Foundational Knowledgebase – Work Product Content Parameters

[Bryan]

Forward
This message is the third in a series of eight related to the Mission Advancement Framework. For proper context be sure to read the previous messages found here:
Step 1: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?490530-The-Mission-Advancement-Framework-A-new-site-initiative!
Step 2: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?490665-Parameters-of-the-Mission-Advancement-Framework

The complete outline of the steps is listed below, these will be released in an orderly fashion. Steps will be released one at a time to allow focusing on one point, to allow for community discussion and to establish points that may alter the start of the next step.
The objective of this message is to establish the parameters of the content of the final work product of the Foundational Knowledgebase, part of the previously mentioned “prerequisite goal”. These parameters are subject to debate and subsequent change to achieve the best path forward.

Mission Advancement Framework – Roadmap to Success
Step 1: Introduction of the Mission Advancement Framework, establishment of initial goals.
Step 2: Parameters of the Mission Advancement Framework. Part of the “prerequisite goal”.
Step 3: Parameters of the content of the final work product of the Foundational Knowledgebase. Part of the “prerequisite goal”.
Step 4: Parameters of the organizational structures used for developing the Foundational Knowledgebase. Part of the “prerequisite goal”.
Step 5. Setting a strategy to achieve Goal 1.
Step 6: Setting a strategy to achieve Goals 2.
Step 7: Setting a strategy to achieve Goal 3.
Step 8: Setting a strategy to achieve Goal 4.




Foundational Knowledgebase - Information Organization
In a somewhat chicken-and-egg situation, in order to take steps towards the developed of proper tools and tactics we need to use effective tools and tactics. To resolve this dilemma, the first effort will be to develop a set of design objectives for the developed of the Foundational Knowledgebase. These design objectives can provide later value for the MAF.

Design objectives are broken down into the organization of information and people, per the scope of the MAF.


Design Objectives for the Organization of Information
The follow design objectives are being proposed to organize information within the Foundational Knowledgebase:
• Have established content guidelines.
• Provide facilities and solutions to manage internal division of desired content.
• Establish parameters for the way the Foundational Knowledgebase will be published.
• Characterize a suitable publishing system.

Proposals for these design objectives is discussed below.


Content Guidelines for the Foundational Knowledgebase
For the final work product to be effective there has to be specific Content Guidelines defined and followed. The Content Guidelines will have two components, the first being the current “Core content policies” of Wikipedia and the second being additional site specific Content Guidelines. The site specific Content Guidelines are as follows:
• All work should apply logical deduction to arrive at conclusions.
• All work shall aim to develop important principles that are highlighted within the work.
• All work shall adhere to a predefined outline of section content.
• All work shall follow a uniformed standard of linguistics, which is to be developed.
• Key work products and the development of principles should not reply upon the use of current issues that commonly change with time.
• The core of the Foundational Knowledge will be completely objective but some sections can be subjective. Subjective sections should be clearly marked.
• All works shall be devoid of logical fallacies or what could be viewed as propaganda.
• All work should reference to larger, external bodies of work for efficiency.
• Proper attributes should be included as needed.
• All works can provide information on donating to the author or the Foundational Knowledge. [Credit to site member Xerographica for this idea]
• All work shall adhere to our site Usage Guidelines.

These guidelines are subject to future refinement.


Managing Internal Division of Desired Content
There are many cases where individuals who support our Mission have different viewpoints on philosophical and tactical issues. The Foundational Knowledge does not have to draw conclusions when there is no logically provable correct way and can support the content of each viewpoint in an equal manner. In this way not everyone has to agree on all philosophical or tactical issues.


Section Classifications & Attributes
Each section will be categorized in one of the following classifications, each of which has different attributes. The section types and attributes are as follows:

Foundational: Focuses on the end goal of the development of principles in a clear, concise and effective manner. Foundational Sections must be objective, will be multi-author and may be updated frequently. Note: Donations to Foundational Sections will go to support future MAF efforts.

Value-add: Value-add sections can present arguments from a particular set of convictions. Value-add pieces can provide more in-depth characterizations, go into concrete details of specific events and describe more dynamics that are typical in a political piece. Value-add sections can have a singular author and be closed to editing from other authors.
Note: Donations to Value-add Sections will go to the author or to support future MAF efforts, based on the authors’ choice. If the author abandons the property, then further donations will go to support future MAF efforts.

Organizational: Some sections may exist to provide navigational assistance. These sections will be owned and controlled by the MAF administration.

Foundational Knowledgebase Administration: Some sections may exist to help support the development of the Foundational Knowledgebase. These sections will be owned and controlled by the MAF administration.


Publishing System for the Foundational Knowledgebase
All content will be contained within a web based Content Management System (CMS) that is the best fit for the purpose. The system shall include revision control such that all past versions of a sections content can be retrieved.

Data obtained for Goal #2 shall be stored in a database with a “strongly typed” data model which will allow for data to be searched for, filtered and ordered based on various data attributes.

[Xerographica]

All works can provide information on donating to the author or the Foundational Knowledge. [Credit to site member Xerographica for this idea]
Thanks for the credit! I also deserve credit for creating the Wikipedia entry for the Benefit Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_principle). Of course only one person can create a Wikipedia entry but everybody can help develop it. Ideally... donating to contributors would be as easy as "Liking" something on Facebook. But it's important to understand that donating to contributors and valuating an article aren't necessarily the same thing.

Just how important is the benefit principle as a concept? It has to be at least somewhat important or else other editors would have challenged its creation and voted it off the island.... so to speak. But it stands to reason that not every economic concept that has an entry on Wikipedia is equally important.

The benefit principle and supply and demand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand) are both important enough concepts to deserve their own entries on Wikipedia. But this really doesn't mean that both concepts are equally important. Does it matter which concept is more important? Does it matter whether we know just how important each concept is? I'm pretty sure it does matter. It would allow people to prioritize how they allocate their limited time to developing those entries and learning about the concepts.

Elsewhere in this forum Occam's Banana recently posted a thread with lots of information about Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?490205-165th-anniversary-of-the-birth-of-one-of-the-Austrian-School-s-greatest-masters). Clearly Occam's Banana is under the impression that we should have/know this information. Why else would he take the time or make the effort to share this information with us?

But if somebody is just starting to learn about Austrian economics... should they learn about Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and his work before they learn about all the other Austrian economists and their work? Personally I think that Mises and his work is more important than Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and his work. Clearly it's beneficial to familiarize yourself with both of their work but I would recommend starting with Mises. Does anybody disagree with me? No? Maybe? Yes?

What everybody should agree with is that is that nobody has all the time in the world to spend studying about free-markets or anything else. This is why it matters that everybody should be able to quickly and easily discern, at a glance, just how important any Wikipedia entry is. This would allow people to correctly prioritize how they spend their limited time. And in order to ensure that the importance of any given Wikipedia entry is correctly calculated... everybody should be free to easily allocate any amount of money to each and every entry. Valuating an entry should be as easy as "Liking" something on Facebook.

Therefore.... here are the two main things that everybody should agree with...

1. Everybody's time is limited
2. Values are subjective

Not only do I love free-trade... but I also love plants. So I was pretty happy when, in a plant forum that I participate on, somebody posted a thread announcing (http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3681887/online-plant-exchange?n=18) that they had launched a website to facilitate plant trading...

http://www.onlineplantexchange.com/

I was somewhat surprised though that most of the comments in the thread weren't very supportive. People were concerned with the spread of pathogens. It's not that I don't think that pathogens are an issue... it's just that... in the grand scheme of things... the benefits of free-trade are greater than the costs. Anybody who disagrees would have to make the argument that Europeans should have never discovered the Americas!

In my post in that thread I made pretty much the same argument that I'm trying to make here. It's wonderful to create a site that facilitates the sharing of information... but it's infinitely valuable to facilitate the valuation of the information that's being shared.

Web 2.0 makes it stupid easy to share a ton of information. Voila! Here I am! Here we are! Thanks to us, and everybody else, the internet has a crapload of information. The fact is though... that not all of this information is equally valuable. Web 3.0 will facilitate the valuation of information that's shared. Then we will easily be able to sort information by its value. Finding needles in haystacks will be ridiculously easy. Treasure will no long be buried. It will always be right at the surface for everybody to easily find and benefit from.

As I mentioned in my post in the plant forum... valuating things isn't really more technically difficult than "Liking" things. In both cases you need an additional table in the database to store the values/"Likes". Plus, it probably helps to have an additional column in the entry table which stores the total values. I think this makes it a bit faster to sort entries by their value. On the front end you just need a bit of javascript and AJAX. It's easy enough to do... I could certainly do it. Members would have to have a digital wallet... but this is simply another row in the members table. Security is of course a concern. It's always a concern though and should never be a deal breaker. Hackers can always hack anything. The trick is developing a project that enough hackers believe is worth protecting from attacks.

With a Web 3.0 website... the website itself becomes the best weapon that the liberty movement could possibly wield in the fight against those who do not appreciate the value of freedom.

[Bryan]

Thanks for the credit! I also deserve credit for creating the Wikipedia entry for the Benefit Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_principle).
Nice! So that's your work? I'm guessing it's all related to your sig link too?


Of course only one person can create a Wikipedia entry but everybody can help develop it. Ideally... donating to contributors would be as easy as "Liking" something on Facebook. But it's important to understand that donating to contributors and valuating an article aren't necessarily the same thing.

Just how important is the benefit principle as a concept? It has to be at least somewhat important or else other editors would have challenged its creation and voted it off the island.... so to speak. But it stands to reason that not every economic concept that has an entry on Wikipedia is equally important.

The benefit principle and supply and demand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand) are both important enough concepts to deserve their own entries on Wikipedia. But this really doesn't mean that both concepts are equally important. Does it matter which concept is more important? Does it matter whether we know just how important each concept is? I'm pretty sure it does matter. It would allow people to prioritize how they allocate their limited time to developing those entries and learning about the concepts.

Elsewhere in this forum Occam's Banana recently posted a thread with lots of information about Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?490205-165th-anniversary-of-the-birth-of-one-of-the-Austrian-School-s-greatest-masters). Clearly Occam's Banana is under the impression that we should have/know this information. Why else would he take the time or make the effort to share this information with us?

But if somebody is just starting to learn about Austrian economics... should they learn about Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and his work before they learn about all the other Austrian economists and their work? Personally I think that Mises and his work is more important than Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and his work. Clearly it's beneficial to familiarize yourself with both of their work but I would recommend starting with Mises. Does anybody disagree with me? No? Maybe? Yes?

What everybody should agree with is that is that nobody has all the time in the world to spend studying about free-markets or anything else. This is why it matters that everybody should be able to quickly and easily discern, at a glance, just how important any Wikipedia entry is. This would allow people to correctly prioritize how they spend their limited time. And in order to ensure that the importance of any given Wikipedia entry is correctly calculated... everybody should be free to easily allocate any amount of money to each and every entry. Valuating an entry should be as easy as "Liking" something on Facebook.

Therefore.... here are the two main things that everybody should agree with...

1. Everybody's time is limited
2. Values are subjective

Not only do I love free-trade... but I also love plants. So I was pretty happy when, in a plant forum that I participate on, somebody posted a thread announcing (http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3681887/online-plant-exchange?n=18) that they had launched a website to facilitate plant trading...

http://www.onlineplantexchange.com/

I was somewhat surprised though that most of the comments in the thread weren't very supportive. People were concerned with the spread of pathogens. It's not that I don't think that pathogens are an issue... it's just that... in the grand scheme of things... the benefits of free-trade are greater than the costs. Anybody who disagrees would have to make the argument that Europeans should have never discovered the Americas!

In my post in that thread I made pretty much the same argument that I'm trying to make here. It's wonderful to create a site that facilitates the sharing of information... but it's infinitely valuable to facilitate the valuation of the information that's being shared.
All good points.


Web 2.0 makes it stupid easy to share a ton of information. Voila! Here I am! Here we are! Thanks to us, and everybody else, the internet has a crapload of information. The fact is though... that not all of this information is equally valuable. Web 3.0 will facilitate the valuation of information that's shared. Then we will easily be able to sort information by its value. Finding needles in haystacks will be ridiculously easy. Treasure will no long be buried. It will always be right at the surface for everybody to easily find and benefit from.
Within this context, I'd say part of the goal of the Knowledgebase is for a Web 3.0 tool for pro-liberty information.


As I mentioned in my post in the plant forum... valuating things isn't really more technically difficult than "Liking" things. In both cases you need an additional table in the database to store the values/"Likes". Plus, it probably helps to have an additional column in the entry table which stores the total values. I think this makes it a bit faster to sort entries by their value. On the front end you just need a bit of javascript and AJAX. It's easy enough to do... I could certainly do it. Members would have to have a digital wallet... but this is simply another row in the members table. Security is of course a concern. It's always a concern though and should never be a deal breaker. Hackers can always hack anything. The trick is developing a project that enough hackers believe is worth protecting from attacks.

With a Web 3.0 website... the website itself becomes the best weapon that the liberty movement could possibly wield in the fight against those who do not appreciate the value of freedom.
I've been thinking about this some too, we'll get into the details of it in step 5, but having some type of micro-payment system (with a digital wallet) would be that best way, but it could also support direct use of third party systems (bitcoin, paypal, ApplePay, etc). We'll have to see what type of CMS platform is used and see what type of digital wallets are available that could be integrated into it. We'll most likely need some custom work so your offer could be the missing piece to get it to all work!

Thanks!

[Xerographica]

Nice! So that's your work? I'm guessing it's all related to your sig link too?
Well... I created the article and fleshed it out a bit. But I was constantly outnumbered and opposed by ignorant idiots who tore down most of what I tried to build up. So I'm not a very big fan of the Wikipedia model as it currently is.

But yes, it's all related to my sig link. It's all related to clarifying demand. What's the demand for forum posts (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?474932-Micropay-Vote-Or-Dance-For-Quality-Content)? We don't know! What's the demand for facebook posts, youtube videos and medium stories (http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com/2016/02/alex-tabarrok-vs-alex-tabarrok.html)? We don't know! What's the demand for green lights (https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=368154)? We don't know! What's the demand for teachers (http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com/2015/04/visualizing-economics-of-education.html)? We don't know! What's the demand for justice (http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com/2016/02/responding-to-my-jury-summons.html)? We don't know! What's the demand for defense (https://medium.com/@Amplify/clarifying-the-demand-for-defense-f5399d1b618b#.nytff2r0y)? We don't know!

The problem with the government is not limited to the government. There are a gazillion places/spaces where demand could, and should, be clarified. Clarifying demand in the smaller places/spaces will get the ball rolling. Once the ball starts rolling... it will be unstoppable. Markets will be everywhere and in everything. Each and every forum, for example, will be a market... and no two markets will be exactly alike. When you have a gazillion different markets competing for consumers and producers... markets are going to evolve/improve at an incredible rate.



Within this context, I'd say part of the goal of the Knowledgebase is for a Web 3.0 tool for pro-liberty information.
That's great!


I've been thinking about this some too, we'll get into the details of it in step 5, but having some type of micro-payment system (with a digital wallet) would be that best way, but it could also support direct use of third party systems (bitcoin, paypal, ApplePay, etc). We'll have to see what type of CMS platform is used and see what type of digital wallets are available that could be integrated into it. We'll most likely need some custom work so your offer could be the missing piece to get it to all work!

Thanks!
There's always more than one way to skin a cat.

Honestly I'm not 100% clear though on the overall structure of the Knowledgebase. You've mentioned a Wikipedia type format a few times. Like I said in the beginning of this post.... I'm not a big fan of the Wikipedia model. Even if we have our own Wikipedia that is only edited by members of this forum... there's still going to be a lot of disagreements. Which means that there's going to be a ton of energy and time wasted on undoing other people's edits. It's a huge hassle. Wikipedia has a gazillion miles of red tape as a result of wikilawyering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikilawyering).

From my perspective... a forum is a much better format than Wikipedia is. For example... you can start a thread with the title of "Libertarianism". In your OP you can broadly define libertarianism to include everything from anarcho-capitalism to anarcho-socialism (http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com/2010/11/libertarian-spectrum-diagrams.html).

If I disagree with your broad definition of libertarianism then, rather than try and edit your work to reflect my own knowledge, I can simply start my own thread with the title of "Libertarianism". In my OP I can narrowly define libertarianism to only include Milton Friedman's brand of libertarianism.

Whose definition of "Libertarianism" is better... yours or mine? Whose product is better? Of course the best way to decide whose product is better is to allow the consumers to decide. Members would allocate their pennies to whichever product they preferred.

Let's say that members allocated $14.36 to my thread and $6.43 to your thread. Then, whenever somebody searched for "Libertarianism" and sorted by value... then my thread would show up higher in the results than your thread.

Members would of course still be able to reply to threads and make suggestions. And, given that everybody can valuate posts, the most valuable reply/suggestion will be very easy to find. All you have to do is sort the replies by their value rather than by their date. So collaboration is certainly still possible. But if somebody doesn't want to act on your valuable suggestion... then you simply implement your own suggestion by starting a new thread. Your new thread would of course compete with the old thread.

The website might end up with 1000s of definitions of Libertarianism. But it will be ridiculously quick and easy to find the most valuable definition.

If it helps... here's the Urban Dictionary results for the word "libertarianism (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=libertarianism)". There are numerous definitions that are sorted by votes. I guess the top definition has the most votes. This means that the most popular definition is at the top of the page. It's good to know which definition is most popular... but it's infinitely better to know which definition is most valuable.

Here's a quote from my favorite living economist...


Overall, I am for betting because I am against bullshit. Bullshit is polluting our discourse and drowning the facts. A bet costs the bullshitter more than the non-bullshitter so the willingness to bet signals honest belief. A bet is a tax on bullshit; and it is a just tax, tribute paid by the bullshitters to those with genuine knowledge. - Alex Tabarrok, A Bet is a Tax on Bullshit (http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/11/a-bet-is-a-tax-on-bullshit.html)

Betting and spending are the exact same thing. So spending is a tax on bullshit. Voting doesn't have a tax on bullshit. With democracy... somebody who has never studied libertarianism a day in their life has just as much say as somebody who has studied it every day of their life. But with markets... somebody who is clueless about libertarianism is going to think twice about spending a lot of money on something that they know absolutely nothing about. Generally speaking.... people who make uninformed spending decisions usually don't have very much money to spend. As the saying goes... a fool and his money are soon parted.

So yeah... Urban Dictionary is one of the gazillion places/spaces where demand could and should be clarified. The reason that Urban Dictionary does not currently clarify demand is because so few people understand the problem with voting. In other words... very few people appreciate the necessity of taxing bullshit.

Just like Urban Dictionary, a pro-liberty Knowledgebase needs to have a tax on bullshit. And I'm pretty sure that, as far as overall structure goes, a forum is a much better model than Wikipedia is.