insist on the Giant Global Graph... was: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
all-- been sitting on this term extraction topic (no pun...) for over a month now, and i've got a more extensive treatise brewing, but not finished... so, meanwhile, a couple of things to mention in this area... 1) tom loosemore: So, why not throw the copy through several more term extractors then only use the overlapping terms? Rhys: Though I'm uneasy about a possible situation where one of your term extractors comes up with a great set of terms, but the others miss them completely, and so your output is a bad compromise of terms that aren't that meaningful. i've personally explored this approach somewhat thoroughly over the past few years, at work and at, um, play, and feel it's really effective -- in practice, i haven't come across a situation where your output is a bad compromise of terms that aren't that meaningful... -- tho i suppose that depends on the particular use cases you apply it to... i'll post a little code/prototype app that illustrates this approach for people to poke at soon... 2) here's something i've been exploring and would like to suggest others try, to see if you agree it's promising: download wikipedia dump... index it into Lucene, one Lucene doc per wikipedia page/concept/URI... compare your own (text) content to that Wikipedia-in-Lucene collection, using Lucene's MoreLikeThis... MoreLikeThis suggests wikipedia articles similar to your content... let the term extraction-like, but with unique, semantic web-ready unique ID/URI hijinks begin... again, i should have some (nasty) code/prototype web app available for comment/debunking soon... 3) The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... Ah - has this been used to derive the subject categories and contributors for the web version of Infax, by any chance? If so, and even if not, that would be a gorgeous API to offer - please, BBC... agree that the Beeb should try to make this into a public-facing API! 4) i agree that http://sws.clearforest.com/ws is really good and useful... anyone made any progress with GATE/ANNIE tho? how about LingPipe? what about the new-ish Yahoo! Pipes entity extraction? 5) in this term extraction/semantic web space, this could be REALLY big, check it out and let us know what you make of it: Calais - Overview Calais: Connect. Everything We want to make all the world's content more accessible, interoperable and valuable. Some call it Web 2.0, Web 3.0, the semantic web or the Giant Global Graph - we call our piece of it Calais. http://reuters.mashery.com/ insanely useful? thoughts? best-- --cs -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Rhys Jones Sent: Tue 11/27/2007 11:09 AM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...you can minimise false positive terms by running the copy through several different flavours of term extractor, and only using terms thrown up by x or more of them (where x depends on your appetite for false positives vs false negatives). So, why not throw the copy through several more term extractors then only use the overlapping terms? This should work (and it's been suggested on the backstage-dev list recently). Though I'm uneasy about a possible situation where one of your term extractors comes up with a great set of terms, but the others miss them completely, and so your output is a bad compromise of terms that aren't that meaningful. Do any APIs let you see the confidence score on their output terms? Having admittedly not thought about this much, it seems to me that a confidence score is key to any realistic combination algorithm. In terms (sorry) of quality of output, people seem to like Yahoo's API. I've come across Trynt's offering too (http://www.trynt.com/trynt-contextual-term-extraction-api/ ), but ominously their website is giving me a 403 Forbidden error right now. http://www.programmableweb.com/api/clearforest-semantic-web-services1/ has also been suggested on the pure technical discussion list. - The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... Ah - has this been used to derive the subject categories and contributors for the web version of Infax, by any chance? If so, and even if not, that would be a gorgeous API to offer - please, BBC... Rhys - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 05/12/2007, Nick Reynolds-AMi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nice idea But how do you decide who is allowed to contribute to the Wiki? MPs and civil servants? MPs would still have to propose the wording of the acts. The idea is that the lobbying and modifications would still happen as they do now, but they would be in camera and the history of changes and who proposed them would be clearly visible. If you cast the net wider you run up against a problem - who is representing who? or who manages to let people do it to them? MPs would still vote on the legislation, but they would be able to have help and advice from more people and that would be 100% transparent and above board. But any changes proposed would be voted on, as amendments to legislation are already by the bicameral system. It's not perfect, but the usual law-of-unintended-consequences would have a smaller arena to play in. But MPs have to work on things as a whole, not take populist decisions. Oh right. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Noah Slater Sent: 28 November 2007 22:06 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage On 28/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would start by constructing Acts of Parliament by Wiki for a start. ROFLCOPTOR!!!1 -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/nov/29/it.internet On 29/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 29/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 28/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's just so bloody facetious. Welcome to teh intrawebs: serious business. Whilst were are at it, every room in the Houses of Parliament should be on CCTV, transmitted online 24 hours a day. And Number 10. And all the Ministry's. Even the bogs? ;) Looks like you've been had by the old political game of if you don't vote for me, don't vote at all. How very clever of you to give away the tiny little bit of power you have. That makes you a apathy-collaborator. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 28/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Whilst were are at it, every room in the Houses of Parliament should be on CCTV, transmitted online 24 hours a day. And Number 10. And all the Ministry's. This is _so_ unlikely, because a lot of politicians are (and I mean this in a factual way, not a derogative way, because this is true for everyone in the specialist economies that underpin civilisation) pretty ignorant about many things - science, say - and having the private meetings where scientific advisers give GCSE-level explanations to top brass made public would be incredibly embarrassing. Embarrassing powerful people doesn't happen much. However, having said all that, don't get me wrong... It sickens me that they put up all those cameras to monitor us, and yet we can't monitor them back. The political process is transparent, but sadly it's a one-way mirror. ...I am in total agreement that this kind of thing is a good idea, and think sousveillance is the counterweight to Big Brother problems. http://www.google.hr/search?q=police+abuse -- Regards, Dave (Personal opinion only!) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On Tue, 27 Nov 2007, Dave Crossland wrote: On 27/11/2007, Billy Abbott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is naieve to think that a choice of providers will have identical functionality. I wasn't clear - I meant common open APIs, ie. the same API with different vendors behind it. That way they will offer very similar levels of functionality, with the choice being based on how good they run. Sure, and I'm suggesting that a common API will be a base that each gatekeeper will add bespoke features too. I'll be surprised if similar services offered with a common open API from Google and Yahoo and Microsoft do not have any specialist features to differentiate them. That is the obvious point that somehow flew straight over my head. Now I don't like common APIs as much. Boo. Freedom means more than a choice of lords. You can happily run your own things and then be your own lord, ...but not if the gatekeepers continue to offer software to the public without making the source code to that software public. In order to get the gatekeepers to offer that software they need to have an incentive to do so. Apart from idealistic ones who are doing it for the reason of wanting the software to be free, I don't currently see what the incentive is for the others. While I'd like to be able to get the software (so that anyone can run their own service and also have the potential to grab the software and run their own service if their provider goes tits up) I can understand why people don't give it out for free. Pleae let me know if I am missing a reason why people should, outside of idealogical reasons. --billy -- Hey, it's our constitutional right to complain about the products we have willingly purchased without any forethought of consequences. Billy Abbott billy at cowfish dot org dot uk - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of vijay chopra It was only one idea, I'm sure that there are others. who knows, one of them might even including resurrecting the noble art of journalism as a public service rather than to make money. So can you give us any indication of when the technologists will have completed the prototype of the journalist that doesn't need food or shelter? Strange definition of elitism - one I have never heard before - if the result of what you want really meant that everyone got the best of everything then I would support it - but if all that happens is a small group of people like yourselves benefit and everybody else loses out then we will be no further forward Not the best of everything, but the best of anything, i.e. the cream of the crop, the best of the best etc. That's the result I want, the best of everything gives you mediocrity. You're not one of those people who moans about Oxford and Cambridge being elitist are you? That's the whole point! Elite means best of the best, and we only want the best of the best going there. In the same way I only want the best of the best on my PC. That means I have to be elitist. But you don't want the best of journalism? Or you think you can get the best journalists by telling them to work for free? Should anyone (other than, presumably, the technologists) be paid for their work? Why should people who do important jobs in the public interest not get paid? My father has worked very hard his entire life as a teacher in an inner city school. He thinks his job matters and takes his work very seriously but he wouldn't have done it if they hadn't paid him. You know, what with kids to support etc. If you think journalism isn't important to society then make that argument. If you think it is, then why blithely assume that other people should do that important work for nothing?
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Deirdre Harvey wrote: So can you give us any indication of when the technologists will have completed the prototype of the journalist that doesn't need food or shelter? Well, someone here at BBC RD presented a (tongue-in-cheek) design for an android journalist at an internal new ideas symposium a year or so back... I don't think it's got past the concept stage though. ;-) S - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Billy Abbott wrote: In order to get the gatekeepers to offer that software they need to have an incentive to do so. Apart from idealistic ones who are doing it for the reason of wanting the software to be free, I don't currently see what the incentive is for the others. While I'd like to be able to get the software (so that anyone can run their own service and also have the potential to grab the software and run their own service if their provider goes tits up) I can understand why people don't give it out for free. Pleae let me know if I am missing a reason why people should, outside of idealogical reasons. Well, if developers were more cautious about basing their applications on APIs with no Free implementations then that would give API providers an incentive. But they aren't, and I wonder why? As developers, what is it that makes the people on this list trust big web application and service providers to maintain their APIs for as long as you want them? Is it because you have a high level of trust for them, or a very short expectancy of useful life for your applications? S - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Journalists in terms of national newspapers and national broadcasters aren't needed in modern society. We could easily and happily do without them. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Deirdre Harvey Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:48 AM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of vijay chopra It was only one idea, I'm sure that there are others. who knows, one of them might even including resurrecting the noble art of journalism as a public service rather than to make money. So can you give us any indication of when the technologists will have completed the prototype of the journalist that doesn't need food or shelter? Strange definition of elitism - one I have never heard before - if the result of what you want really meant that everyone got the best of everything then I would support it - but if all that happens is a small group of people like yourselves benefit and everybody else loses out then we will be no further forward Not the best of everything, but the best of anything, i.e. the cream of the crop, the best of the best etc. That's the result I want, the best of everything gives you mediocrity. You're not one of those people who moans about Oxford and Cambridge being elitist are you? That's the whole point! Elite means best of the best, and we only want the best of the best going there. In the same way I only want the best of the best on my PC. That means I have to be elitist. But you don't want the best of journalism? Or you think you can get the best journalists by telling them to work for free? Should anyone (other than, presumably, the technologists) be paid for their work? Why should people who do important jobs in the public interest not get paid? My father has worked very hard his entire life as a teacher in an inner city school. He thinks his job matters and takes his work very seriously but he wouldn't have done it if they hadn't paid him. You know, what with kids to support etc. If you think journalism isn't important to society then make that argument. If you think it is, then why blithely assume that other people should do that important work for nothing?
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
It was only one idea, I'm sure that there are others. who knows, one of them might even including resurrecting the noble art of journalism as a public service rather than to make money. So can you give us any indication of when the technologists will have completed the prototype of the journalist that doesn't need food or shelter? Apparently it's already with us. It's called a 'blogger. Can't generally write for toffee, doesn't check facts, confuses opinion with truth, is credulous as hell, and has nothing worth saying, but hey - if you want everything for free... ;-) Cheers, Rich.
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Journalists in terms of national newspapers and national broadcasters aren't needed in modern society. We could easily and happily do without them. Really? Why's that then? Rich.
RE: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
That's more a bald assertion than an argument, but it beats the usual refrain that expecting payment for your work is an old economy anachronism. Deirdre Harvey :: Web Producer :: BBC Newsline :: Newsroom :: BBC Broadcasting House :: Ormeau Avenue :: Belfast BT2 8HQ :: ph. 02890 338264 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 November 2007 12:11 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage Journalists in terms of national newspapers and national broadcasters aren't needed in modern society. We could easily and happily do without them. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Deirdre Harvey Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:48 AM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of vijay chopra It was only one idea, I'm sure that there are others. who knows, one of them might even including resurrecting the noble art of journalism as a public service rather than to make money. So can you give us any indication of when the technologists will have completed the prototype of the journalist that doesn't need food or shelter? Strange definition of elitism - one I have never heard before - if the result of what you want really meant that everyone got the best of everything then I would support it - but if all that happens is a small group of people like yourselves benefit and everybody else loses out then we will be no further forward Not the best of everything, but the best of anything, i.e. the cream of the crop, the best of the best etc. That's the result I want, the best of everything gives you mediocrity. You're not one of those people who moans about Oxford and Cambridge being elitist are you? That's the whole point! Elite means best of the best, and we only want the best of the best going there. In the same way I only want the best of the best on my PC. That means I have to be elitist. But you don't want the best of journalism? Or you think you can get the best journalists by telling them to work for free? Should anyone (other than, presumably, the technologists) be paid for their work? Why should people who do important jobs in the public interest not get paid? My father has worked very hard his entire life as a teacher in an inner city school. He thinks his job matters and takes his work very seriously but he wouldn't have done it if they hadn't paid him. You know, what with kids to support etc. If you think journalism isn't important to society then make that argument. If you think it is, then why blithely assume that other people should do that important work for nothing?
RE: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
There was a great Adam Curtis piece about this on Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe on BBC4 a couple of weeks back. And then it cropped up again during the Register's Beeb Week series of articles. Curtis's reasoning about the presents and future role of both journalists and citizen journalists (always sounds rather French Revolutionary to me, that) was a very interesting read and articulated a number of things I'd been thinking of for a while. Didn't agree with everything, but then wouldn't it be dull if you did? === From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Lockwood Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 12:12 PM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage It was only one idea, I'm sure that there are others. who knows, one of them might even including resurrecting the noble art of journalism as a public service rather than to make money. So can you give us any indication of when the technologists will have completed the prototype of the journalist that doesn't need food or shelter? Apparently it's already with us. It's called a 'blogger. Can't generally write for toffee, doesn't check facts, confuses opinion with truth, is credulous as hell, and has nothing worth saying, but hey - if you want everything for free... ;-) Cheers, Rich. * To view the terms under which this email is distributed, please go to http://www.hull.ac.uk/legal/email_disclaimer.html *
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 28/11/2007, Deirdre Harvey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -- ** So can you give us any indication of when the technologists will have completed the prototype of the journalist that doesn't need food or shelter? I believe that it's called the professional blogger; for most news various blogs and bloggers seem to be as reliable as your average daily newspaper, yet they provide their news and comment for free and in an open manner. Now we have a prototype, I'm sure there are areas we can improve features to add. But you don't want the best of journalism? Or you think you can get the best journalists by telling them to work for free? Sure I do, I'm not getting that from traditional sources though, the only printed news media I now trust is Private Eye, traditional broadcast media is rapidly heading the same way. Recent episodes of Panorama are evidence of that (the episode that spewed bollokcks about wi-fi, for example; if they're talking rubbish in areas I know about, why should I trust them in areas about which I know nothing) Should anyone (other than, presumably, the technologists) be paid for their work? Of course, where I've referred to Free in the context of this discussion I have generally meant libre, not gratis. Why should people who do important jobs in the public interest not get paid? My father has worked very hard his entire life as a teacher in an inner city school. He thinks his job matters and takes his work very seriously but he wouldn't have done it if they hadn't paid him. You know, what with kids to support etc. Please point out where I've said that people should work for nothing. I've said things should be open and free (libre) not free (gratis). If you think journalism isn't important to society then make that argument. If you think it is, then why blithely assume that other people should do that important work for nothing? Journalism is vital to a functioning democracy, unfortunately it seems to be a dieing art, and being fast replaced with sensationalists and people who want to make news rather than report it. Vijay.
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 28/11/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote So can you give us any indication of when the technologists will have completed the prototype of the journalist that doesn't need food or shelter? Apparently it's already with us. It's called a 'blogger. Can't generally write for toffee, doesn't check facts, confuses opinion with truth, is credulous as hell, and has nothing worth saying, but hey - if you want everything for free... ;-) Cheers, Rich. You description of blogger accurately matches my description of Tabloid journalist. At least your average blogger doesn't ask me to pay for the privilege of reading rubbish. Vijay.
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 28/11/2007, vijay chopra [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 28/11/2007, Deirdre Harvey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course, where I've referred to Free in the context of this discussion I have generally meant libre, not gratis. Why should people who do important jobs in the public interest not get paid? My father has worked very hard his entire life as a teacher in an inner city school. He thinks his job matters and takes his work very seriously but he wouldn't have done it if they hadn't paid him. You know, what with kids to support etc. Please point out where I've said that people should work for nothing. I've said things should be open and free (libre) not free (gratis). More to the point, 99.9% of the people on this planet get paid for the work they do just once. But there are some people who think that their work is so brilliant that they should get paid again and again and again. This was a feature of the old, one-to-many broadcast world, or the big-circulation newspaper, as the economics of the situation created this artificial condition. It's pure Gordon-Gecko greed to want to keep being paid for working once. If you think journalism isn't important to society then make that argument. If you think it is, then why blithely assume that other people should do that important work for nothing? Journalism is vital to a functioning democracy, unfortunately it seems to be a dieing art, and being fast replaced with sensationalists and people who want to make news rather than report it. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it is the simple removal of professional (ie, they get paid for it) journalists from the system will cause the people to communicate with each other, which seems to be more like democracy to me. Don't forget that the original democracy in Ancient Greece was a more involved system than we have today. They had great meeting on the hill of all the people where the crowd listened to the speakers debate issues. Each of the tribes took it in turn in rotation to be the parliament, with members having to be on watch 24/7 for 28 days at a time. The senate was voted for very frequency. The civil service was hired on a daily basis using a randomized marble system. The system we have today is a joke by comparison, especially in a world of instant communications. I would start by constructing Acts of Parliament by Wiki for a start. Vijay. -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On the subject of citizen journalists, if I could generalize, I'd say it's quite true that we work for free and have to support ourselves by other means. Yet we feel that some stories should be covered that both the mainstream press and the specialised press cover superficially, or not at all, or from a traditional angle which misses the mark. And the Internet offers very inexpensive worldwide distribution without the usual space constraints, and led by Google fairly reliable text indexing so people can locate articles. Although I have had difficulty obtaining accreditation once or twice, most of the time press contacts are more concerned with track record and professionalism than the press card -- the Internet lets them find out very quickly how a news blog reports. In this regard, what does concern me is the sorry state of metadata in audio and video, both on the creation side and the indexing side. Almost all podcasts I listen to or download have the bare minimum of metadata, if at all. Video is not much better. Of course, when MPEG-1 was published in 1992, metadata was not a chief concern; the MP3 ID3 initiative has been a useful hack, but I will always prefer Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora since metadata can be flexibly added at or after creation with FOSS tools. Of course, Free containers by no means lead today's proprietary and patent-encumbered formats, which all propose some kind of metadata stocking scheme; it's just much harder to find and deploy tools to get to metadata reliably, especially in a workflow. But then, the effort expended to stock metadata such as IPTC -- the most interesting bits of which are often human-keyed at the source, such as names of people, captions, copyright, contact information -- goes to waste, since neither Google nor anybody else I'm aware of indexes it, even on the desktop. I think it's a fundamental problem for finding audiovisual content in any computer-based system. Even machine generated EXIF goes ignored. In this light, Adobe XMP seems to me an interesting approach, to federate media metadata with XML (CC likes it too). I am convinced the solutions to these two problems, at the source and by indexers, are fundamental to developing media online, that it will be far more worthwhile to indicate copyright than to rely on DRM encryption schemes. Sean. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 28/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would start by constructing Acts of Parliament by Wiki for a start. ROFLCOPTOR!!!1 -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 28/11/2007, Sean DALY [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On the subject of citizen journalists, if I could generalize, I'd say it's quite true that we work for free and have to support ourselves by other means. Yet we feel that some stories should be covered that both the mainstream press and the specialised press cover superficially, or not at all, or from a traditional angle which misses the mark. And the Internet offers very inexpensive worldwide distribution without the usual space constraints, and led by Google fairly reliable text indexing so people can locate articles. Not being a journalist actually has it's advantages. Given that the profession is held in low regard by most people these days, you might almost suggest that blogging rises above print journalism. For example, no-one can say that they will ring your editor and get you sacked. The only one I have is inside my head and no-one but me knows his phone number. Also, you often fall under the radar. PR people were, and still are, quite snooty about using professionals for their filthy trade. Bloggers are not mass-market enough for them! And the advertisers who pay my hosting fees do so on a page-impression basis, so there is no cosying up to a single advertiser interest. It's almost impossible to do, in fact. Although I have had difficulty obtaining accreditation once or twice, most of the time press contacts are more concerned with track record and professionalism than the press card -- the Internet lets them find out very quickly how a news blog reports. I've had two knock backs from accreditation, one from ITV and the other from Virgin Media. Both rejected my online application for access to their press site, but both reversed their position when I made a phone call. In this regard, what does concern me is the sorry state of metadata in audio and video, both on the creation side and the indexing side. Almost all podcasts I listen to or download have the bare minimum of metadata, if at all. Video is not much better. Of course, when MPEG-1 was published in 1992, metadata was not a chief concern; the MP3 ID3 initiative has been a useful hack, but I will always prefer Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora since metadata can be flexibly added at or after creation with FOSS tools. Of course, Free containers by no means lead today's proprietary and patent-encumbered formats, which all propose some kind of metadata stocking scheme; it's just much harder to find and deploy tools to get to metadata reliably, especially in a workflow. But then, the effort expended to stock metadata such as IPTC -- the most interesting bits of which are often human-keyed at the source, such as names of people, captions, copyright, contact information -- goes to waste, since neither Google nor anybody else I'm aware of indexes it, even on the desktop. I think it's a fundamental problem for finding audiovisual content in any computer-based system. Even machine generated EXIF goes ignored. In this light, Adobe XMP seems to me an interesting approach, to federate media metadata with XML (CC likes it too). I am convinced the solutions to these two problems, at the source and by indexers, are fundamental to developing media online, that it will be far more worthwhile to indicate copyright than to rely on DRM encryption schemes. It really does my head in that we can't have access to the subtitles that are produced by the BBC and others, it would be great to find bits of video by text search. One of the best features of Facebook - the one that sold it to me in the first place before it got covered in terrible childish sub-mobile-phone applications - is the fantastic ability to tag photos with multiple people's identities. I dream of the day when every bit of TV content is tagged, down to frame level, with the actor, presenter, character and other details like the location, date, time etc. I still dream of having the BBC News 24 Aston outputs as a data feed. But dreaming's all I do, if only they'd come true.. ..I should be so lucky Sean. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
I would start by constructing Acts of Parliament by Wiki for a start. If that isn't a job creation scheme for lawyers I don't what is... May it please the court to get back to the matter in hand, is a blaspheme against the Flying Spaghetti Monster still a crime if it is was spoken in LOLCAT by a professed Jedi who had invoked Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation as defined by the 2009 Act of Parliament Known as Thursday? - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 28/11/2007, Martin Belam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would start by constructing Acts of Parliament by Wiki for a start. If that isn't a job creation scheme for lawyers I don't what is... May it please the court to get back to the matter in hand, is a blaspheme against the Flying Spaghetti Monster still a crime if it is was spoken in LOLCAT by a professed Jedi who had invoked Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation as defined by the 2009 Act of Parliament Known as Thursday? That's just so bloody facetious. What I meant was that when a bill is presented to parliament it should be put up on a wiki, so the points can be clarified, debated, corrected and so on by the public and other interested parties before being voted on by MPs. It would be much better for this to be done in camera as it were, rather than behind closed doors by lobbyists. Whilst were are at it, every room in the Houses of Parliament should be on CCTV, transmitted online 24 hours a day. And Number 10. And all the Ministry's. It sickens me that they put up all those cameras to monitor us, and yet we can't monitor them back. The political process is transparent, but sadly it's a one-way mirror. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 28/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's just so bloody facetious. Welcome to teh intrawebs: serious business. Whilst were are at it, every room in the Houses of Parliament should be on CCTV, transmitted online 24 hours a day. And Number 10. And all the Ministry's. Even the bogs? ;) -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 29/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 28/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's just so bloody facetious. Welcome to teh intrawebs: serious business. Whilst were are at it, every room in the Houses of Parliament should be on CCTV, transmitted online 24 hours a day. And Number 10. And all the Ministry's. Even the bogs? ;) Looks like you've been had by the old political game of if you don't vote for me, don't vote at all. How very clever of you to give away the tiny little bit of power you have. That makes you a apathy-collaborator. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You are Dave Crossland in a different hat, and I claim my five pounds. We are different people; that £5 belongs to me. -- Regards,Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
You are Dave Crossland in a different hat, and I claim my five pounds. We are different people; that £5 belongs to me. Hmm. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... :-) Rich.
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Billy Abbott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 26 Nov 2007, Noah Slater wrote: but what happens when That's the reason why having open APIs that multiple sites conform to strikes me as an excellent idea - if your provider of choice does up and go away you can just switch the URL to another and off you go. It is naieve to think that a choice of providers will have identical functionality. They might be _similar_ overall, and have some basic functions that are exactly the same... But the primary reason to pick one API over another is the functions they offer that are unique. Freedom means more than a choice of lords. -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On Tuesday 27 November 2007 09:26:51 Dave Crossland wrote: On 27/11/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You are Dave Crossland in a different hat, and I claim my five pounds. We are different people; that £5 belongs to me. I've met both Noah and Dave and can confirm this :-) (both are nice people IRL incidentally for those intimidated by some of the conversations incidentally :-) Michael. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 27/11/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You are Dave Crossland in a different hat, and I claim my five pounds. We are different people; that £5 belongs to me. -- Regards,Dave I can confirm that these are real people, not sock puppets. I've met both of them... - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No. Banging on and on and on and on about the same tired, laboured point is wrong - and simply blindly quoting Richard Stallman doesn't make it any more likely to have people agree with your narrow viewpoint. You are Dave Crossland in a different hat, and I claim my five pounds. This is where our opinions diverge. I, obviously, have some strong view points on freedom and politics. I join /discussion/ groups so that I can /discuss/ the issues that interest me. When a /discussion/ starts that involves freedom or politics I find that I like to join in the /discussion/ by weighing in with my opinion. That, after all, is the point of a /discussion/ list. I only /discuss/ things that interest me when there is direct relevance to the /discussion/ at hand. If a newbie asks how can I get foo driver to work with linux you won't find me correcting his use of the word linux to include gnu but you will find me correcting someone who says tescos should sell and market linux pcs. See the difference? When someone accuses me of banging on about something really they are saying I have heard your opinion before, don't like it and can't be bothered discussing it. To which I have two suggestions: 1) Leave the /discussion/ list you're on. 2) Move to the next message, trash the message and move on. 3) Filter all email with freedom in the body into /dev/null and be done with it. Stop throwing you're weight around because you can't be bothered /discussing/ something on a /discussion/ list. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On Tue, 2007-11-27 at 08:52 +, Michael Sparks wrote: I'd assumed that people would understand the concept of analogy and meme. A generation brought up on Reithian values would, but now it's all East Enders, and other reality shows :^/ - Richard - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
No. Banging on and on and on and on about the same tired, laboured point is wrong - and simply blindly quoting Richard Stallman doesn't make it any more likely to have people agree with your narrow viewpoint. You are Dave Crossland in a different hat, and I claim my five pounds. This is where our opinions diverge. Ah, so continually banging on and on about the same laboured point is OK is it? I, obviously, have some strong view points on freedom and politics. I join /discussion/ groups so that I can /discuss/ the issues that interest me. Yes, I see that. Please note the difference between discussion and repeatedly banging on. When a /discussion/ starts that involves freedom or politics I find that I like to join in the /discussion/ by weighing in with my opinion. That, after all, is the point of a /discussion/ list. Fine, but note that weighing in with is not neccessarily a synonym for repeatedly banging on about. Discussing is a two way process. Standing on a soapbox and shouting LISTEN TO ME! is not. (There's something wrong with your keyboard BTW - it's putting quote marks out as slashes) I only /discuss/ things that interest me when there is direct relevance to the /discussion/ at hand. If a newbie asks how can I get foo driver to work with linux you won't find me correcting his use of the word linux to include gnu but you will find me correcting someone who says tescos should sell and market linux pcs. See the difference? Yes. How is this relevant? When someone accuses me of banging on about something really they are saying I have heard your opinion before, don't like it and can't be bothered discussing it. No. They're saying You've made exactly that point before, there's no need to keep repeating it - it's not going to get any more valid or true the ninth time you make it, and you're certainly not going to convince anyone to change their minds. You're far more likely to alienate people. To which I have two suggestions: 1) Leave the /discussion/ list you're on. 2) Move to the next message, trash the message and move on. 3) Filter all email with freedom in the body into /dev/null and be done with it. That's three. Like the Spanish Inquisition this... I have a suggestion too. Why not limit making the exact same point to, ooh, three times per day, per discussion list? That way it comes across less like bullying. Stop throwing you're weight around because you can't be bothered /discussing/ something on a /discussion/ list. I hope you're not suggesting I have any weight to throw around. I just find bullies, extremists and zealots of any descripton intensely annoying, especially in what's generally a friendly environment. Rich.
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Noah On 27 Nov 2007, at 10:57, Noah Slater wrote: To which I have two suggestions: 1) Leave the /discussion/ list you're on. 2) Move to the next message, trash the message and move on. 3) Filter all email with freedom in the body into /dev/null and be done with it. My fourth suggestion would be that perhaps the discussion you want to have is not on topic for a list. As such continuing the discussion you want to have may be off topic for most list members. As to whether this list is an advocacy list for freedom I will leave as the list owners' call. Cheers f - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Fearghas McKay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My fourth suggestion would be that perhaps the discussion you want to have is not on topic for a list. As such continuing the discussion you want to have may be off topic for most list members. On this list the noise is the signal and you are invited to use filters. On 27/11/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I hope you're not suggesting I have any weight to throw around. I just find bullies, extremists and zealots of any descripton intensely annoying, especially in what's generally a friendly environment. Richard, the world is full of people who are going to disagree with you - calling them bullies, extremists and zealots is only going to get you so far. As you only seem to be throwing around ad hominems the discussion is over. /me bows out -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Fearghas McKay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My fourth suggestion would be that perhaps the discussion you want to have is not on topic for a list. As such continuing the discussion you want to have may be off topic for most list members. As to whether this list is an advocacy list for freedom I will leave as the list owners' call. It seems that software freedom is very much one of the core issues that BBC Backstage tackles. Many of the Backstage podcasts have focused on the BBC's policy that Digital Restrictions Management technology is effective and appropriate, for example. The list owners set up a pure technical discussion list for people not interested in the social and political issues that Backstage is tackling. -- Regards, Dave (Personal opinion only, doesn't not reflect any employers policies or views) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
My fourth suggestion would be that perhaps the discussion you want to have is not on topic for a list. As such continuing the discussion you want to have may be off topic for most list members. On this list the noise is the signal and you are invited to use filters. Noise. Note noise. Not Shouting. On 27/11/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I hope you're not suggesting I have any weight to throw around. I just find bullies, extremists and zealots of any descripton intensely annoying, especially in what's generally a friendly environment. Richard, the world is full of people who are going to disagree with you - calling them bullies, extremists and zealots is only going to get you so far. Disagreeing is fine - continually banging on without being prepared to listen is not. Look up zealot at dictionary.com, then tell me it's not an unearned epithet. As you only seem to be throwing around ad hominems the discussion is over. I'll take this as realising you can't realistically argue your point any more and are taking your bat home. (However, I'm not convinced you're not going to come back, jabbing a finger into a metaphorical table, shouting and another thing...) /me bows out Bye. Rich.
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...you can minimise false positive terms by running the copy through several different flavours of term extractor, and only using terms thrown up by x or more of them (where x depends on your appetite for false positives vs false negatives). So, why not throw the copy through several more term extractors then only use the overlapping terms? This should work (and it's been suggested on the backstage-dev list recently). Though I'm uneasy about a possible situation where one of your term extractors comes up with a great set of terms, but the others miss them completely, and so your output is a bad compromise of terms that aren't that meaningful. Do any APIs let you see the confidence score on their output terms? Having admittedly not thought about this much, it seems to me that a confidence score is key to any realistic combination algorithm. In terms (sorry) of quality of output, people seem to like Yahoo's API. I've come across Trynt's offering too (http://www.trynt.com/trynt-contextual-term-extraction-api/ ), but ominously their website is giving me a 403 Forbidden error right now. http://www.programmableweb.com/api/clearforest-semantic-web-services1/ has also been suggested on the pure technical discussion list. - The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... Ah - has this been used to derive the subject categories and contributors for the web version of Infax, by any chance? If so, and even if not, that would be a gorgeous API to offer - please, BBC... Rhys - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Michael Sparks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Monday 26 November 2007 20:20:30 Dave Crossland wrote: That's the point - using web APIs is giving up your software freedom, because you are getting someone else to do your computation; you have no way of studying, understanding, or modifying the computation done behind the API. Wrong - using a web API does not necessarily do that any more than using the POSIX API does in a C application, since it appears to depend on which web API you use. (ignoring the other comments that appear problematic to me in that statement) Example - the open social Web API appears to be a good example here - since you have multiple potential implementors. Some (many) will be closed source, some will be open source. If the user chooses an open source API, but doesn't download the software and run it on their computer, they are giving up their software freedom. The user could then choose which containers/providers they prefer, perhaps based on that issue, though in all likelihood its likely to be on other aspects. A choice of providers isn't freedom; freedom is being your own provider. -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On this list the noise is the signal and you are invited to use filters. Noise. Note noise. Not Shouting. I THINK WE ARE HAVING A JOLLY OLD TIME DEBATING THE MERITS OF SOFTWARE FREEDOM, AND THAT THERE WILL NEVER BE AN END TO IT IS PART OF THE FUN. NO ONE HAS BEEN SHOUTING SO FAR, AND EVERYTHING HAS BEEN VERY CIVIL :-) -- Regards, Dave (This email is meant to be amusing, and doesn't reflect the views of any employers) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Fearghas McKay wrote: Noah On 27 Nov 2007, at 10:57, Noah Slater wrote: To which I have two suggestions: 1) Leave the /discussion/ list you're on. 2) Move to the next message, trash the message and move on. 3) Filter all email with freedom in the body into /dev/null and be done with it. My fourth suggestion would be that perhaps the discussion you want to have is not on topic for a list. As such continuing the discussion you want to have may be off topic for most list members. As to whether this list is an advocacy list for freedom I will leave as the list owners' call. Or just change the post title and start a new post : Free Software Nonsense was (Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage) That way this thread about MuddyBoots is actually useful to anyone who wants to find out about it and anybody who wants to talk about Free Software Nonsense can do. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. Making more things free and open only benefits a small group of technologists who are clever enough to know how to use the results. The general mass of the population still want finely crafted mass entertainment and other products of a high quality and gloss. Making everything free and open destroys the funding model that makes this happen, which includes copyright and other intellectual property rights. There's a trade off between making everything open and quality and reach. You could argue that news for example should adopt a completely free and open model. But who is going to make the investment to ensure that some stories are still told? Investigative journalism is expensive and often dangerous. Money needs to be spent to do it. While in my heart I'm much taken by the idea of making everything open, I smell a whiff of elitism about some of these arguments (i.e. I want everything free because that's convenient for me and I don't care about anybody else) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Dave Crossland Sent: Tue 11/27/2007 11:21 AM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage On 27/11/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On this list the noise is the signal and you are invited to use filters. Noise. Note noise. Not Shouting. I THINK WE ARE HAVING A JOLLY OLD TIME DEBATING THE MERITS OF SOFTWARE FREEDOM, AND THAT THERE WILL NEVER BE AN END TO IT IS PART OF THE FUN. NO ONE HAS BEEN SHOUTING SO FAR, AND EVERYTHING HAS BEEN VERY CIVIL :-) -- Regards, Dave (This email is meant to be amusing, and doesn't reflect the views of any employers) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Nick Reynolds-AMi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. Making more things free and open only benefits a small group of technologists who are clever enough to know how to use the results. I see no problem with this, in fact it's a good thing, it incentiveises intelligence. A technocracy is much better than the idiocracy that we currently live in. The general mass of the population still want finely crafted mass entertainment and other products of a high quality and gloss. Making everything free and open destroys the funding model that makes this happen, which includes copyright and other intellectual property rights. The general public like fast food too, that doesn't mean that a McDonalds a day is good for them, most people (myself included) are stupid and don't know what's good for them in areas outside of their expertise. I let nutritionists and dietitians recommend what I should eat, I don't see why software engineers, IT consultants etc. shouldn't be able to recommend free software as the best alternative (where and when it is) regardless of the wider consequences to various funding models. That's not their problem, they're being paid to deliver $project on time not worry about copyright law reform. There's a trade off between making everything open and quality and reach. Why? Take Firefox for example, it's open, it has reach and it's a quality product. there's no trade off in fact I can think of quite a few quality open products, reach is a problem to be solved not something that has to to be traded away. You could argue that news for example should adopt a completely free and open model. But who is going to make the investment to ensure that some stories are still told? Investigative journalism is expensive and often dangerous. Money needs to be spent to do it. Free and open doesn't necessarily mean that there is no cash involved, look at the companies that sell support for free products or the way Firefox gets money from Google. as examples. I'm sure news organisations will continue. I read plenty of news on the web every day for free it's mostly ad funded. And i don't see anyone stopping buying newspapers just because they can read it online either. While in my heart I'm much taken by the idea of making everything open, I smell a whiff of elitism about some of these arguments (i.e. I want everything free because that's convenient for me and I don't care about anybody else) elite -noun the choice or *best of anything* considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.[1] I see no problem with elitism if it means we get the best of anything. [1]paraphrased from http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=elitex=0y=0
RE: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of vijay chopra Sent: Tue 11/27/2007 4:13 PM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage On 27/11/2007, Nick Reynolds-AMi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. Making more things free and open only benefits a small group of technologists who are clever enough to know how to use the results. I see no problem with this, in fact it's a good thing, it incentiveises intelligence. A technocracy is much better than the idiocracy that we currently live in. We already live in a technocracy - and look where that has got us - the amount of idiocy has if anything increased The general mass of the population still want finely crafted mass entertainment and other products of a high quality and gloss. Making everything free and open destroys the funding model that makes this happen, which includes copyright and other intellectual property rights. The general public like fast food too, that doesn't mean that a McDonalds a day is good for them, most people (myself included) are stupid and don't know what's good for them in areas outside of their expertise. I let nutritionists and dietitians recommend what I should eat, I don't see why software engineers, IT consultants etc. shouldn't be able to recommend free software as the best alternative (where and when it is) regardless of the wider consequences to various funding models. That's not their problem, they're being paid to deliver $project on time not worry about copyright law reform. mass entertainment is not the same as Macdonalds. its patronising and elitist to dismiss popular tastes. so software engineers don't have to obey the law of the land? - when any group thinks they are above the law problems start There's a trade off between making everything open and quality and reach. Why? Take Firefox for example, it's open, it has reach and it's a quality product. there's no trade off in fact I can think of quite a few quality open products, reach is a problem to be solved not something that has to to be traded away. All I will say about Firefox is that I had it on my desktop - it was a pain in the arse - it kept blocking sites and I had to get it deinstalled - I know you lot love it but to an ordinary joe like me it's just another obstacle You could argue that news for example should adopt a completely free and open model. But who is going to make the investment to ensure that some stories are still told? Investigative journalism is expensive and often dangerous. Money needs to be spent to do it. Free and open doesn't necessarily mean that there is no cash involved, look at the companies that sell support for free products or the way Firefox gets money from Google. as examples. I'm sure news organisations will continue. I read plenty of news on the web every day for free it's mostly ad funded. And i don't see anyone stopping buying newspapers just because they can read it online either. Investigative journalism is not an attractive proposition for advertisers - especially as they may be the ones being investigated While in my heart I'm much taken by the idea of making everything open, I smell a whiff of elitism about some of these arguments (i.e. I want everything free because that's convenient for me and I don't care about anybody else) elite -noun the choice or *best of anything* considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.[1] I see no problem with elitism if it means we get the best of anything. [1]paraphrased from http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=elitex=0y=0 Strange definition of elitism - one I have never heard before - if the result of what you want really meant that everyone got the best of everything then I would support it - but if all that happens is a small group of people like yourselves benefit and everybody else loses out then we will be no further forward winmail.dat
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On Tue, 27 Nov 2007, Dave Crossland wrote: On 27/11/2007, Billy Abbott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 26 Nov 2007, Noah Slater wrote: but what happens when That's the reason why having open APIs that multiple sites conform to strikes me as an excellent idea - if your provider of choice does up and go away you can just switch the URL to another and off you go. It is naieve to think that a choice of providers will have identical functionality. They might be _similar_ overall, and have some basic functions that are exactly the same... But the primary reason to pick one API over another is the functions they offer that are unique. I wasn't clear - I meant common open APIs, ie. the same API with different vendors behind it. That way they will offer very similar levels of functionality, with the choice being based on how good they run. Freedom means more than a choice of lords. You can happily run your own things and then be your own lord, but that doesn't mean that everyone wants to. We might as well let those who don't want to get the most reliable service they can. --billy -- #Hotdog, Jumping Frog, http://www.cabq.gov Billy Abbott billy at cowfish dot org dot uk - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Billy Abbott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is naieve to think that a choice of providers will have identical functionality. I wasn't clear - I meant common open APIs, ie. the same API with different vendors behind it. That way they will offer very similar levels of functionality, with the choice being based on how good they run. Sure, and I'm suggesting that a common API will be a base that each gatekeeper will add bespoke features too. I'll be surprised if similar services offered with a common open API from Google and Yahoo and Microsoft do not have any specialist features to differentiate them. Freedom means more than a choice of lords. You can happily run your own things and then be your own lord, ...but not if the gatekeepers continue to offer software to the public without making the source code to that software public. -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, vijay chopra [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 27/11/2007, Nick Reynolds-AMi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. Making more things free and open only benefits a small group of technologists who are clever enough to know how to use the results. I see no problem with this, in fact it's a good thing, it incentiveises intelligence. A technocracy is much better than the idiocracy that we currently live in. I find it midly amusing that most of the things that the idots like is created by us technoloists. I almost want to go hurah to the idea of a technocracy, but I am haunted by that Simpson's episode with Stephen Hawking in it... http://www.snpp.com/episodes/AABF18 The general mass of the population still want finely crafted mass entertainment and other products of a high quality and gloss. Making everything free and open destroys the funding model that makes this happen, which includes copyright and other intellectual property rights. The general public like fast food too, that doesn't mean that a McDonalds a day is good for them, most people (myself included) are stupid and don't know what's good for them in areas outside of their expertise. I let nutritionists and dietitians recommend what I should eat, I don't see why software engineers, IT consultants etc. shouldn't be able to recommend free software as the best alternative (where and when it is) regardless of the wider consequences to various funding models. That's not their problem, they're being paid to deliver $project on time not worry about copyright law reform. I'm not sure if what you say is actually true. Like is not really the right verb, sold is a better one.But Fast Food Nation covers that subject much better than I could. Me, I don't even go into McDonalds to use the toliet. Haven't done for over a decade. It's not hard. Nutritionists and Dietitians are just artisans of couse, whereas we programmers are computer scientists, no? But yes, we are much better qualified than all these (a-hem) greedy arts graduates. I suspect that many of us probably don't have a huge regard (or even interest) in economics, but we are better qualified to understand the technolgical issues. And, of couse, the law could be changed to benefit the people - demoncracy is supposed to be about options, and many people seem to feel that they are none. Just because most people are so stupid to think that what they buy will change the world and defines them as a person, doesn't mean that it is remotely true. There's a trade off between making everything open and quality and reach. Why? Take Firefox for example, it's open, it has reach and it's a quality product. there's no trade off in fact I can think of quite a few quality open products, reach is a problem to be solved not something that has to to be traded away. Let's see .. the camera, the best example of an open system .. seems to be quite popular still. And there is the little matter of TCP/IP of course You could argue that news for example should adopt a completely free and open model. But who is going to make the investment to ensure that some stories are still told? Investigative journalism is expensive and often dangerous. Money needs to be spent to do it. Free and open doesn't necessarily mean that there is no cash involved, look at the companies that sell support for free products or the way Firefox gets money from Google. as examples. I'm sure news organisations will continue. I read plenty of news on the web every day for free it's mostly ad funded. And i don't see anyone stopping buying newspapers just because they can read it online either. Erm, I think that if you look at the figures, there are plenty of people not buying newspapers. While in my heart I'm much taken by the idea of making everything open, I smell a whiff of elitism about some of these arguments (i.e. I want everything free because that's convenient for me and I don't care about anybody else) elite -noun the choice or *best of anything* considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.[1] I see no problem with elitism if it means we get the best of anything. [1]paraphrased from http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=elitex=0y=0 -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 27/11/2007, Billy Abbott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is naieve to think that a choice of providers will have identical functionality. I wasn't clear - I meant common open APIs, ie. the same API with different vendors behind it. That way they will offer very similar levels of functionality, with the choice being based on how good they run. Sure, and I'm suggesting that a common API will be a base that each gatekeeper will add bespoke features too. I'll be surprised if similar services offered with a common open API from Google and Yahoo and Microsoft do not have any specialist features to differentiate them. Does the track record of Microsoft not show that they created aparent APIs and then did not use them themselves? The main reason that Word displaced WordPerfect, Excel displaced Lotus 123, Access displaced dBase and P-P-Powerpoint was dominant was that Microsoft had secret - and faster - APIs for their own applications. I remember being at a Microsoft Developer Event where they warned the audience off from even trying to come up with a better word processor! This didn't just apply to the Windows version of the products, this was also true for MS-DOS. As I recall, Peter Norton (of the Utilities and AntiVirus fame) made his name originally by debuninking the hidden MS-DOS APIs. Freedom means more than a choice of lords. You can happily run your own things and then be your own lord, ...but not if the gatekeepers continue to offer software to the public without making the source code to that software public. To be fair, I think that there is an important point missing here. A closed API is fine if the service is best run somewhere remote. For example, if I need to use a database engine, I'm really bothered about how well the API supports my SQL statements, not how they are executed. On the other hand, software that is transferred onto my own machine, I care more about. I seem to have a concept of personal rights that extends to my computer's CPU. If the code is in my machine, I should be able to know how it works, if I so choose. It's a strange concept though. The logic of the argument is that I could, if I had the time, work out how it all works from the assembler code. If it can be run on my computer, then it has to be in a published format. CPUs can't be closed because if the manufacturer refused to let you know the instruction set, they wouldn't sell that many. But is that an API? Where is the boundary between CPU and APIs? At the other level (and bringing it back to backstage) what about the well known API of RSS? Should I care how the RSS feed is created? -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Nutritionists and Dietitians are just artisans of couse, whereas we programmers are computer scientists, no? Dietitians have real courses of study, and qualifications from respectable institutes of learning. Nutritionists don't. (See Gillian McKeith / Patrick Holford etc...) Listen to advice from a qualified dietitian. Don't take it from a self-proclaimed nutritionist. Not on topic, or relevant for this forum, but an important distinction. Cheers, Rich.
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sure, and I'm suggesting that a common API will be a base that each gatekeeper will add bespoke features too. I'll be surprised if similar services offered with a common open API from Google and Yahoo and Microsoft do not have any specialist features to differentiate them. Does the track record of Microsoft not show that they created aparent APIs and then did not use them themselves? Right - this is the problem with saying Oh, I _could_ download the source code that runs this API interface, but actually I'm not going to bother and just use the service provided. - there is no guarantee that what you can download is what is running on their server. I'm lumping Google, Yahoo and Microsoft together as all equivalently bad - along with all smaller Web 2.0 API providers who provide computation services through web APIs, making a subtle distinction between those servces and those that are data request protocols more sophsticated than HTTP. Use our stuff to make your stuff, to me, refers to providing BBC data for the British public to do computation with, and where Backstage publishes APIs that take input data, transform that data, and return the result, the source code for the transformations ought to be published as free software - preferably under the GNU Affero GPLv3 or some other network-aware copyleft license. Freedom means more than a choice of lords. You can happily run your own things and then be your own lord, ...but not if the gatekeepers continue to offer software to the public without making the source code to that software public. To be fair, I think that there is an important point missing here. A closed API is fine if the service is best run somewhere remote. Well, if Google is searching _their_ data - their copy of the web, say - and returning the results to you, that's good. Its their copy, afterall. But if you upload your data - say, your spreadsheet numbers and equations - and get them to do your computation for you, instead of using Gnumeric or OpenOffice, that's not good. For example, if I need to use a database engine, I'm really bothered about how well the API supports my SQL statements, not how they are executed. Right - because SQL is a query language for requesting data to be sent to you, for you to do your own computation on. On the other hand, software that is transferred onto my own machine, I care more about. I seem to have a concept of personal rights that extends to my computer's CPU. If the code is in my machine, I should be able to know how it works, if I so choose. Right It's a strange concept though. The logic of the argument is that I could, if I had the time, work out how it all works from the assembler code. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum If it can be run on my computer, then it has to be in a published format. CPUs can't be closed because if the manufacturer refused to let you know the instruction set, they wouldn't sell that many. But is that an API? Where is the boundary between CPU and APIs? Source code. At the other level (and bringing it back to backstage) what about the well known API of RSS? Should I care how the RSS feed is created? Does the RSS feed contain the BBCs news? Or does it contain your data that has been transformed in some way? -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nutritionists and Dietitians are just artisans of couse, whereas we programmers are computer scientists, no? Dietitians have real courses of study, and qualifications from respectable institutes of learning. Nutritionists don't. (See Gillian McKeith / Patrick Holford etc...) Sort of like the difference between a user and programmer then? Listen to advice from a qualified dietitian. Don't take it from a self-proclaimed nutritionist. Not on topic, or relevant for this forum, but an important distinction. Cheers, Rich. -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 27/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sure, and I'm suggesting that a common API will be a base that each gatekeeper will add bespoke features too. I'll be surprised if similar services offered with a common open API from Google and Yahoo and Microsoft do not have any specialist features to differentiate them. Does the track record of Microsoft not show that they created aparent APIs and then did not use them themselves? Right - this is the problem with saying Oh, I _could_ download the source code that runs this API interface, but actually I'm not going to bother and just use the service provided. - there is no guarantee that what you can download is what is running on their server. Indeed, this is quite an important considertion in the anti-trust actions that the EU has been persuing Microsoft about. I'm lumping Google, Yahoo and Microsoft together as all equivalently bad - along with all smaller Web 2.0 API providers who provide computation services through web APIs, making a subtle distinction between those servces and those that are data request protocols more sophsticated than HTTP. There would be no problem if these APIs were published and were not broken for competative advantage? Use our stuff to make your stuff, to me, refers to providing BBC data for the British public to do computation with, and where Backstage publishes APIs that take input data, transform that data, and return the result, the source code for the transformations ought to be published as free software - preferably under the GNU Affero GPLv3 or some other network-aware copyleft license. Not sure about ought, other than the grounds that the BBC is a publiclly funded body. Freedom means more than a choice of lords. You can happily run your own things and then be your own lord, ...but not if the gatekeepers continue to offer software to the public without making the source code to that software public. To be fair, I think that there is an important point missing here. A closed API is fine if the service is best run somewhere remote. Well, if Google is searching _their_ data - their copy of the web, say - and returning the results to you, that's good. Its their copy, afterall. OK. I see your point - very funny! But if you upload your data - say, your spreadsheet numbers and equations - and get them to do your computation for you, instead of using Gnumeric or OpenOffice, that's not good. I agree that there are problems with keeping your data in the network. He types into Gmail. For example, if I need to use a database engine, I'm really bothered about how well the API supports my SQL statements, not how they are executed. Right - because SQL is a query language for requesting data to be sent to you, for you to do your own computation on. And HTTP is also a query langage as is SMTP and so on. Also I can use SQL on other people's data, the security sometimes only allows me to SELECT. This, I note, is the problem that Revenue and Customs had. On the other hand, software that is transferred onto my own machine, I care more about. I seem to have a concept of personal rights that extends to my computer's CPU. If the code is in my machine, I should be able to know how it works, if I so choose. Right It's a strange concept though. The logic of the argument is that I could, if I had the time, work out how it all works from the assembler code. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum Perhaps. But I have done it. I recall there was a BBC Micro program called Peeko computer that did it quite well. I've written the odd disassembler too... If it can be run on my computer, then it has to be in a published format. CPUs can't be closed because if the manufacturer refused to let you know the instruction set, they wouldn't sell that many. But is that an API? Where is the boundary between CPU and APIs? Source code. What about the source code of the CPU's microcode? At the other level (and bringing it back to backstage) what about the well known API of RSS? Should I care how the RSS feed is created? Does the RSS feed contain the BBCs news? Or does it contain your data that has been transformed in some way? I use both, but iGoogle doesn't care. -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Hi, Rob - this is neat, though not entirely sure that it's working entirely as you might want... http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=701 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=701 ...a page about The Sun (and the News of the World) has lots of links off to the NASA website - presumably because of the use of the word Sun... Nice, though - and something to think about. Hi James, Thanks for this, it highlights one of the challenges we face when trying to find correct contextual meaning where ambiguity exists, we haven't got it right in all cases yet :) I thought I'd work it through and highlight areas that could be improved. The initial story has been categorised as being related to the following tags (via the yahoo term extraction service) : (http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=viewid=701) * media ownership * editorial control * ownership laws * communications committee * independent board * evening newspapers * evidence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence * news corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation * chairman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chair_%28official%29 * mr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MR * house of lords http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords * news of the world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World * mr murdoch * parliamentary committee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee * murdoch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murdoch * fox news http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel * sky news http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_News * sun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_%28disambiguation%29 * news station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_station * rupert murdoch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch The obvious problem with this is the sun tag, it is an ambiguous term that has many meanings, as evidenced at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_(disambiguation) Currently we only follow the links off these disambiguation pages to gather external links, however if we were to improve our usage of the disambiguation pages we could cut down on these false positives (in fact that's top of the list of the things we'd like to experiment with). The other problem here is that we display inks if they have any matches in del.icio.us with the story tags listed above. We should probably put some metrics around the minimum number of tags a story must match to be a recommended link, in this case that would have meant we wouldn't have recommended the 'planetary' sun links if we had a minimum match of 2 tags. Thanks for the feedback ! - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Am I on the right list ? We seem to have ended up discussing the merits, bugs, inner workings of a prototype. Whatever next ! could be used ...) Hi, Rob - this is neat, though not entirely sure that it's working entirely as you might want... http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=701 ...a page about The Sun (and the News of the World) has lots of links off to the NASA website - presumably because of the use of the word Sun... I had a similar experience- the story about the proposed expansion of Heathrow Airport had a list of links telling me how to configure an Apple Aiprort Express. Understandable, but not relevant. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Thanks for the feedback ! Muddy boots is cool... TheyWorkForYou.com adds links to Hansard by matching Proper Names with Wikipedia entries. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2007-11-21a.1190.1 The number false positives is acceptable and the wikipedia links are miles better than the user-generated glossary with which the site was launched. But it's still limited since it only parses for Capitalised Phrases or ACRONYMS. Shifting to term extraction seemed an obvious route, but as I think Muddy Boots shows, term extraction tends to throw up unacceptably large number of 'false positive' terms- these result in crappy random links and are user experience poison. However, you can minimise false positive terms by running the copy through several different flavours of term extractor, and only using terms thrown up by x or more of them (where x depends on your appetite for false positives vs false negatives). So, why not throw the copy through several more term extractors then only use the overlapping terms? - The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
How about using a two-frame page as the link with a rate this link option shown as a one-line toolbar at the top of the page? Users could then rate the appropriateness of the link from wrong to fantastic, which would allow automatic removal of incorrect links and an simple administration list of links considered poor. On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks for the feedback ! Muddy boots is cool... TheyWorkForYou.com adds links to Hansard by matching Proper Names with Wikipedia entries. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2007-11-21a.1190.1 The number false positives is acceptable and the wikipedia links are miles better than the user-generated glossary with which the site was launched. But it's still limited since it only parses for Capitalised Phrases or ACRONYMS. Shifting to term extraction seemed an obvious route, but as I think Muddy Boots shows, term extraction tends to throw up unacceptably large number of 'false positive' terms- these result in crappy random links and are user experience poison. However, you can minimise false positive terms by running the copy through several different flavours of term extractor, and only using terms thrown up by x or more of them (where x depends on your appetite for false positives vs false negatives). So, why not throw the copy through several more term extractors then only use the overlapping terms? - The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Personally, I'd prefer an XML API for most things like this... no worrying about porting it to your platform of choice, less/no hardware cost, probably (maybe) faster, less maintenance etc. J -- Jason Cartwright Web Specialist, EMEA Marketing [EMAIL PROTECTED] +44(0)2070313161 On 26/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... API? Nah, it would be a larger contribution if they released the source code. See my sig. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Personally, I'd prefer an XML API for most things like this... no worrying about porting it to your platform of choice, less/no hardware cost, probably (maybe) faster, less maintenance etc. No worrying about freedom, either, though... -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... API? Nah, it would be a larger contribution if they released the source code. Not in this case. Source code isn't that important for term extraction. What matters much more is the dictionary, and this is where the BBC's librarians have added lotsa value. In this case access to the data is more valuable than access to source code. Given you can't have both (the source code isn't owned by the BBC) I'd be happy with open data. See my sig. I did. Cathy Come Home would seem to disprove it as a hypothesis. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
You have complete freedom - you can go and use someone else's API if their terms or tech are better. Just change the URL and a few XPaths in a config file. J On 26/11/2007, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Personally, I'd prefer an XML API for most things like this... no worrying about porting it to your platform of choice, less/no hardware cost, probably (maybe) faster, less maintenance etc. No worrying about freedom, either, though... -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Personally, I'd prefer an XML API for most things like this... no worrying about porting it to your platform of choice, less/no hardware cost, probably (maybe) faster, less maintenance etc. Me too, great for doing some AJAX. J -- Jason Cartwright Web Specialist, EMEA Marketing [EMAIL PROTECTED] +44(0)2070313161 On 26/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... API? Nah, it would be a larger contribution if they released the source code. See my sig. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Tom Loosemore wrote: Thanks for the feedback ! Muddy boots is cool... Thanks :) TheyWorkForYou.com adds links to Hansard by matching Proper Names with Wikipedia entries. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2007-11-21a.1190.1 The number false positives is acceptable and the wikipedia links are miles better than the user-generated glossary with which the site was launched. But it's still limited since it only parses for Capitalised Phrases or ACRONYMS. Shifting to term extraction seemed an obvious route, but as I think Muddy Boots shows, term extraction tends to throw up unacceptably large number of 'false positive' terms- these result in crappy random links and are user experience poison. However, you can minimise false positive terms by running the copy through several different flavours of term extractor, and only using terms thrown up by x or more of them (where x depends on your appetite for false positives vs false negatives). I like this idea as obviously the context for the story (i.e. the tags we use to define it) impacts the final link recommendations, it's one of the two weak points in the system at the moment (the other being the previously mentioned disambiguation issues), however it's nice to have a platform that we can start to test these kind of ideas out ... So, why not throw the copy through several more term extractors then only use the overlapping terms? - The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... - Seconded ! Anybody else have any other recommendations for term extraction services ? Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You have complete freedom - you can go and use someone else's API if their terms or tech are better. Just change the URL and a few XPaths in a config file. To talk of the freedom to stop using a data source is absurd. The Ordanance Survey provide very useful data with horribly onerous licencing conditions, are you arguing that all the campaigning to get that data opened up to the public is moot simple because you can choose not to use it? -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: /me sits down with big tub of pop corn and expectantly googly eyes... /me puts on his flame retardant suit and rubs on the troll repellent -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Brian Butterworth wrote: How about using a two-frame page as the link with a rate this link option shown as a one-line toolbar at the top of the page? Users could then rate the appropriateness of the link from wrong to fantastic, which would allow automatic removal of incorrect links and an simple administration list of links considered poor. That was another idea we had, both from the perspective of feeding meta-data back to Wikipedia and also getting end-users to moderate links, although in our use-case we had the system helping journalists in finding relevant external link material, the one's they chose from the complete list were marked as known 'good' meta-data for the story and fed back into the system (and if they had the time they could mark 'bad' suggestions as well). So for example if you choose a MuddyBoots 'red' report [1] (i.e. requires moderation) you'll see there are far more links that *could* be relevant to the article and the journalists could choose from these and add them to a news story, thus creating a feedback mechanism into the system. [1] http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=714report_type=red - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Given you can't have both (the source code isn't owned by the BBC) I'd be happy with open data. Open data would be fantastic, free software + open data would be better. See my sig. I did. Cathy Come Home would seem to disprove it as a hypothesis. I disagree, it can work on many levels. On one level people were free to take the ideas from Cathy Come Home and discuss/loby them to get social change. On another unrelated level would be how society can re-use and remix the original footage. You are conflating too seperate things. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Matt Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We didn't spend 25 years getting faster computers and larger hard disks so we could run all our applications over a network and have third parties store our data. I think having services in the cloud is an immensely useful thing - only that they should also provide free and legally unencumbered access to the data and software that sits behind them. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Given you can't have both (the source code isn't owned by the BBC) I'd be happy with open data. Open data would be fantastic, free software + open data would be better. See my sig. I did. Cathy Come Home would seem to disprove it as a hypothesis. I disagree, it can work on many levels. On one level people were free to take the ideas from Cathy Come Home and discuss/loby them to get social change. On another unrelated level would be how society can re-use and remix the original footage. I chose my example with care. People were not free (as in freedom) to choose whether or not they wanted to pay for Cathy Come Home to be made in the first place. It they had been granted the freedom not to pay the licence fee, it would never have been made. This renders discussion of use/re-use freedoms somewhat moot. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
No... that isn't what I said. J On 26/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You have complete freedom - you can go and use someone else's API if their terms or tech are better. Just change the URL and a few XPaths in a config file. To talk of the freedom to stop using a data source is absurd. The Ordanance Survey provide very useful data with horribly onerous licencing conditions, are you arguing that all the campaigning to get that data opened up to the public is moot simple because you can choose not to use it? -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: People were not free (as in freedom) to choose whether or not they wanted to pay for Cathy Come Home to be made in the first place. It they had been granted the freedom not to pay the licence fee, it would never have been made. This could be said about the decisions of any public body. This renders discussion of use/re-use freedoms somewhat moot. How so? How are the freedoms of use/re-use ever rendered moot? By saying people were not free to do X hence freedom Y is moot is non sequitur. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No... that isn't what I said. You said: You have complete freedom - you can go and use someone else's API if their terms or tech are better. I think any reasonable person would paraphrase this as you have freedom to stop using it. To which I replied: To talk of the freedom to stop using a data source is absurd. Please tell me if I am misunderstanding something. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Matt Lee wrote: Jason Cartwright wrote: That doesn't really seem to be the way things are going... It's certainly not the way some would like to take things. It's certainly one of the things that 'Web Twenty' promotes, but I think it's a mistake. We didn't spend 25 years getting faster computers and larger hard disks so we could run all our applications over a network and have third parties store our data. You could argue that computers started this way 25 years ago with a central mainframe storing all the data centrally and we moved away from this architecture due to limited connection speeds. With internet speeds increasing these online systems are very useful for the average user who sends emails, writes letters, etc, as they take away the burden of looking after software and keeping it up to date. This is something that most computer users don't always understand. Plus ask a group when the last time they backed up their documents and a majority would probably say never or too long ago to be useful.
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
I was referring to Term Extraction APIs. There are plenty, so it doesn't really matter which one you use... you are free to choose. J On 26/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No... that isn't what I said. You said: You have complete freedom - you can go and use someone else's API if their terms or tech are better. I think any reasonable person would paraphrase this as you have freedom to stop using it. To which I replied: To talk of the freedom to stop using a data source is absurd. Please tell me if I am misunderstanding something. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was referring to Term Extraction APIs. There are plenty, so it doesn't really matter which one you use... you are free to choose. Yes, but if they are all restrictive with the data silos then all you have is the freedom to choose which person restricts your freedom which is patently absurd. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
People were not free (as in freedom) to choose whether or not they wanted to pay for Cathy Come Home to be made in the first place. It they had been granted the freedom not to pay the licence fee, it would never have been made. This could be said about the decisions of any public body. your point being? (The BBC is not 'any public body' - it is unique in being funded by a hypothecated regressive tax. ) This renders discussion of use/re-use freedoms somewhat moot. How so? How are the freedoms of use/re-use ever rendered moot? In the case of Cathy Come Home (the test I set for your hypothesis) you don't get to have the programme at all without societal coercian. Which - in the case of Cathy Come Home - renders talk of 'society being free to use the results of creativity' moot. The lovely magic of digital is that in many cases (software, music, the written word) you no longer need capital to be creative. In such cases, I'd agree with your .sig. But where creativity still requires capital - or has done in the past - then the freedoms which should be granted on use / re-use are less obvious. After all, it's someone's capital (or licence fee) at stake, and human nature has been finely tuned to reject freeloaders. It's my abtuse way of rejecting glib rhetoric. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
With internet speeds increasing these online systems are very useful for the average user who sends emails, writes letters, etc, as they take away the burden of looking after software and keeping it up to date. Or another way of looking it, if you keep building systems with the expectation that people will have an always-on, persistent fast connection - you look out people like me still on 31.2 Kbps dial-up... But in this case, API would easily trump source code and dictionary/thesarus with patches IMHO - API could react within minutes to a sudden change in the significance of a term. Who would want to wait 15 days lag for a patch to keep switching McClaren from being primarily about Formula One, Steve or Malcolm - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
They are restrictive data silos for a reason - they contain proprietary data and code. They contain proprietary data and code for a reason - it was easier and cheaper to build them that way. Given that these systems aren't going to be released in their entirety (at least not in the near future, it would appear), then I think we're in the pretty good situation (given the above constraints) of having a marketplace of different APIs to play with. J On 26/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was referring to Term Extraction APIs. There are plenty, so it doesn't really matter which one you use... you are free to choose. Yes, but if they are all restrictive with the data silos then all you have is the freedom to choose which person restricts your freedom which is patently absurd. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Martin Belam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But in this case, API would easily trump source code and dictionary/thesarus with patches IMHO - API could react within minutes to a sudden change in the significance of a term. Who would want to wait 15 days lag for a patch to keep switching McClaren from being primarily about Formula One, Steve or Malcolm Yeah, but what happens when the BBC has technical difficulties, changes it's mind about the licencing terms or is dissolved? Poof! The whole thing disappears! -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Adam wrote: You could argue that computers started this way 25 years ago with a central mainframe storing all the data centrally and we moved away from this architecture due to limited connection speeds. Or because the cost of running one big computer and a bunch of dumb terminals became less of an issue, when you can buy a computer in Tesco[1] for 200 quid With internet speeds increasing these online systems are very useful for the average user who sends emails, writes letters, etc, as they take away the burden of looking after software and keeping it up to date. This is something that most computer users don't always understand. Right, this is something that operating system providers can fix, tho. Plus ask a group when the last time they backed up their documents and a majority would probably say never or too long ago to be useful. Again, I'm not arguing against backups. They are useful things and everyone could backup more. [1] other supermarket chains are available -- Matt Lee (mattl at fsf dot org) Campaigns Manager, Free Software Foundation - http://www.fsf.org/ Support our work - http://donate.fsf.org/ signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: They are restrictive data silos for a reason - they contain proprietary data and code. This is a tautology. They contain proprietary data and code for a reason - it was easier and cheaper to build them that way. Do you have the research to show that it is cheaper to build proprietary (which is the incorrect term by the way, closed or licenced would be better) data silos? I am willing to bet that in many cases it would either have no effect on the bottom line (how would the BBC loose money by sharing some data?) or would actually improve customer relations and hence, ultimately, revenue. I am willing to be that you can find no research that suggests a closed data silo such as the one the BBC has and is not sharing would harm revenue if shared with the public. I am also willing to bet that there is direct evidence on the contrary. Google's open source software, the New York Times open source software, LiveJournal's open source software, heck even the beeb contributes IIRC. In all of these cases it fosters a community of developers and good spirit around the organisation - not plummeting revenue figures as you suggest. Given that these systems aren't going to be released in their entirety (at least not in the near future, it would appear), then I think we're in the pretty good situation (given the above constraints) of having a marketplace of different APIs to play with. It's better than nothing, but that's no reason to be complacent and say oh well, it'll do because then nothing will happen. You need to speak out if you want things to change. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This could be said about the decisions of any public body. your point being? (The BBC is not 'any public body' - it is unique in being funded by a hypothecated regressive tax. ) My point being your point is irrelevant. In the case of Cathy Come Home (the test I set for your hypothesis) It's not mine and it's not a hypothesis. you don't get to have the programme at all without societal coercian. Societal coercian? You mean fiscal coercian? In either case, I fail to see how this is related to how much value it presents to the society when they are free to (re)use. Which - in the case of Cathy Come Home - renders talk of 'society being free to use the results of creativity' moot. No, it doesn't. Just because something exists because of X or is only possible because of Y does not mean that society wouldn't benefit through it's availability for (re)use. You're arguments are a total non sequitur. But where creativity still requires capital - or has done in the past - then the freedoms which should be granted on use / re-use are less obvious. After all, it's someone's capital (or licence fee) at stake, I disagree entirely with your hypothetical link between cost of creative production and the freedoms that should be awarded to society. Copyright and trademark law were specifically designed to give away a little bit of societal freedom in exchange for stimulated creativity. At no point is cost of creative production mentioned nor should it enter the discussion. and human nature has been finely tuned to reject freeloaders. This is a broad generalisation that has nothing to do with the discussion. The job of our government is to protect the the public, not the private entities that expend creative effort. It is not the public who are freeloaders when they ask for freedom to use, reuse and modify - it is the creatives who are asking/expecting too much from society. It's my abtuse way of rejecting glib rhetoric. It's not rhetorical and it's not glib, see the full text here: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Matt Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [1] other supermarket chains are available Prove it. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You have complete freedom - you can go and use someone else's API That's the point - using web APIs is giving up your software freedom, because you are getting someone else to do your computation; you have no way of studying, understanding, or modifying the computation done behind the API. -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's such dogma which gets you described by otherwise pretty measured civil servants and MPs as 'The Copyleft Taliban' lol Do you have a reference for that? :-) http://www.vivisimo.com/search?query=%22copyleft+taliban%22 http://www.alltheweb.com/search?q=%22copyleft+taliban%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=%22copyleft+taliban%22 I guess I'm just bored of placard waving. I want to see stuff actually change. :-) -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
I disagree entirely with your hypothetical link between cost of creative production and the freedoms that should be awarded to society. Copyright and trademark law were specifically designed to give away a little bit of societal freedom in exchange for stimulated creativity. I agree with all of this. Society would benefit from hugely from re-use now digital tech means it can do so widely and (more or less) equitably. Understand where I'm coming from. I'm against glib absolutism, not re-use. And one hard lesson I learned from Creative Archive's failure is that *blanket* insistance upon re-use - or even unrestricted global use - for all works future, present and past *can* mean art isn't made in the first place, or isn't placed in the public domian. If you'd have said to the makers of Cathy Come Home Oh, and by the way, anyone will have the right to do what they want with your work it would not have been made. And today, insistance on global re-use would mean it remained gathering dust in the BBC's archive. It takes patience, time and - most importantly - evidence to demostrate that re-use can be a good thing for all concerned. At no point is cost of creative production mentioned nor should it enter the discussion. Hmm. You don't stimulate much creativity if said stimulation does not cover the costs of production. The job of our government is to protect the the public, not the private entities that expend creative effort. It is not the public who are freeloaders when they ask for freedom to use, reuse and modify - it is the creatives who are asking/expecting too much from society. Rights are a balance - as you say - between societal freedom and creative stimulation. I'd argue that both sides of that equation stand to gain from re-use now media is going digital and the cost of copying, sharing and re-using is tending towards zero. But you don't help rebalance laws by jumping up and down on one end proclaiming your own sacred manifesto to be The One True Word and decrying those nasty private entities at the other end to be ripping off society. It's such dogma which gets you described by otherwise pretty measured civil servants and MPs as 'The Copyleft Taliban' and does the cause of changing the law to enable and encourage re-use nothing but harm. The name of the game is to provide evidence of the benefits of re-use. I'm pretty encouraged that the Treasury is now getting an independent economist to look at the the case for re-use of Government data off the back of the Power of Information Review. It was that sober review, full of case studies and real-life examples of the benefits of re-use that lead to this change of heart. I guess I'm just bored of placard waving. I want to see stuff actually change. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's such dogma which gets you described by otherwise pretty measured civil servants and MPs as 'The Copyleft Taliban' This would be highly offensive and on a par with Godwin's Law. I guess I'm just bored of placard waving. I want to see stuff actually change. Funny that, last time I checked it's the people who protest about things that get stuff to changed - not the one's who sit around saying meh, it's good enough for me. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's such dogma which gets you described by otherwise pretty measured civil servants and MPs as 'The Copyleft Taliban' This would be highly offensive and on a par with Godwin's Law. I guess I'm just bored of placard waving. I want to see stuff actually change. Funny that, last time I checked it's the people who protest about things that get stuff to changed - not the one's who sit around saying meh, it's good enough for me. It's always a bit of an uphill battle when you have people who wish to preserve the status quo by using professional lobbyists. I don't think you are in disagreement here, but I have sympathy for both points of view. Many years ago I spent ages outside the Menwith Hill US base waving placards - and look what it achieved... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7111523.stm Oh, that will be nothing at all then... But it is also true to say that if everyone stayed at home nothing would ever happen. In my experience dogged determined reasoned arguments usually win out in the end, not placard waving... The effect of protest can end up doing is curtailing the free speech required for reasoned argument... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7113984.stm -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On Monday 26 November 2007 20:20:30 Dave Crossland wrote: That's the point - using web APIs is giving up your software freedom, because you are getting someone else to do your computation; you have no way of studying, understanding, or modifying the computation done behind the API. Wrong - using a web API does not necessarily do that any more than using the POSIX API does in a C application, since it appears to depend on which web API you use. (ignoring the other comments that appear problematic to me in that statement) Example - the open social Web API appears to be a good example here - since you have multiple potential implementors. Some (many) will be closed source, some will be open source. The user could then choose which containers/providers they prefer, perhaps based on that issue, though in all likelihood its likely to be on other aspects. You may wish to qualify your statements more often before making incorrect generalisations. Michael. -- Favourite new idea (to me) of right now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On Monday 26 November 2007 20:32:49 Tom Loosemore wrote: It takes patience, time and - most importantly - evidence to demonstrate that re-use can be a good thing for all concerned. Even then, consider: * Copyright was created as a mechanism to benefit the public as a mechanism to encourage an author to create work, based on the premise that they have exclusive control of their work's copying which they can charge for. The public benefit because it encourages people to invest time an effort on the risk aspect of producing content (since to do it in a realistic timeframe does require upfront investment of time effort full time, which has a real cost) For the sake of this email, I'm considering that the primary intended benefit to society the author. It appears to have a secondary benefit for an author/originator: * It allows that author/originator to be clear that their work is not misrepresented or changed in a way changing their intent words (either accidentally or maliciously). It clearly has the negative effect: * Derivative works based on another work are generally difficult to do without hitting a licensing nightmare - though CC is making (practical) inroads in changing this. Due to this negative effect, it appears to also be a massive positive boost: * It appears to enforce diversity. If you want to write a new book for example, you have to write a _new_ book. Whatever imbalance in the system at the moment, this last point, to me, appears to be an interesting benefit. It also strikes me as potentially the very most beneficial aspect of copyright, and one that appears very easy to overlook in any rampage to demand everything must be remixable. (even if as noted it seems to have obvious downsides) Michael. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On Monday 26 November 2007 21:14:20 Noah Slater wrote: This would be highly offensive and on a par with Godwin's Law. Oh, I don't know Mind Performance Hacks has a suggestion based on the analogy of Memes - Enjoy Good, Clean Memetic Sex - which appears to take a couple of analogies one step too far - well, at least in terms of terminology... I find the idea an interesting one, since it explains to me why so many people find evangelists offensive. I personally find the _term_ used too offensive, but as a _concept_, its something I think any evangelist (or salesman :) may wish to ponder on. (especially given the alternative :-) Anyhow, I'm referring to this short excerpt: Respect people's boundaries. A /safeword/ is a real word used during sex that means, Stop, right now! I'm not kidding! In real life, the expression Too much information! or TMI! often functions as a conversational memetic safeword. Unfortunately, some people have memes that they feel compelled to evangelize at all costs, and they won't stop when they're told to. Memetically, this is the equivalent of rape. Avoid memetic rapists, and respect the boundaries that others have set, if you want them to respect you -- from Mind Performance Hacks, Ron Hale-Evans, 2006 As noted above, I find the term here probably too offensive, but it's a useful concept IMO (at least in terms of a behaviour to avoid). You may prefer to have an idea seduce you, not to be imposed on you :-) Michael. -- (Other books are available) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 27/11/2007, Michael Sparks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Unfortunately, some people have memes that they feel compelled to evangelize at all costs, and they won't stop when they're told to. Memetically, this is the equivalent of rape. Avoid memetic rapists, and respect the boundaries that others have set, if you want them to respect you This is a total crock. Basically the author is saying that anyone who has strong opinions is committing the equivalent of rape. Now, ignoring the highly inappropriate analogy to forced sexual penetration, I think that you could sum this up as having strong opinions and sticking by them is wrong. which is clearly brain-dead. I appreciate that some people prefer not to get into politics or ethics or rights or whatever, in which case ignore the discussion and move on with you life. If you have an opinion, voice it, don't be scared. Anyone who relates intellectual discussion with forced sexual abuse clearly has some serious issues. -- Noah Slater http://www.bytesexual.org/ Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. - R. Stallman - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Basically the author is saying that anyone who has strong opinions is committing the equivalent of rape. Now, ignoring the highly inappropriate analogy to forced sexual penetration, I think that you could sum this up as having strong opinions and sticking by them is wrong. which is clearly brain-dead. No. Banging on and on and on and on about the same tired, laboured point is wrong - and simply blindly quoting Richard Stallman doesn't make it any more likely to have people agree with your narrow viewpoint. You are Dave Crossland in a different hat, and I claim my five pounds. Rich.
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Rob, This is an interesting - and very subtle - enhancedment to the BBC news pages. Took me a while to spot what was being added, so well was it done. I was wondering if you could modify it so that it could also add links to Wikipedia articles by adding hypertext links within the text. For example, in the first one you post there is some text... *Scientists have discovered differences in the sensory areas of the brains of people who develop migraines.* They found a part of the cortex is thicker than in people who are free from the debilitating headaches. What is not clear is whether the difference causes, or is the result of migraine attacks. The Neurology study, by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, suggests the changes may make patients hyper-sensitive to pain in general. IMHO, it would be enhanced by adding in Wikipedia links, like this: *Scientists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientists have discovered differences in the sensory areas of the brains of people who develop migraines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migraines.* They found a part of the cortexhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_cortexis thicker than in people who are free from the debilitating headaches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headaches. What is not clear is whether the difference causes, or is the result of migraine attacks. The Neurology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurology study, by Massachusetts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston, suggests the changes may make patients hyper-sensitivehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-sensitivityto pain in general. On 21/11/2007, robl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Everyone, Just thought I'd accompany the latest post to the backstage blog (http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/11/from_last_years_1.html) with some examples of muddyboots in action. For those of you who aren't aware of the project it's probably best to look at http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=more. Essentially we're attempting to use Wikipedia and other commons authored data sources to augment the meta-data around BBC news stories, this ultimately took the form of automated contextually relevant link recommendations based off data within Wikipedia and del.icio.us (although we have some other ideas about how this data could be used ...) It's still a prototype so it's not production ready by any means, there are still stories where we are unable to recommend links and there are others where ambiguity becomes a problem and identifying what context a story has can be difficult (although we have some ideas around using the disambiguation data within Wikipedia to improve this). Here are a few links to stories where I thought muddyboots added some interest and hopefully a little of that Wikipedia 'browse experience' : http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=646 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=630 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=622 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=643 If you'd like to see how those recommendations were arrived at then each story has a 'View' action which can be used to get a breakdown of each stage of the muddyboots process, for example : http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=viewid=622 It's worth noting we only keep the last 50 story submissions in the system, so these links will eventually 'age' out. (Disclaimer : I worked on the project) Thanks, Rob - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Brian, I also missed the very subtle changes to the page- but I would say, hyperlinking scientists and headaches etc every other word is gonna give the reader sore eyes and thousands of hours of lost work as they educate themselves in mass trivia. And to Rob, respect for your project; from a user perspective, if I wanna follow up something I've read on BBC news I'll just do it through google.. are you able to make links to other media relevant stories, rather than just Wiki? EG BBC headline recently Karachi stock exhange falls 5% when in fact every Asian stock exchange had fallen by over 5% that day, but I guess some editor was trying to make the point Pakistan was a dangerous unstable place without any mention at all of the worldwide stock slide THEN we need Muddy Boot skill to pick out what's really going on. The history of the Karachi stock exchange from Wiki ain't gonna cut it... a link to that morning's Reuters Asian stocks slide story is going to defeat the sensationalist editor's plans right there and then. Also an idea I had on Brian's overloaded link example - some sort of spidery engine which grabs all such wiki links on pages viewed by the user, collates the entries into a monthly encyclopedia pdf, delivered to your door with fake leatherette burgundy cover for $9.99... cheers :-) On 22/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rob, This is an interesting - and very subtle - enhancedment to the BBC news pages. Took me a while to spot what was being added, so well was it done. I was wondering if you could modify it so that it could also add links to Wikipedia articles by adding hypertext links within the text. For example, in the first one you post there is some text... Scientists have discovered differences in the sensory areas of the brains of people who develop migraines. They found a part of the cortex is thicker than in people who are free from the debilitating headaches. What is not clear is whether the difference causes, or is the result of migraine attacks. The Neurology study, by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, suggests the changes may make patients hyper-sensitive to pain in general. IMHO, it would be enhanced by adding in Wikipedia links, like this: Scientists have discovered differences in the sensory areas of the brains of people who develop migraines. They found a part of the cortex is thicker than in people who are free from the debilitating headaches. What is not clear is whether the difference causes, or is the result of migraine attacks. The Neurology study, by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston , suggests the changes may make patients hyper-sensitive to pain in general. On 21/11/2007, robl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Everyone, Just thought I'd accompany the latest post to the backstage blog ( http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/11/from_last_years_1.html) with some examples of muddyboots in action. For those of you who aren't aware of the project it's probably best to look at http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=more. Essentially we're attempting to use Wikipedia and other commons authored data sources to augment the meta-data around BBC news stories, this ultimately took the form of automated contextually relevant link recommendations based off data within Wikipedia and del.icio.us (although we have some other ideas about how this data could be used ...) It's still a prototype so it's not production ready by any means, there are still stories where we are unable to recommend links and there are others where ambiguity becomes a problem and identifying what context a story has can be difficult (although we have some ideas around using the disambiguation data within Wikipedia to improve this). Here are a few links to stories where I thought muddyboots added some interest and hopefully a little of that Wikipedia 'browse experience' : http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=646 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=630 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=622 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=643 If you'd like to see how those recommendations were arrived at then each story has a 'View' action which can be used to get a breakdown of each stage of the muddyboots process, for example : http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=viewid=622 It's worth noting we only keep the last 50 story submissions in the system, so these links will eventually 'age' out. (Disclaimer : I worked on the project) Thanks, Rob - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ --
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 22/11/2007, James Ockenden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brian, I also missed the very subtle changes to the page- but I would say, hyperlinking scientists and headaches etc every other word is gonna give the reader sore eyes and thousands of hours of lost work as they educate themselves in mass trivia. Isn't that the whole point of Hypertext? I can't understand it when people remove useful wikilinks on Wikipedia. Obviosuly you would only do relevant words, and only the first instance. And to Rob, respect for your project; from a user perspective, if I wanna follow up something I've read on BBC news I'll just do it through google.. are you able to make links to other media relevant stories, rather than just Wiki? EG BBC headline recently Karachi stock exhange falls 5% when in fact every Asian stock exchange had fallen by over 5% that day, but I guess some editor was trying to make the point Pakistan was a dangerous unstable place without any mention at all of the worldwide stock slide THEN we need Muddy Boot skill to pick out what's really going on. The history of the Karachi stock exchange from Wiki ain't gonna cut it... a link to that morning's Reuters Asian stocks slide story is going to defeat the sensationalist editor's plans right there and then. Also an idea I had on Brian's overloaded link example - some sort of spidery engine which grabs all such wiki links on pages viewed by the user, collates the entries into a monthly encyclopedia pdf, delivered to your door with fake leatherette burgundy cover for $9.99... cheers :-) On 22/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rob, This is an interesting - and very subtle - enhancedment to the BBC news pages. Took me a while to spot what was being added, so well was it done. I was wondering if you could modify it so that it could also add links to Wikipedia articles by adding hypertext links within the text. For example, in the first one you post there is some text... Scientists have discovered differences in the sensory areas of the brains of people who develop migraines. They found a part of the cortex is thicker than in people who are free from the debilitating headaches. What is not clear is whether the difference causes, or is the result of migraine attacks. The Neurology study, by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, suggests the changes may make patients hyper-sensitive to pain in general. IMHO, it would be enhanced by adding in Wikipedia links, like this: Scientists have discovered differences in the sensory areas of the brains of people who develop migraines. They found a part of the cortex is thicker than in people who are free from the debilitating headaches. What is not clear is whether the difference causes, or is the result of migraine attacks. The Neurology study, by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston , suggests the changes may make patients hyper-sensitive to pain in general. On 21/11/2007, robl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Everyone, Just thought I'd accompany the latest post to the backstage blog ( http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/11/from_last_years_1.html) with some examples of muddyboots in action. For those of you who aren't aware of the project it's probably best to look at http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=more. Essentially we're attempting to use Wikipedia and other commons authored data sources to augment the meta-data around BBC news stories, this ultimately took the form of automated contextually relevant link recommendations based off data within Wikipedia and del.icio.us (although we have some other ideas about how this data could be used ...) It's still a prototype so it's not production ready by any means, there are still stories where we are unable to recommend links and there are others where ambiguity becomes a problem and identifying what context a story has can be difficult (although we have some ideas around using the disambiguation data within Wikipedia to improve this). Here are a few links to stories where I thought muddyboots added some interest and hopefully a little of that Wikipedia 'browse experience' : http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=646 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=630 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=622 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=643 If you'd like to see how those recommendations were arrived at then each story has a 'View' action which can be used to get a breakdown of each stage of the muddyboots process, for example : http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=viewid=622 It's worth noting we only keep the last 50 story
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
James Ockenden wrote: Brian, I also missed the very subtle changes to the page- but I would say, hyperlinking scientists and headaches etc every other word is gonna give the reader sore eyes and thousands of hours of lost work as they educate themselves in mass trivia. So, if we discount the risk of destroying the UK economy due to 'too many links' :) What I once considered was a low key link. And one that had multiple targets. Clicking a word (or even an area?) brings up a menu of links (not mouseover - that's too distracting. Of course on mouseover you may flash a tiny pair of muddy boots as a popup or turn the cursor to boots, or visually activate a muddy-boots icon in the sidebar or) Of course that was about 8 years ago in pre-ajax days - now we have ajax/javascript dropdowns it makes more sense. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 22/11/2007, David Greaves [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: James Ockenden wrote: Brian, I also missed the very subtle changes to the page- but I would say, hyperlinking scientists and headaches etc every other word is gonna give the reader sore eyes and thousands of hours of lost work as they educate themselves in mass trivia. So, if we discount the risk of destroying the UK economy due to 'too many links' :) Firstly, there isn't a wikipedia article for every word... I would get an English dictonary sorted by frequency and ignore the first couple of hundred words. Most usefully linked would be proper names. Might have a go at this myself tonight. What I once considered was a low key link. And one that had multiple targets. Clicking a word (or even an area?) brings up a menu of links (not mouseover - that's too distracting. Of course on mouseover you may flash a tiny pair of muddy boots as a popup or turn the cursor to boots, or visually activate a muddy-boots icon in the sidebar or) Of course that was about 8 years ago in pre-ajax days - now we have ajax/javascript dropdowns it makes more sense. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
[backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Hi Everyone, Just thought I'd accompany the latest post to the backstage blog (http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/11/from_last_years_1.html) with some examples of muddyboots in action. For those of you who aren't aware of the project it's probably best to look at http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=more. Essentially we're attempting to use Wikipedia and other commons authored data sources to augment the meta-data around BBC news stories, this ultimately took the form of automated contextually relevant link recommendations based off data within Wikipedia and del.icio.us (although we have some other ideas about how this data could be used ...) It's still a prototype so it's not production ready by any means, there are still stories where we are unable to recommend links and there are others where ambiguity becomes a problem and identifying what context a story has can be difficult (although we have some ideas around using the disambiguation data within Wikipedia to improve this). Here are a few links to stories where I thought muddyboots added some interest and hopefully a little of that Wikipedia 'browse experience' : http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=646 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=630 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=622 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=643 If you'd like to see how those recommendations were arrived at then each story has a 'View' action which can be used to get a breakdown of each stage of the muddyboots process, for example : http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=viewid=622 It's worth noting we only keep the last 50 story submissions in the system, so these links will eventually 'age' out. (Disclaimer : I worked on the project) Thanks, Rob - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
