eiron wrote:
] In Memestreams, each link is considered a seperate Meme,
] despite the fact that two links may be involved in the same
] concept or idea. For example, the recent tsunami disaster has
] generated a wealth of links for donations sites, news updates,
] weather data, etc. It would seem that many of these links are
] part of a larger Meme, a greater idea. Despite this, the
] memes, that is, the individual links, as represented by
] Memestreams, remain separated, independent of one another.

[ This is a general issue, i won't say problem, necessarily, which Tom and I have talked about before. I have an interest, though not a great deal of actual expertise, in the application of knowledge management technologies to collections of raw data. It's something I've encountered in my work, and something I've devoted a good deal of time thinking about for personal use. The concept here would be that the greater Meme, as you call it, is a somewhat emergent property. In the best possible scenario, the software is intelligent enough to group data (links, commentary, or articles) based on recognition of common topical elements. Of course, and this is why KM is so necessary when dealing with a large corpus of information, a Meme of this sort can, and will, have multiple facets. The stories, and subsequent discussions, linked up regarding the tsunami cover matters related to Aid Organizations, Disaster Relief, Missing Persons, Philanthropy, Human Trafficking, GeoPolitics, Geology, Earth Science, etc. These all, generally, tie back to what is effectively a single event, which occurred, but I don't really see that as the meme. Rather, the memes are the things people are thinking and, more measurably, saying about the event. Thus, each discrete aspect of the story is a meme in and of itself, once it attains the critical mass to have a distinct existence.

As it turns out, this stuff is all pretty hard, and completely different than the existing infrastructure. Not to mention, the things I'm describing may not actually be the vision for this community. As it's not my project, I wouldn't presume to argue strongly for such a shift. As a concept, only a bare germ at this stage, i think there's merit, but I know there are other priorities right now, even if this was a direction for the future.

Anyway, I found your proposal interesting -- essentially a non-automated version of what I'm describing, in which the users, by grouping links, are responsible for building up the larger context. As a purist, and based on my experience and minimal research, i think this mechanism is fraught with peril, because people tend to be, fundamentally, bad at handling complex categorization tasks. Actually, that's not true. People have trouble, particularly when faced with the vast quantity of data they see daily, maintaining an object in multiple contextual frames. This leads to strict hierarchical schemes (e.g. folder trees) which may work most of the time, but fail when a piece of information is being looked for in a context different than it was originally filed under.

I, admittedly, have a particularly hard time with this, and constantly find that hierarchies are too rigid to capture the complexity of all the things I do and read, but that the opposite extreme, where everything is in one single pool, is likewise inefficient and cumbersome. I, quite literally, forget that I saw something, so despite having read it, I can't be said to "know" the information therein, even if a quick scan would bring it all back. The answer, I think, is to have software which leads you to information based on it's real content, regardless of the direction from which you approach it, and without the requirement that you define the content ahead of time. It's a well indexed secondary memory. This paradigm seems to be gaining ground, and there are a number of interesting projects and tools which take steps in this direction.

Whether such a thing has a match here, on this site, is a subject I consider open to debate, which the owners, ultimately, can ignore, or not, as they wish. -k]

RE: Links, Memes, and Memestreams