Re: Groups as social entities Re: data.fm / rww.io

On 22 Jul 2014, at 1:16 am, Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org> wrote:

> Ooops an apparently unsent mail
> 
> On 2014-07 -13, at 06:24, Tim Holborn <timothy.holborn@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Andrei,
>> 
>> I’ve started testing / using rww.io with cimba[1], for creating weblogs essentially…  
>> 
>> I was wondering whether you’ve got any suggestions around creating data spaces for projects, rather than persons.  So; say - i want to create a weblog / microblog listing rww apps (webized apps?).  
>> 
>> Channel structure is currently;
>> 
>> Identity: > Channel. 
>> 
>> Say the identity isn’t a legal entity but rather a project - so, the WebID relates to a DOAP[2] profile? 
>> 
>> Have you got any thoughts about how something like - http://rwwapps.rww.io/ could be created, that then associates to different WebID’s (i.e. deiu, melvin, etc.) , for the purpose of allowing ‘wiki’ like functionality?   Meaning - a bunch of contributors could add / append content - perhaps an administrator could remove content?  Have you got any example TTL that would do it?
> 
> This is an interesting an important requirement, and associated with it some interesting design decisions..
> 
> One model  -- Individual Ownership -- is that
> 
> - Everything has to be owned at core by one person (or legal entity -- something which can have a credit card).
> - The owner creates the blog, declaring it to be about the DOAP project
> - The owner allocates permissions to others, including groups, such as any developer of the project.
> - The owner can transfer ownership 
> This is like unix file system in which files are owned by users.
> This basically leverages the existing world's view of what a social entity is.
> 
> Another model is say -- Lightweight Organization -- that you can create lightweight  groups which have their own right to create things. This is like a Github or an IRC channel.
> 
> - Any social entity can create a new group
> - The creator can give others membership and any level of rights
> - Once the group is created, power is shared between the members
> - The original creator can lose privileges and leave the etc, they are not key to its survival.
> 
> Maybe we should build both.
> 
+1 

- Does this mean it’s got a server-side AUTH that links to a (multitude of) WebID-TLS Certificate of an individual? 
- I imagine “the Organisation Ontology” ( http://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-org/ ) being the VOCAB?
- What VOCAB would be used for the collaborative development of ‘things’?  Perhaps - reading your process - the ‘thing’ is treated by a DOAP project for an organisation, for the purpose of VOCAB?

Here’s a few use-cases (and related considerations) which i think support the need for ‘lightweight organizations'.

USE-CASE 1: Voting on W3C WebPayments UseCases

- WebPayments = Group
- Attached WebID’s of Contributors
- Admin posts use-Cases
- Contributors Vote / Comment.

USE CASE 2: WebCivics 
I’ve started building out a community engagement strategy / organisation (‘Web Civics’). I’m back in Melbourne (rather than being in the country), going to local networking events.  I’ve found their is alot of interest, yet people are simply not aware of the basics - let alone provided the opportunity to participate and consider some of the more sophisticated concepts / problems, as the design process continues. I’ve also found that W3C Group members are often not aware of RWW, or have used it.

With the WebCivics initiative - I hope to engage communities, support / facilitate events, networking functions (inc.  international Skype / webcasts) and support the development of rww.io / data.fm and compatible applications, in a similar way to how The ODI[1] supports the dev. of ’stuff’… Whilst their are other options - I feel that the server footprint of rww.io / data.fm lends itself to use on existing ’shared hosting’ (like) services more easily than the alternatives i’m aware of / have used.  The concept of a knowledge industry is great - but if the platform storing a persons ‘knowledge capital’ is not standards based, open source, etc. institutional fragmentation (SNS Silos) may certainly be a better approach, and to protect from that it seems imperative that these systems use W3C Standards and ‘Free software’, as to support the interests of users..  

Through research i’ve found that (some/many) universities still principally teach Relational DBs; RDF is considered a ‘specialised field’, ‘semantics’  is related to HTML5 Elements; and, the road to community engagement ‘starts’ at supporting the introduction of RDF / RWW, so that in-time, web/product developers and other participants see Cimba[2] or React FOAF [3] and decide they can make a much better application - then go about doing so.  

Meanwhile the same forum, having used the technology, can greatly benefit whilst considering broader organisational consequences they may influence, as agents, in relation to the use of linked-data.

With regard to ‘Web Civics’, organisationally; even as i pursue designing an organisation that is membership based, NFP, enabling a committee and voting system (rather than considering a shareholder based incorporated entity); subgroups / interest groups are still stakeholders for their own projects, of which a method of managing those projects and providing acknowledgement for different forms of contributions, requires both the concept of an individual. 

In relation to the functional aspects to deployment; Using Wordpress is easy for a blog.  A thing called ‘nationbuilder.com’ is great for campaign / SNS (social network silo) integration, and setting-up / supporting RWW.io / Data.fm (including an increase to the data-limit from 10MB to more..) would all help development, at this early stage, alongside lowing the costs whilst improving opportunities for early-adopters interested in ‘hacking’ something together to ‘see what happens’...

USE-CASE 3: WebCredits (evolving Taskify [4]) 
Melvin’s WebCredits systems (with a bit of additional DEV / more resources) could be used to track contributions to a project by issuing ‘web credits; between WebID's.  The way i’ve imagined a use-case, is that a product takes a variety of people time / skills, contributing in an array of different ways. Each submission of accepted work may attribute points.  When a project reaches a milestone (perhaps as defined by the group) these points may be accumulatively considered 100% of activity on the project, derived via various forms of contribution or 'approved activities’ (meaning approved within the group).  A New milestone begins, perhaps the scope of the former work becomes a smaller percentage of the overall project body of work - contributors in the new milestone contribute, when complete perhaps some calculation is made about % between Milestone 1 + 2 = bucket dispersal calcs.  Perhaps later, only support people are ‘working’ on the project, but the project has gained critical mass and say - something like advertising revenue alone - far outstrips the revenue generated, from people donating to the bucket when the heavy lifting was done in the first place. 

This type of situation occurs often when ‘innovators’ make-stuff.   In theory, these technologies can reward good initial work, long-after these most meaningful contributions were made - subject to the requests of each author, license type (i.e.: cc licenses might be non-commercial with some sort of ‘web-payments’ offer statement for commercial use…), defined on a case-by-case basis i’d imagine. 

Similarly; the loss of items in a product element (say, graphics or CSS), may or may not disregard their contribution, in terms of recognition, for later iterations. 

USE-CASE 4: Heritage
One person might provide a heritage asset, another person might scan it - and an array of people might contribute towards the linked-data associated to the object.  In-turn, this data may be updated gradually becoming more accurate, etc. 

USE-CASE 5: New Projects
If i get a bunch of new people in a room - do that start-up ‘pairing’ thing - (where people with complimentary skills agree to work together) it doesn’t make sense that one person gets issued the certificate.  It makes more sense, that akin to some of the arbitration systems in bit-coin, or loosely coupled identifiers (such as an email address and/or github account) and other fields - an organisation might assist with ‘keeping people honest’, should a dispute arise.

OVERALL
Successful Projects can certainly live longer than their creators (i.e. lightbulbs, WWW, Internet Protocol, etc.) or the period of time the creator spent in developing that initial object or is subject to further innovation (i.e. internal combustion engines, MS/Bill Gates, retirement, etc.), contribution of knowledge is still in-effect ‘appended’, or ‘forked’ from the original concept - or perhaps mixed; therein supporting the on-going innovation cycle which may go through different iterations that are more succinct with different contributed concepts, throughout any given lifecycle of a project / product.  I imagine this to be less like ‘cut/copy/paste’ and more like PUSH/FORK or HTTPA concepts. 

This is similar to the human rights concepts surrounding children.  People have children, but the children are not their possessions - rather, they become parents and/or guardians, carers.  The idea is to assist the child in growing to his / her fullest potential, so that as an adult - they’ll be able to make the most meaningful contributions to society they possibly can, given the opportunities provided to them - as children. 

An incorporated legal entity, is not a natural legal entity.  Incorporated legal entities (or products, projects, etc.) are not an extension of a person - they are a separate “person" in the eyes of the law - which, unlike a natural legal entity, is relatively made responsible not on its own merit - but rather in relation to the actions of its associated natural legal entities, provided roles, responsibilities, capacities, etc.

Whilst projects do not have a similar level of recognition in the eyes of the law, as an incorporated legal entity - in fact perhaps they’re both digitally similar.  They don’t actually exist, their assets exist, but the incorporated entity only really exists by organised references - not ‘being’[5] - perhaps simply as enacted via implicit / explicit agreements of persons to act as agents for such entities, as without agents these entities would functionally cease to exist.

Hypothesis: Trust models centre upon individuals (persons). Accountability models are be functionally broader, as required to consider organised (agents) (or Chaos theory related?) decision making practices and/or influences, which in-turn provides the capacity to have a viable (or fit for purpose) trust-model..  

TimH.

[1] http://theodi.org/about-us
[2] https://github.com/linkeddata/cimba
[3] https://github.com/read-write-web/react-foaf
[4] http://taskify.org/
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being
> 
> 
>> 
>> Perhaps therein; If an App is required to do it, perhaps some mechanism around sending ‘approve/deny’ messages to listed ‘stakeholders’ - beyond the scope of the original question…  I’m just not sure if their is a practical way rww.io / data.fm is being used in this way already…. 
>> 
>> Cheers.
>> 
>> Tim.H.
>> 
>> [1] http://cimba.co/
>> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOAP
>