Timeline for Online, evolving, collaborative foundational text projects
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 27, 2020 at 14:20 | comment | added | A. Bordg | @Fosco The nLab is not an encyclopedia. It is a wiki-lab, i.e. a modern version of a lab book, specifically for mathematics and related topics with a focus on category theory. | |
| Aug 26, 2020 at 0:49 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | Concerning your observations about the ability of others to add new material, they are correct, but that's not what “collaborative” means. Not every collaborative work is a publicly editable wiki. And I bet that Johan de Jong serves as the final arbiter of what does and does not get into the Stacks Project. | |
| Aug 26, 2020 at 0:46 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @WillSawin: Your comment about “406 credited contributors” is correct and highly misleading: the overwhelming majority of these contributors noticed a typo or two. Johan de Jong mentions explicitly somewhere that he includes everybody in this list, no matter how small the contribution. By your standard, many arXiv papers would have dozens of collaborators instead of the current 2 or 3, simply because dozens of people noticed typos. Once you rescale to the size of a typical arXiv paper, the total amount of collaboration is much less than almost any paper on arXiv with 2 or more authors. | |
| Aug 25, 2020 at 19:29 | comment | added | Will Sawin | On the other hand, if I make contributions to the stacks project and they are included, this is the system working as intended. The intent is significant here, and the technical implementation flows from that intent. | |
| Aug 25, 2020 at 19:28 | comment | added | Will Sawin | @DmitriPavlov The fact that I technically can download the source code of an arXiv paper and edit it is not so relevant, because if I then share this with another mathematician I will probably have completed some ethical breach like plagiarism or putting words in someone else's mouth. The only way to change the publicly accessible copy is to email the author. Of course if I email them that I found a mistake, they will probably fix it, but this is because of a failure (a mistake). | |
| Aug 25, 2020 at 19:21 | comment | added | Will Sawin | @DmitriPavlov The total amount of collaboration that was involved in the Stacks project is quite high. For example, there are 406 credited contributors, and there have been multiple workshops devoted to writing new material for the Stacks project. It's true that the amount done by Johan alone is even greater than this. But the total amount of collaboration is higher than almost any paper on arXiv. | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 23:05 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| Aug 22, 2020 at 22:19 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @LSpice: Your claims about technology apply equally well to arXiv: all papers on arXiv come with their TeX source, which can be compiled as one pleases. As for the “vast body of work”: if somebody writes a 243-page book, with a 2-page introduction (the numbers chosen to match the Stacks Project) by somebody else, should we consider this project “collaborative”? The proportions are a bit too extreme for this, I would say. | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 21:12 | comment | added | LSpice | @DmitriPavlov, "(open-source software) model" means just the model of open-source software (regardless of the actual software used); so an open-source textbook is one in which anyone can see the source (of the text) and, more importantly, can contribute. For example, if I want to add something to the Stacks Project, I can do so easily, via git; but, if I want to add something to a 2-author paper, then both technology and social expectation are against me. The fact that one author did the vast body of the work doesn't, I think, mean it's not collaborative; it just means it's got a leader. | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 20:03 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @LSpice: I am not sure I am following you. What does open source has to do with being collaborative? If the software on which the project runs became proprietary, would the project cease being collaborative? What exactly do you mean by an "open-source software model"? | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 20:01 | comment | added | LSpice | @DmitriPavlov, "more so than the Stacks Project"? It's hard to imagine anything being more collaborative than Stacks, which adapts the open-source software model to mathematics texts, and certainly a 2-author arXiv text seems not to rise to that bar (however admirable it otherwise is). | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 20:00 | comment | added | user164113 | @DmitriPavlov: It is quite alright to use your own interpretation of the terms and suggest the projects you think are in the spirit of the question. I've tried to refine my criteria through my comments on why I think nLab, Polymath, and the two textbooks mentioned above don't satisfy one or the other of them. My model ultimately is Bourbaki as adapted to the internet and new ways and possibilities for collaboration it offers. | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 19:46 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @user164113: Maybe you should clarify first what "evolving" and "collaborative" means. arXiv texts certainly evolve when new versions are posted, and they are collaborative if they have 2 or more authors, more so than the Stacks Project and Kerodon. | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 19:09 | comment | added | user164113 | @Fosco: $n$Lab in my view is not a systematic foundational text development enterprise. It seems to be more of an encyclopedia for certain areas of mathematics, although certainly online, evolving, collaborative and aimed at research mathematicians. | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 19:05 | comment | added | user164113 | @Fosco: Thanks for the suggestions, but I am only looking for online projects that qualify on all the counts mentioned in the first line of my post, so online textbooks you mention don't come under its purview. There is no dearth of online texts which, of course, are also admirable, valuable and suited to our times. | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 18:24 | comment | added | fosco | Well, no, but apart the stacks project and the $n$Lab... | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 18:23 | comment | added | LSpice | Speaking of non-collaborative-ness, is either of your references collaborative? | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 18:21 | history | answered | fosco | CC BY-SA 4.0 |