[LogiLogi-list] Presentation went well, though 2 worries...

The Presentation of LogiLogi Manta for the Center for Metahistory went
well!

In about forty minutes I explained the virtues of Manta to the people 
present; which were mostly jounger philosophers of history, though a
few more seasoned figures like Rik Peters and the wife of professor
Ankersmit (Ankersmit is one of the most erudite philosophers of 
history in the world), were also present.

They liked the idea, but they were a bit worried about two things:
1) Usabillity; it should be, or become really easy to use. We will try
   to tackle this issue with the usabillity research of the people in
   Nijmegen, and if our application makes it; with the funds from the
   "Digitale Pioniers" programme. So this shouldn't be our greatest
   concern, although it will nevertheless pose quite a challenge...

2) Existing power structures; the people with important positions in 
   the humanities could consider what we are doing as potentially too
   disruptive. Many projects - even just digitalization projects - have
   stranded on this. Accordingly the impediments on sharing information
   and the intransparent procedures as they are now, would be kept the 
   way they are on purpose. I really don't like the negativistic tone
   of this view, but nevertheless; what if there is truth in it...?

To this I answered with what I see as the purpose of Manta:

Namely to create an informal sphere for insightfull discussions that
can be thought of as fitting between the conversation and the journal-
paper. And thus it's not meanth to replace of even to directly compete 
with journals. Manta intends to become a different life-form, to speak 
with Wittgenstein, that is orthogonal towards journals.

Nevertheless we have to be aware that Manta could, or will, create 
a sphere of philosophical and humanities-related debate more vibrant
journals can ever offer. And this could - on the long run - place us
opposite to journals.

Also we should not forget that there might be, or are, many bright
people who are (being) shunned away from the humanities, especially
because of things like the ones referred to above as worry 2 - which
I, if honest, would be inclined to call plain instances of corruption.

And thus there might be a moral side to Manta too. One that we might
not want to ignore.

Anyway Rik Peters also proposed to get the big names in the Philosophy
of History together (after Manta is completely stable, and the UI is 
more usable), and to offer them a chance of expressing their vision in 
a Logi-document. According to him this could be feasable, and if so, 
there might be a great top-down opportunity for Manta too!

greetings,

Wybo Wiersma

PS: I put the slides of the presenation online at (it's in Dutch):
http://www.logilogi.org/pub/PresentatieVoorHetCMG/PresentatieVoorHetCMG.html

PPS: This week I will try to get the logic done needed for enabling
the deletion of logi's.