ppy/Future-of-Ontolog-1_chat-transcript_unedited_20140509a ------ Chat transcript from room: ontolog_20140509a 2014-05-09 GMT-08:00 [PDT] ------ [9:15] PeterYim: Welcome to the = The "Future of ONTOLOG" Brainstorm Session - Fri 2014-05-09 = * Date: Fri 2014.05.09 * Start Time: 9:30am PDT / 12:30pm EDT / 5:30pn BST / 6:30pm CEST / 16:30 UTC ** Worldclock: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=5&day=9&year=2014&hour=9&min=30&sec=0&p1=224 * Expected duration: ~1.5 Hour Dial-in: * Phone (US): +1 (206) 402-0100 ... when prompted enter Conference ID: 141184# * Skype: "joinconference" (dial the above nbr if skype presents issues) ... when prompted enter Conference ID: 141184# * in-session chat-workspace: http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room/ontolog_20140509a * Shared-screen (VNC) support: http://vnc2.cim3.net:5800/ ... view-only password: "ontolog" * Slides: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/Ontolog-planning/Future-of-Ontolog_May-2014/Future-of-Ontolog-1--PeterYim_20140509a.pdf * Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/Ontolog-planning/Future-of-Ontolog_May-2014/ . == Proceedings == . [9:39] AmandaVizedom1 morphed into AmandaVizedom [9:39] PeterYim: this session will be recorded and archived for public access, as usual ... and the prevailing Ontolog IPR Policies will apply [9:40] PeterYim: == Session starts ... [9:40] List of members: AmandaVizedom, AmandaVizedom1, AmandaVizedom2, AmandaVizedom3, AmandaVizedom4, AmandaVizedom5, John Sowa, MatthewWest, MichaelGruninger, MikeDean, PeterYim, vnc2 [9:46] TillMossakowski: sorry, have had internet problems here at home... [9:54] John Sowa: Maintaining archives is important, and I'm glad to hear that they will be available. [9:59] PeterYim: == Discussion: ONTOLOG going forward [y/n] brainstorm [9:59] List of members: AmandaVizedom, Ed Barkmeyer, John Sowa, MatthewWest, MichaelGruninger, PeterYim, TillMossakowski, vnc2 [10:02] TillMossakowski: sorry, Internet is still problematic here. I have never encountered that at home... [10:02] MichaelGruninger: What are the major events that Ontolog facilitates? Thursday sessions and Ontology Summits [10:03] MatthewWest: Peter has been our host as much as a leader, providing the infrastructure, work, but also ultimate authority. The way Peter has done this has largely determined the character of the Ontolog Forum and Ontology Summmit. We need to think what it will take to maintain the character (which I presume we all value). Probably the Board of Trustees approach is the one most likely to achieve this. [10:03] John Sowa: It would be useful to know the amount of resources (human time and $$$) are required for each of the Ontolog services. Who would contribute how much? [10:04] PeterYim: Ontolog content services: (i) forum (mailing lists); (ii) events (Thursdays); (iii) an archive (open/free/online) [10:05] PeterYim: ^... these are fairly independent services [10:07] AmandaVizedom: lost audio, going to reconnect [10:08] AmandaVizedom: back [10:11] AmandaVizedom: I see Ontolog as a collaborative knowledge-building community... Through the eyes of a Social Epistemologist, that makes this a rare opportunity to assess and adjust its structures and processes in terms of how they support knowledge building and the kinds of transformative critical interactions that make for better (epistemically) outcomes... [10:11] Ed Barkmeyer: What do we do? At Amanda's level of concern, we are providing an educational service for people interested in, using, and developing knowledge management tools. That includes both the Forum email and the Thursday seminars, but the archives of those are very important to that mission. The Ontolog Summits are something else entirely, as is the support for particular projects and organization. [10:14] John Sowa: Amanda's point is important. There are many ways to use SMW and related systems. [10:15] John Sowa: It's not clear what would work. [10:18] AmandaVizedom: Example of criteria for objectivity & knowledge-productiveness of community (through a social epistemologists' eyes): http://books.google.com/books?id=S8fIbD19BisC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=longino+criteria+for+objectivity&source=bl&ots=T9zl9l5qeZ&sig=D7HNqpk6TK_Pl6oGqPHxTwwwYWA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6whtU7qBDuypsASLgoFw&ved=0CGcQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=longino%20criteria%20for%20objectivity&f=false [10:18] AmandaVizedom: ^^ This is a google-books excerpt... [10:21] PeterYim: to clarify on Amanda's point about difference between SMW and PSMW (purple semantic mediawiki) as to installation and support - in actuality, there is huge difference between MW and SMW, but little difference between SMW and PSMW ... although, the "content migration" from pw to psmw has been the biggest challenge to the psmw-dev team all along (but if we have a clean cut-off point, and have historic content from pw on archive, and put everything new on psmw, then it is quite easy) [10:22] MichaelGruninger: Keeping the Thursday sessions will require a Steering/Program Committee that decides on topics, determines the schedule, and coordinates the production of each session. [10:22] PeterYim: == Discussion: establishing a Board of Trustees? [10:23] AmandaVizedom: giving a highly influential and respected account of the importance of "transformative criticism" to effective inquiry. The longer excerpt fills out this summary: "Scientific communities will be objective to the degree that they satisfy four criteria necessary for achieving the transformative dimension of critical discourse: (I) there must be recognized avenues for the criticism of evidence, of methods, and of assumptions and reasoning; (2) there must exist shared standards that critics can invoke; (3) the community as a whole must be responsive to such criticism; (4) intellectual authority must be shared equally among qualified practioners." [10:23] Ed Barkmeyer: [Consensus]: What we do -- the knowledge sharing community services for the "ontology community", including the Forum exploder, the Seminars and the Archives is valuable and something we all want to see continued. [10:24] PeterYim: essentially, the [consensus] on the "ONTOLOG going forward [y/n]" question is "yes" [10:24] AmandaVizedom: ^^ My view is that the goal and conditions summarized in this excerpt is are a good summary of what the ontolog leadership establishes and protects. [10:25] Ed Barkmeyer: [Consensus] HOW we provide these community services is the next question, and it may involve legacies and transitions. [10:25] John Sowa: I agree with both MG and MW: we don't want too many levels of management, but we need a system for reaching a consensus. [10:27] MatthewWest: I would see the Board of Trustees as principally the ultimate authority. The place you go when consensus is a problem. Operational roles/committees would be in addition to this. [10:28] PeterYim: I would hope each Board member will take some "some" operational role (as part of their membership criteria) [10:29] AmandaVizedom: Another way of putting my view: A Board of Trustees for Ontolog would be trustees/guardians of the degree to which Ontolog achieves these conditions while pursuing its focus on ontology and its related projects. [10:30] Ed Barkmeyer: I agree with Peter on this last. The Board is really the set of people who take on various supporting operational roles, and perhaps one or two referees [10:30] PeterYim: I would make a distinction between ONTOLOG (which is what we are discussing now) and the likes of OOR (an activity that ONTOLOG supports), or OntologySummit (a joint venture that Ontolog collaborates with other organizations on) [10:31] John Sowa: Each event should have an organizing committee devoted to it. The BoT would authorize it, but each event would have its own committee. [10:31] Ed Barkmeyer: FWIW, I strongly agree with AV's philosophical description of the Forum mission and behavior, and that the Trustees must see that mission as the ultimate function of their office. [10:33] MatthewWest: @Ed +1 [10:33] John Sowa: Yes, Peter should be an honorary (or emeritus) member of the board. We need the continuity. [10:33] Ed Barkmeyer: Peter's role is Trustee Emeritus, and Acting CoB [10:34] PeterYim: [consensus] to be invited to the Board of Trustees: AmandaVizedom, BarrySmith, EdBarkmeyer, JohnSowa, KenBaclawski, LeoObrst, MarkMusen, MatthewWest, MichaelGruninger, MikeBennett, MikeDean, PatHayes, TillMossakowski ... and PeterYim will take on an honorary role during the transition [10:35] PeterYim: ^given to understand that the role will involve operational responsibilities (and not just advisory) [10:36] PeterYim: Peter to make the invitations [10:37] PeterYim: ^[action] [10:37] Ed Barkmeyer: Peter, I will not be able to serve effectively as a Trustee until I retire from NIST (i.e. December 2014). My current management will not support it and my private life now has some time-consuming responsibilities. [10:38] MatthewWest: I'm prepared to moderate the Ontolog Forum list (and possibly some others). [10:39] PeterYim: == * who will provide: the infrastructure, the support services, the day-to-day operations management, etc. [10:41] John Sowa: Jim Schoening used ieee.org for the SUO email list for years. There was a large overlap of the SUO and Ontolog Forum subscribers. [10:41] Ed Barkmeyer: If NIST is to provide support for the infrastructure, it will necessarily come from the Information Technology Laboratory (e.g., Ram Sriram), but they are only just getting management and budget support for ontology and knowledge engineering work. [10:44] TillMossakowski: We will buy a new server for Ontohub: http://iws.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~elkner/supermicro/server3.html and https://github.com/ontohub/ontohub/issues/282 - maybe this can serve as a host? [10:45] John Sowa: We need archives that are openly indexed and searchable. Proprietary groups have many restrictions. [10:47] AmandaVizedom: It's worth thinking about to what extent this infrastructure might be the kind of thing that might be fundable as high-level research and data infrastructure. I don't know what the answer is, and it will probably depend on what the mission priorities are. [10:48] John Sowa: The number of emails per day on the Ontolog lists don't require a dedicated server. [10:50] AmandaVizedom: Requirements, and options, will vary depending on what kind of lists/forum/collaboration and access functions we decide on. [10:51] John Sowa: I have to log off soon. [10:52] John Sowa: Bye. [10:52] PeterYim: Thank you, John [10:57] PeterYim: on infrastructure ... we need to talk to KenBaclawski and MarkMusen too (wish they were here) [11:01] TillMossakowski: We in Magdeburg could host the Ontolog technical infrastructure and do the sysadmin service (this is different from the production / content management level). [11:01] TillMossakowski: Peter, any comments on the server that we want to buy? [11:04] PeterYim: == Discussion: the current Ontolog archived Body-of-Knowledge ... [11:06] MikeDean: Could consider cloud-based hosting of infrastructure, preferably at no cost, e.g. using Google, github, or possibly Facebook services [11:06] PeterYim: Peter will continue hosting the mailing list for a while, and will continue to host the historic archives (probably at reduced performance and reliability) [11:07] PeterYim: == next steps ... [11:08] PeterYim: [consensus] we will have our inaugural Board of Trustees meeting on Thu 2014.05.22 - starting 9:30am PDT / 12:30pm EDT / 5:30pn BST / 6:30pm CEST / 16:30 UTC [11:09] PeterYim: in the mean time, we will invite the candidates as discussed [10:34~10:36] ... and have the confirmed members take over things from there [11:09] PeterYim: great session ... thanks everyone! [11:09] PeterYim: -- session ended: 11:02am PDT -- [11:09] List of attendees: AmandaVizedom, AmandaVizedom1, AmandaVizedom2, AmandaVizedom3, AmandaVizedom4, AmandaVizedom5, Ed Barkmeyer, John Sowa, MatthewWest, MichaelGruninger, MikeDean, PeterYim, TillMossakowski, vnc2 ------