RE: [unrev-II] Semantic Community Web Portal (Formality Harmful)

From: Alex Shapiro (alex@touchgraph.com)
Date: Sat Sep 15 2001 - 11:45:03 PDT

  • Next message: Alex Shapiro: "Re: [unrev-II] Semantic Community Web Portal"

    Here is a post along the same lines titled "representation is thought" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ourownthoughts/message/1085?threaded=1

    It is a part of discussion between Shannon J. Clark, John Leppic, and myself about the interaction between thoughts, and the tools used to record them.  Earlier I argued that the tools we use effect our thoughts, because when we are not using the tool, we imagine what the results would be if we had, i.e. planning our future tool-using actions.  In this post, Shannon argues that her thought process is directly linked to the tools she uses.

    --Alex

    At 10:48 PM 9/13/01 +0200, Gil Regev wrote:

    Hi Simon,
     
    One of the most troubling aspects that Shipman and Marshall note is the following:
     
    An example of this interference is McCall's observation that design students have difficulty producing IBIS-style argumentation even though videotapes of their design sessions show that their naturally occurring discussions follow this structure [Fischer et al. 91]. A physiological example of the interference that making tacit knowledge conscious can cause is breathing (also from McCall). When a person is asked to breath normally, their normal breathing will be interrupted. Furthermore, chances are that introspection about what normal breathing means will cause the person's breathing to become abnormal -- exaggeratedly shallow, overly deep, irregular.
     
    I also have rather anecdotal experiences of the same kind. If this is gloabally true than we should avoid creating tools that mimic the way we think. Did you find the same aspect in your research?
     
    Gil
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Simon Buckingham Shum [mailto:sbs@acm.org]
    Sent: jeudi, 13. septembre 2001 21:33
    To: unrev-II@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: RE: [unrev-II] Semantic Community Web Portal (Formality Harmful)
    Hi,

    Just browsing threads in a rare free moment!

    At 11:00 AM +0200 9/10/01, Gil Regev wrote:
    This discussion reminds me of the paper by Shipman and Marshall called "Formality Considered harmful". They show how and why people don't take this extra step of documenting code, structuring their discussions with IBIS (which the explicitly name) etc. It's not a long paper and is easy to read. You can get it at: http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/~shipman/formality-paper/harmful.html
    This is a great paper to point structuralist metadata and AI people to(!), highlighting the reluctance that normal people have to structure their interactions and ideas explicitly unless they can really see the payoff. From my own work on the formalism cost-benefit tradeoff (including empirical studies of designers using QOC, a Xerox version of IBIS, and a major lit. review [1]), there's definitely a fine line to negotiate on this front.

    Refusing to accept wholesale Shipman and Marshall's rejection of formalisms for knowledge work - but maintaining a healthy scepticism! - more recent work suggests that with facilitation, people can learn to do it in real time, and reap benefits in f-f meetings [2]. But there is no silver bullet - useful real time knowledge capture (ie. not just pressing record on the video) doesn't come for free. Intellectual effort must be invested at some point in the capture/indexing lifecycle.

    Using IBIS to structure asynchronous interaction doesn't have the same real time constraints on capture, and may be more fruitful, though again, unclear if people will bother in the end, and whether they'll use the node types consistently. The problem with boxes is they have walls... an Issue may appear as an Argument, a Position as an Issue, etc etc

    cheers,

    Simon

    [1] Buckingham Shum, S. and N. Hammond (1994). "Argumentation-Based Design Rationale: What Use at What Cost?" International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 40(4): 603-652. (Reprint available on request)

    [2] Conklin, J., A. Selvin, et al. (2001). Facilitated Hypertext for Collective Sensemaking: 15 Years on from gIBIS. Proc. ACM Hypertext 2001, Aug. 14-18, Århrus, Denmark, ACM Press: New York. (Short paper, based on a longer paper: http://kmi.open.ac.uk/sbs/docs/Compendium2001.pdf)

    Also:

    Buckingham Shum, S. and A. M. Selvin (2000). Structuring Discourse for Collective Interpretation. Distributed Collective Practices 2000: Conference on Collective Cognition and Memory Practices, Paris, 19-20 Sept., 2000. http://kmi.open.ac.uk/tr/abstracts/kmi-tr-98.html

    Computer-Supported Collaborative Argumentation Resource Site: http://kmi.open.ac.uk/sbs/csca/



    Community email addresses:
      Post message: unrev-II@onelist.com
      Subscribe:    unrev-II-subscribe@onelist.com
      Unsubscribe:  unrev-II-unsubscribe@onelist.com
      List owner:   unrev-II-owner@onelist.com

    Shortcut URL to this page:
      http://www.onelist.com/community/unrev-II

    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.


    Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
    36b33f7.jpg 
    36b3456.jpg

    Community email addresses:
      Post message: unrev-II@onelist.com
      Subscribe:    unrev-II-subscribe@onelist.com
      Unsubscribe:  unrev-II-unsubscribe@onelist.com
      List owner:   unrev-II-owner@onelist.com

    Shortcut URL to this page:
      http://www.onelist.com/community/unrev-II

    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

    Yahoo! Groups Sponsor

    Community email addresses:
      Post message: unrev-II@onelist.com
      Subscribe:    unrev-II-subscribe@onelist.com
      Unsubscribe:  unrev-II-unsubscribe@onelist.com
      List owner:   unrev-II-owner@onelist.com

    Shortcut URL to this page:
      http://www.onelist.com/community/unrev-II

    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
    36b33f7.jpg
    36b3456.jpg

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0.0 : Sat Sep 15 2001 - 12:47:03 PDT