Murray Altheim
wrote on 15 Aug 2002 15:16:22...
..
...I simply think what we're finding here is that in email
(which is of course very much like face-to-face discussions...I
don't think a purple number (or any technology, really) has the
ability to solve the world's problems....
..
I think that is substantially correct. In the context of carrying on
a discussion, it doesn't make all that much sense to reference
everything spoken about using purple numbers.
..
However, in the context of publishing, collecting material from
the archives and using it to build a paper, purple numbers make
a lot of sense.
I recall a break through I made in one of my philosophy classes,
when I realized that the way to an A-grade was to organize a
list of quotes that led to the conclusion I wanted, and then write
a smattering of text between them to provide context and link them
together.
.. With a purpilized archive, one can imagine methods that would
let you grab paragraphs, and perhaps massage them a bit, with
ellipses (...) in place of bits of text you want to leave out.
Including the referenced material in your paper would automatically
include the purple numbers, linking back to the original source.
That kind of process is certainly the kind of painstaking attention
to detail that is part of the paper-authoring process, but it is equally
*not* something that is part of the normal process of discourse.
..
To my mind, it is only in the "boiling down" process where the mass
of conversation turns into a final work product that purple numbers
achieve their value. (This is a feeling that may either be confirmed or
contradicted by Augment users )
The difficulty, it appears to me, is the one discussed earlier today in
Peter's message, and expanded in my reply to it.
..
(meta-comment)
Here, in my email messaging system, I do not have any access
to whatever purple numbers may have been stored in the archive.
So even though a purple number undoubtly exists with which to
point to that discussion, I do not have a way to incorporate it.
(/meta-comment)
..
The difficulty described in that message was the need for large visible
area, face-to-face meeting, and a medium for recording results. To
that I would add the unavailability of the purple numbers in the email
creation process that I am currently using.