Knowledge Forum Version 4.6 review

KF version 4.6 – Specific comments

• the lack of hypertext means that you're always looking at a map.
• There is little or no immersivity.
  • (as opposed to a wiki, where there can only be immersive experience. You would never look at a map of a wiki)

• Good features:
  • can add metatags in for different purposes of scaffold (e.g., opinion, theory building)
  • can have keywords that are open ended
  • can add a reference to another view.
  • can add a reference to another note.

• critique of features:
  • too many notes/windows open.
  • not everyone can see the history
  • connecting/referencing ideas is not natural
    • can connect a new note to other notes - but not to specific portions of the notes
  • You never end up reading everything that links from the view list
  • Worse, you can't figure out which notes to read
  • Rise aboves aren't used, for some reason.
    • RISE Aboves, which simply tag all notes with a common tag, take the note out of action from being part of other rise aboves. not good.
  • KF seems rather intrinsically heterarchical - deliberately so, but perhaps to a fault.
  • Community aspect seems non-existent. Don't seem really connected to other people - just to the notes that they contribute.

• comparison with common wiki features
  • Wiki is somehow easier to refactor and factor multiple ways
  • Wiki seems to have an implicit barn raising, where everyone is dedicating to come
  • Tagging should be an opening of relationships, not a closing off or putitng into drawers.

• Enhanced view
  • Even in the enhanced view, in the very best case you'll see every note linked to every other note - and it won't really give you any more info.
    • In a wiki, the relationships are intrinsic to the organization, the fact that they're hypertexted means that all the links are invisible. (You'd never look at a graphical representation of a wiki.
  • And you can only link to another note, not to a Web page (have to put the page into another note.
  • Maps nodes but no real mechanism; no hypertext, rich media, rich tags, open source
  • no destination - there is no narrative
  • Windows pop up but the ideas get lost in the clutter

• Suggestions for KF:
  • Would be great for KF to add an emergent layer of dynamic organization - where keywords generate a web page that sorts all the notes.
  • Also, to show relationships between tags. (rise above can be seen as a higher level tag)
  • A zoom-out social view