[Zope-CMF] Collective Organization Aspect

[Kent Polk]

On 10 May 2001 11:10:00 -0500, Ken Manheimer wrote:
>> Collective Organization Aspect as Distinct Object
>> http://cmf.zope.org/Members/klm/OrganizationObjects/view
...
>> I continue to hold the position that standard search list results
>> provide a fairly miserable interrogation framework. It simply isn't
...
> 
> I agree.  Here's my take:
> 
> Searches, links, and structural organization all have their virtues
> for finding information - i would not want to trade one for another.
> With searches, you can find what you're seeking when you know how it
> looks.  With links you can find your way to the explicitly connected
> places.  But living with only links and searches is like living in an
> imaginary world where every room is connected to every other by
> transporters (beam me up scotty).  It lacks neighborhood, topography,
> landscape.  It lacks relatively grouped regions by which you can
> recognize *where you are*.  And i think it is by relative regionality
> that we really get a handle on bodies of information - that we get
> familiar with them.

Exactly. 'Landscapes' syncs with people.  Mapping functions appear
to be our primary tools for developing and examining relationships.

> I'm hoping that we can provide organization objects as a basis for
> building regionality, of whatever sort suits people purposes.  There
> are a few organizations i know i want.
> 
>> What if, instead of implementing a CMF ZWiki, the different,
>> successful components of a ZWiki were made available to all CMF
>> items?
...
> I'm hoping when i surface from a consulting gig pretty soon, now, i'll
> have a moment to put together some proposals.
> 
> I have some other relevant notes in my CMF folder - kent, you were
> part of that conversation, too:
> 
>   http://cmf.zope.org/Members/klm/ReducingImpedence

It's pretty neat when you get to wake to a new world each morning. :^)
(I forgot I had already written that one)

> I see organization objects as being association specialists, with
> different ones for, eg, linking, date ordering, path sequencing, etc -

Not only path sequencing, but tools for arranging and rearranging
relationships. I would really like to see ways to use the Catalogger
to build display objects. For example (again), the idea of tree
displays to handle objects by their meta-data. Perhaps using
something like the CMF Subject list to identify bibliographic topics
that the document corresponds to. Possibly take the search result
objects, build a table of their Subject words, create lists of
branches and leaves, and use the frequency of branches to recursively
build a tree structure with which to view the documents. Then be
able to rearrange the branch catagories to rearrange the tree.
Unfortunately, I haven't come up with a good way to manage the
re-arrangement of categories using html-based forms :^)

One might say that using free-form word constructs wouldn't work
for building frameworks like this, but as long as an interactive
environment is provided to interrogate the display object, and the
keywords can easily be modified (interactive) to fit potential
frameworks, I don't see why it wouldn't work. We perform conceptionally
similar operations routinely.

Again, if you could build generic heirachical relationships purely
from metadata in conjunctions with searches, you might have a pretty
powerful mechanism there, not just for analyzing search results,
but for managing and displaying site material. Again, you wouldn't
have to worry about where the object actually resided in order to
place it into an heirarchichal framework.

> The CommonName spaces would also be federated - collection elements
> may themselves be collections, with the names of encompassing
> collections visible inside the containees, and not vice-versa.

Looks good.

> It's really nice to hear you're thinking in similar directions.  I
> think some of these wiki-style features for all CMF content would
> provide significant benefits for dealing with that content - managing
> it, finding it, and generally living with it...

Automatically :^)