User:Netsettler

Netsettlement
This is the user page for Kent Pitman (a.k.a. Netsettler here on this wiki).

On CFP '08 and Privacy
I've noticed that over the years there has been less emphasis on personal privacy at CFP. For example, in past years, registration forms have sometimes given tight control to the participant about what information would and would not be shown in conference materials or on badges. This year, there was no hint of how the information I gave in my registration would be used.

The notion that in order to sign the online call for papers, I have to make an agreement with Google is also troubling. Google's privacy policy is less than a model of good policy. Just as one of several possible examples of what I had to agree to in order to post on that thread:


 * Google servers automatically record information about your use of the service, such as when you use Blogger and the frequency and size of data transfers. Information displayed or clicked in the Blogger interface (including UI elements, settings, and other information) is also recorded. If you are logged in we may associate that information with your account. --Blogger Privacy Policy

So when participation in the conference (signing the Dear Potus Letter) requires doing this, that makes it a very complicated choice. In the future, I hope the communication will be done on a forum that is more plainly privacy-friendly in order to set a proper example.

On the Use of This Wiki
Following up to viewing last night's debut of the made-for-HBO movie Recount, I was explaining to a family member today that whoever controls the form of a discussion or vote controls its outcome, independent of the democratic-looking process that is erected around it. And I feel that's the case here.

This wiki is presented as a place to converse and collaborate, but it doesn't achieve that. Each of the pages has the shape "This is what we plan to have a conference about." And this particular form does not admit contribution, collaboration, or dissent, since only the conference planners can say what they planned, and no one else is informed to contribute about what had been planned. If pages had instead said "This is a page full of ideas about x." without appearing to have the voice of an individual or group, but instead having the voice of the community, then the community would feel empowered to contribute and evolve the pages.

A case in point is the [|Theses on technology policy] which says that it will track what happened at the conference. That makes it the book report of a particular individual, and does not invite the direct collaborative contribution of all participating. Since there were lots of people carrying around laptops, and many who did not have an opportunity to speak but yet had comments to make, allowing a place for them to write down their thoughts on the topics as they occurred during the conference, so they wouldn't be lost, would have been invaluable and would have properly leveraged the tremendous investment of each participant in taking a week out of their schedule, paying for an expensive conference, paying for hotels, and sitting through meticulous discussions. Instead, the conference offered ephemeral discussions that probably made people feel good, and certainly introduced a lot of people face to face to one another, but risked losing the sense of the moment on a regular basis because it provided no way to reify instantaneous thoughts for later careful study, and so many of the epiphanies of the week were almost surely gone before anyone acted upon them.

Moreover the output of the conference should have been the inputs to the conference. That is, one of the things most missing from public discussion is a paper trail of what people actually said so that people can audit whether the summary is true to the things summarized. In this regard, one good thing that was done was the space allocated to individual tables for the brainstorming sessions on letters to the potus. Documents like Wednesday Evening Results for the Dear Potus letter are examples of good uses of collaboration and the Wiki. There should have been much more of that.

It would have been a wonderful thing if at the end of the conference, this wiki had become a document that was an annotated version of the conference, with remarks inline by participants about what they thought about and worried about and were going to follow up on for each of the items. But the form of this wiki's pages doesn't invite that--it asks you to go to an outboard blog and read a discussion. A discussion is linear in nature and requires reading from end-to-end to form an opinion. A wiki is a summary by nature and allows people to know the detailed state of a particular item without following the whole discussion. The two are not the same and touchy-feely and trendy as the blog format may be, it's really not a good "product form" for a collaborative event.

See additional remarks in my contributions to the the Talk page for Theses on technology policy.

Universal Business Access
I commented in one of the talks on my concern about something I called "Universal Business Access to the Internet". Since there was no place to attach my thoughts usefully in the main pages of the wiki, I made my own article on the topic at the politics page of my own site. I think it's sad there was nowhere to link this up. I actually doubt many people are bothering to browse user pages at this wiki, but I felt I should do something to demonstrate that there was information lost by not having a place to put these things on the main pages. If you have comments, feel free to attach remarks here or to contact me.

CFP, Technology Policy, and Climate Change
I wrote an essay for the YJoLT essay contest. It didn't win. That's ok. Some people do and some people don't. I don't mind not winning. But I do have some commentary about that process.

First, while for purposes of presentation at the conference it was important to just pick some people and allow them the stage, the same cannot be said of the net. The net is "big" and has plenty of room for things. So there was room to do both: filter for purposes of presentation and judging, and yet publish for the purpose of inclusion.

Ideas sometimes start as minority points of view, and I would have loved to see the papers by others who did not win because I was curious what the conference was using as a criterion and what they were omitting as a criterion. This should not be taken to say the conference organizers are bad for what they chose, but rather that it is an inevitable truth that when there is a selection committee, it will exhibit some form of bias and interest. It is a huge responsibility on those people to pick the right things, and in some cases (for example when budgeting) it is necessary to select. But when it is not forced by necessity, the idea of filtering should be made by the end user--do I (or does anyone) want to read a filtered view or an unfiltered view. Each should be able to decide.

I will at some point soon post the technology essay I wrote at my site for those who are interested. It will appear at my politics page.

Additional Comments on the Dear Potus Letter from CFP '08
Please see additional comments at:
 * the Talk page for the Dear Potus letter prototype
 * the Talk page for Theses on technology policy

Suggestions for CFP '09
Here are a few specific suggestions for CFP '09:


 * If you use a wiki, write the pages in a way that encourages collaboration, providing discussion areas for each topic covered at the conference.
 * Consider the issue of collision. Are there wikis that allow better support for multiple people editing at the same time? If two people make a change at the same time, the effects are unpleasant.
 * Link the blogs and the wiki in a more natural way so that people can move between them fluidly. Blogs serve the purpose of discussion but not summary; wikis are better for summary.  Blogs are therefore ok for casual chat but are not a good "output product".
 * Take site navigation seriously. It's very hard to find pages at this wiki. I usually had to resort to search.
 * Integrate the conference program and discussion. Going back and forth between CFP's wiki and the CFP wikia site was subtle and confusing. There may be other technologies (twiki?) that allow people to edit some pages and not others so that you could build an integrated site.
 * Make sure whatever technology is used does not require someone to give up personal information. Using the microsoft blog site appeared to make me sign up for an account in order to post. I did that and then didn't use my account to sign my name, so I don't know if I needed to register. But I resented having to register and having to sign the terms of service that I didn't want to agree to as a price of participation.
 * Why did the badges automatically put people's name and affiliation on them from the registration material? Who I work for is not necessarily who I want to present myself as.  CFP used to be careful about letting me choose my personal presentation at the conference.  I got unwanted questions about my affiliation and wasted valuable conversation time with people asking about something I didn't want to talk about.  My opinion is worthwhile regardless of who employs me.
 * Consider the fact that if CFP, with access to caring professionals, can't get these issues right in a tiny community, then why is it reasonable to ask the government to do it on so much larger a scale. People learn by example, and we should set an example.