Meeting 2008-10-01

Details

  • When: Wednesday 1st October 2008 from 1830 BST (1730 GMT)

  • Where: #okfn irc channel on oftc.net (connect via Mibbit)

Agenda

Please feel free to add anything you'd like to discuss to the agenda...

  • Rob Myers: Open Art History
  • OKF projects on Cofundos?
  • Site overhaul

Participants

  • Mike Chelen
  • Rob Myers
  • Jonathan Gray
  • Rufus Pollock
  • Joshua Gay

IRC Log

IRC log will go here

(Time in CEST)

19:06:21 mikechelen im not sure if someone has done this already, but i got started on a general OKFN calendar: http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=dnsgmdki4jfl78ib745i7485oo%40group.calendar.google.com
19:06:46 mikechelen its on google calendar so its available in html, xml, and ical formats
19:10:41 mikechelen hopefully the timezones adjust themselves for the user automatically
19:13:46 robmyers oh cool
19:19:48 mikechelen i like having events in a calendar structure, theres no way i can keep up otherwise :)
19:24:38 mikechelen is there any page on the wiki where it would be okay to add a link?
19:26:01 mikechelen i made a separate one for the open textbook meetings as well, to help people get info on whichever events they are interested in
19:30:09 jwyg hi mike!
19:30:22 jwyg this is something we've been thinking of doing for a while...
19:30:27 jwyg thanks for making the calendar!
19:30:52 jwyg we should revamp a few revelant pages on the wiki..
19:30:53 jwyg e.g. http://okfn.org/wiki/Events
19:31:04 jwyg also, i should make a general page on the main site for OKF events.
19:31:46 mikechelen hey there, sure thing
19:32:18 jwyg it would be great to have a general calendar for open knowledge related events...
19:32:43 jwyg i've been thinking of looking into open source packages we could install on our servers..
19:32:53 mikechelen i don't know if there is a way to get the wiki software to output semantic event data, but its no trouble to set up google calendar
19:32:56 jwyg hey robmyers!
19:33:06 robmyers hiya
19:33:59 mikechelen it would be, google calendar can be set up so that any invitations sent to the calendar's email address are added automatically, that way many members of the community can contribute important / interesting events
19:34:20 jwyg well.. perhaps i'll start something like.. http://okfn.org/events
19:35:40 jwyg as well
19:36:10 jwyg so we've got a record of which events are happening when in one place!
19:37:35 robmyers good idea
19:37:53 robmyers are we meeting now? :-)
19:40:29 mikechelen hey just to let you know, the wiki GUI editor is showing an error and won't load
19:40:50 jwyg hmm.. thanks mike
19:41:03 jwyg yes rob!
19:41:13 robmyers goodgood
19:41:27 jwyg sorry was just looking at our events pages and thinking about cleaning them up :-)
19:41:36 jwyg how is everything going?
19:41:38 robmyers heh
19:41:46 robmyers is there an agenda?
19:42:04 jwyg yep http://okfn.org/wiki/meetings/2008-10-01
19:42:29 jwyg i've put open art history stuff first..
19:42:32 robmyers kewl
19:42:34 robmyers oh wow
19:42:35 robmyers ok
19:42:47 jwyg you mentioned you were keen to chat about it!
19:42:50 robmyers heh
19:42:57 jwyg it would be great to hear how its going! :-)
19:43:13 robmyers I've been researching standards for writing about artists and artefacts.
19:43:23 robmyers so the Getty vocabulary and stuff.
19:43:27 robmyers still working on that
19:43:35 robmyers And I've been checking for similar projects.
19:43:40 jwyg just to clarify - what kind of standards?
19:43:50 robmyers oh how you describe an artwork
19:44:12 robmyers so "large painting" (2008) 132"x20", oil on canvas, Rob Myers.
19:44:18 jwyg ahh http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/
19:44:23 robmyers there are standards. I was looking for machine readable ones as well
19:44:24 robmyers yes
19:44:30 jwyg brilliant
19:44:41 robmyers I'm putting stuff on teh wiki page as I find it
19:45:25 jwyg great!
19:46:01 jwyg ah just looking at http://okfn.org/wiki/OpenArtHistory
19:46:35 jwyg just looking - can you get a hold of the getty data very easily?
19:46:39 * rgrp (~rgrp@92.17.26.1) has joined #okfn
19:46:53 robmyers so we'd base the descriptions for artwork and biographical information on a known standard. preferably a machine readable one
19:46:55 robmyers err I don't know
19:47:04 robmyers but their description format is standard
19:47:27 robmyers whatever we use should be free & open though yes
19:47:39 jwyg hey rgrp
19:48:01 jwyg robmyers: ok i see...
19:48:22 mikechelen if there is a standard which is easy for human & machine use, that would be great
19:48:29 robmyers yes
19:48:43 rgrp hi everyone
19:48:51 robmyers a yaml format would be good for that
19:48:53 robmyers heya rgrp
19:49:04 rgrp i missed the start of this discussion
19:49:16 rgrp but were we talking about metadata for descriing bontent (e.g. artworks)
19:50:20 robmyers yes, for openarthsitory/openhogarth
19:50:24 jwyg http://okfn.org/wiki/OpenArtHistory
19:50:29 rgrp what about dublincore as a start?
19:50:31 robmyers I've been looking for existing standards
19:50:45 robmyers yes it's mentioned in some of the writing
19:51:20 robmyers a human readable format might be good though. yaml or even javascript would be more readable than rdf
19:51:26 robmyers imho
19:51:38 robmyers and easier to get people working on
19:51:48 rgrp true
19:52:02 rgrp you can always pseudo convert dublic core
19:52:15 robmyers oh?
19:52:16 rgrp e.g. use yaml (or even just plain key/value pairs) based on dublin core
19:52:18 rgrp e.g.
19:52:27 robmyers yes yaml would be an ideal format
19:52:29 rgrp dc-title: xyz
19:53:12 rgrp we went down this route with econ data
19:53:15 rgrp http://knowledgeforge.net/econ/svn/trunk/data/wheat-us/metadata.txt
19:53:43 robmyers yes this kind of information is why it's good to be basing this on the work you guys have already done
19:54:23 robmyers yes I'll definitely take a look at that, I think it's a good model. parsable by both machines and non-geeky people ;-)
19:55:02 jwyg great!
19:55:37 mikechelen rdf can have standard form for ease of entry, but its true it can not be edited by hand as easily as yaml
19:55:46 robmyers eys
19:55:47 robmyers yes
19:55:49 mikechelen is there a standard which getty has adopted?
19:56:01 robmyers for written descriptions.
19:56:25 robmyers and they have a taxonomy/ontology I think, but we're not sure how open it is
19:56:45 jwyg seems like they also have a registry of object ids for artefacts?
19:56:53 robmyers oh right?
19:57:01 robmyers the UN and others may have those as well
19:57:15 robmyers if it's proprietary I may see an opportunity ;-)
19:57:54 rgrp robmyers: I'm pretty sure Getty's ontology is proprietary in some way of other
19:58:15 jwyg Object ID is a core standard for the identification of art, antiques and antiquities. It has been created as part of the Getty initiative to protect cultural objects and includes images among its categories. In the event of theft/loss Object ID is intended to allow the quick transmission of information about objects among museums, police and customs agencies, the art trade and collectors.
19:58:22 robmyers ah. so an open ontology might be a good idea. I'll avoid looking at theirs then.
19:58:48 mikechelen they have a publication about their recent electronic calatloguing efforts at http://www.getty.edu/grants/pdfs/LA_Art_Online_Report.pdf but i havent read it all
19:58:52 robmyers yes that's a bit outside of the scope of openarthistory
19:58:55 robmyers oh ok cool
19:59:29 robmyers If people could please add things they find to the open art hostory wiki page that would be very useful. there's a standards section.
19:59:30 rgrp you should check to be sure -- I last looked at that sort of thing several years ago ...
19:59:37 robmyers http://okfn.org/wiki/OpenArtHistory
19:59:41 robmyers sure, I'll check
20:00:00 mikechelen it might be a good subject for advocacy, if they would consider migrating to an open standard
20:00:51 robmyers yes
20:00:55 robmyers definitely
20:01:28 jwyg it would be great to hear about what your plans are for open art history!
20:02:15 jwyg are you intending to initially collate scans and some metadata?
20:02:22 robmyers oh well just openhogarth for now, as a pilot. but if more people get involved it would hopefully be a good resource for the study of art history by people and machines.
20:02:23 robmyers yes
20:02:49 jwyg great
20:02:54 robmyers the metadata is the sort of thing you get in catalogues. title, year, artist, medium, size, any interesting ntoes.
20:02:55 robmyers notes
20:03:27 jwyg basically a little hogarth package :-)
20:03:33 robmyers yes
20:04:16 robmyers my parents had a couple of prints on the wall when I was a kid, so that's probably why Hogarth. ;-)
20:04:33 jwyg great, just clarifying..
20:04:46 robmyers sure. no megalomania. yet ;-)
20:04:50 rgrp sounds great
20:05:04 jwyg so, perhaps we could have a todo list somewhere?
20:05:35 robmyers yes. on the wiki page or do you have a todo list system somewhere?
20:06:47 jwyg we do have http://okfn.org/wiki/TodoList
20:07:03 jwyg but it might be more appropriate on the openhogarth wiki for now...
20:07:29 robmyers yes I'll pop it on there later on
20:08:06 jwyg cool!
20:08:23 jwyg good to break it down to see what we need to do first!
20:08:26 robmyers yes
20:09:10 jwyg are you thinking of using knowledgeforge initially?
20:09:24 jwyg there's a svn repo for putting images into..
20:09:29 robmyers yes I've set up a subversion repository there
20:09:50 robmyers http://www.knowledgeforge.net/project/openhogarth/
20:09:51 rgrp cool stuff
20:10:02 robmyers I couldn't see how to set the licence to PD
20:10:03 jwyg great!
20:10:14 robmyers so it's a bit misleading at the moment
20:10:21 rgrp robmyers: yes i know
20:10:23 jwyg :-)
20:10:29 rgrp we need to sort out available set of licenses
20:10:43 robmyers So yes the immediate task is to set metadata and attribution standards, then set project repository structure, then start uploading images
20:10:45 rgrp i'd like to unify the license stuff across knowledgeforge/ckan/microfacts etc
20:11:09 jwyg rgrp: that would be great!
20:11:27 jwyg robmyers: sounds like a good way to proceed..
20:11:36 jwyg let me know if there's anything i can help with!
20:11:41 robmyers k I'll add that to the wiki
20:11:43 robmyers thanks!
20:11:57 jwyg rgrp: how is it going with microfacts?
20:13:34 jwyg a couple of things it'd be great to hear view on..
20:13:43 rgrp fine
20:14:13 jwyg we were thinking of re-designing main site..
20:14:18 rgrp at moment I've switched slightly to getting next version of ckan done (major upgrade to switch from sqlobject to sqlalchemy)
20:14:31 jwyg ahh. great!
20:15:36 jwyg i was going to ask - do you think its worth putting any okf projects on cofundos?
20:15:43 jwyg we discussed this a while back..
20:15:53 robmyers what's cofundos?
20:16:07 jwyg http://www.cofundos.org/
20:16:48 jwyg its a platform for community funding/developing software/knowledge projects..
20:16:55 robmyers oh cool
20:16:57 jwyg by soeren auer, who's on okf advisory board..
20:17:26 jwyg i was thinking we could list something small..
20:17:34 jwyg e.g. a browser plugin for ckan
20:17:47 jwyg rgrp: do you think this would be hard to do?
20:18:47 rgrp i don't think so
20:19:08 jwyg it might be a nice discrete project to try running on cofundos..
20:19:45 jwyg or perhaps you can think of something else?
20:20:33 jwyg what do you think robmyers? :-)
20:20:34 mikechelen what kind of plugin would be helpful for ckan?
20:20:56 robmyers finance is good ;-)
20:21:03 robmyers but yes what would a ckan plugin do?
20:21:52 jwyg perhaps a bit like delicious plugin - to help make it easier for people to add packages?
20:22:06 rgrp i guess the obvious thing would be something like the del.icio.us js plugin that auto submits relevant info
20:23:08 jwyg perhaps also something like tag cloud for browsing tags?
20:23:27 mikechelen thats what came to mind, its possible to do that through a bookmarklet (i think)
20:23:36 mikechelen that might be a good project for cofundos or any other system, since it's relatively small and achievable, but still requires some technical collaboration
20:23:36 rgrp yes it is really a bookmarklet
20:23:52 rgrp effort would be to fix up ckan to take that data in easily
20:24:43 * jgay (~jgay@terminus-est.gnu.org) has joined #okfn
20:25:20 jwyg do you think it would be worth listing on cofundos?
20:26:33 robmyers it sounds like a project with a lot of potential. but I don't know enough about cofundos, whether okfn would have the mindshare or draw to make it worthwhile yet.
20:26:41 robmyers heya jgay
20:26:57 jgay robmyers: howdie
20:27:04 jwyg hey joshua!
20:27:09 jgay jwyg: hey
20:27:34 mikechelen tag cloud might need to be done on the server side, if there is any way the server can offer up tag frequency as XML or JSON or something then someone could work on javascript to display it
20:27:52 robmyers a data point bookmarklet would be cool
20:29:15 mikechelen making a bookmarklet is not too difficult, but it is a good thing for people to collaborate on because it doesn't require a whole lot of setup, just write some javascript and share it with the other people involved, who can try to improve it
20:29:24 mikechelen i dont have any experience with cofundos either :)
20:30:54 jwyg ok..
20:31:14 jwyg i might draft a couple of ideas on the wiki..
20:31:36 jwyg in general, i think it would be great to give this a go!
20:31:40 rgrp bookmarklet is i think the best cost/value proposition to get started with
20:31:50 robmyers yes it sounds good
20:32:11 mikechelen id help work on a bookmarklet though, wherever it is organized =)
20:32:34 jwyg it looks like they recommend tagging with relevant languages, components, etc...
20:33:03 jwyg that would be great mike!
20:34:02 jwyg what do you think i should list?
20:34:16 jwyg Please enter as many appropriate tags as possible, in order to characterize your project: Which programming language, database, query language etc. has to be used. On which open-source components is it based or related to.
20:35:20 jwyg any ideas?
20:36:33 robmyers javascript
20:37:02 robmyers prototype, they all use prototype ;-) and microfacts?
20:38:29 robmyers (added todo to OpenArtHistory wiki page)
20:40:10 rgrp actually we're using mootools for microfacts
20:40:20 rgrp (though i think pylons still ships prototype for 'free'
20:41:01 mikechelen html
20:41:48 jwyg added very brief outline to cofundos.. http://www.cofundos.org/json.php?output=html&project_id=130
20:42:06 mikechelen just javascript and html for now, unless you want to include any changes on the server side
20:42:39 robmyers mootools is cool, yes
20:45:38 mikechelen i think you mean http://cofundos.org/project.php?id=130
20:45:39 rgrp yes it does seem reasonable though i'm no great js expert ...
20:47:36 robmyers ok I need to go now. bed time for my youngest.
20:47:40 robmyers good meeting
20:47:41 jwyg thats right mike :-)
20:47:48 jwyg ok robmyers!
20:47:55 jwyg good to chat to you!
20:48:06 robmyers cheers
20:49:08 rgrp i need to go to ;)
20:49:31 jwyg good todo list on wiki page..
20:49:33 rgrp good to chat with everyone and the bookmarklet is a really good idea
20:49:35 jwyg i should head too..
20:50:27 jwyg alright..
20:50:44 jwyg hopefully see you all next week! :-)
20:51:06 jwyg mikechelen: good to see you..
20:51:36 rgrp 'til next week ...
20:51:42 jwyg mikechelen: do you think the cofundos proposal looks alright (albeit very brief)?
20:51:59 mikechelen thanks, great to hear about all this stuff going on with okfn :)
20:53:20 mikechelen jwyg, yes, well i added a comment, should it say "plugin" if all that is needed is a bookmarklet?
20:54:00 mikechelen a browser plugin can have many more features, but is also significantly more challenging to create
20:54:05 jwyg ok..
20:54:22 jwyg i'll change the name :0)
20:55:50 jwyg and add HTML?
20:55:57 jwyg or anything else to tags?
20:56:23 mikechelen if there are more features that are thought of, it might be a good project to follow the bookmark
20:56:35 jwyg great...
20:56:50 mikechelen i'd put HTML in the tags, but not in the title, "bookmarklet" is pretty self explanatory for people that might help
21:01:03 rgrp good to see people
21:01:04 rgrp o&o
21:01:05 * rgrp has quit (Quit: leaving)
21:02:59 jgay it's up: http://howwikipediaworks.com/
21:03:19 jgay Phoebe just IM'd me. Pretty awesome book. No Starch (subsidiary of O'Rielly) is publishing it under the GDFL
21:04:33 jwyg brilliant!
21:04:43 jwyg is this just out jgay?
21:05:59 jgay jwyg: the book has been out a bit, but the web version just came out, now.
21:06:17 jgay the book has maybe been out a couple weeks, I think
21:06:37 jwyg brilliant!
21:06:39 jgay no starch is really cool in that they'll let authors choose their license
21:08:05 jwyg that's fantastic"
21:08:07 jwyg !
21:09:18 jwyg jgay: i should shoot, but its great to see you here!
21:10:00 jwyg i'll blog new launch of tbr tomorrow...
21:10:12 jwyg meant to do today, but too much academic work..
21:11:58 jgay jwyg: no worries
21:12:05 jgay thanks for your help.
21:13:54 jwyg no problem
21:13:56 jwyg :-)