My TiddlyWiki Journey

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Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 2, 2017, 7:47:12 PM1/2/17
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Hello All,
my name is Dmitry.
I am new to the TiddlyWiki World.
I just found out that I am not alone here. :)
There are many people who either recently joined, or just no good in programming.
I thought, a thread like this is missing from this great forum on one of the best wiki's I've seen, TiddlyWiki. :)

My plan is to start writing on my experience of starting with TW, in use and development.
I hope this exchange of ideas will be a guideline for other newcomers who would like to contribute but just not sure in what way that would be possible.

A few of "W" questions:
Who is Dmitry?
- a developer of knowledge networks, a way of interconnecting relevant bits and pieces of information into sensible structures. Once connected, each chunk of information can be found or discovered in a few seconds. Each of the Authors, Participants and Contributors can be found as fast as their Topics of interest, to be accessed already as experts in their particular fields of knowledge. That's how "We Connect People by Connecting Their Knowledge".

What are the Intents?
- to transfer the LikeInMind Knowledge Network from PBWorks to a P2P Web platform.

Why TiddlyWiki?
- TiddlyWiki is apparently the best platform for the task, for a number of reasons to be discussed later.

What's Next?
- follow and participate, share your information, knowledge and experience, see how the knowledge network is growing, help with building it and see your threads of knowledge in the overall picture of the World.

Just to keep a track between platforms, this thread is interconnected with the textual page on LikeInMind:
http://confocal-manawatu.pbworks.com/w/page/114199798/My%20TiddlyWiki%20Journey
as well as graphical on DebateGraph:
http://debategraph.org/Stream.aspx?nid=460606&vt=bubble&dc=focus

Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 2, 2017, 8:46:24 PM1/2/17
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I know TiddlyWiki for a number of years. However, the easiness of the PBWorks platform was the barrier for even considering any sort of transition, until recently.

Recently, about a month ago, I received a signal of potential commercial application of wikis if realised on P2P Web principles. One of the students expressed his interest in taking this challenge as his summer project. I thought, it would be beneficiary to apply his knowledge of HTML, CSS and JS rather than learning something new. A brief analysis of currently available wikis gave me almost no choice: TiddlyWiki.

We collected information on the TW platforms available. TWederation seemed being the most promising for our efforts and time to be invested.


I also started capturing "the breath" of TW community, and found, to my surprise, that very similar intents are being expressed in this mailing list too.

My situation at the moment:
- invitations to participate in the project and co-ordinate our efforts are sent to the key players I was able to visualise to the date:

Jeremy Ruston, Paul Frazee, Jed Carty, Daniel and Simon Baird.

- TiddlyWiki knowledge network initiated and being filled with content.

- my attempt to participate in TWederation development on my own failed.

The latter can be resolved by started learning by myself, or, ideally, by teaching received from my senior and more experienced experts and colleagues, fellows of TiddlyWiki Community.


Here is my situation on 3 January, 2017.


I am looking forward to your suggestions, fellows TWers.


Thank you beforehand,

Dmitry


On Tuesday, 3 January 2017 13:47:12 UTC+13, Dmitry Sokolov wrote:
Hello All,
my name is Dmitry.
I am new to the TiddlyWiki World.
I just found out that I am not alone here. :)
There are many people who either recently joined, or just no good in programming.
I thought, a thread like this is missing from this great forum on one of the best wiki's I've seen, TiddlyWiki. :)

My plan is to start writing on my experience of starting with TW, in use and development.
I hope this exchange of ideas will be a guideline for other newcomers who would like to contribute but just not sure in what way that would be possible.

A few of "W" questions:
Who is Dmitry?
- a developer of knowledge networks, a way of interconnecting relevant bits and pieces of information into sensible structures. Once connected, each chunk of information can be found or discovered in a few seconds. Each of the Authors, Participants and Contributors can be found as fast as their Topics of interest, to be accessed already as experts in their particular fields of knowledge. That's how "We Connect People by Connecting Their Knowledge"

Birthe C

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Jan 2, 2017, 8:47:43 PM1/2/17
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Hi Dmitry,

My name is Birthe. I started using TWclassic in autumn 2011 and TW5 in august 2013. TW5 was in the beta phase and constantly changing. A very learning experience.

How to learn tiddlywiki? I think Tobias Beer explained it perfectly here: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/tiddlywiki/1Y0_2a5bypY/afOP_haYDwAJ
That will be true no matter who we are and what background we have. The difference is the time it takes and how far we get ;-)

I am the slow and limited kind. If some of you will tell me, that you have not felt frustration and pulled out hair at times, I simply will not believe you.

I love to see other peoples examples. Learn to identify the tiddlers you will need to import to "steal" a functionality and have it in your own  wiki. Little by little getting an idea, where you would need to tweak to change it a little for your own purpose. Being a Dane I have also learned a lot translating some of the tiddlers I imported. Make a mistake and it just doesn't work. If it work and everything visible is translated, you did it in the right spots.

Do not focus solely on your own wish to create something fantastic in the smallest timeframe.. Test the stuff that gets published. There is a lot to learn from that also. Really there is a great chance of you learning faster.

Users of the same kind as myself I would advice to take their own notes of what they do and how in  their own language. Not all documentation is easily read by non programmers, but we know ourselves what and how we understand things.

Learning from others every day, this group is a generous group.


Birthe

Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 2, 2017, 11:46:47 PM1/2/17
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Thank you Birthe,

the key words resonated with me were "It's really hard to suggest a generic discovery path."
I will try to follow the "knowledge networking" discovery path while posting here.

As the "silver bullet" was not found, let's make it! :)

The words of Tobias are important and added to the Getting Started with TiddlyWiki Development page.
Two more links are already there. I will start building the knowledge network by systematically reading this resources first:

http://tiddlywiki.com/dev/ while keeping guidance from Tobias in mind.

I looks like a journey towards TW metalanguage (API?) to me. :)


Cheers,

Dmitry

Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 3, 2017, 6:42:11 PM1/3/17
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Today I went through just one thread: TW5 Is there a single, concise upgrade HowTo anywhere. However, it was extremely thought provoking and resulted in a number of nodes created and modified, below.


TiddlyWiki Change Request page is created. Easy Access to Known Solutions TiddlyWiki, HTML and JavaScript Containers for TiddlyWiki and No Coding by TiddlyWiki Users were added.

Classic Parser Plugin Demo is added to the list of TiddlyWiki Plugins.

TiddlyWiki Users Experience is added to the TiddlyWiki Development page.

TiddlyWiki Criticism now includes No Support of TiddlyWiki Classic

Updating TWc to TW5 can now be found at the TiddlyWiki Administration, as well as directly accessed via the Direct Access to Topics Bar at the SideBar panel to the right from every page on LikeInMind.


I can see Frustration From Learning Coding By TiddlyWiki Users, from lack of quick access to particular information, lack of TiddlyWiki Backward Compatibility, etc.


Thank you for your interest in my journey.

Please join me jogging around and help when you see me making the circles. :)

It would be great, for example, if we could start connecting dots, visualising and adding whatever is being missed by many. I think, TiddlyWiki Change Request may need your attention at this time. Should it be linked to a page on GitHub?


Cheers,

Dmitry


On Tuesday, 3 January 2017 13:47:12 UTC+13, Dmitry Sokolov wrote:

Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 5, 2017, 6:09:56 PM1/5/17
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Today I participated in a Hangout 102. See the list of recorded hangouts here: TiddlyWiki Hangouts.
My impression was that TW has a great team of technically skilled experts but probably no marketing and product management specialists. My feeling is that the vast majority of our potential customers are computer literate but extremely busy people. Learning something new is a pain for them. TW (as a product) must be oriented to users with very basic computing experience, at about MS Office (no scripting, no programming!) level.
Same applies to the current TW users who would be interested with entering this fascinated World of Coding. TW documentation and tutorial requires more structuring and more FDR (Findability / Discoverability for Reuse). When anything can be found with ease, the (learning / technical) barrier to participation will drop, and TW Community would have more chances of attracting more volunteers with even higher product and project management skills.
Otherwise, TW is extremely good. I am looking forward to transferring my knowledge network, 30,000+ nodes, on TW ASAP.

Cheers,
Dmitry

On Tuesday, 3 January 2017 13:47:12 UTC+13, Dmitry Sokolov wrote:

Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 5, 2017, 7:03:30 PM1/5/17
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05Jan17, Single Entry Point, Accessibility to Knowledge and Participation
I am studying the "findability" problem and tend to look on matters from mostly this point of view.
I have to put the question wider:
it's not me who is not aware of resources available, it's newcomers to any are who are not able to locate quickly what they are after.
In this particular case, I am not able to start quickly in TWederation development. But that is just my particular case. Other participants may have other difficulties, and for the potential participants that may come a serious barrier to the participation.

As a R&D manager, my primary role is a preparation of the working space for the programmer(s) who are appointed for development of a product based on TiddlyWiki platform, supposedly. I have experience of providing workspaces with information and knowledge. My current result is 20-30 seconds per ANY topic available, to avoid reinvention of wheels so often seen even on TW space. I am trying to apply my experience to TW Community as much as I am allowed.

To make my project successful, I have to
- build the TW related knowledge network where anything can be found reliably and fast by any and all participants
- capture current status of the TW environment:
* TW development plans
* intents of participants
* advantages / disadvantages of TW products / platforms
The latter information is needed to make a decision on
- how namely the product will be developed,
- who to invite,
- what is available,
- what is yet to be developed, etc.

Awareness of TW resources is based on how easy and fast the resources can be found / discovered. Scattering of same or similar topics / instances between numerous wikis / pages / sites doesn't help at all. We have to come to a need in a "Single Entry Point":
http://confocal-manawatu.pbworks.com/w/page/62581790/Single%20Entry%20Point
"Entity Integrity means that each unique entity / concept / Topic must have a unique Single Entry Point / Primary Key / Topic Title. - DVS"
In other words,
a complete picture on any particular topic can be achieved only when all available information on the topic is collected and presented on the same page.
if a resources is meant to be reliably and quickly found / discovered, it must be present on the "Single Entry Point" page.
(I know, sounds too obvious even to talk about it.)

Here is my vision of the SEP for TiddlyWiki Community:
http://confocal-manawatu.pbworks.com/w/page/114249473/TiddlyWiki%20Single%20Entry%20Point
TW Community Search is a valuable source of resources. However, it can be transformed into TW SEP only at systematic and systemic work on TW Community in the limits and regulations the SEP concept.
Without SEP, we can forget about learning and knowledge exchange in our community. That is my belief based on my experience and practice.

Regarding the TWC - TW5 transfer.
I am still learning on the problem.
However, already at this stage I may suspect a lack of planned and systematic work on the TW platforms development, similar to what Mozilla, for example, does.
Mozilla develops a product and supports it.
Addon developers either realise themselves or receive complaints from the users of their addons. Invalid addons are excluded from the list of addons available for any particular version of a product.
That is my guess only but I hope it is close enough to the reality to be implemented for TW.

For example, I keep using a couple of unsupported addons, at my own risk. I have no complaints and know if I need it validated, that's me who must make it valid.
Probably, all Mozilla users can easily locate Addons in the Menu and find on Google how to install them, even manually. I.e. I see no "findability" problem there. To my understanding, a visibility is still missing at the TW platforms.
It's uncertainty that creates complaints, I think. We need to find the ways of reducing this uncertainty to the level acceptable by the TW Community.

It looks to me that the data formats / metadata, as well as plans on their modification are not easily accessible. There can be other issues with incompatibility of JS codes. However, that will be a minor problem if we start working in "Mozilla format" of handling plugins, macros and other addons.
We have to start monitoring Users Experience and offer TW developers a list of Change Requests arranged by the priorities, by a number of complaints from TW users, for example. At the moment, I have a feeling that every TW developer is focused on his own project / addon, have no overall picture and therefore doesn't really care.


Cheers,
Dmitry

On Tuesday, 3 January 2017 13:47:12 UTC+13, Dmitry Sokolov wrote:

Thomas Elmiger

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Jan 6, 2017, 2:32:31 AM1/6/17
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Hi Dmitry

Let me throw in some thoughts here. Following Hangout 102 I got the same impression as you:
”TW has a great team of technically skilled experts but probably no marketing and product management specialists.“ Reading your last posts here I think you have gathered a good overview of the TW ecosystem in very short time.

As a marketing specialist I have many ideas concerning communication around TW. For example I would love to write some books and let TW play a role there, a ”TiddlyWiki for Dummies“ and a fictional thriller … but like everyone else I lack resources to realize this or to contribute other marketing activities to the project. So I focus on my own small everyday projects and try to be helpful here and there.

Many open source projects are operated by companies today. The last example I know of is TYPO3 (a very popular CMS system in Europe). They moved from crowd/association to company structure in 2016 and funded TYPO3 Inc. Mozilla is a company with over 500 payed employees in 30 countries … so aiming this high seems very ambitious ;–) Of course it is a good example for many things because we all know at least Firefox.

Dmitry, you mentioned ideas for making a commercial product based on TW, maybe you could give us some hints about your business plan? Just curious …

Have a great time!
Thomas

RichShumaker

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Jan 6, 2017, 6:50:49 PM1/6/17
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Welcome Dmitry,

1 > 0 is a concept that GaryVee discusses.
Doing something is better than doing nothing.

TW Classic had a spike in the user base when a version of TW was married with Getting things Done, Monkey Getting Things Done if memory serves me correctly.
TW5 has not really had that same spike even though there are many TW5 applications that are amazing.

I believe that building something that others use with bring more people faster than anything else.

I look forward to seeing and hopefully helping with what you are creating using TW5.

Rich Shumaker

Josiah

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Jan 7, 2017, 7:11:32 AM1/7/17
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Ciao Thomas, Dmitry & all

I have commented at length on the deficiencies of Google Groups in previous threads. THE MAJOR issue with it is is its near immediate loss of history.

IMO this has a partly veiled, but, none the less extreme, negative effect in SCALING. If you can't easily find and organise you own history of interest it becomes ...

1 - VERY difficult to gain leverage.

2 - Difficult to form sustainable sub-groups pursuing one thread.

3 - VERY difficult to form consensus on anything.

Some folk do make note of threads and go back to them. But there is NO reliable public way to form a KNOWLEDGE NETWORK other than, basically, your own powers of reading & memory.

My point is that EMERGENT properties are become severely inhibited. And my overall impression is that if you are not a keen bricoleur it can be hard work.

IMO, if this situation were improved questions like Marketing, Mass Apps (e.g. e-pubs), Sub-project Threads (e.g. UI issues) etc would likely gain a  clearer place and likely to gain TRACTION.

As it is, the history of THIS thread itself will shortly be lost.

Best wishes
Josiah




Thomas Elmiger wrote:
... I got the same impression as you:
”TW has a great team of technically skilled experts but probably no marketing and product management specialists.“ ...
 
As a marketing specialist I have many ideas concerning communication around TW … but like everyone else I lack resources to realize this or to contribute other marketing activities to the project. So I focus on my own small everyday projects and try to be helpful here and there....

Tobias Beer

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Jan 7, 2017, 8:34:11 AM1/7/17
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Hi Josiah,

I hope you allow me to respond to your assessments from a more critical, call it provocative perspective.

 
1 - VERY difficult to gain leverage

And what would you want or need leverage for? I like the humble nature of how this project unfolds.

2 - Difficult to form sustainable sub-groups pursuing one thread.

There are plenty reasons for (sub)groups not making "it", whatever "it" is. Different or unclear, or mostly individual goals and ambitions and divergent capabilities and perspectives. You see, it may be honorable to have great ambitions, but there's a point when pushing an agenda really isn't what people are after, and when that's more disturbing than actually contributing.

3 - VERY difficult to form consensus on anything.

When and where do you need concensus? Make decisions, do what you can and want and for the rest of it, let go... or find someone who can and wills it. And let it be manageable, actionable steps, not mere abstract ideas with no practical leverage.
 
Some folk do make note of threads and go back to them. But there is NO reliable public way to form a KNOWLEDGE NETWORK other than, basically, your own powers of reading & memory.

Precisely, so try your best at it, personally. Find your sweet spot, things you like and know best. However, making everyone follow whatever your potentially best way for everything is will hardly ever work, unless that is something that practically works well for most people, processes, environments, technologies that are simple and inviting enough for people to join and keep participating.

While it may not be easy to find everything, the google groups are an easy environment to join and dive in whereas Github provides more formal, advanced ways of participation.

Google groups are not a knowledge base, we got that. You want one, to cover all of the TiddlyWiki experience? Well, have your try, but try not to expect too much. It's easy to see all the missing pieces to a puzzle you're trying to solve. Well, the game is not about finding the missing pieces and point out just how missing they are, but to solve the puzzle, if you care. To me, it's really more of a narrative, of words spoken here and there, tricks applied, methods learned, things achieved. I don't need a TiddlyWiki for Dummies book to cover every topic I never needed, I'd rather be part of a community that doesn't treat you like one and helps you meet your ends, insofar as everyone's capable.

At this point, TiddlyWiki is not the communication platform around TiddlyWiki. There are places people talk about it and find useful application for this little Swiss Army knife of atomic knowledge mgt. See, if you want some Google for TiddlyWiki, to make it easy to find stuff,  and also some more social chatter to have people talk and find solutions to problems, answers to questions, like-minded people for projects, and what not... perhaps TiddlyWiki itself isn't the right place to look for it, and neither is this group.

If you find a better environment for your own ambitions, that's fine. But don't go around reminding people how much they're missing. If they think it's worth a shot and compelling, then you better make it so. Should you get there, telling others how much better that is and much worse it is whatever they do... never works. Let me repeat: never works. Youtube was successful because people liked to watch videos and it turns out to also create and share those. Please do invent a TiddlyTube people find useful to share and create rich content for. But just don't go to the google groups and say how much better reddit is or go to vimeo to comment on how youtube is so much more... who knows what.

My point is that EMERGENT properties are become severely inhibited. And my overall impression is that if you are not a keen bricoleur it can be hard work.

I feel no inhibition and I think that is so because I keep my expectations as well as ambitions adequate. Why waste much energy on abstract, theoretical ideas one thing perhaps doesn't cater for while igoring all the brilliant ways you can make good use of it? You see, not sure what everyone's ambitions are, but if you feel like you can't make it, there are two options: either your ambitions are way out of your league or the steps you take to get there are unfit, or too big, have you procrastinate from one minute to the next, so you can't manage. So, chunk 'em up, do the little steps and if it turns out you're not getting anywhere it's time to let go.

However, if you're serious about some TiddlyWiki marketing, have your try. Find an ecosystem to work it and people who care to join. Possibly, overloading this group with a bigger project like that wouldn't be a meaningful approach. Some two years ago the TiddlyWikiDocs group was created to provide a more focused entry point to topics around documentation. There was some turnout to it, but it's nobody's fault if there's nobody left participating in it. And I think it makes sense that people rather learn the Github workflow to practically contribute, rather than make all kinds of theoretical considerations that never see the day of light, practically speaking.
 
IMO, if this situation were improved questions like Marketing, Mass Apps (e.g. e-pubs), Sub-project Threads (e.g. UI issues) etc would likely gain a  clearer place and likely to gain TRACTION.

I never read an e-pub. So, do I want that? Who knows. If people think that's what they want and realize TiddlyWiki as a great tool for that, someone will come along and do it... otherwise, maybe neither "e-pubs" are all too attractive to people or perhaps TiddlyWiki isn't the right tool to create one, after all.

If people build "Apps" around TiddlyWiki, fine. Does TiddlyWiki need that (and all the added complexity)? Who knows. If you have some clear project and goals that you are actually able to fulfill, work 'em, other than that, I find it important not to burden the rest of the world with hopes and wishes or even expectations that poorly resonate with reality. Not that those are bad in any way, in themselves, but there's a point when a little or big personal dream of someone else, constantly regurgitated, creates more noise than sound or song ...and when I feel like I'd rather focus, on one, small, specific thing I can do something about, rather than fit all the knowledge of the world into a little box in my skull, somewhere between those ears and behind those eyes. Things are messy, things get lost, things gain and lose relevance, daily... it's the nature of the game.

I welcome everyone's ambitions and I know quite well, that not everyone else shares mine, whatever you or I might think they actually, practically are.

As it is, the history of THIS thread itself will shortly be lost.

And why wouldn't it be? What is the practical value for it to reside in my or your or even our collective memory? 

So, to sum things up, to me "LIM" mostly stands for less is more: <=> and at this point i have little ambitions to rewire that acronym.

Best wishes,

Tobias.

Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 9, 2017, 3:45:57 AM1/9/17
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Sorry taking that long to reply. I think, Thomas, Rich and Tobias are talking about the same, and I can can write just one message covering all the topics above.

Thomas,

It's great that you are interested in marketing TiddlyWiki platform!

If we think it's a good time to grow into a (non-profit social?) enterprise, for example, we should start thinking and acting as an enterprise. The main idea behind this enterprise could be volunteering for whatever roles are required. As soon as TW Project gets traction and funding, those positions would be transformed into the jobs.

TiddlyWiki Vacancies list is just created. I am happy to consult and manage development of the Findability and Discoverability for Reuse functionality but would appreciate someone else taken the role of a manager of the project. I believe, the role of TW Director is not disputable. I would appreciate Jeremy Ruston agreed with this position. I think, Thomas Elmiger will be happy with the "Marketing" position. The ideas are recorded at the TiddlyWiki Intents Map.

To realise our current and future ideas, we need a person who would focus on management of funding for the project. CrowdFunding could be one of the options here.

From my experience, a business plan is viable only when the core values of participants coincide with TiddlyWiki Users Experience. At the moment, I am willing to contribute my expertise in "findability", as a consultant. Apparently, we have the marketing and coding covered. Fundraising and a few more positions are missing. I will try to push in all those missing positions but my time resources are also limited.

Ideally, we need to research the business models of Mozilla or other open source software. Orion Health, for example, offers customisation, development, service, maintenance and support to their solutions. If TW users express this kind of interest to fill the gaps in the business model, it will be viable. If not, then not. We may need to see also the history of Mozilla, for example. How did they startup and developed? Currently, I am at the stage of collecting information (initial stage of collective intelligence) for decision making, ASAP. I would appreciate participation and help. The sooner the information is collected, the higher our chances of smooth and fast startup.

 

Rich,

thank you for the great observations. Would you have an idea what was so attractive with TWC compared to TW5, or was it just a "market saturation"?

I think, we are in the same boat regarding the TiddlyWiki Users Experience. Would you help me with figuring out what is missing from the page, what are our potential users and what are their expectations? Ideally, we'd need to realise what our "market segment" is the biggest and focus on it first. The alternative strategy could be decided on what 

Minimal Viable Product could be and focus on it's development first of all.

"TW5 has not really had that same spike even though there are many TW5 applications that are amazing." can well be that an integrity of a functionally product may have more value for the end users than a collection of amazing but separated tools hard to manage.

Rich, thank you for your support. I am personally at the stage of collecting information about TW platform and community. Please feel free to join and participate in any way you find valuable and interesting for yourself.

 

Dear Josiah,

I am sharing your feelings about the Google Groups: Knowledge Network vs Forums.

LikeInMind is designed to support building Personal Associative Networks online. When published, it becomes an "external memory" of a person. When a number of Personal Virtual Associative Networks (PVANs) are collected in the same Unified Conceptual Space, their nodes of similar sense can be found / discovered and merged into Sense Domains. This theory is based partially on AI methods of semantic matching, partially on systems dynamics principles where systems are thought of having stable structures or behaviour around "attractors" but their actual condition is defined by the "locality" of each particular system. When combined, PVANs form a "Collective Memory", that is an important part of "Collective Intelligence" process.

Sorry for the extensive theoretical excursus but I think we need to know the subject we are working with. We need to know to what degree our system can be described, and to what degree it is chaotic and unpredictable. I do not have an answer myself, every system is different. I am just trying to follow the selected course of systematic and systemic studies of the matters I am dealing with. I am sure that even in our conversation, for example, we have a language to communicate (a "structure") and a chaos (that keeps our conversation alive).

Regarding the consensus, I don't think we need it. Agile style of project development, I am trying to follow, is focused on solving the problems within the frames of company's policies and standards. How namely those solutions are achieved is not very important. If we think of transferring TW into an enterprise, we would need to follow the company's regulations. Those who is not comfortable with them will not be a part of a company. This is, again, just one of the models of sustainable development of a project. I can't tell I know everything about everything for 20 years ahead. We need to "sit and talk" and decide what is important to each of particular (group of) participants. Only that will define our "vector" of development.

I can't agree with "there is NO reliable public way to form a KNOWLEDGE NETWORK other than, basically, your own powers of reading & memory". LikeInMind (LiM) is the example. ANY particular topic can be found within 20-30 seconds of time: Findability Experiment. That's how this huge number of links to relevant pages can be easily generated, for your reference only. You don't have to read them all if you understand, follow and/or agree with what is being discussed. This page is interlinked with the number of relevant pages on LiM and is one of the nodes of the LiM Knowledge Network.

Could you tell me more about "My point is that EMERGENT properties are become severely inhibited. And my overall impression is that if you are not a keen bricoleur it can be hard work.", please?

Regarding the "Marketing, Mass Apps (e.g. e-pubs), Sub-project Threads (e.g. UI issues) etc" and other applications, I do not see any difficulties (because Anything Is a Tiddler) except a need in systematic building your own PVAN, for your self first of all. Only when published your ideas can be found / discovered and reused not only by you but by the TW team that is even more important due to the cumulative effect of knowledge.

"As it is, the history of THIS thread itself will shortly be lost." is absolutely true. However, we can refer to the Transmedia principles of work with information of very different sort and origin. The trick is

 

And finally (chronologically, not by importance!) Tobias!

Leverage is needed only if we decided to be more user-oriented and switch to the company or other format or our organisation.

I personally need a quick result from TW in order to provide quality service to my customers in organising their businesses based on TW products. In it's present form, I can't figure out how TW can be applied.

You are right "there's a point when pushing an agenda really isn't what people are after, and when that's more disturbing than actually contributing." Wikipedia Participation Rate

is thought about 0.01%. That should probably mean that on a well developed platform each of the editors has about 10,000 readers in average (rate of social impact?). That should probably also mean the barriers to active participation and that we can't ask from volunteers more than they can deliver "for free". This current situation sounds comfortable to many developer but probably annoying to many end users. If we want to scale up TW platform, a shift from the "Brownian Motion" of "free arts" to a predictable product development, a new organisational model is required. And that model could be an enterprise, or similar, a matter of discussion of TW Community, I think.

As to me, I am no good in programming. However, I have some experience in "findability" (FDR). I am happy to contribute and facilitate development of TW in this direction, and would appreciate that enormously.

Regarding the requirements to TW platform, Tobias is absolutely right, we need to find what "practically works well for most people, processes, environments, technologies that are simple and inviting enough for people to join and keep participating".

Tobias is absolutely right about "the game is not about finding the missing pieces and point out just how missing they are, but to solve the puzzle, if you care." Just for me, for example, inability to find bits and pieces of particular information is a barrier to participation (coding in this case). And yes, I will be collecting the missing bits of puzzle "under the same umbrella" until it is solved. Currently, I appreciate the services PBWorks offers (for free!!). But later all those 30,000+ topics will be transferred onto the new P2PCI platform I am dreaming for about 20 years now. Hopefully, that platform will be TiddlyWiki based.

What I can see as a newcomer to this house, our intents are very diverse. Some of us need pieces of puzzle as visible as possible, others would appreciate a book on the very basic of TW environment, some are focused on narratives, actual communication, online, face-to-face, in any other means. That's great! The more diversity we show, the higher our chances of "filling the organisational gaps" and succeeding in this project!!

"At this point, TiddlyWiki is not the communication platform around TiddlyWiki. There are places people talk about it and find useful application for this little Swiss Army knife of atomic knowledge mgt. See, if you want some Google for TiddlyWiki, to make it easy to find stuff,  and also some more social chatter to have people talk and find solutions to problems, answers to questions, like-minded people for projects, and what not... perhaps TiddlyWiki itself isn't the right place to look for it, and neither is this group." - it's an absolutely awesome note to me.

"TiddlyWiki is not the communication platform around TiddlyWiki" but it can become a "universal communication platform" if we only wished to. Because "Anything Is a Tiddler", because the Unified Conceptual Space allows non-conflicting contribution and co-working of unlimited number of participants, and therefore works pretty well, as a method.

  • "There are places people talk about it and find useful application...",
  • "Google for TiddlyWiki, to make it easy to find stuff",
  • "social chatter to have people talk and find solutions to problems, answers to questions, like-minded people for projects", etc., all are the pieces of our "Collective Intelligence" environment. I can't see only one element of CI linking them all together, a "collective memory". This collected memory is developed and tested on LiM. It is ready and waiting for implementation on a platform more suitable for the "Collective Intelligence" purposes.

"If you find a better environment for your own ambitions, that's fine. But don't go around reminding people how much they're missing. If they think it's worth a shot and compelling, then you better make it so. Should you get there, telling others how much better that is and much worse it is whatever they do... never works." - agree! Building knowledge networks by just a few people is a hard job. It will be much easier and much more effective if we worked as a team of "free thinkers". Each of us is free to record what he thinks is true. The others are free to either follow, or create something new but based on already created, visible and easily accessible tiddlers. Because Anything Is a Tiddler. Because every particular field of knowledge is actually limited. From my experience, it takes only 2 man/years to create a complete reference on any particular field of knowledge. A group of 10 people have a chance of completing the job within a couple of months.

And yes, the task of development of a product like P2PCI is a huge job for just one person. We NEED co-operation and sympathy and trust in each of other and in the goal we are trying to achieve. And Trust comes first, or may be sympathy?

Let's try to think what's going on with the documentation on TW. How many "entry points" do we have? I have counted 3: TiddlyWiki Documentation. How many do we need to find / discover reliably and fast? I think, just one: Single Entry Point. Should we think on how the TiddlyWiki Single Entry Point should look like, how to organise and where to place it, to be found easily and intuitively? SEP doesn't mean that everything must happen "on the same page". Any participant is free to discuss anything on any kind of media convenient for him and his mates. However, all the key knowledge and contacts must be published on just one platform, all the communication media can be interlinked via only one environment and one page per every single topic. That's my experience, as well as a theory.

What is also important that we all are coming to forums with the similar goals, to find like-minded people. Some of us are looking for pieces of code, others for pieces of best practices, some others for understanding and support their hope in doing right things. Not all are strong enough to complete a job on their own. Many need attention, understanding and support. TW would not be successful if based on different principles, I think. Still, I agree about fruitless projects. I am tired from them too.

"fit all the knowledge of the world into a little box in my skull" is not physically possible. That's why I need my "external memory". If someone found "my memories" worth of browsing, I would be just pleased and happy. If we find a few of like-minded people ready to share what they think is important for them, that's already sound like a success.

"Things are messy, things get lost, things gain and lose relevance, daily... it's the nature of the game." The other side of the medal is that we all need something stable to rest on, our family to keep love and peace, or friends to share what we've got valuable, our "technology" to have job done as fast, as reliable and as reproducible as possible. That can be called "a structure in the world of chaos". How much of structure and how much of chaos we need is always a question. But, both are equally needed, without us even not realising what is what.

"What is the practical value for it to reside in my or your or even our collective memory?" only to be found and reused, as soon as needed. Only to save a bit of time from our limited lives. To add a bit more of value to our lives too? I don't know. What is our personal memory needed for? May be, same function the "collective memory" has, or should have?

Sorry, I still need to see "less is more". I will try to.

 

Thank you very much for reading this enormous text.

Please write your thoughts, hopefully leading to actions too.

Many thanks again,

Dmitry

Tobias Beer

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Jan 9, 2017, 7:10:08 AM1/9/17
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Hi Dmitry,

Without getting into too much detail atm, thank you for your very well thought out response which quite put your motivation(s) into perspective.

You are indeed quite ambitious and I now see that you are rather good at communicating a clear perspective, perhaps leading to workable future frameworks, in terms of organisation as well as technological focus.

Of course, you can imagine that multi-user is a buzzword that probably popped up as early as the first year of TiddlyWiki being around.

With the end of TiddlySpace and plenty silence around TiddlyWeb, the most advanced collaborative technology for TiddlyWiki didn't quite manage to sprout, if only for its gardeners having gone and focus on other fruits to harvest.

So, at this point, it seems, we've gone back to square 1 for now in terms coming to new forms of TiddlyWiki-driven collaboration. You can still see a remnant of previous collaborative efforts involving inclusion of bags of tiddlers in the context where needed in something like: http://mbtf.tiddlyspace.com, knowing that local centers were able to include the master documentation and branch of from there, extend it as needed... while the master documentation would be able to list and display local variations of itself.

I am in no position to say wheter TWederation has the potential of filling the collaboration gap or not.

Possibly, a node.js & GitHub driven workflow, especially for a developer community seems to make for a splendid TiddlyWiki based collaboration platform, including versioning, and conflict resolution via merges, etc... with the master being publicly accessible for consumption, for example... somewhat similar to TiddlyWiki.com. But, of course, this type of workflow is hardly apt for the general public, or so it seems, for now. but perhaps it actually isn't. There once were some tests regarding a GitStore implementation... you know, storing tiddlers in GitHub directly, from within TiddlyWiki. But you can imagine the complexities of resolving merge-conflicts, should they arise.

As for a P2P web of tiddlers, it appears we've only just started exploring this kind of technology, e.g. via BeakerBrowser. How this helps advance multi-user applications, at this point, is more or less unknown.

Anyway, there's solving all the little challenges which I think is what this group is doing, mostly, every day. But perhaps it's time to consider the more long term challenges a bit more frequently and a bit more strategically, not just from a development point of view, in terms of code-base that is. How and possibly where that may unfold, we have yet to see.

Best wishes,

Tobias.

Josiah

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Jan 9, 2017, 3:14:03 PM1/9/17
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Ciao D et al


On Monday, 9 January 2017 09:45:57 UTC+1, Dmitry Sokolov wrote:
> LikeInMind is designed to support building Personal Associative Networks online. When published, it becomes an "external memory" of a person.

So. Let us see it in action :-)


> Regarding the consensus, I don't think we need it. Agile style of project development, I am trying to follow, is focused on solving the problems within the frames of company's policies and standards.


FYI, there are NO companies (corporations) HERE.


> I can't agree with "there is NO reliable public way to form a KNOWLEDGE NETWORK other than, basically, your own powers of reading & memory".


THAT is SERIOUS MISREADING of what I wrote. I was ONLY referring to Google Groups. IF you are interested in knowledge networks its essential to read accurately.


> LikeInMind (LiM) is the example.


Its NOT YET really an example. Its nearly as messy as here right now.


> Could you tell me more about "My point is that EMERGENT properties are become severely inhibited. And my overall impression is that if you are not a keen bricoleur it can be hard work.", please?


Emergent properties are ubiquitous. The point is that things felt-known are expressed but don't get cognizance unless there is a congruent system for their reception.


> Regarding the "Marketing, Mass Apps (e.g. e-pubs), Sub-project Threads (e.g. UI issues) etc" and other applications, I do not see any difficulties.


I think you are mixing up YOUR (WONDERFUL) aims with the actual reality here.


Best wishes

Josiah

Josiah

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Jan 9, 2017, 3:18:37 PM1/9/17
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Ciao Tobias

You are one bright spark.

I am very happy to reply because you make explicit what the stakes are.

I will do it in bits.

Josiah, x

Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 9, 2017, 7:19:50 PM1/9/17
to TiddlyWiki
Tobias, sorry, was not able to open MBTF. I will try again later.
The "merge-conflicts" is a must in a multi-user environment but I see no "complexities of resolving merge-conflicts" at a well established authentication system, theoretically. On PBWorks, for example, I can easily distinguish my editions from editions of other users. Theoretically again, I would expect a notification from the system on the changes of a page I edited previously. The system would allow me reading the document only if I accepted the changes (made by others, as a bunch), federate the last version for me, or reverse to my last edition. PBWorks is highlighting the changes by comparing any selected versions. I don't see the theoretical limitations for TW doing the same.  Unfortunately, I did not even touch this subject, versioning and authentication, yet and can't really advise anything. That's where I would appreciate help and contribution from the experts in this field. Please think of me as a theorist with a few years of experience in the "findability" field. Saying that, I am not going to stop my efforts in developing this knowledge missing from LikeInMind, when and if that becomes a barrier to the development of the product.
One of the methods of versioning seems being relevant here: one way synchronisation with retaining the "conflicting" versions in a "backup" directory. In other words, no deletion of (versions of) tiddlers allowed. The author and end users, their memory and practical experience are the criteria validating the integrity of tiddlers. If something went wrong, a user must have the means of "rolling back" reliably any number of changes. Ideally, he should be able to select a piece of text of his concern and see who and when introduced those changes. Theoretically, according to IPFS protocol, that should be possible. Practically, that is one of the critical features of the future methods of protection of the Intellectual Property: PBIIMS Proposal.
Tobias, Dear All, thank you for the job you are doing. I believe, together we will be able to work out the practical ways of realising the future we deserve.
Cheers,
Dmitry

Birthe C

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Jan 9, 2017, 8:07:33 PM1/9/17
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Hi Dmitry,

You could not open MBTF because tiddlyspace is gone.


Birthe

Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 9, 2017, 8:08:56 PM1/9/17
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Josiah, I know just one way of removing any scepticism. It's experiment and practice.
Here is the method of measuring "findability" of any topic on LikeInMind: http://confocal-manawatu.pbworks.com/w/page/102426340/Findability%20Experiment
Please confirm what your experiment leads to the same or similar result, in both direct access to topics and following the "associative networks". If any topic can be found in seconds, in a manner similar to human memory, should those means providing those features be thought "an external memory"?
"FYI, there are NO companies (corporations) HERE." - that's fine! I am looking for a way of realising the P2PCI platform as soon as possible. Please let me know what organisational structure would make you feeling good at contributing to further development of TW platform. As soon as a map of intents and preferences is collected, we should be able to decide what namely way to go.
Josiah, sorry for misreading your previous statements. Would you elaborate more of your understanding and ideas on forums vs knowledge networks vs personal memories. That was probably the topic I missed something critical.
"Its NOT YET really an example. Its nearly as messy as here right now." - yes, indeed! LiM is as messy as a human mind. What I know about my mind, for example, that it can pull ideas from apparently nowhere, from the noise and mess of my random associations and thoughts. If you ask me to write down consistently all knowledge I have, I'd probably stack immediately. It's not there! :) Same with LiM. A lot of topics but nothing is visible without "thinking", without interaction with LiM. Only when I have an idea, I can zoom in/out the broader / narrow meaning on LiM, find what "resonates" and follow the "associative links". To my perception, LiM reflects the situation I can observe in my mind and in my surroundings: we can form the structures out from the chaos, mess and noise, and reuse those structures to navigate successfully from a problem to a known solution, from one "mental state" to another.
"The point is that things felt-known are expressed but don't get cognizance unless there is a congruent system for their reception." - absolutely! But that's too far ahead in our plans. Please see the IVAN Dimensions for more details. Currently, LiM is a collection of various points of view of different people, similar to Q&A sites. We are given a chance of listing through the options and selecting those which "resonate". With time, AI will be developed to help us with delivering the tiddlers as semantically close to our "cultural background" (cultural in a broader sense, as all the experience and memories learned previously), as needed to "resonate", understand and utilise those particular tiddlers ASAP, without spending extra time on understanding and "reshaping" of the content and solutions. But, that's too early to talk about. We need TW proven in reliable building of knowledge networks. Let's focus on that first?
"I think you are mixing up YOUR (WONDERFUL) aims with the actual reality here." - I will cite myself, sorry:
"Regarding the "Marketing, Mass Apps (e.g. e-pubs), Sub-project Threads (e.g. UI issues) etc" and other applications, I do not see any difficulties (because Anything Is a Tiddler) except a need in systematic building your own PVAN, for your self first of all. Only when published your ideas can be found / discovered and reused not only by you but by the TW team that is even more important due to the cumulative effect of knowledge." Indeed, where is the problem? I build my PVAN, and get result as soon as needed. My expectation is that your cognition works in a similar way, and you will be able to organise anything too, because Anything Is a Tiddler. :)
I believe, you are talking not just for fun but to prepare yourself for effective work in TW Community? I am here to hear your voice and think what would work best for you. If we have a common goal we will meet there. :)
Cheers,
Dmitry

Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 9, 2017, 8:36:19 PM1/9/17
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"You could not open MBTF because tiddlyspace is gone." - nice!
Guys, we need to speed up the development of P2P TW.
Your thoughts?
Thank you Birthe!!
Dmitry
Message has been deleted

Josiah

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Jan 11, 2017, 7:25:46 PM1/11/17
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Ciao Tobias
 
1 - VERY difficult to gain leverage

> And what would you want or need leverage for? I like the humble nature of how this project unfolds.

Me too.

But humbleness per se isn't the leverage issue I meant.

What I meant was that because of the way GG works its hard IF, like me, you'd like to see pattern. And having seen pattern, and felt into it, engage with it.

To make this concrete...

Over the last several months there has been a lot of e-pub discussion (the fact you never read one I forgive you for and hope you will accept the example even though you know nothing :-).

My point? In a different type of forum it might well gel better. To get beyond one demo. E-pubs have many shared issues that better collectivity could help. TW could be a great e-pub format. Here we get splinters on it. Real steps remain at the edge. IMO this happens because GG is inadequate to fostering anything other than transient emailing/posting.

SO. My answer to you is: Leverage is good. Here is not good for it.

J.

Tobias Beer

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Jan 12, 2017, 2:43:32 AM1/12/17
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Hi Josiah,
 
Over the last several months there has been a lot of e-pub discussion (the fact you never read one I forgive you for and hope you will accept the example even though you know nothing :-).

When one is not around, they're not around. ;-) 

My point? In a different type of forum it might well gel better. To get beyond one demo. E-pubs have many shared issues that better collectivity could help. TW could be a great e-pub format. Here we get splinters on it. Real steps remain at the edge. IMO this happens because GG is inadequate to fostering anything other than transient emailing/posting.

I don't think leverage is what you're after but rather traction, traction and support for a very explicit project. Now, one might argue that e-pubs can be a significant project to help push TiddlyWiki out onto the big stage more (and thus create some more leverage to do bigger projects ;-) but... and of course you agree, this place is a terrible forum to try and manage the ambitions of a TiddlyWiki e-pub project.

At least, such a thing would require a propper project context. For me, atm that would be a github repo, since you can address all the nitty gritty detail from goals and requirements, to functional and technical specification all the way to voting for and implementation features through actual code and all that ...in a defined spot. But it takes for a lead developer (architect) to take on the job not only to understand the code-base, but to kind of manage the overall process, so people stay realistic of how to get from start to finish. If you want an even more "engaging" experience than a github repo can deliver, well, I don't know... you're trying to give life to a highly complex social experiment with a desired outcome... that's never quite a simple thing to pull of, no matter what the environment. Without some professional organisation, there's a good chance a bunch of voluntary, self-made coders and idea-generators will find it hard to form unity, but it's possible as we all know. OpenSource is a thing, it's alive and it's kicking... but everyone doing it also knows its problems... the most prominent one being that that guy didn't show up for half a year: So what's that about? ;-)

Best wishes,

Tobias. 

Josiah

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Jan 14, 2017, 9:01:57 PM1/14/17
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Ciao Tobias

To continue on that one point. I think you are right that I could go another way. Into a more honed environment. Though, if so, I'd more likely take it local with interested folk face to face if it got the steam up enough.

The question for me remains, and where we will probably forever tussle (so long as we GG), is whether differentiation requires segregation or not. IMO, GG won't serve anything that could balance those. BUT some other forum types, probably.

So far you have intensified my existential ennui :-).

Best wishes
Josiah


On Thursday, 12 January 2017 08:43:32 UTC+1, Tobias Beer wrote:
Hi Josiah,
 
Over the last several months there has been a lot of e-pub discussion (the fact you never read one I forgive you for and hope you will accept the example even though you know nothing :-).

When one is not around, they're not around. ;-) 

My point? In a different type of forum it might well gel better. To get beyond one demo. E-pubs have many shared issues that better collectivity could help. TW could be a great e-pub format. Here we get splinters on it. Real steps remain at the edge. IMO this happens because GG is inadequate to fostering anything other than transient emailing/posting.

I don't think leverage is what you're after but rather traction, traction and support for a very explicit project. Now, one might argue that e-pubs can be a significant project to help push TiddlyWiki out onto the big stage more (and thus create some more leverage to do bigger proects ;-) but... and of course you agree, this place is a terrible forum to try and manage the ambitions of a TiddlyWiki e-pub project.

RichShumaker

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Jan 14, 2017, 11:01:49 PM1/14/17
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Dmitry
thank you for the great observations. Would you have an idea what was so attractive with TWC compared to TW5, or was it just a "market saturation"?

Response
TWC met a need many people had and was then further developed to make it even better.

TW5 was created as a NEW product that followed HTML 5 standards.
Because of that there was no migration from TWC it just needed to be NEW.
So anything that is HTML5 TW could be used to work with that as a standard, no need to rework the product to make it work as you so often do.
Many amazing things have been created because of this fact that TWC probably never would have been able to do effectively. 

In regards to leaving Google Groups
I am not sure how new you are Josiah except for a long time people were debating leaving Google Groups.

The general consensus was 'Why?' as it is 'Good Enough'
Then most of the developer went to a development platform, GitHub, to do most of their work.
If you ask me this is where development is best served as you can easily 'fork' something and go in your own direction.
Or you can work with the people together.
Or BOTH.
And GitHub is designed for just such a project like TW5.
Developers also use the Google Group, TiddlyWiki Dev.

During the previous discussions of lets move from Google Groups everyone was saying lets 'Build something Better and use that'
Meaning Eat Your Own Dog Food.  TiddlyWiki is Google Groups.
This allows the most flexibility as no one relies on anyone else as you can create your own thing for you, and share.
Do as much or as little as you want, when you want.

Since that time people have been working on an infrastructure for TW5 to do just that except it takes time to create something like this.

So that is why I think most don't want to jump to any other platform as we want to build our own or have our own.
We outgrew Google Groups, and <Insert Any Product Here> we might outgrow that too.
If we had our own platform then we don't have to rely on the tools others create as we can create our own and we won't outgrow it.

Rich Shumaker

Dmitry Sokolov

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Jan 22, 2017, 7:41:29 PM1/22/17
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Hi Rich and others,
sorry for being away from GGoups and missing your messages. The core of the TW knowledge network can be accessed here:
http://confocal-manawatu.pbworks.com/w/page/113574373/TiddlyWiki
The "Visual Taxonomy" link will open the same structure in the "graph view".

I am not sure why I am seen as discussed on "leaving Google Groups". According the "Transmedia" paradigm, I have to follow people to be visible and co-operative. It can be GG, FB, LI or any other platform for communication, but we still need a "single entry point" (a "Collective Memory") to "see a bigger picture", stop "reinventing wheels" and find the experts in particular fields of knowledge. LikeInMind, above, is used to prototype such a "single entry point" / Memory. It will be transferred into TW format as soon as P2P, multi-user and versioning are demonstrated / developed.

Now, when most of the resources are collected "under the same umbrella", I feel ready for efficient management of the development of P2P Collective Intelligence platform.

Your thoughts?
Cheers,
Dmitry
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