Re: [ol-tech] Brewster is interested in our community idea

[Luciano Ramalho]

On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 1:53 AM, Karen Coyle  wrote:
> Brewster has encouraged me to encourage the idea of creating a working
> community around OL -- folks who can participate in making changes and
> fostering sharing.

I don't know who Brewster is, but I agree OL should open up to more
contributors.

> That's all the guidance I have, so I'm assuming that
> we have to do the heavy lifting to make it happen. Can we work together
> on a proposal? I'm willing to do research and writing. Where would you
> like to do this? Wiki? G-Doc? something else?
>
> Are there others that we should include? I could contact library
> programmers who are using the API for covers, etc.

I've been involved with FOSS development communities for many years
now, and also with other community activities  such as a national
Python user's group, volunteer-run tech conferences and more recently
a hackerspace.

To be succesful any community/volunteer effort must be very open and
transparent. A "fishbowl" is a metaphor I've seen used in a project
that succesfully transitioned from closed to open.

With transparency, people can see what is going on and find
opportunities to contribute.

I don't see much transparency in the OL initiatives. Early on when I
got interested in OL I sent a couple tech questions that were simply
ignored. There are some dead mailing list that should be just closed
or clearly marked as frozen archives. There is very little information
for developers, and I see no roadmap anywhere. The mere fact that an
open wiki will be a novelty here is symptom of how closed the project
has been.

I hope you manage to change this.

To start, don't ask "Are there others that we should include?".
Because no one should be excluded, in principle. Everyone should have
access to all the information needed to get involved. A better
question would be "Are there others that we should invite?"

Please forgive me if I sound harsh. English is not my first language.
I want OL to thrive, and it is obvious to me that OL needs to engage
more people.

Best regards,

-- 
Luciano Ramalho / OFICINAS TURING
Twitter: @ramalhoorg

Autor e professor dos cursos:

* Objetos Pythonicos   -->   http://turing.com.br/oopy
* Python para quem sabe Python   -->   http://turing.com.br/ppqsp
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Re: [ol-tech] Brewster is interested in our community idea

[Raymond Yee]

I'm also interested in being part of this group.  We at unglue.it make
use of OL data also.

Thanks,
-Raymond

On 3/1/13 9:42 AM, Tom Morris wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 11:53 PM, Karen Coyle  > wrote:
>
> Brewster has encouraged me to encourage the idea of creating a working
> community around OL -- folks who can participate in making changes and
> fostering sharing. That's all the guidance I have, so I'm assuming
> that
> we have to do the heavy lifting to make it happen. Can we work
> together
> on a proposal? I'm willing to do research and writing. Where would you
> like to do this? Wiki? G-Doc? something else?
>
> Are there others that we should include? I could contact library
> programmers who are using the API for covers, etc.
>
>
> I'd be interested in helping shape the future direction of OpenLibrary
> and contributing to its success.  It'd be great to see OL become more
> inclusive of its community of contributors and users.
>
> Tom 
>
>
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Re: [ol-tech] Brewster is interested in our community idea

[David Cuenca]

Karen,
I'm really happy and excited about this. About the invitations I have
commented the issue to the okfn guys, I think it would make sense that they
would have their say, since they have related projects (for instance
http://openbiblio.net/ ). IMHO, the more open and inclusive the process is,
the better.

If you allow me to make a suggestion, I would recommend to split the
process in several phases, which could be:
- Principles/OL goals: The initial draft/timeline/roadmap could be prepared
in this mailing list (gdoc or etherpad?) to center the issue, thus avoiding
overscoping. Then the document could be moved to several wiki pages on the
main site for brainstorming/discussion/support with a visible banner in the
main page inviting users to participate in the discussion and pseudo-voting
with support messages (it could help to prioritize to know what are the
most supported principles). This is, in my opinion, crucial. Users who vote
and engage in the discussion *are* the community.
- Supporting technology: the next step could be to define what needs to be
changed, how, and which resources would be needed to support the
principles. A forum? A messaging system between users? A rating&commenting
system? A better way of storing and displaying the license of a book?
- Resources needed: after that it should be possible to assess more or less
what is needed to make those changes and what should be the supporting
infrastructure.
- Organization: knowing where the OL wants to go, which technology is
needed, and how much would it cost, it will be the moment to determine the
best administration structure. Should it be self-sustainable? What kind of
involvement does the IA wants? Could it be made a deal with the IA where
they offer the infrastructure and allow community self-governance in
exchange of treating preferentially their lending or other programs on the
site? Those are questions better asked when there is a better idea of what
is wanted from OL.
- Funding: After that is solved, it should be possible to ask around how
many resources each organization could commit, apply for grants, or start a
crowd-funding action to refurbish the site.

Is that more or less what you had in mind?

I'm totally willing to help writing, making suggestions and helping to
shape the Open Library that everyone will love! :)

David

On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 11:53 PM, Karen Coyle  wrote:

> Brewster has encouraged me to encourage the idea of creating a working
> community around OL -- folks who can participate in making changes and
> fostering sharing. That's all the guidance I have, so I'm assuming that
> we have to do the heavy lifting to make it happen. Can we work together
> on a proposal? I'm willing to do research and writing. Where would you
> like to do this? Wiki? G-Doc? something else?
>
> Are there others that we should include? I could contact library
> programmers who are using the API for covers, etc.
>
> kc
> --
> Karen Coyle
> kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
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> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech
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> ol-tech-unsubscr...@archive.org
>



-- 
Etiamsi omnes, ego non
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Re: [ol-tech] Brewster is interested in our community idea

[Tom Morris]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 11:53 PM, Karen Coyle  wrote:

> Brewster has encouraged me to encourage the idea of creating a working
> community around OL -- folks who can participate in making changes and
> fostering sharing. That's all the guidance I have, so I'm assuming that
> we have to do the heavy lifting to make it happen. Can we work together
> on a proposal? I'm willing to do research and writing. Where would you
> like to do this? Wiki? G-Doc? something else?
>
> Are there others that we should include? I could contact library
> programmers who are using the API for covers, etc.


I'd be interested in helping shape the future direction of OpenLibrary and
contributing to its success.  It'd be great to see OL become more inclusive
of its community of contributors and users.

Tom
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Re: [ol-tech] Brewster is interested in our community idea

[Fred Lutzer]

John, you asked a lot of interesting questions. I also think we should
discuss them and the mailing list is a good platform for that.

Here is my wishful thinking about OL. You may disagress, you may even
prove, I've understood OL wrong (since I now know a lot of people use
OL in ways I couldn't even imagine), but at least I've not kept my
mouth shut and colmplained afterwards.

I'm frequently doing research on book contents. Am I going to buy it
or not? Have I already read it? What the hell is this famous author
writing about since everybody knows him, except for me?
Right now, I often use Amazon for that since it contains almost every
information I need. But Amazon is closed and it sells books. I'd
prefer to have an open and neutral site which serves user interest,
not client's. OL would be great if it contained more books and more
descriptions. And I'm willing to contribute (I'm already) to see that
happen.
The interface is already quite good for doing so. What I'd like to see
is internationalization. I understand english descriptions but some
people don't. Currently, I can't add a second description in another
language.
And I'd be happy if I could tidy up better. A lot of editions are
created as works, even if there is already a main work page. I can
copy them into the main work but the duplicate entry has to be
deleted. I understand it's a lot of work to answer all the requests
sent by users on the pages, but getting an answer takes a lot of time
from a motivated newbie's point of view. Maybe we could document a way
how to get deletion rights. More people would get the work done
faster.

Second important point:  The website should only be one interface to
that data. OL and it's data can be the solid base for a lot of
projects that do great things with books: selling, recommending,
drawing links between them, ...
Keeping an open API is encouraging cool spin off apps.
That's how I see OL's future.
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Re: [ol-tech] Brewster is interested in our community idea

[John Rigdon]

I think a Wiki will be a great place for presenting a "public face" but we
still need to hash out what we are trying to do and how the volunteers are
(will be) organized.  I think a mailing list will be best utilized for
that purpose.

Karen (I think) mentioned some potential target groups to invite, but for
me at least, at this point, I don't have an idea of a mission statement.

Is this to be a prograqmmer's playground for manipulating a large amount
of bibliographic data?  Are we building a comprehensive catalog a la
"Books in Print"?  Are we trying to organize this data into logical chunks
a la LOC Classifications?  Are we aiming to be "The Source" for book
reviews and sources? Are we now or in the future going to have to be self
sustaining or is computer storage and bandwidth provided by Internet
Archive?

I saw the USGenWeb Project go from conception to more than 10,000
volunteers in less than six months only to be "acquired" by Ancestry
because they were the only entity at the time to step forward and provide
computing resources.  I still have a problem fifteen years later with
their saying they are committed to "free and open data" while at the same
time being the front door to a massive commercial enterprise that
dominates their market segment.  The original "hosts" walked away with 19
million dollars with no accountability or recourse to the volunteers who
built the Project.

I have seen comments that OL is kind of orphaned at this point.  Whether
that is from a management standpoint of lost / imperiled funding I don't
know, but we need to discuss these matters as a part of the foundation of
what we want to build.

For myself I have garnered considerable valuable insight into the universe
of Civil War Books by mining the OL database.  Of the 30,000 titles I
identified virtually none have covers, book reviews, TOCs or indexes and
while I am busy building that information for my site and personal use, I
am hesitant to commit resources to updating the OL database not knowing if
my efforts will be wasted six months down the line.

John Rigdon
www.researchonline.net



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Re: [ol-tech] Brewster is interested in our community idea

[Fred Lutzer]

Go for it! I also think this sounds great! I'd be happy to contribute.
The wiki seems to be the best place to start, no?

2013/3/1, John Shutt :
> This sounds great! I'm definitely interested in contributing. A
> public-facing wiki seems like a good place to start.
> On Feb 28, 2013 8:53 PM, "Karen Coyle"  wrote:
>
>> Brewster has encouraged me to encourage the idea of creating a working
>> community around OL -- folks who can participate in making changes and
>> fostering sharing. That's all the guidance I have, so I'm assuming that
>> we have to do the heavy lifting to make it happen. Can we work together
>> on a proposal? I'm willing to do research and writing. Where would you
>> like to do this? Wiki? G-Doc? something else?
>>
>> Are there others that we should include? I could contact library
>> programmers who are using the API for covers, etc.
>>
>> kc
>> --
>> Karen Coyle
>> kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
>> ph: 1-510-540-7596
>> m: 1-510-435-8234
>> skype: kcoylenet
>> ___
>> Ol-tech mailing list
>> Ol-tech@archive.org
>> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to
>> ol-tech-unsubscr...@archive.org
>>
>
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Re: [ol-tech] Brewster is interested in our community idea

[John Shutt]

This sounds great! I'm definitely interested in contributing. A
public-facing wiki seems like a good place to start.
On Feb 28, 2013 8:53 PM, "Karen Coyle"  wrote:

> Brewster has encouraged me to encourage the idea of creating a working
> community around OL -- folks who can participate in making changes and
> fostering sharing. That's all the guidance I have, so I'm assuming that
> we have to do the heavy lifting to make it happen. Can we work together
> on a proposal? I'm willing to do research and writing. Where would you
> like to do this? Wiki? G-Doc? something else?
>
> Are there others that we should include? I could contact library
> programmers who are using the API for covers, etc.
>
> kc
> --
> Karen Coyle
> kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
> ___
> Ol-tech mailing list
> Ol-tech@archive.org
> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to
> ol-tech-unsubscr...@archive.org
>
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Re: [ol-tech] Brewster is interested in our community idea

[Tom Johnson]

Great news!

I like the idea of a wiki. Is it possible to get a publicly editable page
in the Open Library's developer pages?

Once we have a place to point people, a message to the Code4Lib list would
be a good idea.

Thanks for following through on this, Karen.

- Tom

On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 8:53 PM, Karen Coyle  wrote:

> Brewster has encouraged me to encourage the idea of creating a working
> community around OL -- folks who can participate in making changes and
> fostering sharing. That's all the guidance I have, so I'm assuming that
> we have to do the heavy lifting to make it happen. Can we work together
> on a proposal? I'm willing to do research and writing. Where would you
> like to do this? Wiki? G-Doc? something else?
>
> Are there others that we should include? I could contact library
> programmers who are using the API for covers, etc.
>
> kc
> --
> Karen Coyle
> kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
> ___
> Ol-tech mailing list
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> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to
> ol-tech-unsubscr...@archive.org
>



-- 
-Tom Johnson
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[ol-tech] Brewster is interested in our community idea

[Karen Coyle]

Brewster has encouraged me to encourage the idea of creating a working 
community around OL -- folks who can participate in making changes and 
fostering sharing. That's all the guidance I have, so I'm assuming that 
we have to do the heavy lifting to make it happen. Can we work together 
on a proposal? I'm willing to do research and writing. Where would you 
like to do this? Wiki? G-Doc? something else?

Are there others that we should include? I could contact library 
programmers who are using the API for covers, etc.

kc
-- 
Karen Coyle
kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
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