Fellow Renderers,
This is my offer and proposal for a Radiance wiki:
With your collective approval, and if enough Radiance users pledge to contribute to a Radiance wiki (i.e., coauthor, manage, and/or otherwise create, edit, and maintain pages and entries), I will offer my services to register a domain name, pay for the hosting, and setup the wiki server.
(Also, I would be content if someone or everyone would prefer to appoint someone other than myself for such an initiative.)
Sincerely,
Chris
Hi Chris,
I was about to respond to your earlier emails when this proposal came in. Thanks for your generous offer, first of all. Here's the thing: this has been tried and done before. Search the archives for radiance-general (which has stood the test of time and the ebb and flow of federal funding, BTW) and you will find initiatives started up, going all the way back to the very first Radiance Workshop in 2002. Collaborative efforts never got off the ground, and it's not for lack of someone offering to register a domain name and host the thing. People move, change jobs (careers, even), funding comes and goes, people get funny about ownership and distribution, and here's the big one: Radiance itself changes. The fact that Radiance continues to evolve and remain a high quality, well-documented bit of software is friggin' amazing to me, particularly in light of the fact that it's largely the product of one dude. But evolve it has (and does), and as it does the rules change. In response, the Radiance community takes up the new stuff (and new folks take up the old stuff), and we all document our successes and failures in various ways. There are papers, web pages, tutorials, resurrected out-of-print textbooks (thanks Fritz), all over the web, most of which are linked in some form or fashion from the radiance-general archives. And, as ever, there are the release notes, manpages, and the source code.
Efforts are underway to make some energy modeling wikis, and some of these efforts are budgeted thousands of dollars, and they still suck, to be honest with you. I think the Radiance community does a great job on a largely volunteer basis producing what it does. The effort of maintaining a wiki, while noble, seems like just more administrative work for not a lot of benefit. The stuff is out there, and when things disappear, its usually for a good reason and when it's just someone pulled the plug on their website or whatever, these things can be found by coming to this listserv.
I'm probably sounding like a dick right now, but all I'm trying to say is that your time would be better spent creating your own list of links and HOWTOs and adding it to the constellation of other stuff that's already out there. Again, I for one appreciate your enthusiasm and generosity. I just think that the Radiance wiki has been tried before. In fact, you might want to ping Andy McNeil because he was in the process of trying to add such a beast to the radiance-online.org site. Maybe it's an idea whose time has come, and I AM just a dick. Who knows?
- Googs
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Kallie [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2014 9:54 AM
To: Radiance general discussion
Subject: [Radiance-general] Radiance wiki proposal
Fellow Renderers,
This is my offer and proposal for a Radiance wiki:
With your collective approval, and if enough Radiance users pledge to contribute to a Radiance wiki (i.e., coauthor, manage, and/or otherwise create, edit, and maintain pages and entries), I will offer my services to register a domain name, pay for the hosting, and setup the wiki server.
(Also, I would be content if someone or everyone would prefer to appoint someone other than myself for such an initiative.)
Sincerely,
Chris
_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
Hi Chris, Rob,
radiance-online.org is set up as a community website for anyone to add and
edit content. Danny and I are the only ones to have done anything, but
that's not the intent. It's not quite a wiki because we feel it needs a bit
more editorial oversight to remain relevant and accurate, but anyone can
contribute regardless. Anyone should feel welcome to register, send me an
email, and I'll promote you to author.
I also won't get in the way of, and may even contribute to, another wiki
attempt. But i'd ague that an FAQ is more necessary.
Andy
On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Guglielmetti, Robert < [email protected]> wrote:
Hi Chris,
I was about to respond to your earlier emails when this proposal came in.
Thanks for your generous offer, first of all. Here's the thing: this has
been tried and done before. Search the archives for radiance-general (which
has stood the test of time and the ebb and flow of federal funding, BTW)
and you will find initiatives started up, going all the way back to the
very first Radiance Workshop in 2002. Collaborative efforts never got off
the ground, and it's not for lack of someone offering to register a domain
name and host the thing. People move, change jobs (careers, even), funding
comes and goes, people get funny about ownership and distribution, and
here's the big one: Radiance itself changes. The fact that Radiance
continues to evolve and remain a high quality, well-documented bit of
software is friggin' amazing to me, particularly in light of the fact that
it's largely the product of one dude. But evolve it has (and does), and as
it does the rules change. In response, the Radiance community takes up the
new stuff (and new folks take up the old stuff), and we all document our
successes and failures in various ways. There are papers, web pages,
tutorials, resurrected out-of-print textbooks (thanks Fritz), all over the
web, most of which are linked in some form or fashion from the
radiance-general archives. And, as ever, there are the release notes,
manpages, and the source code.Efforts are underway to make some energy modeling wikis, and some of these
efforts are budgeted thousands of dollars, and they still suck, to be
honest with you. I think the Radiance community does a great job on a
largely volunteer basis producing what it does. The effort of maintaining a
wiki, while noble, seems like just more administrative work for not a lot
of benefit. The stuff is out there, and when things disappear, its usually
for a good reason and when it's just someone pulled the plug on their
website or whatever, these things can be found by coming to this listserv.I'm probably sounding like a dick right now, but all I'm trying to say is
that your time would be better spent creating your own list of links and
HOWTOs and adding it to the constellation of other stuff that's already out
there. Again, I for one appreciate your enthusiasm and generosity. I just
think that the Radiance wiki has been tried before. In fact, you might want
to ping Andy McNeil because he was in the process of trying to add such a
beast to the radiance-online.org site. Maybe it's an idea whose time has
come, and I AM just a dick. Who knows?- Googs
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Kallie [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2014 9:54 AM
To: Radiance general discussion
Subject: [Radiance-general] Radiance wiki proposalFellow Renderers,
This is my offer and proposal for a Radiance wiki:
With your collective approval, and if enough Radiance users pledge to
contribute to a Radiance wiki (i.e., coauthor, manage, and/or otherwise
create, edit, and maintain pages and entries), I will offer my services to
register a domain name, pay for the hosting, and setup the wiki server.(Also, I would be content if someone or everyone would prefer to appoint
someone other than myself for such an initiative.)Sincerely,
Chris_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
A hearty "second" to Andy's motion for a Radiance FAQ. As someone who is frequently re-answering questions that have already been asked (but I've forgotten I answered them already), this would be my top priority as well. Someone knowledgeable would have to dig through the archives and pull out the interesting questions, and I'm not the best person for that. There are also the old-old archives that should be mined for still-relevant information, and these are better organized and therefore easier to delve into:
Cheers,
-Greg
From: Andrew McNeil <[email protected]>
Date: February 5, 2014 11:04:46 AM PSTHi Chris, Rob,
radiance-online.org is set up as a community website for anyone to add and edit content. Danny and I are the only ones to have done anything, but that's not the intent. It's not quite a wiki because we feel it needs a bit more editorial oversight to remain relevant and accurate, but anyone can contribute regardless. Anyone should feel welcome to register, send me an email, and I'll promote you to author.
I also won't get in the way of, and may even contribute to, another wiki attempt. But i'd ague that an FAQ is more necessary.
Andy
Dear 'Googs', Fellow Renderers,
Thank you for your thoughtful response. Wikis do not take much money to run (far less than $50.00 per year), and they certainly do not (or should not) have any realized (or sense of) personal ownership. The information is collectively owned by the community of Radiance users, its contributors, and the public who pay for it. Admittedly, taxpayer money handlers, administrators, and other bureaucracies are perhaps involved in certain aspects of Radiance and its software; however, the information can and should be freely accessible—a state that is not as transparent or fully realized as the insiders and professionals of the Radiance community might believe or project onto the public.
Admittedly, many wikis fail, although many (i.e., all currently existing) wikis succeed, which is why I showed two successful, active, and useful wikis of sufficiently divergent topics and obscurity to make my earlier point. In addition to Wikipedia.org, there are countless wikis that are supported by communities of the same size as the Radiance community (in other words, we have critical mass, but still need critical collective exertion/belief/effort, etc..) If Radiance were born today, there would be no question as to whether or not to inform the community with a wiki. In fact, I can't think of any other serious software besides Radiance that doesn't have an active wiki where faq's, tutorials, and examples are shared and edited by the community...what does that say about our current situation?
Most of your arguments, from my perspective, are actually in favor of having what I would call decentralized content. Clones, backups, redundancy, historical tracking, and forking (if and whenever necessary) are just a few of the advantages of wiki content, which is naturally fully capable of supporting fast-changing and evolving topics such as Radiance. In fact, wikis are better at this than the current web/email/gatekeeper/server/owner models. The content should be shared, copied, archived, cloned, and forked as the evolution of the software and its users (USERS, are not exclusive to paid professionals and developers) deem sufficient and/or necessary. It is just a matter of time before a wiki is realized by current or future Radiance users—the relevant questions are: how much time will it take; who (if anyone) has to retire, step aside or be ignored; and who will be brave enough to champion the inevitable: a completely shared, open, free, nonlinear, user-based Radiance community?
The problem with naysayers is that they either fundamentally misunderstand or loathe the concept realized by Wikipeida and its clones. Bureaucratic entities are horrible at sharing information (because they want to, or must, control it), which may be part of the reason for why it is presently so darn hard for folks to freely learn and use Radiance. Perhaps this is an anticipated or desired effect, but fundamentally Radiance is fantastically simple to understand and use, once you figure out how to get a book, find a mentor, or otherwise get a handle on the current instructional tools. The current problem and reason why the Radiance community is not larger is because the teaching methods are outdated and obscure. Better methods of communication have been around since the birth of Wikipedia. Furthermore, the radiance-general mailing list is not as intuitive and easy to use for beginners as it might appear to someone who has been in the business since the very first Radiance workshop. And when (the linear and clumsy) radince-online server shuts down, who is going to pick up the pieces and carry on the legacy past our current generation? Probably Google, which is the only real way to access (read as: stumble upon) radiance-online content. Wikis are for all levels of users, including beginners and advanced, who will eventually be responsible for the software and community's future. Newsflash: you can't make money writing content for using Radiance. So, why not make it free, freely available, freely editable, and freely distributable? I urge anyone to think hard about this question before submitting a pseudo-philosophical answer.
As I noted in my earlier email, I am interested in hearing from positive responders (e.g., the thoughtful and defiant students who value the points that I am trying to communicate in this thread, the artists who want to share and inspire their work, the scientists and mentors who want to advance our collective knowledge—in a freely open and fully-peer-supported fashion). I am represented in all of those descriptions, and I imagine or hope that there are many like me. Let's get together and compare notes, publicly or privately. The professional naysayers, administers, gatekeepers, and content owners might best serve the public by simply listening to (or ignoring) this thread, short or long as it may be...
Sincerely,
Chris
On 2/5/14 12:26 PM, Guglielmetti, Robert wrote:
Hi Chris,
I was about to respond to your earlier emails when this proposal came in. Thanks for your generous offer, first of all. Here's the thing: this has been tried and done before. Search the archives for radiance-general (which has stood the test of time and the ebb and flow of federal funding, BTW) and you will find initiatives started up, going all the way back to the very first Radiance Workshop in 2002. Collaborative efforts never got off the ground, and it's not for lack of someone offering to register a domain name and host the thing. People move, change jobs (careers, even), funding comes and goes, people get funny about ownership and distribution, and here's the big one: Radiance itself changes. The fact that Radiance continues to evolve and remain a high quality, well-documented bit of software is friggin' amazing to me, particularly in light of the fact that it's largely the product of one dude. But evolve it has (and does), and as it does the rules change. In response, the Radiance community takes up the new stuff (and new folks take up the old stuff), and we all document our successes and failures in various ways. There are papers, web pages, tutorials, resurrected out-of-print textbooks (thanks Fritz), all over the web, most of which are linked in some form or fashion from the radiance-general archives. And, as ever, there are the release notes, manpages, and the source code.
Efforts are underway to make some energy modeling wikis, and some of these efforts are budgeted thousands of dollars, and they still suck, to be honest with you. I think the Radiance community does a great job on a largely volunteer basis producing what it does. The effort of maintaining a wiki, while noble, seems like just more administrative work for not a lot of benefit. The stuff is out there, and when things disappear, its usually for a good reason and when it's just someone pulled the plug on their website or whatever, these things can be found by coming to this listserv.
I'm probably sounding like a dick right now, but all I'm trying to say is that your time would be better spent creating your own list of links and HOWTOs and adding it to the constellation of other stuff that's already out there. Again, I for one appreciate your enthusiasm and generosity. I just think that the Radiance wiki has been tried before. In fact, you might want to ping Andy McNeil because he was in the process of trying to add such a beast to the radiance-online.org site. Maybe it's an idea whose time has come, and I AM just a dick. Who knows?
- Googs
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Kallie [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2014 9:54 AM
To: Radiance general discussion
Subject: [Radiance-general] Radiance wiki proposalFellow Renderers,
This is my offer and proposal for a Radiance wiki:
With your collective approval, and if enough Radiance users pledge to contribute to a Radiance wiki (i.e., coauthor, manage, and/or otherwise create, edit, and maintain pages and entries), I will offer my services to register a domain name, pay for the hosting, and setup the wiki server.
(Also, I would be content if someone or everyone would prefer to appoint someone other than myself for such an initiative.)
Sincerely,
Chris_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
Hi,
as I second that a FAQ would be really useful, a short comment. I am among the many who brought up that idea here and than. The infrastructure is rather easy to set up. I did with a CMS (Drupal), a FAQ template to fill, some useful tools such as a TeX interpreter to enable writing math into the FAQ. It works well. Pitfalls are others:
1) spammer - even with spam protection, a site without content review gets filled with spam easily - captchas do not entirely filter out this
2) the volume of the knowledge around - compiling a list with only the top 20 Q&As is a lot of work if you want to be accurate (e.g. trans definition...), and than - chances to find a solution to my specific question are still higher using the search engine of the mailing list archive
3) maintenance - the archives have recorded decades of discussions in a quite complete approach, who can commit to capture just, say, the next five years
So I think it would be useful, I did not even give up my futile attempt, but learned that given my limited time budget it will take me a year just to complete the top ten Q&As...
Cheers, Lars.
Thank you Andy and Greg,
Please do consider the points I've raised in the last email, and let's hope that the community makes an effort to upload content. I am willing to partake in the organization and uploading of portions of the radiance-online content, but a plan of action would be a good first task.
Also, there are numerous ways to set up a wiki. I personally like the homepage of http://wiki.blender.org/ and was able to teach myself everything I needed to learn through their intuitive structure. The software is provided freely by: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki --I'm not an advocate of any particular wiki distro, but some just work better and look prettier than others.
Thanks to all!
Chris
On 2/5/14 2:18 PM, Greg Ward wrote:
A hearty "second" to Andy's motion for a Radiance FAQ. As someone who is frequently re-answering questions that have already been asked (but I've forgotten I answered them already), this would be my top priority as well. Someone knowledgeable would have to dig through the archives and pull out the interesting questions, and I'm not the best person for that. There are also the old-old archives that should be mined for still-relevant information, and these are better organized and therefore easier to delve into:
Cheers,
-Greg*From: *Andrew McNeil <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
*Date: *February 5, 2014 11:04:46 AM PST
*
Hi Chris, Rob,
radiance-online.org <http://radiance-online.org> is set up as a community website for anyone to add and edit content. Danny and I are the only ones to have done anything, but that's not the intent. It's not quite a wiki because we feel it needs a bit more editorial oversight to remain relevant and accurate, but anyone can contribute regardless. Anyone should feel welcome to register, send me an email, and I'll promote you to author.
I also won't get in the way of, and may even contribute to, another wiki attempt. But i'd ague that an FAQ is more necessary.
Andy
_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
Francesco's Radiance Wiki is here:
http://www.bozzograo.net/radiancewiki/doku.php
At one point, there was also a Radiance Documentation Project, but the URL seems to time out:
http://radiance.free-architecture.org/
Also, the digest that Greg used to send out in the early days was superb. Not sure many people are aware of it:
http://www.radiance-online.org/archived/radsite/radiance/digests_html/rad_dig_HOME.html
Call to arms (2006) is here:
http://radiance-online.org/community/workshops/2006-leicester/Presentations/AxelJacobs.pdf
Feel free to skip to page 20 if you don't care about open source licenses.
I am hoping that this time 'round, we'll get more volunteers.
Best
Axel
On 05/02/14 20:17, Lars O. Grobe wrote:
Hi,
as I second that a FAQ would be really useful, a short comment. I am among the many who brought up that idea here and than. The infrastructure is rather easy to set up. I did with a CMS (Drupal), a FAQ template to fill, some useful tools such as a TeX interpreter to enable writing math into the FAQ. It works well. Pitfalls are others:
1) spammer - even with spam protection, a site without content review gets filled with spam easily - captchas do not entirely filter out this
2) the volume of the knowledge around - compiling a list with only the top 20 Q&As is a lot of work if you want to be accurate (e.g. trans definition...), and than - chances to find a solution to my specific question are still higher using the search engine of the mailing list archive
3) maintenance - the archives have recorded decades of discussions in a quite complete approach, who can commit to capture just, say, the next five years
So I think it would be useful, I did not even give up my futile attempt, but learned that given my limited time budget it will take me a year just to complete the top ten Q&As...
Cheers, Lars.
_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
Chris,
Sorry if some of us appear to be cynical, but I thinly you're off the mark
dismissing those with less enthusiasm as naysayers who "fundamentally
misunderstand or loathe the concept" of wikis. I think I can speak for
everyone when I say that we would love for there to be the level of
documentation you propose. Unfortunately funding for documentation isn't
available, so it is generally a personal time activity.
As Rob pointed out (who, by the way, has been instrumental in making
Radiance available to Windows users and deserves all of our gratitude)
setting up and hosting a wiki isn't much of a hurdle, so a pledge to do
that isn't all that meaningful. Instead, a pledge to spend 200 hours this
year creating content for a wiki is substantially more meaningful, and
would likely be met with more enthusiasm.
As Axel pointed out in his 2006 presentation, most of the work of wiki
documentation is done by 1% of the users. It's nice to think if you build
it they will come, but unfortunately that has been demonstrated false (at
least for this community) and we'll need to do more than just "hope that
the community makes an effort to upload content."
Ultimately, the challenge you'll face in starting a successful wiki is
getting buy-in from a broad base of users and motivating 1% of the Radiance
community to contribute substantial time adding content. Unfortunately, I
think you'll have to rely heavily on the people you deem naysayers, because
they are the ones who have been in the community the longest. Your appeal
to the students in the community to do the heavy lifting seems misguided,
we spend significant time helping some students with their problems only to
never hear from them again after their dissertation is completed, so I
don't think they share your motivation.
Here's my 2 cents on what will make your efforts a success:
1 - Make a more meaningful pledge towards creating a wiki rich with content
2 - Proactively seek buy-in and support from everyone within the Radiance
community (not dismiss people with less enthusiasm as naysayers).
3 - Work tirelessly to deliver content. Unfortunately you'll probably be
working alone at first.
If you decide to proceed by pledging a substantial amount of your time to
add content, I will pledge 40 hours of my personal time this summer to add
content.
Good luck and godspeed my friend,
Andy
On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Chris Kallie <[email protected]> wrote:
Thank you Andy and Greg,
Please do consider the points I've raised in the last email, and let's
hope that the community makes an effort to upload content. I am willing to
partake in the organization and uploading of portions of the
radiance-online content, but a plan of action would be a good first task.Also, there are numerous ways to set up a wiki. I personally like the
homepage of http://wiki.blender.org/ and was able to teach myself
everything I needed to learn through their intuitive structure. The
software is provided freely by: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki--I’m not an advocate of any particular wiki distro, but some just work
better and look prettier than others.Thanks to all!
ChrisOn 2/5/14 2:18 PM, Greg Ward wrote:
A hearty "second" to Andy's motion for a Radiance FAQ. As someone who is
frequently re-answering questions that have already been asked (but I've
forgotten I answered them already), this would be my top priority as well.
Someone knowledgeable would have to dig through the archives and pull out
the interesting questions, and I'm not the best person for that. There are
also the old-old archives that should be mined for still-relevant
information, and these are better organized and therefore easier to delve
into:Cheers,
-Greg*From: *Andrew McNeil <[email protected]>
*Date: *February 5, 2014 11:04:46 AM PST
Hi Chris, Rob,
radiance-online.org is set up as a community website for anyone to add
and edit content. Danny and I are the only ones to have done anything, but
that's not the intent. It's not quite a wiki because we feel it needs a bit
more editorial oversight to remain relevant and accurate, but anyone can
contribute regardless. Anyone should feel welcome to register, send me an
email, and I'll promote you to author.I also won't get in the way of, and may even contribute to, another wiki
attempt. But i'd ague that an FAQ is more necessary.Andy
_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing [email protected]://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
Andy, et al.,
Proposal sounds very good. I pledge 40+ hours before June 21, 2014. Is there a consensus on which wiki site is best?
Thanks to all!
Chris
On 2/5/14 5:51 PM, Andrew McNeil wrote:
Chris,
Sorry if some of us appear to be cynical, but I thinly you're off the mark dismissing those with less enthusiasm as naysayers who "fundamentally misunderstand or loathe the concept" of wikis. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we would love for there to be the level of documentation you propose. Unfortunately funding for documentation isn't available, so it is generally a personal time activity.
As Rob pointed out (who, by the way, has been instrumental in making Radiance available to Windows users and deserves all of our gratitude) setting up and hosting a wiki isn't much of a hurdle, so a pledge to do that isn't all that meaningful. Instead, a pledge to spend 200 hours this year creating content for a wiki is substantially more meaningful, and would likely be met with more enthusiasm.
As Axel pointed out in his 2006 presentation, most of the work of wiki documentation is done by 1% of the users. It's nice to think if you build it they will come, but unfortunately that has been demonstrated false (at least for this community) and we'll need to do more than just "hope that the community makes an effort to upload content."
Ultimately, the challenge you'll face in starting a successful wiki is getting buy-in from a broad base of users and motivating 1% of the Radiance community to contribute substantial time adding content. Unfortunately, I think you'll have to rely heavily on the people you deem naysayers, because they are the ones who have been in the community the longest. Your appeal to the students in the community to do the heavy lifting seems misguided, we spend significant time helping some students with their problems only to never hear from them again after their dissertation is completed, so I don't think they share your motivation.
Here's my 2 cents on what will make your efforts a success:
1 - Make a more meaningful pledge towards creating a wiki rich with content
2 - Proactively seek buy-in and support from everyone within the Radiance community (not dismiss people with less enthusiasm as naysayers).
3 - Work tirelessly to deliver content. Unfortunately you'll probably be working alone at first.If you decide to proceed by pledging a substantial amount of your time to add content, I will pledge 40 hours of my personal time this summer to add content.
Good luck and godspeed my friend,
AndyOn Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Chris Kallie <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Thank you Andy and Greg,
Please do consider the points I've raised in the last email, and
let's hope that the community makes an effort to upload content. I
am willing to partake in the organization and uploading of
portions of the radiance-online content, but a plan of action
would be a good first task.Also, there are numerous ways to set up a wiki. I personally like
the homepage of http://wiki.blender.org/ and was able to teach
myself everything I needed to learn through their intuitive
structure. The software is provided freely by:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki --I'm not an advocate of
any particular wiki distro, but some just work better and look
prettier than others.Thanks to all!
ChrisOn 2/5/14 2:18 PM, Greg Ward wrote:
A hearty "second" to Andy's motion for a Radiance FAQ. As
someone who is frequently re-answering questions that have
already been asked (but I've forgotten I answered them already),
this would be my top priority as well. Someone knowledgeable
would have to dig through the archives and pull out the
interesting questions, and I'm not the best person for that.
There are also the old-old archives that should be mined for
still-relevant information, and these are better organized and
therefore easier to delve into:Cheers,
-Greg*From: *Andrew McNeil <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
*Date: *February 5, 2014 11:04:46 AM PST
*
Hi Chris, Rob,
radiance-online.org <http://radiance-online.org> is set up as a
community website for anyone to add and edit content. Danny and
I are the only ones to have done anything, but that's not the
intent. It's not quite a wiki because we feel it needs a bit
more editorial oversight to remain relevant and accurate, but
anyone can contribute regardless. Anyone should feel welcome to
register, send me an email, and I'll promote you to author.I also won't get in the way of, and may even contribute to,
another wiki attempt. But i'd ague that an FAQ is more necessary.Andy
_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
Awesome! Does anyone else feel the urge to pledge some time to adding
content to a Radiance wiki? Any hour for hour matches? (KQED is having it's
pledge drive this week, so I'm in a pledge drive kinda mood).
Andy
On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 4:55 PM, Chris Kallie <[email protected]> wrote:
Andy, et al.,
Proposal sounds very good. I pledge 40+ hours before June 21, 2014. Is
there a consensus on which wiki site is best?Thanks to all!
ChrisOn 2/5/14 5:51 PM, Andrew McNeil wrote:
Chris,
Sorry if some of us appear to be cynical, but I thinly you're off the mark
dismissing those with less enthusiasm as naysayers who "fundamentally
misunderstand or loathe the concept" of wikis. I think I can speak for
everyone when I say that we would love for there to be the level of
documentation you propose. Unfortunately funding for documentation isn't
available, so it is generally a personal time activity.As Rob pointed out (who, by the way, has been instrumental in making
Radiance available to Windows users and deserves all of our gratitude)
setting up and hosting a wiki isn't much of a hurdle, so a pledge to do
that isn't all that meaningful. Instead, a pledge to spend 200 hours this
year creating content for a wiki is substantially more meaningful, and
would likely be met with more enthusiasm.As Axel pointed out in his 2006 presentation, most of the work of wiki
documentation is done by 1% of the users. It's nice to think if you build
it they will come, but unfortunately that has been demonstrated false (at
least for this community) and we'll need to do more than just "hope that
the community makes an effort to upload content."Ultimately, the challenge you'll face in starting a successful wiki is
getting buy-in from a broad base of users and motivating 1% of the Radiance
community to contribute substantial time adding content. Unfortunately, I
think you'll have to rely heavily on the people you deem naysayers, because
they are the ones who have been in the community the longest. Your appeal
to the students in the community to do the heavy lifting seems misguided,
we spend significant time helping some students with their problems only to
never hear from them again after their dissertation is completed, so I
don't think they share your motivation.Here's my 2 cents on what will make your efforts a success:
1 - Make a more meaningful pledge towards creating a wiki rich with content
2 - Proactively seek buy-in and support from everyone within the Radiance
community (not dismiss people with less enthusiasm as naysayers).
3 - Work tirelessly to deliver content. Unfortunately you'll probably be
working alone at first.If you decide to proceed by pledging a substantial amount of your time
to add content, I will pledge 40 hours of my personal time this summer to
add content.Good luck and godspeed my friend,
AndyOn Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Chris Kallie <[email protected]> wrote:
Thank you Andy and Greg,
Please do consider the points I've raised in the last email, and let's
hope that the community makes an effort to upload content. I am willing to
partake in the organization and uploading of portions of the
radiance-online content, but a plan of action would be a good first task.Also, there are numerous ways to set up a wiki. I personally like the
homepage of http://wiki.blender.org/ and was able to teach myself
everything I needed to learn through their intuitive structure. The
software is provided freely by: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki--I’m not an advocate of any particular wiki distro, but some just work
better and look prettier than others.Thanks to all!
ChrisOn 2/5/14 2:18 PM, Greg Ward wrote:
A hearty "second" to Andy's motion for a Radiance FAQ. As someone who
is frequently re-answering questions that have already been asked (but I've
forgotten I answered them already), this would be my top priority as well.
Someone knowledgeable would have to dig through the archives and pull out
the interesting questions, and I'm not the best person for that. There are
also the old-old archives that should be mined for still-relevant
information, and these are better organized and therefore easier to delve
into:Cheers,
-Greg*From: *Andrew McNeil <[email protected]>
*Date: *February 5, 2014 11:04:46 AM PST
Hi Chris, Rob,
radiance-online.org is set up as a community website for anyone to add
and edit content. Danny and I are the only ones to have done anything, but
that's not the intent. It's not quite a wiki because we feel it needs a bit
more editorial oversight to remain relevant and accurate, but anyone can
contribute regardless. Anyone should feel welcome to register, send me an
email, and I'll promote you to author.I also won't get in the way of, and may even contribute to, another
wiki attempt. But i'd ague that an FAQ is more necessary.Andy
_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing [email protected]://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing [email protected]://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
Just thinking about strategy:
1) start with manpages
2) go through radiance-general, adding content and linking relevant manpage(s)
3) add major topics (installation, tutorials, etc.)
4) go back and fill in blanks, while keeping up with radiance-general (unless realtime updating of wiki can occur with Q&A and software updates).
Question: what, if anything, can be copied verbatim? Inverse question: What needs to be rewritten (code, text, images) to avoid copyright violations? It may be best to initially add placeholders where direct copying is a problem, and content needs to be rewritten.
BTW: I am open to any and all concerns and criticisms, and always glad to be wrong--if someone can propose a solution. Happy to be one of the graduates who gave back to the community, after having written my dissertation...
Thanks again for the advice and opportunity.
Sincerely,
Chris
Chris, Andy et. al.,
Now that this is going to happen here is my 2 cents.
I think everybody agrees that there is already so much really valuable
information in the email list. I have personally found the answer to many
of my questions by reading the emails from the archive but always suffered
from the poor layout. The attachments are missing and in some cases it is
really hard to follow the conversations.
I would be happy to devote some time to develop the code to parse the email
archive and put them in a better format that is easier to follow. I
personally like the layout of Grasshopper discussion pages which is similar
to many other pages on the web. Just a random example: (
http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/window-forms-param-data-binding\)
Any of the options provides an API that let us problematically generate
discussion pages from the current emails?
Mostapha
On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 8:20 PM, Andrew McNeil <[email protected]> wrote:
Awesome! Does anyone else feel the urge to pledge some time to adding
content to a Radiance wiki? Any hour for hour matches? (KQED is having it's
pledge drive this week, so I'm in a pledge drive kinda mood).Andy
On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 4:55 PM, Chris Kallie <[email protected]> wrote:
Andy, et al.,
Proposal sounds very good. I pledge 40+ hours before June 21, 2014. Is
there a consensus on which wiki site is best?Thanks to all!
ChrisOn 2/5/14 5:51 PM, Andrew McNeil wrote:
Chris,
Sorry if some of us appear to be cynical, but I thinly you're off the
mark dismissing those with less enthusiasm as naysayers who "fundamentally
misunderstand or loathe the concept" of wikis. I think I can speak for
everyone when I say that we would love for there to be the level of
documentation you propose. Unfortunately funding for documentation isn't
available, so it is generally a personal time activity.As Rob pointed out (who, by the way, has been instrumental in making
Radiance available to Windows users and deserves all of our gratitude)
setting up and hosting a wiki isn't much of a hurdle, so a pledge to do
that isn't all that meaningful. Instead, a pledge to spend 200 hours this
year creating content for a wiki is substantially more meaningful, and
would likely be met with more enthusiasm.As Axel pointed out in his 2006 presentation, most of the work of wiki
documentation is done by 1% of the users. It's nice to think if you build
it they will come, but unfortunately that has been demonstrated false (at
least for this community) and we'll need to do more than just "hope that
the community makes an effort to upload content."Ultimately, the challenge you'll face in starting a successful wiki is
getting buy-in from a broad base of users and motivating 1% of the Radiance
community to contribute substantial time adding content. Unfortunately, I
think you'll have to rely heavily on the people you deem naysayers, because
they are the ones who have been in the community the longest. Your appeal
to the students in the community to do the heavy lifting seems misguided,
we spend significant time helping some students with their problems only to
never hear from them again after their dissertation is completed, so I
don't think they share your motivation.Here's my 2 cents on what will make your efforts a success:
1 - Make a more meaningful pledge towards creating a wiki rich with
content
2 - Proactively seek buy-in and support from everyone within the Radiance
community (not dismiss people with less enthusiasm as naysayers).
3 - Work tirelessly to deliver content. Unfortunately you'll probably be
working alone at first.If you decide to proceed by pledging a substantial amount of your time
to add content, I will pledge 40 hours of my personal time this summer to
add content.Good luck and godspeed my friend,
AndyOn Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Chris Kallie <[email protected]> wrote:
Thank you Andy and Greg,
Please do consider the points I've raised in the last email, and let's
hope that the community makes an effort to upload content. I am willing to
partake in the organization and uploading of portions of the
radiance-online content, but a plan of action would be a good first task.Also, there are numerous ways to set up a wiki. I personally like the
homepage of http://wiki.blender.org/ and was able to teach myself
everything I needed to learn through their intuitive structure. The
software is provided freely by: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki--I’m not an advocate of any particular wiki distro, but some just work
better and look prettier than others.Thanks to all!
ChrisOn 2/5/14 2:18 PM, Greg Ward wrote:
A hearty "second" to Andy's motion for a Radiance FAQ. As someone who
is frequently re-answering questions that have already been asked (but I've
forgotten I answered them already), this would be my top priority as well.
Someone knowledgeable would have to dig through the archives and pull out
the interesting questions, and I'm not the best person for that. There are
also the old-old archives that should be mined for still-relevant
information, and these are better organized and therefore easier to delve
into:Cheers,
-Greg*From: *Andrew McNeil <[email protected]>
*Date: *February 5, 2014 11:04:46 AM PST
Hi Chris, Rob,
radiance-online.org is set up as a community website for anyone to add
and edit content. Danny and I are the only ones to have done anything, but
that's not the intent. It's not quite a wiki because we feel it needs a bit
more editorial oversight to remain relevant and accurate, but anyone can
contribute regardless. Anyone should feel welcome to register, send me an
email, and I'll promote you to author.I also won't get in the way of, and may even contribute to, another
wiki attempt. But i'd ague that an FAQ is more necessary.Andy
_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing [email protected]://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing [email protected]://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
Mostapha, all,
Parser sounds very helpful, as well as Grasshopper discussion page layout, and pretty much every other suggestion. If the majority agrees, and everyone's had a chance to make suggestions, I will review this thread, follow instructions, and get busy archiving later this month.
Thanks,
Chris
On 2/5/14 8:34 PM, Mostapha Sadeghipour wrote:
Chris, Andy et. al.,
Now that this is going to happen here is my 2 cents.
I think everybody agrees that there is already so much really valuable information in the email list. I have personally found the answer to many of my questions by reading the emails from the archive but always suffered from the poor layout. The attachments are missing and in some cases it is really hard to follow the conversations.
I would be happy to devote some time to develop the code to parse the email archive and put them in a better format that is easier to follow. I personally like the layout of Grasshopper discussion pages which is similar to many other pages on the web. Just a random example: (http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/window-forms-param-data-binding\)
Any of the options provides an API that let us problematically generate discussion pages from the current emails?
Mostapha
On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 8:20 PM, Andrew McNeil <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Awesome! Does anyone else feel the urge to pledge some time to
adding content to a Radiance wiki? Any hour for hour matches?
(KQED is having it's pledge drive this week, so I'm in a pledge
drive kinda mood).Andy
On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 4:55 PM, Chris Kallie <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Andy, et al.,
Proposal sounds very good. I pledge 40+ hours before June 21,
2014. Is there a consensus on which wiki site is best?Thanks to all!
ChrisOn 2/5/14 5:51 PM, Andrew McNeil wrote:
Chris,
Sorry if some of us appear to be cynical, but I thinly you're
off the mark dismissing those with less enthusiasm as
naysayers who "fundamentally misunderstand or loathe the
concept" of wikis. I think I can speak for everyone when I
say that we would love for there to be the level of
documentation you propose. Unfortunately funding for
documentation isn't available, so it is generally a personal
time activity.As Rob pointed out (who, by the way, has been instrumental in
making Radiance available to Windows users and deserves all
of our gratitude) setting up and hosting a wiki isn't much of
a hurdle, so a pledge to do that isn't all that meaningful.
Instead, a pledge to spend 200 hours this year creating
content for a wiki is substantially more meaningful, and
would likely be met with more enthusiasm.As Axel pointed out in his 2006 presentation, most of the
work of wiki documentation is done by 1% of the users. It's
nice to think if you build it they will come, but
unfortunately that has been demonstrated false (at least for
this community) and we'll need to do more than just "hope
that the community makes an effort to upload content."Ultimately, the challenge you'll face in starting a
successful wiki is getting buy-in from a broad base of users
and motivating 1% of the Radiance community to contribute
substantial time adding content. Unfortunately, I think
you'll have to rely heavily on the people you deem naysayers,
because they are the ones who have been in the community the
longest. Your appeal to the students in the community to do
the heavy lifting seems misguided, we spend significant time
helping some students with their problems only to never hear
from them again after their dissertation is completed, so I
don't think they share your motivation.Here's my 2 cents on what will make your efforts a success:
1 - Make a more meaningful pledge towards creating a wiki
rich with content
2 - Proactively seek buy-in and support from everyone within
the Radiance community (not dismiss people with less
enthusiasm as naysayers).
3 - Work tirelessly to deliver content. Unfortunately you'll
probably be working alone at first.If you decide to proceed by pledging a substantial amount of
your time to add content, I will pledge 40 hours of my
personal time this summer to add content.Good luck and godspeed my friend,
AndyOn Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Chris Kallie <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Thank you Andy and Greg,
Please do consider the points I've raised in the last
email, and let's hope that the community makes an effort
to upload content. I am willing to partake in the
organization and uploading of portions of the
radiance-online content, but a plan of action would be a
good first task.Also, there are numerous ways to set up a wiki. I
personally like the homepage of http://wiki.blender.org/
and was able to teach myself everything I needed to learn
through their intuitive structure. The software is
provided freely by:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki --I'm not an
advocate of any particular wiki distro, but some just
work better and look prettier than others.Thanks to all!
ChrisOn 2/5/14 2:18 PM, Greg Ward wrote:
A hearty "second" to Andy's motion for a Radiance FAQ.
As someone who is frequently re-answering questions
that have already been asked (but I've forgotten I
answered them already), this would be my top priority as
well. Someone knowledgeable would have to dig through
the archives and pull out the interesting questions, and
I'm not the best person for that. There are also the
old-old archives that should be mined for still-relevant
information, and these are better organized and
therefore easier to delve into:Cheers,
-Greg*From: *Andrew McNeil <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>*Date: *February 5, 2014 11:04:46 AM PST
*
Hi Chris, Rob,
radiance-online.org <http://radiance-online.org> is set
up as a community website for anyone to add and edit
content. Danny and I are the only ones to have done
anything, but that's not the intent. It's not quite a
wiki because we feel it needs a bit more editorial
oversight to remain relevant and accurate, but anyone
can contribute regardless. Anyone should feel welcome
to register, send me an email, and I'll promote you to
author.I also won't get in the way of, and may even contribute
to, another wiki attempt. But i'd ague that an FAQ is
more necessary.Andy
_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
Regarding manpages, I still have this url bookmarked, but I'm fairly sure these are updated at most on the occasion of major version releases. For example, rtcontrib is listed but not rcontrib.
http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/whatis_comp.html
-----Original Message-----
Just thinking about strategy:
1) start with manpages
____________________________________________________________
Electronic mail messages entering and leaving Arup business
systems are scanned for acceptability of content and viruses
Christoph,
I had similar issue with gendaymtx while ago. I asked Rob about it and he
showed me this link that you can find the updated manual pages:
http://www.radiance-online.org/learning/documentation/manual-pages
Mostapha
On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Christopher Rush <[email protected] > wrote:
Regarding manpages, I still have this url bookmarked, but I'm fairly sure
these are updated at most on the occasion of major version releases. For
example, rtcontrib is listed but not rcontrib.
http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/whatis_comp.html-----Original Message-----
Just thinking about strategy:
1) start with manpages
____________________________________________________________
Electronic mail messages entering and leaving Arup business
systems are scanned for acceptability of content and viruses_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general