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Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 22:56:27 -0600
From: ".alyn.post." <alyn.post@lodockikumazvati.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [lojban] A new Lojbanic wiki (LMW). On the threshold of the 25th
 anniversary of Lojban
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Awesome Lindar, thank you for your replies.

I'd like to outline a problem I have right now and see how much
overlap there is with your ideas for this wiki.

I was recently invited to work on opencog[1].  Specifically I was
asked to modify my parser, jbogenturfa'i[2], to provide Lojban
abstract syntax trees to OpenCog to support the Natural Language
Processing (NLP) research happening there.

I believe that using Lojban for NLP research makes certain classes of
NLP problems go away, allowing you to focus on other potentially more
fruitful classes of problems instead.  The hypothesis is that these
other classes of problems, once explored and perhaps even solved, make
the first class of problems more tractable.
"assert(Lojban == NLP bootstrap)", if you will.

But, to borrow a phrase: 'Some people, when confronted with an NLP
problem, think "I know, I'll use Lojban."  Now they have two
problems.'

It is absolutely pointless to tell a researcher that the utterance:

  ".i ta mo"

creates the abstract syntax tree:

  '(text (I-clause (cmavo (I "i")))
         (paragraphs
           (paragraph
             (sentence
               (term (sumti (KOhA-clause (cmavo (KOhA "ta")))))
               (selbri (GOhA-clause (cmavo (GOhA "mo"))))))))

And expect that to be useful without a lot of additional support.
Stated another way: it is foolish to expect that researches at
OpenCog will spend *more* effort than I have learning Lojban.  They
have science stuff they need to be doing.

If I'm going to succeed in making Lojban part of OpenCog, I need to
provide reference quality context sensitive help for the grammar and
vocabulary so a researcher can make sense of what they're looking at,
above.

This could all be done with mediawiki: I essentially need a grammar
dictionary and grammar reference rolled into one, all linked together
using some templates.  The closest thing we now have to this is:

  http://vlasisku.lojban.org/

And it would be nice to take this essential idea and make it richer:
wrap tutorials, examples, discussion, &c around it.  Possibly like
we do on the Where Are Your Keys? wiki with techniques, which all
have a template describing them:

  template: http://wiki.whereareyourkeys.org/Template:NewTechnique
  example:  http://wiki.whereareyourkeys.org/Set-up  

Is this sort of thing compatible with what you have in mind?  Something
I could use to programatically link parts of a Lojban abstract syntax
tree to pages that answer questions like "WTF is KOhA?"

-Alan

1: http://opencog.org/
2: http://wiki.opencog.org/w/Jbogenturfahi

On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 09:09:46PM -0700, la .lindar. wrote:
>    On Monday, 24 September 2012 19:59:59 UTC-7, .alyn.post. wrote:
> 
>      This is a project I could really find myself getting behind, and I
>      also have some concerns.  Would you, gleki, or someone else involved
>      be willing to discuss them with me?
> 
>    Yaaaaaaay! Enthusiasm!
> 
> 
>       * I'd like to hear at least a basic outline on the theory of why the
>         existing Lojban wiki got to it's current (rubbish?) state and what
>         will be different this time.
> 
>    Abandonment of pages and generally a lack of any articles linking to other
>    articles or any sense of anything linking to anything ever. Have you ever
>    been caught in wiki hell before? I want to see that level of linkage on
>    every wiki page. Also, slightly unrelated, but still awesome, we can make
>    a page for the best-form lujvo and then redirect all possible combinations
>    of rafsi to the best-scoring word (i.e. brodybroda redirects to rodbo'a
>    and fukpyvalsi / fukyvalsi / fukyvla / fu'irvalsi / fukpyvla / etc.
>    redirects to fu'ivla), which may be a boon for using the website as a
>    dictionary tool. It would allow us to include discussion, examples, and
>    more along side the definition of each word.
> 
> 
>       * Sort of to the same point: this community starts far more
>         projects than it finishes.  This impacts the wiki, because a page
>         will get written but then becomes unmaintained and eventually
>         becomes part of the long tail of pages that are out of date but
>         still vaguely relevant.  Is starting this wiki also a commitment
>         to curate it?  Asked another way: is this project different from
>         the other projects that are started but not completed or
>         maintained?
> 
>    Lindar actually gives two shits about it and is currently working on the
>    dictionary project, which I hope will integrate with this. The big reason
>    for MediaWiki of all things is that it lets a dumbshit like me create Wiki
>    pages without having to understand complex concepts like "programming" or
>    "computers", so I can just slap-dash a page together with a pretty picture
>    (I can't embed pictures on tiki pages like on MediaWiki. This is a huge
>    problem for me and one of my biggest complaints.) and call it a day.
> 
> 
>       * Last week I needed the redirect feature of Lojban's tiki software
>         enabled.  I was able to contact Robin on IRC and ask him to enable
>         it, and he did so later than day.  Who is the support person for
>         this wiki?  Any idea of how responsive you'll be?
> 
>    This, unfortunately, cannot be answered by Lindar.
> 
> 
>          * I have several templates that I would like to use on this wiki.
>            They require the Cite and ParserFunctions extensions.  Will the
>            support person add these extensions please?  /me starts timer.
> 
>    Again, not by me. If this remains outside of lojban.org then it's entirely
>    in the hands of the two people that've developed the page so far. Either
>    way, not something with which I can help.
> 
> 
>      Thank you!  I have made a deep investment in mediawiki and use it in
>      every other community I participate in.  I'd love to see [1]lojban.org
>      use this software, but I don't understand why it fixes and/or is
>      better than the current wiki.
> 
>    I hope I've been a help with some of your questions.
>    -Lindar
> 
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> References
> 
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-- 
.i ma'a lo bradi cu penmi gi'e du

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