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IRC log for #spanworm, 2013-02-08

http://spanworm.greptilian.com

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Time S Nick Message
00:21 philbot joined #spanworm
00:21 Topic for #spanworm is now http://spanworm.com - own your words and inch toward data liberation | logs at http://irclog.greptilian.com/spanworm/today
00:26 pdurbin Hello! I just registered http://spanworm.com and #spanworm on irc.freenode.net because I wanted a place to talk about a variety of topics such as data liberation and owning your own words
00:27 pdurbin My website is http://greptilian.com if you'd like to read more about me.
00:28 pdurbin The "variety of topics" is still forming but by writing about them I hope to have them hang together in a coherent way.
00:28 pdurbin I'm pretty big into data liberation.
00:29 pdurbin Recently I heard Gina Trapani say that not everyone knows what that means. That only people who follow Google do.
00:30 pdurbin I'm pretty sure she mentioned this on This Week in Google: http://twit.tv/twig
00:31 pdurbin It was a comment from Anil Dash: http://dashes.com/anil
00:31 pdurbin (I should link to Gina's site too: http://ginatrapani.org )
00:32 pdurbin 'The Data Liberation Front is an engineering team at Google whose singular goal is to make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products.  We do this because we believe that you should be able to export any data that you create in (or import into) a product.  We help and consult other engineering teams within Google on how to "liberate" their products.' -- http://dataliberation.org
00:33 pdurbin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Data_Liberation_Front
00:34 pdurbin I've pretty much reached the point where I don't want to put my content into any system that doesn't let me get it out.
00:35 pdurbin Dave Winer put it well: "I'm not going to put my writing in spaces that I have no control over. I'm tired of playing the hamster." -- http://scripting.com/stories/2012/03/16/beforeIUseBranch.html
00:36 pdurbin That "Before I use Branch" post is linked from "Owning Your Own Words – Is It Important?" - http://branch.com/b/owning-your-own-words-is-it-important-1
00:37 pdurbin Clearly, I think it is. :)
00:39 pdurbin That question was raised by Josh Miller, the founder of Branch: http://joshm.co
00:40 pdurbin He asks, "Why should I care about ownership of the space where I share my thoughts online, if I ultimately still 'own' those words?"
00:47 pdurbin Speaking of spaces and control... there's Twitter... and then there's a similar service at http://identi.ca that runs on open source software: http://status.net
00:48 pdurbin It's written primarily by Evan Prodromou: http://evan.prodromou.name
00:52 pdurbin Last summer he tweeted, "My point is that open alternatives *DO* work. Not always, but sometimes" -- https://twitter.com/evanpro/status/237654060247969792
00:52 pdurbin I jumped in to the conversation (which these days you can actually follow somewhat better from that link above)
00:54 pdurbin A lot of systems and services were mentioned: email, HTTP, POTS, postal mail
00:54 pdurbin http://p2pfoundation.net/Federated_Blog
00:56 pdurbin "trackback; RSS also. Ping systems. Tags"
00:56 pdurbin "I like @davewiner 's approach with Radio2/Blork (http://docs.reallysimple.org/ ), I like Diaspora, I like Friendica, I like Appleseed." -- https://twitter.com/evanpro/status/238117047735832576
00:57 pdurbin "Am I the only one that thinks Diaspora still has potential? It needs a code overhaul" -- https://twitter.com/canweriotnow/status/238117977185202180
00:58 pdurbin "I agree with @evanpro in liking Diaspora. Also generally agree we should never discourage any useful solution" -- https://twitter.com/wilkieii/status/238118822115147776
00:58 pdurbin These are kind of my people, my tribe.
00:58 pdurbin But I don't know where they all hang out.
00:58 pdurbin So they're all welcome to hang out here. :)
01:00 pdurbin Speaking of Dave Winer, I loved hearing him talk to Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky at http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/11/se-podcast-27-dave-winer/
01:01 pdurbin It's well worth listening to.
01:02 pdurbin I don't have the exact quote but he says something to the effect of, "you lead me all the way around in a circle and almost had me thinking it's ok to get screwed!"
01:02 pdurbin This was about Facebook.
01:02 pdurbin So Dave talked about his "symphony of software".
01:03 pdurbin And it sounds right up my alley. You own your data, etc. It's a publishing plaform you can read about at http://davewiner.com
01:05 pdurbin I didn't try it out until later though, after I heard his excellent "roadmap-y podcast" - http://scripting.com/stories/2012/09/24/aRoadmapyPodcast.html
01:06 pdurbin It was basically a call to action. Him saying his software is ready enough for more people to try it.
01:06 pdurbin So I did.
01:06 pdurbin It's called "OPML Editor" and I wrote about it here: https://plus.google.com/107770072576338242009/posts/bFaQpQNfb6J
01:07 pdurbin I love the idea of it... I love Dave's description of it.
01:07 pdurbin Clearly it has been a labor of love.
01:07 pdurbin But it just doesn't agree with me.
01:08 pdurbin My biggest objection is that to run it on Linux I have to use Wine.
01:08 pdurbin But the software seems overly complicated to me... a pretty busy GUI.
01:09 pdurbin And what I would want out of it is ownership of my words, control of my data.
01:09 pdurbin but the words I wrote got squirreled away in some weird place:  ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/OPML/Guest\ Databases/ops/OPML\ comments/2012/09/25/todaysPodcast001.opml
01:11 pdurbin Here's my other post about trying to use the OPML Editor and having trouble: https://plus.google.com/107770072576338242009/posts/2PD1C1S3uhC
01:12 pdurbin I prefer simpler solutions.
01:12 pdurbin In the past year or two I've become a big fan of IRC.
01:13 pdurbin I love the pace of IRC. I start up a `screen` session in irssi, join a few channels, chat a bit and wait for replies, sometimes overnight.
01:14 pdurbin I was inspired to post "IRC logging for work notes or as an alternative to Twitter
01:14 pdurbin at https://plus.google.com/107770072576338242009/posts/dZ365p2Qyuk
01:15 pdurbin In the post I mentioned #crimsonfu, a channel I started a little over a year ago. Here's today's log: http://irclog.perlgeek.de/crimsonfu/2013-02-07
01:15 pdurbin More recently I started http://sourcefu.com but it's just getting off the ground.
01:16 pdurbin And now, http://spanworm.com ... this channel :)
01:16 pdurbin What an odd name, right?
01:16 pdurbin I was grep'ing through /usr/share/dict/words for various short words, "span" being one of them.
01:17 pdurbin I guess I was thinking about connections, about spanning gaps.
01:17 pdurbin Did you know spanworm is another name for an inch worm? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometer_moth
01:18 pdurbin I didn't. But that's what sold me. I bet I can make something that resembles and inchworm in Inkscape. :)
01:19 pdurbin Anyway, it's just a name. If you liked reading this, please feel free to join in the conversation!
01:19 pdurbin The easiest way is from http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=spanworm
01:19 pdurbin Thanks.
01:21 pdurbin Oh! I almost forgot! Your data! Your words! Your comments! How are we going to liberate them? Why should you put your precious time into this channel?
01:22 pdurbin ... because I back it all up to GitHub, and you're free to have all of it.
01:22 pdurbin MySQL dumps from my IRC logging bot are at https://github.com/pdurbin/data.greptilian.com
01:24 pdurbin And I'll set up a friendlier backup of the content, the plain text, similar to what I do for #crimsonfu: https://github.com/crimsonfu/crimsonfu.github.com/tree/master/irclogs
01:24 pdurbin So the conversation belongs to everyone, to anyone who wants to download it.
04:24 pdurbin joined #spanworm
14:49 shuff joined #spanworm
16:13 pdurbin "Proud to be counted in that number" -- https://twitter.com/evanpro/status/299905671179141120
16:14 pdurbin ... a reply to me thinking about people who might be interested in this channel: https://twitter.com/philipdurbin/status/299696634693054465
16:15 pdurbin I'm very happy to see that. :)
16:45 canweriotnow joined #spanworm
16:45 pdurbin canweriotnow: welcome!
16:45 canweriotnow howdy, just saw your tweet
16:45 pdurbin nice
17:13 pdurbin canweriotnow: i'd love to hear your take on any of the above
17:27 canweriotnow I definitely like the idea of persistent IRC.
17:27 pdurbin i have a lot of haunts: http://wiki.greptilian.com/haunts :)
17:28 pdurbin dunno if you've seen this: FAQ: Is decentralized Twitter just IRC? (Scripting News) - http://scripting.com/stories/2008/01/18/faqIsDecentralizedTwitterJ.html
17:29 canweriotnow I got into a pretty interesting discussion a couple of years ago, on Facebook, of all places… one of the participants was even planning to use some of her comments as notes for an academic paper… OP got butthurt over a comment and deleted the whole thread.
17:29 canweriotnow So there's definitely a need for this
17:29 pdurbin yeah, in many systems comments are second-class citizens
17:30 canweriotnow "Further, you rarely see trolls or flaming in Twitter, because it doesn't work, just as it doesn't work in blogging."
17:30 canweriotnow I'm following Discourse very closely… looks promising. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2013/02/civilized-discourse-construction-kit.html
17:31 pdurbin oh yes, see my http://meta.discourse.org/t/libelous-quote-to-reply/724 :)
17:31 canweriotnow ha
17:32 canweriotnow what I think I'd like to see… is a decentralized version of Campfire, rather than Twitter.
17:32 canweriotnow Or some mesh between the two.
17:32 pdurbin i've heard of campfire but never used it
17:32 canweriotnow Play with it some time… it's free for < 5 participants.
17:33 pdurbin can i liberate my data from it?
17:34 pdurbin i like jeff atwood's stuff in general. the other month i was looking at https://shapado.com which is a clone of http://stackoverflow.com . i wrote a little thing to liberate my data from shapado: https://github.com/pdurbin/data-liberation-shapado
17:34 canweriotnow Not in its current incarnation, I don't believe. Which is why I'd like to see an open-source clone.
17:35 canweriotnow neat!
17:35 pdurbin stackoverflow is an example of a system where comments are not second-class. if i comment on someone's question, the person asking the question can't just delete my comment
17:36 pdurbin an admin can come along and delete it, of course
17:36 canweriotnow reddit, too
17:36 canweriotnow I'm pretty sure on reddit you retain you comments even if OP is deleted.
17:38 pdurbin hmm, i've never logged into reddit but i've heard good things
17:39 canweriotnow Every few months I meet people who don't use reddit. I feel like an ethnographer meeting an alien culture :)
17:39 pdurbin :)
17:39 shuff left #spanworm
17:43 pdurbin canweriotnow: Now that i have someone to talk to (thanks!) and to set expectations for everyone who might be new to IRC... the pace of IRC is different than instant messaging. Please expect that people may not reply right away. I'm about to step away but let's please not announce such things usually.
17:44 canweriotnow want to avoid hundreds of lines of brb/afk?
18:13 pdurbin canweriotnow: yes, please
18:14 pdurbin http://campfirenow.com says "Team collaboration with real time chat. Campfire is like instant messaging, but designed exclusively for groups."
18:14 pdurbin sounds like IRC :)
18:14 canweriotnow It's early closer to IRC, but with the ability to embed images, files, etc.
18:14 canweriotnow er, *really, not early
18:15 pdurbin i wonder if it's built on XMPP
18:18 pdurbin canweriotnow: what would decentralized campfire look like? do you just mean you wish it were open source so you could run your own instance?
18:19 canweriotnow well, that, but also, as you just said, building it out over something like XMPP/Jabber, but with more of the interface/features of Campfire
18:19 canweriotnow I can 'own my data' just by logging locally.
18:20 canweriotnow I think many of the goals of Diaspora, but closer to an IRC-plus-media format than a Facebook-a-like
18:20 pdurbin is Discourse close enough to what you want? you can embed images
18:21 canweriotnow It might be… I need to play with it more :)
18:22 pdurbin ok
18:22 pdurbin would like to hear your take on reddit, why you like it
18:28 canweriotnow It's really a mixed bag… some subreddits are great, others are rubbish…
18:28 pdurbin sure but i mean how the system works
18:29 canweriotnow It's not even that the software is that great, but EVERYTHING ends up there, and the karma-whoring community moderation system seems to work well in having the best content rise to the top.
18:29 canweriotnow The thing is, I think it's an anomaly.
18:29 canweriotnow systems like that don't usually work well
18:29 canweriotnow but it does on reddit.
18:30 canweriotnow I'm not entirely sure why :-\
18:32 pdurbin i'm thinking about "almost all software is social software" -- http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html
18:32 pdurbin linked from http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/05/its-clay-shirkys-internet-we-just-live-in-it.html
18:33 pdurbin it's hard to get the incentives right
18:33 pdurbin i was just wondering if reddit had nailed it somehow, in their software
18:35 pdurbin i follow Rob Malda, the founder of http://slashdot.org on Google+ and people are always commenting on his posts saying he nailed it with Slashdot: https://plus.google.com/+CmdrTaco
18:36 canweriotnow Yeah, I've been on slashdot since the late 90's :)
18:37 canweriotnow I think he did nail it for that era...
18:37 canweriotnow but it has its warts… https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGay_Nigger_Association_of_America&ei=hUYVUc-BD_S30AHKxIAI&usg=AFQjCNEC4rFhnQL3gaVAgsMKuZ4PxC38Yw&sig2=0D3iFCCbrszIehL22ZQEYA&bvm=bv.42080656,d.dmQ
18:38 canweriotnow ugh, stupid google urls...
18:38 canweriotnow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Nigger_Association_of_America
18:38 canweriotnow ^ slashdot trolls extraordinaire
18:39 canweriotnow it also has a weird blend of official mods and community moderation that doesn't scale well, IMHO
18:50 pdurbin i was on slashdot a lot in the late 90s. not really since. i feel like i get plenty of tech news from other places
18:50 pdurbin following cmdtaco on google+ is great though :)
18:51 canweriotnow yeah, I follow him too
18:53 pdurbin scaling is hard
18:54 pdurbin How do you automate trust? - Discourse - http://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-automate-trust/1785/3
19:02 pdurbin i guess i should have a plan for if a troll shows up in here but i haven't had to in the other two channels I run: http://irclog.greptilian.com/sourcefu/2013-01-30#i_2413
19:24 cmdln joined #spanworm
19:25 pdurbin cmdln: welcome!
19:25 cmdln pdurbin: hey
19:43 pdurbin i just made a logo for us: http://spanworm.com
19:44 pdurbin patches welcome: http://git.greptilian.com/?p=wiki.git;a=blob;f=spanworm.com/spanworm-logo.svg
20:04 pdurbin canweriotnow: oh, the other way that comments are first class in stackoverflow is that there's a permalink (anchor) per comment. this is not true of google+
20:05 pdurbin cmdln: would love to hear your thoughts on any of this
20:06 cmdln pdurbin: sure, as I have time
20:06 cmdln pdurbin: since we started using IRC at work recently, I will mostly be lurking but will try to pipe up
20:06 pdurbin we'll be here :)
20:07 pdurbin snow day in boston. i'm home with my kids. we're supposed to get 2 feet

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