Topic:Bloomer HowTo

From Bloomer

Contents 1 Description 2 What's Important 3 HowTo Categories 3.1 Topics 3.1.1 Creating Topics 3.1.2 Topic Naming 3.1.3 Editing Topics 3.2 IBIS Conversations 3.2.1 Starting a Conversation 3.2.2 Participating in a Conversation

Description    (1)

Here is our first pass at assembling what we believe to be instructions on how to use Bloomer in collective intelligence work. We fully expect this page to grow, and to change as we learn what works and what doesn't.  This is a research project; we intend to document in feedback pages what we learn as this project evolves.    (1A)

What's Important    (2)

Bloomer is an experimental platform, one that must and will change from time to time. It is important to think in terms of lost data associated with platform crashes and so forth. Still, our desire is to explore, to the greatest degree possible, the advantages and disadvantages of various wiki usage patterns. Patterns such as using namespaces to organize the wiki, using templates for uniformity of content, and other patterns, dictate the need to avoid simply creating pages in an ad hoc fashion. Our hope is to bring this HowTo document up to speed as rapidly as possible as a means of enforcing standardized user gestures going forward.    (2A)

We seek to invent pattern languages for varieties of collective intelligence activities. Bloomer is a platform for discovery of those patterns.    (2B)

HowTo Categories    (3)

Topics    (3A)

Topics are created in the Topic namespace, as is this HowTo topic.    (3A1)

Creating Topics    (3A2)

In the most general sense, a topic can be created according to the following simple sequence:    (3A2A)

1. Invent a topic name (more on that below)    (3A2A1)
2. Prepend the Topic namespace to the topic name (e.g. Topic:My Topic)    (3A2A2)
3. Enter that string (e.g. Topic:My Topic) into the search bar at the left    (3A2A3)
4. Click the Go button    (3A2A4)
5. If the topic is a new one, click the create this page link    (3A2A5)
6. Begin editing    (3A2A6)
7. Save when done, entering an appropriate comment before saving    (3A2A7)

Many topics in Bloomer will be created by extensions, such as the IBIS conversation extension. Others will rely on author-creation of new topics. For some topic creation activities, we plan to create an extension that answers a New Topic button.    (3A2B)

Topic Naming    (3A3)

In general, names for topics that carry semantic meaning are dangerous. Consider the term "Game Theory". It's the name of a particular domain of mathematics, but it's also an ambiguous term: it's the name of a rock band, and an album. We seek a pattern that guides the practice of naming topics.  In the simplest form, we can use a global unique identifier system available to us through the Federation Server to suggest an identifier to be used, but that's not available to us immediately. Such an identifier is typically a long string composed of numbers and letters, typically hexidecimal numbers.    (3A3A)

For many of our topics, it's safe to use a symbolic name, such as "Bloomer HowTo" as we did here. For most topics, however, we must use caution in selecting names for things that are known to be ambiguous.    (3A3B)

   (3A3C)

Editing Topics    (3A4)

We will have much more to say about this in the Patterns sections, but the prime editing directive at Bloomer, which is different from that at Wikipedia, is this:    (3A4A)

• Do not edit other people's work (with the exception of minor typographical corrections).  We will soon provide IBIS conversations with which to engage in disagreements about content.    (3A4A1)

IBIS Conversations    (3B)

An IBIS Conversation, also known as dialogue map or issue map, is a structured record of a conversation. Such conversations can occur in meetings (face to face) or online in facilities created to facilitate by recording the conversations. As a structured record, a conversation consists of nodes linked together with labeled arcs (relations); different kinds of nodes connect with different kinds of link relation types. These are the node types found in a simplified, common, IBIS conversation:    (3B1)

• Map node: serves as a container for a conversation    (3B1A)
• Issue (also known as Question) node: serves to display a question that needs to be answered    (3B1B)
• Position (also known as Answer, sometimes Idea) node: serves to provide an answer to a question    (3B1C)
• Pro Argument node: serves to provide supporting evidence for a Position node    (3B1D)
• Con Argument node: serves to refute or argue against a Position node    (3B1E)

Starting a Conversation    (3B1F)

Participating in a Conversation    (3B1G)