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Storyteller 2 [NMB Folksonomy]: A Common Memory

The brain learns by making associations and by perceiving patterns and generating rules about them.  The Storyteller 2 web application is envisioned as a networked, learning, collective memory.  This document is a working 'white paper' last updated May 13, 2009.

Purpose
Details
Glossary

Serving the Whole Community

The purpose of developing Storyteller 2 is to: 

Storyteller 2 will be an open-source application developed under the Nimble Framework using the namespace NMBF with the public, working title of ‘Nimble Folksonomy.’  It will be a tool hosted and developed by Warren Wilson College and for the use of the College community but not strictly limited to that community.  Once the program is launched, it will be edited and moderated by the Web Director (and the Network Systems Administrator?).  As the user-base and content-base grow, moderators with limited editorial control will be recruited from among active users.  The Web Crew (and College Archives?) will act in a supporting role as time permits.

 

What is Storyteller 2?

 Storyteller 2 is a common memory.  In its most basic sense, the application will rely on the sharing of individual ‘memories’ that serve to unite participants based on their common experience—thus a common memory refers to a singular instance of memory.  This memory can be a photograph, a story, a video, a sound, or a piece of artwork.  Additionally, Storyteller 2 will actively collect material from mailing lists, the events calendar database, third party RSS feeds, and other sources.  In its overall sense, Storyteller 2 will be a digital network of associations between every aspect of a community’s shared experience.  It will rely both on folksonomy—the process of individual users identifying and ‘tagging’ associations—and a system that discovers points of interaction (‘nodes’) and maps them.  In this sense, it will be an institutional, collective, or common memory.

 Storyteller 2 is a social network.  “A social network is a social structure made of nodes […] that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency” (Wikipedia).  Storyteller 2 will fulfill many of the basic functions of a social network by providing a place where individuals can create biographical pages and network with others based on relationships, affinity groups, messaging, and interests.  Most information in Storyteller 2 will offer an occasion for discussion via comment threads.

 Storyteller 2 is not a wiki.  Where Storyteller 2 will differentiate itself from most online social networks is the breadth of nodes that it tracks as well as the level of content contribution that it will expect from users.  In that sense, Storyteller 2 will be something like a wiki.  A wiki “promotes meaningful topic associations between different [nodes]” and “seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape” (Wikipedia).  However, the defining characteristic of a wiki moves towards objectivism or at least consensus by inviting a community to edit content in a collaborative process.  Storyteller 2 will not do this.  Instead, Storyteller 2 seeks to preserve the subjectivity of the knowledge it collects (‘memories’).  It will invite community participation in the form of responses or comments to each memory and node and the ability for users to associate their own—possibly very different—memories with each node.  Additionally, Storyteller 2 will not rely on users for content--much will be collected and mapped automatically.

Storyteller 2 is a next generation web application.  Storyteller 2 will have a rich, AJAX-driven interface, which has come to be the standard for ‘Web 2.0’ applications.  By using Google's OpenSocial API and Facebook's API, Storyteller 2 will be able to implant itself in the form of an 'application' (in Facebook terms) or 'gadget' (in OpenSocial terms) within several of the most popular social networking sites.  This modular form of Storyteller 2 will allow the system to solicit user content and gain participation without the user ever actually having to leave the comfort of his/her chosen social network provider—all they will have to do is choose to install the Storyteller 2 application within their social network profile.  In addition to encouraging participation in Storyteller 2 content sharing, these applications will fill a similar niche to our monthly e-newsletter and RSS feeds by bringing Warren Wilson to the social networks.  (Sites that Storyteller 2 will be able to embed itself include: Engage.com, Facebook,  Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji (Chinese), Viadeo, and XING.)  Storyteller 2 will be able to use APIs provided by Google Maps and Flickr to pull content into the site.  Storyteller 2 will also be able to access data from sites that use RSS, such as LiveJournal, and it may eventually be integrated with Aptron via a Universe (U2) PHP API.  Storyteller 2 will use a variety of formats and protocols to extend its reach outside the confines of the web browser.  It will facilitate the interaction of users via SMS (cell phone) text messaging, email, and instant messaging clients.  It will be syndicated via RSS and will take advantage of HTML microformats such as hCard.

Storyteller 2 is an old-fashioned website.  Storyteller 2 will still use human editors and internal moderators to insure that the experience that the website creates is positive and consistent.  Moderators will rate newly created material as part of an internal weighting system that measure the popularity and quality of nodes (including individual users, who are also nodes).  This will help insure that the most interesting and quality content is displayed on portal pages.  Moderators will include the Web Director (and Network Systems Administrator?) as well as community moderators who are recruited from a pool of active users and made responsible for moderating an affinity group or groups.  Storyteller 2 will also be supported by the Web Crew, who will generate new content during any downtime they have by scanning archival material, such as yearbooks, and uploading them into the system.  Many existing college publications, such as Owl & Spade articles, would make good additions to Storyteller 2.  (It would also be nice for the College Archivist to contribute materials from the archives, if possible.)

A Storyteller 2 Glossary

Node: A node is any word around which Storyteller 2 seeks to foster associations or relationships.  In general a node has three parts.  The node itself is a word, phrase, or name.  The node is ‘represented’ by its associated data.  The data that represents a node will always contain other nodes.  The node has an association map that describes how it is related to other nodes.

Storyteller 2 tracks four primary types of nodes: 

(General) Node: A node in its most general sense is a proper noun: the most common general nodes are the names of a physical objects, individuals, groups, locations, ideals, or events.  It is represented by information about the given noun.

(General) Sub-Node: A sub-node is a node with a specific set of special methods, such as a geographical location that requires methods for handling lattitude / longitude, building names, Google Maps API hooks, etc.

User-Node: A user-node is the node for an individual user.  In most instances, this node will be the user’s name and will be represented by their biographical content.  A node for a person outside the system would be treated as a general node. 

Affinity Group: An affinity group is a subset of primarily user nodes that is itself a node, defined specifically for the purposes of creating meaningful associations among users and for management purposes (assigning community moderators, providing custom tools and features, and collecting data for marketing and fundraising purposes).  For example, a sport such as soccer is an affinity group that is represented by teams (which are also affinity groups), players and fans (who are user-nodes), memories and other content (which are general nodes), and associated soccer words (which are meta-nodes).  A soccer affinity group may be offered a widget that lists soccer scores on their portal page.  A list of users in the group may be flagged to receive solicitations for funding sports scholarships or sports-related campaign items. 

Meta-Node: A meta-node is a node that is an abstraction—such as a word, term, or phrase that is not a proper noun.  The meta-node generally will be represented by a definition that has special value to the community or just by an association map.

Serial-Node: A serial-node is an archived collection of data from a single source—examples are RSS feeds from third party websites, minutes from meetings, and events from the college calendar.  A serial-node is identified by the name of the data source and is represented by that data stored in the Storyteller 2 database.  Special methods include handlers for RSS, custom handlers for extracting data from third party applications, and hooks into Marionette 2 (NMB Site Manager) for exporting data to a static webpage.

Nodes are created in three ways: users supply new nodes in the form of tags or by their registration, editors and moderators can create custom nodes, and Storyteller 2 harvests nodes by identifying common elements within data.  Nodes are created when a node model is instantiated and the node is input into the Storyteller 2 database.

 Association Map:  An association map is similar in appearance and function to a set of search engine results.  Every node has an association map that is composed of weighted associations with the best or most commonly accessed associations appearing first.

 Tag:  A tag is a user-supplied node.  It is simply the term used instead of ‘node’ in the UI to make the user experience as easy and intuitive as possible.

 Node Model:  A node model defines how Storyteller 2 identifies and handles a node.  The associated node object that provides methods for working with a given type of node.  Node models can be pre-defined or can be created dynamically by Storyteller 2 from a generalized set of methods.  Some examples of node models: a geographical location node will always be represented by at least latitude and longitude coordinates and may also contain the name of the closest building or room within a building.  A location node model will contain methods for dealing with this data specifically, such as hooks for using the Google Maps API.  A user-node will always be represented by at least a person’s name and email address and may also contain biographical data about them.  A node model for a user-node will contain ways of displaying and manipulating user data.