1. Lunaphiles the Great

This thread is for discussing lunaphiles' leadership.

I think my analysis is spot on - what final decisions were made?

Nothing is final, and no one except me in the past year has even attempted to pick up the ball of leadership. You guys don't know what to do. And, all I am telling you, from my expertise in the field is that your discussions mean nothing, because all that matters is that a classification system has to be produced in order to claim that anything has been accomplished. And any attempt to generate a new rendition pretty much moots any previous decisions - its a very complicated process. if you believe a system can be generated from the scraps of discussions then do it - show me what you got?

It's hilarious how Lorax talks about infringement of your open-source "work," yet infringing on the copyrighted BISAC is all you guys have done!

**** If you guys want to accomplish anything, the best thing for you to do is is present your renditions as complete as possible and critique them and see if anybody is willing to contribute to furthering any particular renditions. That's all there is that can be done. ****

tardis - you had nothing of usefulness - you haven't even bothered to further it along. What have you been doing the past year - waiting for someone to pick up where you got lazy?

None of you have taken up the responsibility on your own to even try to accomplish what it is you thought you were working toward. Somebody has to do some work - who is that going to be?

Oh, and by the way, has Laena, or TimSpalding even given you a hint as to why they quit? Don't you think their input as to how such a project should be organized be worth anything to you?

Do yourselves a favor, and schedule a due date for rendition submissions. Eventually, I will present my rendition, but I would prefer that you prove yourselves worthy to critique it by presenting your renditions. I began work on my rendition in February of 2008, four months prior to TimSpalding's commencement of the OSC project, and it is four levels deep, and I am confident that you and many others will be interested in continuing its reach - you will recognize its systematics..

Well, what can you do?

Maybe the hostility is because you all recognize that you have nothing to show for all the time you spent believing that you were doing something in the approach of an ideal, and I am giving you the path without the coddling and appeasement of the worthlessness of your past???

Self- appointed leadership is the best thing to happen to this project in over a year, and I assure you my expert leadership is the best thing that has ever happened to this project. Good luck trying to accomplish anything on this project with out setting deadlines and critique analysis of renditions, because there is nothing more important to the project then that. And I know that because I am an expert, and I am trying to help you guys.

Who would you like to be assigned to do the work - me, or librarians?

I am very much aware of the difficulty in devising a classification scheme - I have been homeless the whole entire time I have been devising a system. I realized that in order to prevent as much ideological intrusion on my deliberations required me to segregate myself from society somewhat. I have no family so that was of no worry, so all I had to do was relieve myself of as many other responsibilities as possible.

Don't worry, I understand the limitations - did you ever discuss these limitations in the previous discussions? Did you resolve a solution?

For those paranoid - I already downloaded a copy of every single discussion in this group - I know what I am doing - way ahead of you.

I have no intentions of using any work you have for copyright of a classification system - I have a system already devised. The only thing I may use from the discussions is to show examples of possibilities, and examples of the inabilities to actuate an open-source classification system. because that is why I am insisting on copyrighting my rendering.

You guys don't have anything worthy, otherwise people would be working on it and progressing it. All you guys want to do is blame the leadership - if you are so smart, get the ball rolling again. You know the mistakes of the past do what ever it takes to make the dream a reality.

If you don't think there is a market for a new classification system, what inspired you to participate in the first place - to help your fellow human being???

With due respect: Nobody has put you in charge of anything. OSC is a dormant project, and for a reason. I have seen no move to endorse a new move for it, still less to put you in charge of it. On the contrary, I have received a number of complaints about your posts.

Please desist from such attempts. If you would like to organize such an effort, please start a new group and invite people to join it.

Lunaphiles has done exactly that.

http://www.librarything.com/groups/oscproject

Think about it;

In all of Western Society only a small portion understand what the concept of classification is - the rest of the people do not understand that there is a problem - the problem being that people cannot collectively devise and render a system that meets the ideals that you guys believed could be accomplished - intuitive categorization.

You are a very unique group.

Finally, you are complaining about time constraints, something other than leadership. What might be the solutions to such problems?

That is what OSCadministration is all about - anybody want to pitch in on figuring out some rules and how to do it? Or are you just going to wait until someone presents a rendering that inspires you to work on it a nd progress it?

Good. Let's keep the two discussions separate.

Come on, Tim - what are you talking about?

Dormant???

Complaints concerning a dormant project, and you want to keep it dormant?

You don't want anybody trying to pick-up the pieces and progress the concept?

You think you know what you are doing now, and the best thing is to leave it dormant until you can figure out who should lead it???

What were your intentions in the first place - "crowd source," or something to that effect???

Tell who ever is complaining to ignore the discussion, or lead the project.

4:If you don't think there is a market for a new classification system, what inspired you to participate in the first place - to help your fellow human being???

I participated because I've had a lifelong fascination in classification systems. They are an interesting intellectual challenge. Some of the work we did was very interesting, especially the experiment with people trying to class random books.

Well, I agree with your analysis of the DDC for the participants. As I have been compiling a manuscript/guide for the system I devised, I have been considering different concepts, and describe Dewey as designed for elementary school teachers, particularly Christian elementary. And as for the LCC, I describe it as being designed to accommodate law students - compare the subjects above/before Law to those following Law, as it was designed for legislators to reference.

The system I have is a hybrid of subject hierarchy and social perception of human experience - if that explains the "intuitiveness," and the tracking of inter-domain correspondences (cross-referencing nodes). And I think the system I have devised will meet the level of expectation that is needed to gain further interest in development, which is beyond my ability, because of the rapid expansionism of the hierarchies.

I am confident there is a market for classification systems - it's just that people do not realize they seek a consistent system to organize their digital documents, particularly those involved in academic research. Furthermore, I am sure the artificial intelligence industry is interested in a classification system that seeks to emulate human experience.

And to add to that, there in lies the reasoning for copyright - this stuff has to be regulated, because most people do not have the time to deliberate the merits of any given system, and so they will put their trust in whatever system is given to them. And as society progresses and the classification system is used for more then just shelving books - I envision it being used to settle arguments of the highest social-political discussions - that trust has to be accountable to an organized entity. The DDC and LCC are not used because they are incomplete, or inadequate for referencing. As I see it my system will account for every definition of every word - which all will be compiled in accordance with the numerical coding. So, instead of a dictionary entry listing definitions 1, 2, and 3; it will be more like definitions 1523, 2642, and 3514.

Oh yeah, . . . and I devised a color coding icon scheme to put on the spines of the library books so that the books of the same subject have a unique icon, making it easier to recognize subcategories of the shelving area, and misplaced books - I have two sets now of 1200 icons (23 hours of work per icon set). And of course, those icons can be used to identify computer directory folders, e-book listings, and bibliographies.

>6 Suncat:,8

In case there is anyone who would like to help Mr. Lunaphiles, see his blog: http://sidewalkcynic.blogspot.com/

Key areas where he needs additional expertise to fill gaps include evolution (1000), discovery (1600), innovation (2000), inference (5000), and wisdom (5600).

Wow - made up words as top level categories. I've heard of naturology as a made up word for some "alternative" medicine but it seems to be used in a different sense here. The made up words continue in the lower levels. Looking at that schedule I have no idea where I would find most books.

I was disappointed that lunaphile never entered any books to demonstrate how his system would work. I think I'd understand it much better with some examples. I was really wondering what some of those words meant.

Well, let me help you out - I'll cut and paste it over here for you.

There is plenty of work to be furthered, besides the mere drop in the bucket of open subdivisions you found.

Describing what titles would go where would be kind of an around about approach to defining the categories. My approach is to assign the subcategories, which then will help you to understand the parent categories.

I'm working on a more complete HTML guide to the system, and will eventually release it to you, but I do appreciate the effort you have shown in searching for renderings - keep up the good work. Anybody put together a rendering of their own yet that they would like to share?

>15 lunaphiles:
I'm disappointed that lunaphiles edited his blog post to remove an entire level of categories (and very large gaps) in the structure. He asked us to prove our worth, and when his own lack of progress was revealed, the evidence was swept under the rug. I won't repost the "copyrighted" list; the point is already made.

Be careful when trying to mislead librarians. We do research for a living. This means that if you list your real name and use the same handle all over the internet, we can do a background search to assess your "qualifications" and your "prior art." Bumming for ideas by insulting trained professionals (no small number of whom provide answers on Ubuntu forums) isn't a wise business plan, and trolling isn't performance art.
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What makes me the MOST sad, though, is that I really WAS excited about a data-driven OSC, and bringing this group out of dormancy underscored a lost dream. I wanted a classification system based on clustered data and emerging categories crowdsourced book-by-book, via Tim's test code and Thingamibrarian volunteering, with iterations and refinements and more testing at the book level. We had our shot to overcome some of the bias inherent in existing classification systems (including Melvil's 1922 and marketer-oriented BISAC) and to group books for the first time based not only on expert opinion but on READER opinion, not on the blogs of professors and their grad students but on actual research. Anybody who has ever done research knows that it's time consuming and not suited to those who need instant gratification. Certainly a project like this one couldn't be mashed into a semester, and the rush to make a product fast and with minimal effort cheapened the results. Without the book-by-book votes to provide justification, the project oscillated between anarchy and despotism until finally the whole thing collapsed.

Many in the business and scientific community stress the importance of trying things that might fail; INNOVATION and DISCOVERY demand risk. If you only attempt projects with a certain outcome, you will never accomplish a truly revolutionary impact. The more diverse one's working team, the more likely to have WISDOM and expertise in various fields and roles; this is why OSC should have succeeded. Any INFERENCE based on limited information has potential to be faulty, and judging the history of this project is no exception. There were several reasons the original OSC failed, but I remember the initial premise and the initial promise, and I still maintain Tim was right to try.

Large gaps??? That's what you are going to try to crush my ego with?

My intention is to inspire the Open Source Classification project onward - providing a system that I devised is "poisoning the well," so to speak. I understand why classification systems should be copyrighted - the open source philosophy does not benefit the goal of standardizing a classification system - that is why the OSCproject stalled.

It is amazing that you feel competent to critique my work when you have no work of your own to put forth, much less a collaborated effort of which is just a failed clone of a copyrighted list - BISAC. I don't think you feel sad, i think you feel envy.

Stop feeling sad - do he work you expected Laena to do. Go through all this critical ideas that were deliberated and render the obvious intuitive system that is there. Quit blaming others for something you cannot even do.

You're going to claim it to be so difficult, yet, you won't allow me the benefit of appreciation for that difficulty - I am one person who has put together what it is you seek, under the circumstances necessary. You cannot do it,because of all the biases of the "normal" life of adverse responsibilities.

You can be my leader, Lunaphiles, but first you must answer two questions:

1) Where in your system would you classify David McMurray's "In and Out of Morocco: Smuggling and Migration in a Frontier Boomtown?"

2) What is the etymology of "medistry," which is one of your top-level categories? Please include its first attestation in English.

Thank You

Judging by the title, assuming that it is non-fiction, relative to my experience with the developing version of my system, I intuitively register three or four, possible delineations. If it is a how-to book it would probably go somewhere in the criminal industry class of 2400 Industry. If it is a political commentary then it would probably go in the political interest class of 5400 Activism. But assuming it is a social study with little commentary, or an unidentified bias, then, most likely, it would go somewhere in the 4520 Economics class of 4500 Sociology - depending on how Economics is ultimately subdivided. Right now, I am inclined to subdivide Economics the same as I subdivide 4000 Commerce, because my definition of economics is the study of commerce, and so the 4 subdivision of Commerce is Distribution and so the Economics subdivision would be 4524 Distribution. And that can be further subdivided into whatever, until eventually the subdivision gets into geographic classification, and Moracco would be in the M's of the parent class, Africa.

Well, that is a misspelling of "Medistory," and I guess, I may be the originator of the neologism. I think I devised it a month, or two, prior to the publication of the misspelled version, so let's say April 29, 2009, or was that the day I invented "mathemology," I can't remember, I know they had a big celebration because it was the one millionth word of the English language!

Wow, I half expected lunaphile to claim to be some long-forgotten all-powerful, or at least all-knowing deity. Or was that all-evasive, he did fail to answer that second question, I believe.

I do realize I am posting just over nine months after lunaphile's last post.

-Justin

Oh, gee - I am so embarrassed.

I answered the question - I made up the word as a contraction from two words, so the system would have single term categories - at least at the "top levels". I assure you I am allowed to make-up words - you can ignore them if you like - makes little difference to me. Do you have anything you would like to compare?

Now, has anybody gotten anywhere, as far as developing a classification system in accordance with the ideals that were issued for this project?

No - just enough hem'n and a haw'n that it can be done if somebody would just do the work for them to get it started, or something to that effect???

**** If you guys want to accomplish anything, the best thing for you to do is to present your renditions as complete as possible and critique them (PEER REVIEW), and see if anybody is willing to contribute to furthering any particular renditions. That is all there is that can be done. ****

Would you like to see what I have done so far, on my own?

By the way, has anybody noticed that BISAC has improved their on-line list to include the subdivision of the main categories list - I wonder how many people were involved in that project and what motivated them?

http://www.bisg.org/what-we-do-0-136-bisac-subject-headings-list-major-subjects....