[hackerspaces-theory] ping

[Dr. Glass DPM]

...But the effort of collaborating a peer reviewed journal (vs federated blog posts and wikis) could help develop the "committee" approach

Sent via mobile

On Dec 7, 2012, at 10:47 PM, quemener.yves at free.fr wrote:

>> From: "maxigas" <maxigas at anargeek.net>
>> 
>> i think for most hackers/hackerspace participants it is too much
>> hassle to engage with formal science, which is deemed simply too slow
>> and top-down.  you know the joke that "real programmers don't write
>> documentation".  i would be happy if more of the cool stuff which
>> people make in hackerspaces would be at least documented. :)
> 
> Well, I am of the opinion, like many open source developers and people
> I met in hackerspaces, that a project is useless, unless it can be
> easily reproduced in another place. That usually means to have a 
> correct documentation. 
> 
> One of the first question, when a cool video is posted, is : where is
> the source code? What chip/engine/batteries/display are you using? How
> did you wire that thing? The open source/hacker community do not have
> clear commitees to accept a project as interesting, but some emergent
> criterions appeared, and the ability to make the same thing at your 
> place is a crucial one.
> 
>> De: "maxigas" <maxigas at anargeek.net>
>> when i wrote my first proposal for my phd, several people commented
>> that what hackerspaces do is not "science", so i can't interpret it
>> as a science going against some basic tenets of mainstream science.
>> :)
> 
> Well it is true : what hackerspaces do is not science, and the tenets
> opposed by "mainstream science" are actually very good. Typically,
> hacking projects are just fun things you want to do. That is ok, you
> don't HAVE to do science. But _some_ projects do follow the basic 
> steps of science research : 
> - find existing projects that come close to what you need
> - try several solution, examine them objectively
> - choose a final solution, make some tests
> - propose new projects that can be based on yours.
> 
> Thing is, today, you get hackers cred by making a cool video, a funny
> articles and by putting some basic technical informations. Most people
> see a bibliography and description of the state of the art as boring 
> parts that few people would read if you put it first (and they are right)
> If there was an incentive to use such a format however, I think that 
> several projects could document their work as a scientific article and
> be recognized as real science. 
> 
> And all projects documentation do not suck, a lot of the things on 
> Instructables are actually very detailled. I think that the main thing
> missing is a references list, and the typical structure of a science 
> article.
> _______________________________________________
> Theory mailing list
> Theory at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/theory