Re: Newsletter & Call for Papers WebSci'18

On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 7:25 PM Axel Polleres <axel@polleres.net> wrote:

> Except you miss that Sarven is one of the few people who does put some
> real work into making HTML publishing possible, I would like to add in his
> defence (which is also why I do respect his strategy ;-))
>

I disagree. We did HTML publishing in Web conference series and it barely
worked due to MathML/Latex problem. Dokeli does not address and Sarven
doesn’t even seem to understand problem, as he conflated the requirements
of publishing a blog post with scientific papers. Latex is still far
superior. When he or anyone comes back with something up to par with Latex
for math, then I will take him seriously. Otherwise it’s basically spam for
a project that doesn’t work yet, even if it’s well-intended spam.

I would suggest rather than spamming this list, Sarven work on something
that really solves the problem (i.e. spend some time converting real papers
and datasets over to a web-friendly form) to understand the poribkrm -  and
THEN advertises it rather than being a second-rate ideologue

>
>
> just my two cents,
> Axel
>
> On 21.02.2018, at 09:57, Harry Halpin <hhalpin@ibiblio.org> wrote:
>
> As I have pointed out many times, lack of LaTeX support for math makes
> HTML publishing for scientific papers a non-starter, and people who do not
> believe this is a problem must either not publish much or not publish
> papers with math. Right now cutting-edge is Tex2Html that hasn’t really
> been updated in 10 years. MathML is trying to force a dead XML paradigm and
> has little browser support. So I basically consider it a solvable problem
> that requires real work, but until I see real work I consider Sarven’s
> posts to basically be pointless spam and borderline trolling.
>
> Since I have no desire to see spam in my inbox, I will unsubscribe from
> this mailing list quite shortly likely.
>
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 11:37 AM Sarven Capadisli <info@csarven.ca> wrote:
>
>> Hi Hugh, and everyone.
>>
>> This is a great query, which I'd like to address:
>>
>> On 2018-02-21 11:25, Hugh Glaser wrote:
>> > I am not sure what a public response of this sort to the CFP achieves
>> (rather than a private message to the CFP poster), other than an attempt to
>> publicly shame, which doesn't seem appropriate on the Semantic Web mailing
>> list.
>>
>> The real target of these messages is not you, me, or even the seniors,
>> professors, directors, conference organisers, programme committees, and
>> so on.
>>
>> This is for the *next generation* of researchers and developers who are
>> following along or will hopefully read this up one day. They are the
>> ones who will be the change. We are only setting the stage for them to
>> follow through.
>>
>> Of course I do hope that these ideas and the problems we are dealing
>> with resonate with more people. Hence, a plea for the "seniors" to
>> permit their "junior" colleagues to push forward. To grow their team
>> with a different set of ideals and awareness! Many already have for a
>> long time, and many are making that shift.
>>
>> Neither do I actually expect these conferences/journals that have kept
>> their approach for so long to change overnight. As long as researchers
>> are constrained in how they communicate their knowledge, and how that
>> knowledge can be disseminated, no amount of activism here or elsewhere
>> will change that.
>>
>> The purpose of these threads is purely about creating awareness and
>> building a mental infrastructure.
>>
>> One by-product of all these conversations is the archival and
>> documentation of the state of affairs. The mere existence of this thread
>> shows that we are talking about this stuff, some of us are still
>> concerned about it, some of us are making our little contributions to
>> improve things.
>>
>> I'm thankful for this community and the feedback that I've received. It
>> has indeed help me immensely - in more ways than I can express here - to
>> mature my ideas and join them with the others, as well as the support to
>> continue to pursue my principles. The evolution of these mailing list
>> threads serve as documentation and evaluation. It is not unique to this
>> mailing list; it has been going on over countless mailing lists over
>> several decades. If the ideas at their core are not sound, that would've
>> been clear by now.
>>
>> And regarding the repetitiveness of my responses to CfPs over the years.
>> This is true. I like to keep these issues in peoples' consciousness. I'm
>> troubled by the typical one-way communication that these announcements
>> are made and their effects on the community. There tends to be little
>> discussion about community practices regarding conferences, and the real
>> decisions tend to made by a small circle of people that are content to
>> maintain the status-quo. I'd like to continually remind people to get
>> involved with influencing these processes wherever they can; to keep it
>> on the radar, and remind people that these processes can be questioned.
>>
>> > Yes, Sarven, you are a valued member of the Semantic Web community, and
>> so we are all interested in what you are doing, and this is the list you
>> should be using to share it (that is genuine - there is no irony or sarcasm
>> intended).
>>
>> Thank you. Indeed, scholarly communication *is* precisely what I'm
>> working on. Critiquing assumptions and norms conferences in the
>> [Semantic] Web domain is me sharing my ideas and their evolution with
>> the list. They have matured, and they've had some impact - however
>> small. I am more than happy to take the technical aspects up a notch.
>>
>> As others have pointed out, we can't separate technology from its social
>> implications. The Web is inherently social, as are academic processes,
>> and this mailing list is no exception! Voicing these ideas and prompting
>> others to do so is as important (if not more so) than developing tooling
>> and standards.
>>
>> Thanks once more to all who have continued this discussion with their
>> various perspectives. These are all steps forward.
>>
>> -Sarven
>> http://csarven.ca/#i
>>
>>
>