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- Path: sparky!uunet!dtix!darwin.sura.net!spool.mu.edu!agate!linus!alliant!mydual!olson
- From: olson@mydual.uucp (Kirtland H. Olson)
- Newsgroups: alt.hypertext
- Subject: Re: Interaction with a hypertext (long > 200 lines)
- Message-ID: <1992Sep11.181338.4271@mydual.uucp>
- Date: 11 Sep 92 18:13:38 GMT
- References: <1992Sep6.224648.3218@memstvx1.memst.edu>
- Reply-To: olson%mydual.uucp@alliant.com
- Organization: The Harvard Group, 01451-0667
- Lines: 198
-
- In trying to create hypertexts, I've seen some of these problems as
- well. I use HyperRez by MaxThink as a test bed, and that means I don't
- have typed links or nodes--if I need them I must build them. Thus my
- experience differs from that of using an integrated system. I find this
- an advantage because I am forced to meet every issue head-on and thus
- increase my understanding of the organizational issues.
-
- I'd like to see more discussion of these issues in this group, and I
- would welcome *any* comments on the notes I've added to Mark's
- commentary.
-
- In article <1992Sep6.224648.3218@memstvx1.memst.edu> langston@memstvx1.memst.edu (Mark C. Langston) writes:
-
- > The recent discussion of active v. passive hypertexts (HT's) piqued my
- >interest. I am doing R&D on educational hypertexts, and would like to
- >incorporate the user into a more active role during navigation, along the
- >lines of annotation. Several issues come to mind:
- >
- >* If the HT structure is theory-determined or research-determined...
- > a strong indexing/inference engine would need to be incorporated into
- > the sytem to correctly link user annotations/additions.
- >
- >* If user after user after user annotates a particular HT, the possibility
- > arises that most of the accesible information (via the HT) will become
- > embedded in the annotations, and the HT will become redundant and linear.
- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- I see how the HT gets redundant with many annotations by different people,
- but I don't see the linearity issue.
-
- >>*Allowing multiple annotations increases the amount of user-irrelevant
- > material present on any one card or screen, and increases the linearity
- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- If the system maintains typed links (as you later suggest) the
- irrelevant material would be on the target screen, not the source
- screen, so the link system must organize the kinds of relevance.
-
- Sorry to be so dense about the linearity, but I don't grasp that issue.
- I cannot imagine what I would do to linearize something that started out
- with an organization that could not be drawn on a plane without crossovers.
-
- >* Allowing multiple annotations increases the amount of material in general
- > accessible from any one card, and again increases the linearity of the HT.
- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- Yes, but in how many jumps? Imagine a sheet of graph paper where the
- intersections of the lines represent nodes and the lines represent
- links. To move from one node to another, I must follow the lines.
-
- When I arrive at a node, it either contains the thought I sought, or it
- does not. I can investigate it's four neighbors to see if the idea is
- there. Paths which move away from what I seek, I reject. I should now
- see the "line of reasoning" along each of the two orthogonal paths. If
- neither line will take me where I want to go, I have a line of reasoning
- that must be added. Adding a line of reasoning adds a dimension. Now I
- must have many sheets of graph paper, one above the other, and move
- between sheets.
-
- Thus I believe that adding comments must increase, not decrease, the
- dimensionality of a hypertext. I will add to the amount of material
- accessible from any one node, but the reader will only follow the "line
- of reasoning" corresponding to the reader's current interest.
-
- In this organization, no diagonal links are allowed. The relationship
- of two remote nodes is built into the structure. Adding a relationship
- means adding a line of reasoning (which may connect existing nodes in a
- new way) that the system must maintain as a new and separate line.
-
- I think of these lines of reasoning as *threads* and consider hypertexts
- to be *multiply threaded* as opposed to the single thread of a short
- printed text. The system may be sparsely populated, as in a novel where
- the unities of time, place, etc. form threads underlying the story, but
- the author presents the "nodes" in one chosen order.
-
- >* Allowing dynamic node creation for indexing of end-user annotation opens the
- > door to computational explosion on number of links.
- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- In the system I describe, the number of possible links is known at the
- outset from the number of permissible threads. Each node connects to
- two others along any thread, there are T threads, and adding a node adds
- 2*T links. Adding a thread adds 2*N links where N= Number of nodes.
-
- >How would one rectify these problems? [stuff deleted]
-
- I believe one needs a system that maintains the threads separately,
- maintains a sense of order along each thread, finds targets within a
- node, and differentiates next and previous from forward and backward.
- One also needs an authoring system that maintains the threads and their
- permissible values--visible to the author or annotator--and
- automatically places the node at the intersection of the values along
- each thread.
-
- Also, the writer must be trained to write in this context. Conventional
- writing training prepares one to write on paper and teaches tools to
- create coherence in a *fixed* sequence. When the sequence of paragraphs
- can vary, conventional writing techniques provide no useful guidance
- about structure. In fact, if I postulated link types of "because,"
- "consequently," and "for example," even paragraph structure rules might
- get bent.
-
- >One could assume
- >unlimited storage/computational power, but I'm focussing on smaller
- >systems.
-
- Systems don't need to maintain empty boxes. Rather than create all the
- boxes and fill some, one can tag the material with it's conceptual box
- and use the engine to maintain the virtual organization. One must
- resolve the issue of fullness--if the system is less than half full, the
- tagged material concept saves space, if the system is more than half
- full, the empty boxes cost less.
-
-
- >...the end user has difficulty following the
- >coherence of the links between keyword/card, since these are based on the
- >programmer's assumptions of coherence, and not the user's....
-
- All communication suffers this problem. Hypertext offers the
- possibility of multiple threads to reduce the problem, but the author
- always chooses the purported coherence. For example, take two textbooks
- on the same subject and try to devise a scheme for putting them into one
- hypertext. Since each author chose a coherent scheme, melding the two
- may require devising a third that can hold them both.
-
- [stuff deleted]
-
- >
- > It almost seems that there is an interaction between:
- > a) Number of links
- > b) Types of link structures
- > c) number of nodes
- > d) node types
- > e) coherence during link traversal
- > f) dynamicism of said HT.
- >
-
- I suggest that adding "coherence types" cleans up the interaction by
- limiting it to a knowable, finite number.
-
- Now the dynamicism of the HT gets restricted, but not limited. That is,
- you can only do certain things, but you can do as many as make sense to
- you until your machine runs out of speed and storage. If the things you
- can do cover all your needs, you've won. If not, you need a new engine.
-
-
- [stuff deleted]
-
- >Why not dump the theoretical basis of the HT? Well, one could do this, but
- >the whole point of grounding such a system theoretically/empirically is to
- >facilitate search speed and accuracy, and to maintain user coherence, instead
- >of relying on the user to infer the programmer's reasons for coherence.
-
- To the extent that programmer means author, the programmer's only reason
- for coherence needs to derive from the user's frame of reference. One
- must know one's audience and create in their terms if one wishes to
- communicate.
-
- I suggest that users annotate a well-crafted piece to tie it to another
- framework rather than to correct the original framework. Thus users
- will need to create threads and nodes that represent personal, rather
- than shared knowledge.
-
- In the group annealing process, an existing group links the foreign
- knowledge to its previously shared knowledge.
-
- In groups newly formed around a "starter" HT, the group develops its
- shared knowledge around the HT by offering personal knowledge for
- discussion.
-
- These situations all differ, but they share one problem. *The annealing
- discussion includes both knowledge and knowledge about knowledge.* Thus
- I suggest that the interactions take place on multiple planes and the
- hypertext system needs to keep them separated.
-
- Even in conversation the separation of meta-knowledge from knowledge
- seems to need lots of trials and false starts. Asking the HT engine to
- do smoothly what I can barely describe may need a few trials to find,
- design, and learn to use the engine. My experience of databases and
- outliners as well as spreadsheets keeps reminding me how difficult it is
- to separate what I know from the way in which I know it. Working with
- hypertext helps by giving another view.
-
- One further possibility occurs to me. Perhaps I don't want to annotate
- the HT, but to *transform* it into a framework that I define. Put
- another way, maybe you want my hypertext as an annotation to yours. Once
- again, the meta-knowledge level dominates because the task is now to
- translate between two knowledge frameworks.
-
- >
- >--
- >+--------8<------Cut Here------8<------Cut Here------8<------Cut Here---------+
- > Mark C. Langston | "Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny."
- > Psychology Dept. | "Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't
- > Memphis State U. | be done, and why. Then do it."
- > "Pftph!" | -From the notebooks of Lazarus Long
-
-
-
-
- --
- Kirtland H. Olson olson%mydual.uucp@alliant.com
-