If the Missive Project intrigues you, your thoughtful input is most welcome.
All of the Projects elements are in assembly level draft stages. Suggestions for kernel inclusion, formulation, reformulation and rendition (poetic versions) are welcome, as is discussion of extent of topic coverage and accessibility to the target audiences. These may be your own contribution, or shared links to sources.
My hope is that each kernel will present an interesting challenge to persons at all levels of expertise. The trick is to lay adequate foundations for future scientists, without becoming a textbook on any subject.
My guess is that most of the work at this level of the Project has already been well-done by persons expert in their fields. Much of the foot-work at this stage is therefore to gather and assemble it into a body of text. Eventually, I see this 'plain text' undergoing a final work-up into poetic language.
Please understand that draft and final versions - which is in any case unlikely to contain verbatim quotations - will contain neither attributions nor acknowledgements.
Unless persuaded otherwise, I see the Missive as an anonymous gift to the future.
I believe that the project goals and methodology have not been sufficiently explained to enable meaningful participation. However, doing so might be an evolving goal of the project itself. If that is the case, such a goal should logically precede topical kernels.
ReplyDeleteIt is uncertain, of course, whether this project can be substantially completed before it is needed. It is probably a shared belief among likely contributors that time is of the essence. Clarity enables speed and accuracy. A main ingredient of effective project completion, other than sufficient and appropriate participants, is clarity in all aspects of the project. Clarity can never be prudently assumed for any project. If it is to exist, it must be purposefully created.
Most projects which fail -- and that is a significant percentage of the total, acknowledged or otherwise -- do so mainly for two related reasons: 1) Failure to adequately plan, and 2) in the case of an adequate plan, failure to utilize the plan to execute tasks. One of the wisest project managers from my past, expert on this point, determined that planning should rightly constitute about 80% of a project. Although planning is “doing”, that is not widely understood. It is more often thought of as wasting time that could be spent "doing". What is typically seen as “doing” should constitute the remaining 20% of total project time. This metric is counter-intuitive, rarely used, and so rarely able to prevent the failure of or contribute to the success of more projects.
If Blogger allows it, I suggest that the "edit" feature for comments should be enabled to allow contributors better control over their own contributions.
ReplyDeleteOn the need for organization:
ReplyDeleteThough any model could be chosen, consider Wikipedia. In order to create the diverse content of that website, from many thousands of contributors, some organization was needed regarding methodology. I'd assert that such foundational organization was a major, but unsung ingredient of Wikipedia's success, as the alternative would have been lots of chaos, no credibility, and eventual abandonment.
The following page is just one example of a effort to provide some guidance and organization for similar group efforts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contributing_to_Wikipedia
Having said that, if a less structured approach is desired, an alternative would be to have the first draft of such a project be more or less a mass "stream of consciousness" exercise. Then, at some future point, when enough content is obtained, that first stage could be closed to contributions and the project put on hiatus.
Then the content from the first stage could be edited by someone/s and presented as a starting position for a second stage. During a second stage, organizational methods and rules could be introduced ala Wikipedia or something similar.
A significant ingredient of any joint project, in which clarity is important, is definitions.
ReplyDeleteDefinitions provide a common language for participants, reducing confusion and increasing efficiency.
Accordingly, I propose the creation of a glossary for this project.
Such a glossary should not try to define everything. Dictionaries do that. It should, however, define numerous foundational terms as used within the context of this project.
I'll provide one germinal example -- the words "wisdom" and "knowledge".
I see knowledge as facts, and wisdom as information about how to effectively use those facts. However, for this project, is that accurate? Is it adequate? Seems not.
The intention so far seems to be to try to use the term "wisdom" to equate to ethics, and "knowledge" to equate to scientific methodologies or postulates.
See what I mean?
The same issue, and need for clarity, applies to every categorical word in the project Table of Contents (TOC).
I may provide more on this point in the TOC comments section of the project blog.