Yes, the more I read about the subject, the more I tend towards simply using RDF to model the knowledge data, mixed with some kind of wiki or reader to contain the prose parts.
I still think mixing them is more natural to people who write the documentation, and that's what I like SMW for, because you can simply write things like "Server A is on vlan [network:123]" and both human and machine can understand the meaning of that.
But I can't believe a hack to MediaWiki is the best that's available.
Welcome to the age of being offended by everything. Seriously, some people are actively searching for things that they can feel offended by, aren't they?
and novelists trying to keep track of places, people, timelines, todos, feedback etc
That was actually more helpful than you might think, because I'm a roleplayer and GM a lot and I know this problem very good. It's an interesting way to look at it and yes, it is very similar.
keep coming back to a book of notes or a master notes document.)
The problem is that the complexity of the system is too large for notes.
This doesn't work and everyone knows it. Yes, if you have a few people on staff for the documentation, you will end up with a nicely designed, professionally looking piece of documentation. That may or may not have a relation to what is actually implemented. The more time passes, the more it will move towards "may not".
That is because in real life scenarios, knowledge in the head of people working the system every day trumps knowledge stored in Word files. Because they are too clumsy and reading them is too slow. It is faster to find someone who knows and ask them.
But if you could query the documentation, that would be faster. If I need to know which systems handle billing data and on which networks they are located. Or if I want to understand how this record of data moves through the system before it ends up in the database because I'm tracking a bug.
KMSes are the Fallout of 2000s mid-execs bullshit-bingo sessions and IMHO hardly ever worth the hassle.
Maybe. The ones I've seen so far are pretty shit. That's why I ask here, because I'm sure somewhere is a good one or two.
Thus you may want to define some areas of knowledge where the semantical features will really be used more than in others, and somehow get it enforced through policy?
That is the plan. Ideally, however, the two (strict areas and less strict ones) are in the same system so the documentation is easy to improve whenever someone feels the need.
I may not have been precise enough in describing what I'm looking for. Or I set people off in the wrong direction by using SMW as an example, because it's the closest I know to what I want. Or maybe it really doesn't exist.
What a shame. No, actually I'm part happy about that because I'm no big fan of SharePoint, but if there were something built on top of it, that would make the convincing and introducing part easier.
Due to NDAs I can't speak about details, but both B and to some extent A are true, together with one other factor that gives us a window to introduce a new system.
Anyway, I didn't come here to discuss the pros and cons of the management side, I'm trying to figure out if there are better options than Confluence or Word.
How would I store that this application is stored on that server located on these networks, exchanging these types of data with this and this other systems?
I'm a big fan of Free Software, don't get me wrong.
But in certain environments, the effort it takes to get something into the project is much, much less if it comes from HP or SAP or Microsoft, or even from RedHat or, you know, some other company instead of github. It might be bullshit, but it's a corporate reality, like it or not.
foswiki seems to be just a regular wiki. For that the company would go with Confluence, I'm sure. I'm looking for something more than a wiki. Something that understands meanings and relations. You know, Wikipedia is cute for storing texts and hyperlinking them, but it can't do cute things like "show me all cities bigger than one million people in french-speaking countries" without someone manually maintaining a list.
Anything more complicated than that and you'll be the only one using it. Other people won't care enough to spend their time entering data into specific fields and learning a query system.
These are high-class professionals. If the solution is better than what we have now, it will have support.
And no, documents or a wiki won't cut it. I need to store and extract meaningful relational information.
your best bet IS just files in a directory tree with a normal OS provided content search
Not useful for my case. I know that I will need to query the system in more complicated ways than keyword searches allow. I need to know how data flows and how systems are connected. I want to store relations as well as information, that's why I thought about SMW, except that it's too much of tinkering. I've been in this area for a while, I have a fairly good understand of what is possible how. If someone took SMW and turned it into a solid product with Enterprise support, I would propose it immediately. I found a semantic plugin for Confluence, but I'm uncertain about its capabilities, and I don't want to be locked in on Wikis. Maybe someone else has a non-wiki solution?
That is what I mean by saying we don't give enough of a fuck about where things come from.
Fortunately, over here enough people do, the ecology movement of the 80s took care of that. Markets exist and in fact are thriving. About two years ago, they opened a night market near my home, which so far I've only known from tropical asian countries. It's a much bigger pleasure to go there than to a supermarket.
capitalism as we used to have it, as it used to benefit average people, and lift them out of poverty, is pretty much dead.
What makes you assume this was ever the purpose and not just a side-effect?
It is very, very visible here in Germany. In fact, it's so transparent that you would have to be completely blind to not notice it.
Germany had very strong social systems and a good distribution of wealth. There were poor and rich, but very few very poor and very few crazy rich. Normal people could afford a house and a car on one salary from a regular job. Unemployment money was high enough that you wouldn't lose your home and pensions were so that retiring didn't mean becoming poor. Universal health care? We've had that always and it was adequate. Doctors were so good we exported them to other countries. Basically, a lot of people could actually afford those Mercedes and BMW cars we make.
After the fall of communism that all changed. Politics intentionally created a new low-cost labour market. Unemployment benefits dropped, lots of social benefits were dismantled, and when you are of working age, you are being bombarded with advertisement telling you to buy into this or that investment scheme because your pension will not allow you a good life anymore. All of that happened in less than 20 years. It started almost exactly after the re-unification, which provided a nice excuse for some measures ("it's so expensive, we need to save money").
What you learn from that is that all of this has been a front. The reason capitalism in Germany allowed for a good life was not inherent to capitalism. It was added benefits that were included because West Germany was too close to communist East Germany and the western allies needed to make sure the west german people would not look to East Germany and see something better, but the other way around (which, btw., worked). Once the threat of people actually desiring communism disappeared, the facade came down. Now we see what capitalism is really about, has always been about. It just stopped pretending.
I don't know about you, but 90% of the things I buy to live (Food, Toiletries, shelter) are owned and made by 13 companies. Unless you can afford really expensive boutique goods how the hell do you boycott? And if you can afford that TPP is good for you...
For food, you can go to local markets and buy it directly from farmers. At least here in Europe you can.
There are also local products in many categories, but they are often more expensive and sometimes only available in select shops (look for eco shops and sustainable products, that's a first pointer). But again, in this area there is so much scamming from big companies that you have to do research to be sure.
And that's the problem. We don't want to do that. We don't give enough of a fuck about the stuff we eat or use to care where it actually comes from.
Tell me how the hell to fix our politics...
Give back your nerd card. Robert Heinlein wrote a little book in fucking 1946 about this very problem, and little has changed since then:
Hey, long time since someone dared to propose a solution to spam and make the following relevant again. With you low ID, you should know better.
So you didn't read what I wrote.
So, I repeat: No, it would not make spam go to zero. Just like making theft illegal has not eliminated theft. However, the fact that it is a crime and is prosecuted and people go to jail for it certainly contributes a lot to the fact that in general we don't have very much of it.
Sure, spam would come from Russia and China. So? Just because something doesn't work 100% doesn't mean we should give up. Oh yes, and a lot of spam does come out of the USA. And even more of the actual spammers (the people, not the mail servers) are in the US.
(X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
Bullshit. Follow the money. What is being advertised, who runs that business and who did he pay for sending spam? Yes, a lot of the crap advertised is itself illegal, but again, doing something is better than doing nothing.
(X) Users of email will not put up with it
You just put crosses at random, yes? Users of email will not put up with spammers being put in jail? I very much doubt anyone would be sorry for them.
(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
Absolute bullshit. It requires nobody to cooperate. If it is a crime I can take the spam I got today and go to the police and that's it. You don't have to cooperate and neither does anyone else.
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
Not necessary. I'll stop at this point because it's becoming apparent you just put crosses at random without actually thinking about it.
Micro-payment, for example. There are a few prototypes out there already, sadly they don't have the reach they need. But I am absolutely willing to pay for things I like. If hitting a universal "I like this" button means an automatic, behind-the-scenes transfer of a few cents to the content creator, why not?
We don't notice that this "everything for free" attitude is also in parts a result of this advertisement poisoning the well. They've told us for years that we can get cool things for free, but they were lying to us. It's not for free at all. The price is just not in dollars.
The LotR movies made, according to a quick googling, a world-wide total of 2.9 billion $. Let's be honest with ourselves and say that a LOT of people saw them without paying. I know a bunch of people who did, because I bought the extended version DVDs and made a big home-cinema event for my friends.
I would dare to say close to a billion people probably watched these movies. That's $3 for everyone. Apparently, there is a lot of inefficiency in the system, because no legal source offers the movies for $1 a piece.
With less overhead in the system, we could bring these movies to everyone interested for a few bucks per person and without taking any revenue away from the creators. Sure, I didn't figure in the costs for operating a cinema or pressing DVDs. But I sincerely hope you are not trying to tell me that in those $15 cinema tickets only $1 is going to the studio?
My "I like" button is easily applied to media of all kinds. Duration of consumation is a perfectly good criterium. If I watch most or all of the movie, I pay a bit for it. If I watch it a second or third time, I pay less than for the first time, or not. Details TBD.
It is absolutely possible and normal to pay for content, and if it were priced correctly, I doubt so many people would opt out. We have seen it with iTunes already, which has made music reasonably cheap and comfortable to get and most people prefer it over hunting for a torrent.
We are beginning to see it with movies now with Netflix, and HBO and again iTunes / Apple TV.
We are beginning to see it with books as well. It won't work as well because physical books still have the better form factor, haptics and general appeal.
But the point is: People are ready to pay, if they don't feel extorted. People don't like to pay for movies because they are not priced fairly. 30 bucks to watch a movie with your GF? Seriously? For students, that's a lot of money. They could just pay the Hollywood stars a few millions less and make the movie half as expensive. Most people do not trick people of similar wealth, but when you see these guys driving to dream holiday locations in supercars, wearing designer clothes that cost more than you make in a month, there is much less of an ethical issue. That's just applied psychology. Heck, even Hollywood has understood this already and changed their anti-piracy messages to pointing out how many normal jobs depend on movies. It won't work if they don't make these normal people visible, though, but don't tell them.
In reality, the choice more and more becomes "run an ad blocker" or "drown in ad-crap while searching for the tiny bit of content you came for. Is it under this pop-up? Maybe under this overlay? Over here, between the banners?"
For the moment I'm happy ignoring the blistering idiots and running uBlock. If this stupidity makes into the code in any shape or form, I will jump to another browser. Fortunately, there are actually choices now.
I sure hope for another spike, I still own a few BC. But yes, it's not an alarming trend, no race to the bottom, I didn't mean to say that it goes to zero. But from what I see in the yearly stats I check now and then, it seems slightly downward.
But that is the whole point of my post. For life one level up, where humans (or whatever we turn into) are merely the equivalent of cells, a trip of a few hundred years would not be a generation. It would be the equivalent of the week- and month-long sea journeys our ancestors took.
Third, true. But until the fucking politicians wake up and declare this thing illegal and throw the fuckers in jail, that's all we can do. I'm still a big fan of that idea to turn off any and all spam filters for one week and show normal people what e-mail would be like if we didn't work so hard to make it halfway acceptable. After that week, either we can shut down all the SMTP servers because nobody is using e-mail anymore, or something would finally be done on the legal side of the problem. (and to those who say it won't work: Fuck off, retard. We throw murderes and thieves in jail as well, and while the crime rates are not zero, they are a far cry from the ratio of spam, so apparently it does work if you snap out of your binary thinking.)
So if you want a content limited, pay-walled, countermeasure-riddled web -- just stick with that childish attitude. But if you want a sustainable, awesome web ecosystem -- then start proposing acceptable limitations that nurture the publishers we all love.
Biggest bullshit of them all.
How about we throw away advertisement as a model simply because nobody likes it, you know, like fascism and sacrificing babies to the gods - yes for a while we thought there's no alternative, but then we kind of realised that we were just being stupid.
Let's just throw it away, and I can guarantee you that we will come up with better answers.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the more I read about the subject, the more I tend towards simply using RDF to model the knowledge data, mixed with some kind of wiki or reader to contain the prose parts.
I still think mixing them is more natural to people who write the documentation, and that's what I like SMW for, because you can simply write things like "Server A is on vlan [network:123]" and both human and machine can understand the meaning of that.
But I can't believe a hack to MediaWiki is the best that's available.
Don't forget the man pages
Don't tell them.
Welcome to the age of being offended by everything. Seriously, some people are actively searching for things that they can feel offended by, aren't they?
and novelists trying to keep track of places, people, timelines, todos, feedback etc
That was actually more helpful than you might think, because I'm a roleplayer and GM a lot and I know this problem very good. It's an interesting way to look at it and yes, it is very similar.
keep coming back to a book of notes or a master notes document.)
The problem is that the complexity of the system is too large for notes.
This doesn't work and everyone knows it. Yes, if you have a few people on staff for the documentation, you will end up with a nicely designed, professionally looking piece of documentation. That may or may not have a relation to what is actually implemented. The more time passes, the more it will move towards "may not".
That is because in real life scenarios, knowledge in the head of people working the system every day trumps knowledge stored in Word files. Because they are too clumsy and reading them is too slow. It is faster to find someone who knows and ask them.
But if you could query the documentation, that would be faster. If I need to know which systems handle billing data and on which networks they are located. Or if I want to understand how this record of data moves through the system before it ends up in the database because I'm tracking a bug.
KMSes are the Fallout of 2000s mid-execs bullshit-bingo sessions and IMHO hardly ever worth the hassle.
Maybe. The ones I've seen so far are pretty shit. That's why I ask here, because I'm sure somewhere is a good one or two.
Thus you may want to define some areas of knowledge where the semantical features will really be used more than in others, and somehow get it enforced through policy?
That is the plan. Ideally, however, the two (strict areas and less strict ones) are in the same system so the documentation is easy to improve whenever someone feels the need.
These are really good resources, thanks a lot.
If we go this direction, I have your e-mail.
I may not have been precise enough in describing what I'm looking for. Or I set people off in the wrong direction by using SMW as an example, because it's the closest I know to what I want. Or maybe it really doesn't exist.
I was part joking.
What a shame. No, actually I'm part happy about that because I'm no big fan of SharePoint, but if there were something built on top of it, that would make the convincing and introducing part easier.
However it produced a lot of jobs for mediocre programmers who now tweak and configer it with VisualBasic .Net ....
I already want to puke.
I've been using Sharepoint a fair bit, but I can't say I've grown to like it, or developed an interest about it.
Due to NDAs I can't speak about details, but both B and to some extent A are true, together with one other factor that gives us a window to introduce a new system.
Anyway, I didn't come here to discuss the pros and cons of the management side, I'm trying to figure out if there are better options than Confluence or Word.
How would I store that this application is stored on that server located on these networks, exchanging these types of data with this and this other systems?
I'm a big fan of Free Software, don't get me wrong.
But in certain environments, the effort it takes to get something into the project is much, much less if it comes from HP or SAP or Microsoft, or even from RedHat or, you know, some other company instead of github. It might be bullshit, but it's a corporate reality, like it or not.
foswiki seems to be just a regular wiki. For that the company would go with Confluence, I'm sure. I'm looking for something more than a wiki. Something that understands meanings and relations. You know, Wikipedia is cute for storing texts and hyperlinking them, but it can't do cute things like "show me all cities bigger than one million people in french-speaking countries" without someone manually maintaining a list.
Can you point me to more detailed instructions than "it can do anything"?
The idea of extending SharePoint is good. I found http://www.semantic-sharepoint... with a quick Google. Is that what you mean or something else?
Anything more complicated than that and you'll be the only one using it. Other people won't care enough to spend their time entering data into specific fields and learning a query system.
These are high-class professionals. If the solution is better than what we have now, it will have support.
And no, documents or a wiki won't cut it. I need to store and extract meaningful relational information.
your best bet IS just files in a directory tree with a normal OS provided content search
Not useful for my case. I know that I will need to query the system in more complicated ways than keyword searches allow. I need to know how data flows and how systems are connected. I want to store relations as well as information, that's why I thought about SMW, except that it's too much of tinkering. I've been in this area for a while, I have a fairly good understand of what is possible how. If someone took SMW and turned it into a solid product with Enterprise support, I would propose it immediately. I found a semantic plugin for Confluence, but I'm uncertain about its capabilities, and I don't want to be locked in on Wikis. Maybe someone else has a non-wiki solution?
That is what I mean by saying we don't give enough of a fuck about where things come from.
Fortunately, over here enough people do, the ecology movement of the 80s took care of that. Markets exist and in fact are thriving. About two years ago, they opened a night market near my home, which so far I've only known from tropical asian countries. It's a much bigger pleasure to go there than to a supermarket.
capitalism as we used to have it, as it used to benefit average people, and lift them out of poverty, is pretty much dead.
What makes you assume this was ever the purpose and not just a side-effect?
It is very, very visible here in Germany. In fact, it's so transparent that you would have to be completely blind to not notice it.
Germany had very strong social systems and a good distribution of wealth. There were poor and rich, but very few very poor and very few crazy rich. Normal people could afford a house and a car on one salary from a regular job. Unemployment money was high enough that you wouldn't lose your home and pensions were so that retiring didn't mean becoming poor. Universal health care? We've had that always and it was adequate. Doctors were so good we exported them to other countries. Basically, a lot of people could actually afford those Mercedes and BMW cars we make.
After the fall of communism that all changed. Politics intentionally created a new low-cost labour market. Unemployment benefits dropped, lots of social benefits were dismantled, and when you are of working age, you are being bombarded with advertisement telling you to buy into this or that investment scheme because your pension will not allow you a good life anymore. All of that happened in less than 20 years. It started almost exactly after the re-unification, which provided a nice excuse for some measures ("it's so expensive, we need to save money").
What you learn from that is that all of this has been a front. The reason capitalism in Germany allowed for a good life was not inherent to capitalism. It was added benefits that were included because West Germany was too close to communist East Germany and the western allies needed to make sure the west german people would not look to East Germany and see something better, but the other way around (which, btw., worked).
Once the threat of people actually desiring communism disappeared, the facade came down. Now we see what capitalism is really about, has always been about. It just stopped pretending.
I don't know about you, but 90% of the things I buy to live (Food, Toiletries, shelter) are owned and made by 13 companies. Unless you can afford really expensive boutique goods how the hell do you boycott? And if you can afford that TPP is good for you...
For food, you can go to local markets and buy it directly from farmers. At least here in Europe you can.
There are also local products in many categories, but they are often more expensive and sometimes only available in select shops (look for eco shops and sustainable products, that's a first pointer). But again, in this area there is so much scamming from big companies that you have to do research to be sure.
And that's the problem. We don't want to do that. We don't give enough of a fuck about the stuff we eat or use to care where it actually comes from.
Tell me how the hell to fix our politics...
Give back your nerd card. Robert Heinlein wrote a little book in fucking 1946 about this very problem, and little has changed since then:
https://www.goodreads.com/book...
Hey, long time since someone dared to propose a solution to spam and make the following relevant again. With you low ID, you should know better.
So you didn't read what I wrote.
So, I repeat: No, it would not make spam go to zero. Just like making theft illegal has not eliminated theft. However, the fact that it is a crime and is prosecuted and people go to jail for it certainly contributes a lot to the fact that in general we don't have very much of it.
Sure, spam would come from Russia and China. So? Just because something doesn't work 100% doesn't mean we should give up. Oh yes, and a lot of spam does come out of the USA. And even more of the actual spammers (the people, not the mail servers) are in the US.
(X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
Bullshit. Follow the money. What is being advertised, who runs that business and who did he pay for sending spam? Yes, a lot of the crap advertised is itself illegal, but again, doing something is better than doing nothing.
(X) Users of email will not put up with it
You just put crosses at random, yes? Users of email will not put up with spammers being put in jail? I very much doubt anyone would be sorry for them.
(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
Absolute bullshit. It requires nobody to cooperate. If it is a crime I can take the spam I got today and go to the police and that's it. You don't have to cooperate and neither does anyone else.
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
Not necessary. I'll stop at this point because it's becoming apparent you just put crosses at random without actually thinking about it.
Micro-payment, for example. There are a few prototypes out there already, sadly they don't have the reach they need. But I am absolutely willing to pay for things I like. If hitting a universal "I like this" button means an automatic, behind-the-scenes transfer of a few cents to the content creator, why not?
We don't notice that this "everything for free" attitude is also in parts a result of this advertisement poisoning the well. They've told us for years that we can get cool things for free, but they were lying to us. It's not for free at all. The price is just not in dollars.
The LotR movies made, according to a quick googling, a world-wide total of 2.9 billion $. Let's be honest with ourselves and say that a LOT of people saw them without paying. I know a bunch of people who did, because I bought the extended version DVDs and made a big home-cinema event for my friends.
I would dare to say close to a billion people probably watched these movies. That's $3 for everyone. Apparently, there is a lot of inefficiency in the system, because no legal source offers the movies for $1 a piece.
With less overhead in the system, we could bring these movies to everyone interested for a few bucks per person and without taking any revenue away from the creators. Sure, I didn't figure in the costs for operating a cinema or pressing DVDs. But I sincerely hope you are not trying to tell me that in those $15 cinema tickets only $1 is going to the studio?
My "I like" button is easily applied to media of all kinds. Duration of consumation is a perfectly good criterium. If I watch most or all of the movie, I pay a bit for it. If I watch it a second or third time, I pay less than for the first time, or not. Details TBD.
It is absolutely possible and normal to pay for content, and if it were priced correctly, I doubt so many people would opt out. We have seen it with iTunes already, which has made music reasonably cheap and comfortable to get and most people prefer it over hunting for a torrent.
We are beginning to see it with movies now with Netflix, and HBO and again iTunes / Apple TV.
We are beginning to see it with books as well. It won't work as well because physical books still have the better form factor, haptics and general appeal.
But the point is: People are ready to pay, if they don't feel extorted. People don't like to pay for movies because they are not priced fairly. 30 bucks to watch a movie with your GF? Seriously? For students, that's a lot of money. They could just pay the Hollywood stars a few millions less and make the movie half as expensive. Most people do not trick people of similar wealth, but when you see these guys driving to dream holiday locations in supercars, wearing designer clothes that cost more than you make in a month, there is much less of an ethical issue. That's just applied psychology. Heck, even Hollywood has understood this already and changed their anti-piracy messages to pointing out how many normal jobs depend on movies. It won't work if they don't make these normal people visible, though, but don't tell them.
Theoretically, yes.
In reality, the choice more and more becomes "run an ad blocker" or "drown in ad-crap while searching for the tiny bit of content you came for. Is it under this pop-up? Maybe under this overlay? Over here, between the banners?"
For the moment I'm happy ignoring the blistering idiots and running uBlock. If this stupidity makes into the code in any shape or form, I will jump to another browser. Fortunately, there are actually choices now.
I sure hope for another spike, I still own a few BC. But yes, it's not an alarming trend, no race to the bottom, I didn't mean to say that it goes to zero. But from what I see in the yearly stats I check now and then, it seems slightly downward.
It's also easy to posit generation ships.
But that is the whole point of my post. For life one level up, where humans (or whatever we turn into) are merely the equivalent of cells, a trip of a few hundred years would not be a generation. It would be the equivalent of the week- and month-long sea journeys our ancestors took.
First, correct.
Second, bullshit.
Third, true. But until the fucking politicians wake up and declare this thing illegal and throw the fuckers in jail, that's all we can do. I'm still a big fan of that idea to turn off any and all spam filters for one week and show normal people what e-mail would be like if we didn't work so hard to make it halfway acceptable. After that week, either we can shut down all the SMTP servers because nobody is using e-mail anymore, or something would finally be done on the legal side of the problem.
(and to those who say it won't work: Fuck off, retard. We throw murderes and thieves in jail as well, and while the crime rates are not zero, they are a far cry from the ratio of spam, so apparently it does work if you snap out of your binary thinking.)
So if you want a content limited, pay-walled, countermeasure-riddled web -- just stick with that childish attitude. But if you want a sustainable, awesome web ecosystem -- then start proposing acceptable limitations that nurture the publishers we all love.
Biggest bullshit of them all.
How about we throw away advertisement as a model simply because nobody likes it, you know, like fascism and sacrificing babies to the gods - yes for a while we thought there's no alternative, but then we kind of realised that we were just being stupid.
Let's just throw it away, and I can guarantee you that we will come up with better answers.