (as many writers already

incorporate into references lists). Actually it's then perhaps two

entities: 1) bibliography (the book, periodical, website, etc.), and

2) references (the chapter, page,…).

 

One may have noticed that I (and others) often include an appendix of

references at the end of messages in this forum. Part of the impetus I

felt for a wiki was to collect these, and not have to repeat them.

(Repetition is an experience that leads to innovation – one of the

maxims gleaned from my past incarnation – in computer science,

software design and development.)

 

The idea would be anyone using/needing a literature reference adds it,

maybe one entry to bibliography, and one to references that links to

the bibliography one. If one's lazy, even add it incompletely, and

someone more fastidious will flesh it out.

 

Then the question arises: in the wiki toolkit are there index creation

tools? e.g. extracting an index from a table (i.e. a relational

database entity), and then sorting it? That is, if we're all adding

biblio/reference items in random order, indexed by the sequentially

assigned number of the record in the table, it would be nice to have

an alphabetic sorted index to be able search to see if something's

already there before adding it again.

 

We could footnote to the entries by sequential number, and/or by

(author[year[sequence]]). Maybe other possibilities.

 

 

[Guest guest]

Chinese Medicine , " chris_macie " <

wrote:

>

> Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:41:56 –0000, " David Botton " <david wrote:

>

> 1) >>…idea of " proprietary medicine " from the orient…

>

> 1) Could you elaborate on this? I may know what you mean, but am not sure.

 

There is a chinese expression that if one teaches their pupal too much the

master will

starve. That about describes it in a nut shell. Not to say there have not been

those that go

against societal norms and hence CM exists today at least with some traditions

still in tact.

 

 

>

> 2) Links, I would argue, are indispensable. Starting with the

> traditional mechanism of footnote references.

 

We are agreeing in this matter, I am talking about links as an alternate to

information, ie.

pages and pages of links with no content. They are indispensable as references

or to

follow up for more information, etc.

 

> 3) Maybe you could elaborate on " the idea is to create a consolidated

> source of information " ? In what sense consolidated, other than being

> in the same " garden " ?

 

That is it, it is all in the same garden as long as it is not a weed. Although

at the same

time you have your roses in one bed and your daisies in another and make sure

they are

labeled so people know what they are looking at.

 

> 4) This brings up an issue that perhaps there can be home page

> disclaimer, that not everything is to be taken as absolutely the last

> word, or even necessarily " true " . (What that can mean is another

> discussion.) Similarly, some form of disclaimer that if there's some

> copyright issue with content, that it's on the shoulders of the

> contributor, and not the website. (Some legal counsel may be needed.

> Or browsing around various sites for examples of how this is variously

> handled. Attilio may have been through this for his online periodical.)

 

Agreed.

 

>

> 5) Another side-issue that came to mind in drafting contributions.

> Would it make sense to have a single locus of literature references?

 

That would be very nice as it grows we should steer towards that.

 

> Then the question arises: in the wiki toolkit are there index creation

> tools?

 

I don't believe so, but I could certainly write a plug-in at some point to do

that.

 

David Botton