The results of the first THATCamp Council election are in, and no runoff election will be necessary. Thanks to the 89 people who voted. Here are the four who will be joining me, Tom Scheinfeldt, and Patrick Murray-John on the first THATCamp Council:

• Anastasia Salter
• Jeff McClurken
• Frédéric Clavert
• Micah Vandegrift

I can’t tell you how grateful I am to all who ran: we all know that this kind of service is driven much more by conviction than by systemic reward. All the candidates are people I’d be proud to work with.

As Chair pro tem until we appoint an official Chair, I’ll be arranging the first meeting (to be held sometime in April, most likely) and drafting an agenda. The agenda will be posted here on the blog and will be open for comment.

I’m still a fan of having fun and being productive in a informal and collegial gathering, even after all these years. Imagine that. Whatever happens next with THATCamp, that won’t change, I know. En avant!

Voting

Voting is now open for the first THATCamp Council. We have nine candidates for the four open seats on the seven-person council: read more about them below. The ballot will be visible at the bottom of this post after you log in.

• You must log in with your THATCamp account to vote.
• Vote once for exactly three (3) candidates for the four open seats. Choosing more or fewer candidates may invalidate your vote.
• Voting will be open for one week, until midnight on Tuesday, March 25th, 2014.
• Results will be displayed after the voting period ends. The four candidates with the most votes will serve on the THATCamp Council.

You can read more about the THATCamp Council structure and the “partial bloc” election process at Creating Community Governance for THATCamp. Write Amanda French at info@thatcamp.org with any questions.

Please try to elect a Council whose members are of diverse countries, ranks, fields, ethnicities, and genders.

Candidates

Craig Bellamy

I have been working at the intersection of the humanities and computing for most of my career as an educator, researcher, and practitioner. I ran one of the first THATCamps in Australia, THATCamp Melbourne, and plan to do another one this year with a pedagogical focus.

I was a co-founder of the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities and have been the Co-Chair of the Program Committee for our first two conferences. Plus I have worked in the field at Kings College London, the University of Virginia, and the University of Melbourne. Recently I have moved into the eLearning field and am keen to build a level of understanding between eLearning and the Digital Humanities, especially through THATCamp Pedagogy.

Frédéric Clavert

I found in unconferences a very efficient way to mobilize and get in touch with the DH community. All the THATCamps I have attended (CHNM 2009, Switzerland 2011, Saint-Malo 2013) or co-organized (Florence 2010, Paris 2010 and 2012, Luxembourg/Trier 2012) gave birth to new projects, helped participants to discover the works of other participants, sometimes helped them discovering whole parts of DH they were not aware of. This is what makes THATCamp so great and interesting and this is why I wish to run for THATCamp council.

Furthermore – and this is the other reason why I am running for THATCamp council – THATCamps are very good tools to give the DH community a multilingual and multicultural dimension that is sometimes lacking in the DH world. In Paris in 2010, we collectively wrote a Digital Humanities Manifesto, which is today the basis of the future French-speaking DH organisation (to be created in Lausanne this Summer). It also helped getting in touch with many other actors of the French-speaking (and beyond) DH community. In Luxembourg, we could mix both German and French DH communities – two neighbour communities that were not in the habit of working together.

Diane Cline

Diane Cline is an Associate Professor of ancient Greek history who is also deeply committed to the development of GWU’s initiative to support innovation through cross-disciplinary collaboration. With her B.A. in Classics from Stanford and Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from Princeton, Diane became a tenured History Professor at CSU Fresno before she joined the University of Cincinnati’s Classics department, winning the University’s Dolly Cohen Teaching Award in 1999. She was involved in VROMA, an early Classics digital project in the 90’s and also was an early adopter of online syllabi, before BlackBoard and other tools made it easy. Her current Classics research focus is on the application of social network analysis to the study of ancient history, a digital humanities effort. The students in her seminar “Digital Humanities and the Historian” are hosting DC 2014 THATCamp on April 26, 2014. Diane has attended the University of Kentucky THATCamp in June 2013 as well as the Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities and Computer Science in 2012 and the Case Western Freeman Symposium on Digital Humanities in 2013. Her passion is ”network weaving”: finding people with similar intellectual interests but who are in diverse departments and serving as a bridge to bring them together. Kind of like a THATCamp! Diane is also a cellist with the Washington Sinfonietta and the Avanti Orchestras in Washington, DC.

Kimon Keramidas

I went to my first THATCamp at George Mason University in 2010, and had one of the most interesting, enriching and enjoyable experiences I have had as an academic. As opposed to traditional large conferences I had attended I was greeted with a sense of collegiality, felt encouraged to participate and make my voice heard, and experienced environments of intensely enjoyable and stimulating intellectual discussion. But, most importantly I found myself immersed in a community that was was able to hold itself to high standards of academic rigor and investigation, while understanding that the rigors of exploring the intersection of the humanities and technology are best experienced in a humane and relaxed environment. Since that first trip to the Center for History and New Media, I have attended and organized THATCamps regularly hoping to both foster community growth within different sectors of the humanities, including pedagogy, museums, and the performing arts, and to expose more people to the possibility of more fruitful, constructive and humane environments. I believe strongly that the unconference model and the THATCamp project can be instruments for change in the humanities, can play a role in negating many of the harmful effects or rigid academic hierarchies, and can foster the sense of experimentation and freedom of thought that is necessary for us to truly tap the potential of new technologies in the academic realm. It is for this reason that I would like to participate in the THATCamp Council, as I would be honored to play a role in helping to shape the future and continuing the success of this truly worthwhile endeavor.

Jeffrey McClurken

From the first THATCamp at RRCHNM, I have been energized by the format, the opportunity to talk, create, and build with other digitally inclined people, and the chance to introduce new people to the digital humanities. I’ve attended nearly a dozen THATCamps, run numerous bootcamps/workshops, and helped to organize four THATCamps (2 iterations of THATCamp AHA and 2 of THATCamp Virginia). I want to join the THATCamp Council so that I can help to continue the open, non-hierarchical, inclusive, productive spirit that has infused THATCamp for so many.

Scott McGinnis

Organizing THATCamp Bay Area 2011 was one of the highlights of the last few years for me. A handful of us had worked all summer to bring together more than 100 people, many of them first-timers. Just ten months earlier, I was myself a noobie to THATCamp, and I was immediately impressed with the unconference model and the community it attracts. Sessions were energetic, conversations dynamic, participants diverse in view and background, and the whole time, the only pressure I felt was from my inability to take it all in. To me, this is special. So when I learned THATCamp will transition to a new governance model, I quickly decided to toss my name in the hat, that I might endeavor to help this great community continue to flourish and grow.

Serge Noiret

What I could bring to the THATCamp governing body, is my international experience organizing THATCamp’s and trying to understand how best rethinking and developing the program internationally. In March 2011, at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, I organized THATCamp Florence during three days and with more than 200 registered attendees together with a THATCamp in Digital Humanities; the AIUCD, Italian Association for DH and Digital culture was founded during THATCamp Florence and the Manifsto for DH written during THATCamp Paris 2010 was approved during the meeting. I attended, proposed and coordinated panels for THATCamp NCPH Pensacola (2011), THATCamp NCPH Milwaukee (2012), THATCamp Lausanne Switzerland (2012), THATCamp Luxembourg during DIHULU2012 and attended THATCamp Leadership in Fairfax (2013). I was asked University of Bologna in Rimini and the AIUCD to coordinate a THATCamp for 2015; other two THATCamp may be organized in Amsterdam in October 2014 during the IFPH annual meeting (International federation for Public History) and in Jinan, China in August 2015 during the CISH (Comite International des Sciences Historiques) and IFPH meeting. I followed THATCamp as a movement from its very beginning and was very much interested to its organization, it’s open, genuine and disinterested way to work collegially in the field of DH and especially in digital history, fostering the knowledge of the impact of the digital turn on the history discipline. I very much like to work with other people.

Thanks to the EUI, my university, the unique European post-graduate and post-doctoral university in the humanities and social sciences with members coming from EU countries and other continents, I am in contact with a very important international network of stakeholders and scholars. I know different languages and worked for many years with dozens of different professors, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers coming from many different academic systems.

I would very much like to contribute to develop internationally the THATCamp movement specifically with regard to Digital Public History issues if I would have the honor to be elected in the THATCamp Council Charter. I would be able to meet “physically” at least once a year during my bi-annual travels to the USA at the NCPH annual meeting and in NYC for Easter, although I don’t really think that living in Los Angeles or in Florence, Italy would be very different for participating in THATCamp Council Charter meetings.

Anastasia Salter

I’ve attended many THATCamps across the country and organized my own, THATCamp Games, which spawned a successor. I write for ProfHacker, a blog on technology and pedagogy that has its roots in THATCamp, so I’ve seen firsthand the ability of THATCamp to build projects and ideas that last long after any particular camp ends. I’m very interested in the many ways the model can evolve: I’ll be running a next iteration of THATCamp Games this year in conjunction with a conference, altering the formula to fit the new setting and bring together practitioners with the DH community. I’m very interested in ways we can play with the unconference model and keep our idea of what THATCamp is constantly evolving. I’d like to help other organizers experiment with THATCamp’s structures to create lasting value for DH “veterans” and “noobs.” This council is an important opportunity to build on THATCamp’s foundations and experiment with ways to further share, curate, and preserve knowledge generated by the community.

Micah Vandegrift

The formalization and governance of THATCamp underscores an important point in our collective history; we have reached the time when an idea has become an institution. The idea behind THATCamp inspired me as a graduate student, and now, as I grow into my career as a librarian I continually reflect on the THATCamp’s I participated in as wholly formative for the professional values I now hold. The ideas that all voices (untenured, non-academic, the public(s), diverse, ranked or not, etc) are welcomed in the debate, that the conversation is always developing, and that “yakking and hacking” can and should coexist define my approach to the academy, despite the fact that the academy does not often see it as so. I believe that TheseCamps will be/are a force for change and I’d be honored to play any role therein. I’d like to see THATCamp continue to grow, to be locally-invested while globally-digested, and to institutionalize the ideals that inspired me to become a rabble-rousing member of a system that teaches creative free-thought but rewards falling in line.

With that, I am very pleased to indicate my desire to run for a seat on the inaugural THATCamp Council.

Ballot

[hidepost]

Every THATCamp user can vote once only for exactly three (3) candidates for the four open THATCamp Council seats. Choosing more or fewer candidates may invalidate your vote.

[yop_poll id=”3″]
[/hidepost]

Now that we’ve revised the THATCamp Council Charter and have worked out the election process, I want to encourage everyone who thinks they might be eligible, able, and willing to run for the THATCamp Council to do so. In the last ten days or so I’ve been calling for candidates on the THATCamp organizers email list, and we do already have several excellent candidates for the 4 open seats, but I’m well aware that not everyone who has helped organize a THATCamp is on that list. If you haven’t been following the THATCamp Council Charter revision process, here are the answers to some questions you might have about the Council.

Who is eligible to run for the THATCamp Council?

Anyone who has helped organize a THATCamp will be eligible to serve on the Council.

What are the responsibilities of THATCamp Council members?

• Supporting THATCamp organizers, participants, and would-be participants, especially by
  • answering questions on the THATCamp forums
  • creating and revising help documents on thatcamp.org
  • managing THATCamp social media accounts
  • attending and/or organizing THATCamps
• Upholding core THATCamp values
• Setting the long-term direction of the THATCamp project
• Creating and revising community processes, policies, and governance documents
• Resolving community conflicts

How long is the term?

Council terms (including the term of the Chair and the RRCHNM representative) are two years long, but members can hold an unlimited number of terms if they are reelected or reappointed.

How often will the Council meet?

The Council will meet at least three times per year for the purpose of discussing and (if necessary) voting on issues of interest to the THATCamp Community. In general, meetings can take place online, via conference call, or in person.

How do I run for the Council?

Write info@thatcamp.org by Monday, 3/17 indicating that you’d like to run. Include a few lines about why you want to run for the THATCamp Council, perhaps also addressing why you think THATCamp is important and/or directions you’d like to see THATCamp go.

When will the election take place?

I’d like to open the week-long voting period by the end of the day on Monday, 3/17. I’ll post your reasons for running that day along with a link to your THATCamp profile, available from our People page at thatcamp.org/people. The election process is described more fully in the THATCamp Council Charter.

Please see the THATCamp Council Charter if you have more questions, or of course write me (THATCamp Council Chair pro tem) at info@thatcamp.org.

Yesterday I read Brian Croxall’s post “Why the 2013 MLA Digital Pedagogy Unconference Isn’t a THATCamp” with interest. And although it may sound like unhealthily low self-esteem, I’d say that on the whole I agree with Brian that “within academia–or at least in the humanities, where I spend most of my time–unconferences have become synonymous with THATCamp. And I don’t think that’s healthy.” As I wrote a few months ago in a post called “The Unconference is Alive,” there are plenty and plenty and plenty of unconferences besides THATCamp, on all

When I first started as THATCamp Coordinator, I thought that people would be much more interested in “hacking” the THATCamp format than they have been. Most of the queries I’ve gotten from people thinking of organizing a THATCamp have been questions on what exactly they should do, not what else they might do besides the usual. Basically, I think, THATCamp has been as popular as it is partly because it offers a standard model that can be easily followed: set up a WordPress website, recruit participants, call for participants to post session proposals to the blog, organize sessions into a schedule during the first 90 minutes, have workshops, have discussions, have Dork Shorts, then repair to the nearby Irish pub for a few beers. Certainly I could take some of the blame for the increasing rigidity of that model, but I’ve found that most people are just unnerved enough by the idea of organizing a THATCamp that they’d like to keep it as simple as possible, go with what works, use existing templates. Even Brian and Adeline have used some THATCamp.org text on their own website, and more power to them — that’s why it’s licensed CC-BY. One of the real innovations of THATCamp, after all, is that anyone can organize one without needing the infrastructure of a scholarly association: one of the real difficulties of organizing a THATCamp, as well, is not having the infrastructure of a scholarly association. When you’re going it alone, it helps to have a model to draw on, even if you decide to alter that model.

I do think that people going to MLA might get a bit confused about what the difference is between THATCamp MLA and the Digital Pedagogy Unconference, or wonder why they might go to one instead of the other, but to those hypothetical people I say, go to both! THATCamp MLA is January 2nd and the Digital Pedagogy unconference is January 3.

What I also hope will happen is that more people in academia will try out more new kinds of meeting formats. You can make them up, of course, but if that sounds a bit intimidating, try the book Open Space Technology (e.g., get everyone in a circle and ask them to address one question) or the book Mob Rule Learning (especially the section on “Facilitation Styles,” including “appreciative inquiry,” “dotmocracy,” “birds of a feather,” “fishbowl,” and more). Happy unconferencing …

Thought I’d post a bit of history: the IRC (Internet Relay Channel) log from the first THATCamp in 2008, presciently saved by Bess Sadler. We do still have a room called thatcamp on the IRC channel at irc.freenode.net, but Twitter has taken over much of the function that IRC then served. Do feel free to use the thatcamp IRC channel whenever you like!

I’ve edited the log so that it can be more easily read, taking out all the lines about so-and-so leaving or joining the IRC. Enjoy.

— Log opened Sat May 31 10:19:27 2008
10:19 < epistemographer> just imagine if we were all piling on one collaborative spreadsheet
10:19 < asolove> so can whoever controls thatcampbot consider the room-specific IRC channels?
10:19 < thatcampbot> ok
10:20 < jgsmith> a wiki page for the schedule?
10:21 < thatcampbot> give me a sec to figure this out
10:21 < dancohen> is it possible to simultaneously irc chat, twitter, blog, and podcast? I’m going to try.
— Log opened Sat May 31 10:26:08 2008
10:29 < asolove> thatcamp450 for rdf discussion
10:30 < willynills> about to start the text mining session
10:31 < DruidSmith> RDF… am curious if anyone is working with AJAX or JavaScript browsing and navigation of OWL ontologies
10:34 < willynills> text analysis software: www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/philologic/
10:35 < willynills> philomine: philologic.uchicago.edu/philomine/
10:37 < dancohen> in the text mining session in the lab (rm 462)
10:39 < dancohen> sean takats is explaining CHNM’s upcoming NEH-funded text-mining project
10:40 < epistemographer> Sean’s not a “better” historian, he’s a “different” kind of historian
10:40 < dchud> dancohen: hooray for funding
10:41 < bess_> the techies are having an impromptu “keeping the wheels on” meeting — sustainability from a technical point of view
10:42 < dancohen> good thing we’re inside–just got a tornado watch alert from the fairfax messaging system, active until 10:30 tonight
10:42 < epistemographer> yowza
10:42 < doug_knox> RDF group talking about bibliographic data, citations, Zotero, data about museum/library objects
10:43 < willynills> according sean: three aspects of text mining: locating or finding documents, automatically extracting data from documents (instead of manually reading), analysis of corpus
10:45 < willynills> according to laura mandell: text mining can be used to identify terms of analysis not within your discipline
10:45 < matthewgaventa> wow. really doesn’t LOOK like tornado weather (at least through my small window)
10:46 < jackflaps> it feels like it, though
10:48 < davelester> it’s great to see everyone on IRC!
10:51 < elli> RDF: used to define relationships in restricted domains, perhaps more interesting. But movement in developing it is to make it applicable to broader and broader domains.
10:52 < bess_> davelester: I set up thatcampbot to record the channel. I’ll give you the logs afterwards.
10:52 < davelester> thanks bess_
10:56 < asolove> can someone add thatcampbot to thatcamp450
10:56 < davelester> asolove++ great idea. can you do that bess_?
10:57 < willynills> dan cohen: text mining tools need to useful for historians and may not be
10:58 < willynills> text mining tasks: summarization, classification, extractions
10:59 < bess_> asolove and davelester : I’ll give it a shot
10:59 < bess_> asolove and davelester : I’ll get to it on the break, I’m in the middle of a good conversation
10:59 < davelester> np
11:03 < asolove> ok thanks
11:06 < karindalziel> I will be posting the URL’s we are talking about on del.icio.us with tag thatcamp
11:07 < jackflaps> I’m going to start doing that for the RDF session as well
11:10 < willynills> text mining does more than speed up historical thought; it should give us a new level of comprehension
11:11 < clioweb> FYI – I updated the schedule, so that should be current based on the last change we tried to implement downstairs
11:11 < clioweb> thanks to everyone for patience and input
11:11 < clioweb> schedule at thatcamp.org/schedule/
11:12 < dancohen> clioweb: thanks–you did a great job with the schedule; hard to optimize something that complicated
11:12 < clioweb> I think it worked out well
11:13 < davelester> clioweb++
11:14 < clioweb> people should feel free to use other rooms and spaces for ad hoc meetings
11:20 < BenBrumfield> Karin, is there any chance you could let us use your wiki?
11:25 < karindalziel> ben – sure, pass is karin
11:25 < karindalziel> I’ll clean up later
11:29 < dancohen> www.dancohen.org/2006/08/08/mapping-what-americans-did-on-september-11/
11:30 < dancohen> my best effort on text mining + geolocation
11:32 < BenBrumfield> Karin, can you paste the URL?
11:35 < BenBrumfield> Got it
11:35 < davelester> could people post their session notes on the blog? that’d be great
11:35 < dancohen> so far, been able to blog, tweet, and irc chat all at once; adding in the podcasting might be hard…
11:36 < DruidSmith> There was a GREAT discussion of technology and sustainability at EPA’s Science Forum last week – William McDonough, author of The Cradle to Cradle Revolution – www.amazon.com/Cradle-Remaking-Way-Make-Things/dp/0865475873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212248155&sr=8-1
11:37 < davelester> dancohen: I’d love to see a live digital campus
11:37 < epistemographer> me too – do it, Dan
11:37 < karindalziel> actually, just set up a new wiki www.nirak.net/thatcamp/pmwiki.php?n=Main.HomePage
11:37 < dancohen> davelester: tom and I were thinking of doing it
11:37 < BenBrumfield> Oh. Sweet!
11:38 < dancohen> anyone mind if I look like I’m manning a McDonald’s drive-thru?
11:38 < BenBrumfield> Well, I need a place to put the DorkShorts material now, so I’ll get started with Karin’s
11:38 < davelester> there’s already a whiteboard in the main room for dork shorts with a list of names
11:38 < karindalziel> feel free to do whatever you want there
11:43 < willynills> Bill: text mining, given abundant texts, can ask questions about simultaneity and co-incidence.
11:43 < sgillies> epiphany!
11:44 < DruidSmith> add geotagging to the mix and you also have geo-enabled text mining
11:45 < DruidSmith> and temporal coincidence / simultaneity?
11:50 < asolove> what is the method for getting slides in to Dork Shorts?
11:51 < BenBrumfield> Karin, can you enable uploads on the wiki? www.nirak.net/thatcamp/pmwiki.php?n=PmWiki.Uploads
11:52 < foundhistory> asolove … thumbdrive?
11:53 < asolove> hmm
11:53 < asolove> I can just download from email
11:53 < foundhistory> if that works. what kind of slides? ppt? keynote?
11:53 < BenBrumfield> Will we be able to hook up the projector to our own laptops?
11:53 < asolove> it’s actually just xul
11:54 < foundhistory> oh
11:54 < foundhistory> np
11:54 < foundhistory> ben… that’s going to be tough
11:54 < foundhistory> we’re going to be pretty pressed for time
11:54 < BenBrumfield> Okay — wiki it is
11:54 < foundhistory> but we could add another dork shorts session maybe
11:55 < sgillies> session 1 made me think of “glass house”
11:56 < foundhistory> Lunch is served!!!
11:56 < foundhistory> and Dork Shorts is starting!
12:00 < sgillies> great adhoc session in 402. thanks, everybody
12:13 < karindalziel> lunch is teh awesome. Great spreat, guys!!
12:22 < sgillies> syndication architecture ++
12:29 < asolove> lunch was excellent
12:33 < epistemographer> omeka in action: exhibitions.nypl.org/eminent/
12:37 < dancohen> enjoying the dork shorts
12:39 < bess__> oooh, pretty! typographia
12:41 < bess__> can anyone read the url?
12:42 < jackflaps> www4.ncsu.edu/~dmrieder/typographia
12:42 < jeanne_kramer-sm> www4.ncsu.edu/~dmrieder/typographia
12:47 -!- Netsplit calvino.freenode.net < -> irc.freenode.net quits: asolove, karindalziel, bess__, bess_, matthewgaventa, epistemographer, jgsmith, dancohen, sgillies
12:53 -!- Netsplit over, joins: dancohen
12:53 -!- Netsplit over, joins: sgillies
12:54 -!- Netsplit over, joins: epistemographer
12:55 -!- Netsplit over, joins: bess_
12:58 < travis> Collaborative annotation: ecomma.cwrl.utexas.edu/0.2.0/
13:02 < tjowens> #thatcamp401
13:02 < tjowens> doh
13:06 < dancohen> In session on search, listening to Karin Dalziel show some interesting, wide-ranging examples.
13:07 < sgillies> i’d never seen etsy
13:07 < sgillies> nice
13:08 < bess_> etsy++
13:10 < bess_> All of the stuff Karin’s talking about is also available at www.nirak.net/2008/05/29/alternative-search-analyzing-document/
13:13 < tjowens> learning about iggy pop’s beat down
13:14 < sgillies> etsy beer can hat: www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10966874
13:14 < jackflaps> cleveland rocks
13:16 < davelester> tinyurl.com/3cmfdy
13:17 < dancohen> davelester: thanks, dave.
13:17 < tjowens> that better not be atsly
13:17 < bess_> Josh G. says “It’s all about leveraging solipsism.” Love it!
13:17 < asolove> that’s cruel
13:33 < jeanne_kramer-sm> www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/battlelines/chapter3/chapter3_1a.html
13:36 < erazlogo> crowdsource transcribing first, then present like this: dohistory.org/diary/exercises/lens/index.html
13:41 < davelester> twitter is down again? boo
13:44 < asolove> the rain must have gotten it
13:46 < bess_> omg the rain!
13:46 < jackflaps> twitter’s a little slow
13:46 < jackflaps> if you poke at it with sticks a little it eventually loads
14:06 < epistemographer> we got crazy geeky in the Search session
14:12 < jeanne_kramer-sm> hoping that folks might post what was discussed in the Search session on the wiki…
14:14 < nowviskie> lisa spiro takes kick-ass notes and will be sharing a summary of the “research methods” session on the blog.
15:00 < epistemographer> quick call out: what’s being talked about in the sessions people are in?
15:01 < epistemographer> in “Museums” we’re talking about the difference between how museums, libraries and archives approach digita vs. physical issues
15:03 < jackflaps> in Games we’re talking about how to evaluate history-based video games based on their value as teaching tools
15:50 < dancohen> www.zotero.org/download/dev/zotero-1.5a.sync1.xpi
15:51 < shekhar> is patrick in here?
16:08 < dancohen> sustainability has been moved to rm 450
16:11 < BenBrumfield> Dorkshorts is nearly empty. We’ll probably wrap up early.
16:12 < davelester> aw
16:28 < elli> open street maps project offers lots of potential for dh projects to create maps for their own purposes (historical, not street based, available)
16:37 < bess___> elli: would you please post any notes you have on historical applications for open street maps? I was sorry to miss that session.
16:38 < shekhar> bess___: we’re not talking about historical maps in OSM… yet…
16:39 < shekhar> openstreetmap.org
16:39 < elli> bess_: I”ll do my best,
16:43 < elli> Now we are discussing how you might use the technology to walk places and map traces of roads, settlements, battlegrounds, and use the OSM software to incorporate this information
16:45 < dancohen> discussing sustainability models for zotero
16:46 < dancohen> anyone who is not in rm 450 who has ideas, drop them into IRC or Twitter
16:46 < elli> Mapping: freemap.in site with links to open source mapping software
16:49 < elli> Mapping: Shekhar is showing a free map of Mumbai with historical layers overlaid from the freemap site.
17:00 < bess___> I’ve heard a bit about processing, but I had no idea how awesome it was. What a great session!
17:05 * shekhar just showed mumbai.freemap.in and the testing version of a zotero openstreetmap plugin web.mit.edu/shekhar/zotero-maps.xpi
19:30 < davelester> howdy all
19:34 < kerri> Hi Dave. Wish I was there.
19:35 < davelester> aw, maybe next year?
19:36 < kerri> Sounds like it has been great!
19:36 < kerri> Elli will surely debrief me when she returns.
19:37 < davelester> definitely
19:51 < cg_> #thatcamp port 7000 at GMU.
19:51 < cg_> #thatcamp port 7000 at GMU
21:45 < bess_> hello?
21:53 < karindalziel> hiya. I am just hanging out in here while working on a blog post.
22:03 < karindalziel> soooo….is everyone else exhausted, or is it just me?
22:21 < bess_> karindalziel: also exhausted
22:21 < bess_> karindalziel: it’s so great to meet you! We have a lot of the same research interests.
22:22 < karindalziel> I am somehow wired too. Brain is racing. Which is good!
22:22 < karindalziel> bess: Great to meet you too!
22:23 < karindalziel> I feel like I have SO much to learn.
22:23 < bess_> karindalziel: You might enjoy this paper: www.ualberta.ca/~sruecker/links/07_Ruecker_Pill_Identification.pdf
22:24 < bess_> It’s an interface I worked on while at U of Alberta.
22:24 < bess_> Stan Ruecker was the primary investigator, and if you don’t know his work you might also enjoy it… www.ualberta.ca/~sruecker/
22:24 < karindalziel> cool- thanks! Something to read ont he plane ride home.
22:26 < karindalziel> Are you leading any discussions tomorrow?
22:26 < bess_> no, I don’t think so
22:26 < bess_> I plan to be an “active participant” in the omeka one, though!
22:27 < karindalziel> I can’t decide betwen that and interface design. So many tough choices.
22:27 < bess_> oh damn, did they schedule those across from each other?
22:28 * bess_ runs off to check the schedule
22:29 < bess_> Dammit, I want to attend every single one of the first sessions
22:30 < bess_> I mean the second session
22:30 < karindalziel> I know. :/
22:30 < bess_> I’m sure all the first sessions will be great, too, but mashup is the only one for me.
22:30 < karindalziel> Hopefully people will blog their sessions/
22:30 < bess_> but GIS, interface design, omeka, and bibliographic standards… I’m working on every one of those right now.
22:31 < karindalziel> I will go to management since it pertains most to my job. Unless I change my mind tomorrow morning.
22:31 < bess_> management? really? what kind of management?
22:32 < karindalziel> Project management.. lemme go find link
22:32 < karindalziel> thatcamp.org/2008/05/2-ideas/
22:35 < karindalziel> geez, linking blog posts takes forever
22:36 < karindalziel> hi ben
22:41 < karindalziel> Done with THAT Camp day 1 recap
22:41 < karindalziel> www.nirak.net/2008/05/31/that-camp-day-1/
22:41 < karindalziel> and with that, off to read for a bit before bed. *yawn*
22:41 < sgillies> anybody else got a 5:11 flight from dulles and want to share a cab? lemme know
22:43 < karindalziel> hope I didn’t get anyone’s name wrong.
22:43 < sgillies> good recap
22:43 < karindalziel> wow, you’re quick!
22:43 < karindalziel> ok, really going now.
22:44 < jeanne_ks> where is the recap?
22:45 < sgillies> www.nirak.net/2008/05/31/that-camp-day-1/
22:46 < jeanne_ks> thanks!
22:46 < sgillies> see you all in the morning
22:53 < davelester> anyone in #thatcamp coming to the ‘hacking omeka’ session tomorrow? I’m still deciding what I want to show
22:55 < bess_> davelester: I’ll be there
22:55 < davelester> nice, I saw your tweet
22:56 < davelester> I’ll definitely show off the OAI-PMH ingestion plugin
22:56 < bess_> davelester: NYPL and UVA are both very interested in how we can bring digital repository objects into omeka exhibits.
22:56 < bess_> davelester: I’d also like some advice on how to get started writing omeka themes and plugins
22:57 < bess_> davelester: I think the more eyecandy themes we can provide for omeka the more people will oooh and ahhh.
22:57 < davelester> agreed!
22:58 < bess_> davelester: I’m really looking forward to it, but now I have to go to sleep so I can wake up on time. See you tomorrow!
23:15 < jeanne_ks> Having trouble deciding ‘Hacking Omeka’ vs ‘GIS/Maps’ vs ‘Interface Design’!
— Day changed Sun Jun 01 2008
07:11 < dchud> mornin’
07:11 < dchud> how do i see what everybody has twittered to @thatcamp all at once?
07:44 < sgillies> morning
09:14 < sgillies> asolove breaking free of xml!
10:09 < asolove> text session has been interesting
10:10 < bess__> mashup session is fascinating.
10:10 < asolove> what was covered?
10:10 < elli> what was covered in text?
10:10 < asolove> just using Yahoo/Google/Simile tools, or something additional?
10:11 < elli> mashups talked more about APIs, permanence and guidelines for APIs, and not so much about tools and implementations.
10:11 < asolove> uh huh
10:11 < asolove> we discussed some uses and issues with TEI, alternate storage formats
10:11 < elli> (importance of spending the time to develop APIs and make available)
10:12 < asolove> and cool graphical interfaces for creating digital texts without knowing XML
10:12 < elli> what alternate storage formats
10:12 < asolove> very interesting
10:13 < bess__> asolove: we’re talking about everything from google maps, to library of congress web services, to the importance of permanent urls and the implications for scholarship
10:14 < bess__> excellent conversation, I’m generating way more ideas than I’ll possibly be able to implement
10:14 < asolove> sounds very interesting, sorry I had to present this round
10:15 < bess__> asolove: I get the feeling there will be lots of blog posts and writeups about this one
10:15 < elli> Raymond closed with programmableweb,com
10:36 < jkramer_ks> fyi.. I posted a summary of the Text Mining session from yesterday: www.spellboundblog.com/2008/06/01/thatcamp-2008-text-mining-and-the-persian-carpet-effect/
10:41 < asolove> INTERFACE DESIGN IN 401
10:41 < asolove> whoops
10:43 < epistemographer> asolove: what’s the discussion about in 401?
10:43 < asolove> funny
10:43 < asolove> I think we’re looking at the JGAAP interface
10:46 < nowviskie> can’t believe I didn’t realize you can put a URL to a KML file like this in the search blank for Google Maps!
10:46 < nowviskie> pleiades.stoa.org/places/archaic.kml
10:47 < bess_> nowviskie: wow! I didn’t know you could do that either!
10:49 < nowviskie> yeah, bess — guess what’s going to be on Joe’s to-do list when we get home!
10:49 < elli> Bibliograph session
10:50 < elli> I mean Bibliography
10:50 < elli> Zotero is a good tool for moving bibliographic information from one place to another
10:51 < elli> Bruce D’Arcus style language for bib (CSL)
10:51 < dchud> bibliograph(y or ic)
10:52 < nowviskie> re: mashing up georeferenced data — this also works in Google Maps: pleiades.stoa.org/places/archaic.atom
10:52 < dancohen> if the biblio group would like me to come over to 450, let me know
10:52 < elli> we have Trevor here!
10:53 < dancohen> ok, just checking
10:53 < erazlogo> for future thatcamp – find software for all urls opened in all sessions to be automatically saved into one big links file (coins-enabled?) so people could later follow links from sessions they missed
10:55 < elli> zotero/content/tools/csleit.xul
10:59 < bess_> nowviskie: maybe we could give David G. access to the google sat imagery that way… allow people to export a kml file of the layer he wants and open it in google maps / google earth
11:00 < dchud> tjowens: note the second author at rfc.net/rfc1165.html
11:05 < dancohen> in the interface design session (rm 401) we’re debating how much to ask users what a good UI is for a tool or collection
11:07 < jgsmith> re ui: unix tends to optimize for the most common use case, which is the experienced user — explains why man pages tend to be cryptic for those unfamiliar with a particular command
11:08 < dancohen> jgsmith: right. good point.
11:10 < bess_> in the omeka hacking talk we’re making unreasonable demands of the omeka dev team
11:10 < davelester___>
11:11 < dchud> jgsmith: does unix optimize for the most common use case, or the simplest, decomposed, filterable use case?
11:11 < asolove> it optimizes for the case of people who have write access to the man page in a project
11:11 < bess_> asolove++ # so true!
11:12 < jgsmith> well, most people using unix are experienced in unix — the inexperience period is short compared to the rest of a person’s career
11:12 < matthewgaventa> nice parallel: in bibliography, we’re bordering on making unreasonable demands on the zotero team
11:12 < bess_> matthewgaventa: I’m going to make my unreasonable demands during the lunchtime zotero session
11:13 < jgsmith> doesn’t mean an interface should be poorly designed — but designed for the person familiar with the process or the concepts involved
11:13 < asolove> the design might encourage users to learn the underlying system
11:14 < jgsmith> asolove: -nod- — easier to do in a GUI than a CLI
11:15 < dancohen> note to people making unreasonable demands of CHNMers: don’t make us release the hounds on you.
11:18 < epistemographer> unreasonable demands++
11:19 < dancohen> fluidproject.org/ and Yahoo UI provide open source nice-looking widgets for websites
11:19 < dancohen> that are tested across many browsers
11:20 < epistemographer> for reference: URL I demo-ed is labs.nypl.org/projects/maps/transparent.html
11:40 < bess_> OAI/PMH plugin for omeka is fantastic. I’ve never cared deeply about OAI before, but I think I just started.
11:42 < elli> bibliographicontology.com/
11:50 < erazlogo> use for upcoming mapping plugin in zotero–map your research trips by where archives are located–could be done if there is an archival collection item type with a “place” field
11:58 < dchud> simile.mit.edu/wiki/Zotz
12:21 < davelester_> Lightning talks: first up, Mark Tebeau presenting the Euclid Corridor
12:28 < matthewgaventa> next up in dork shorts: jeffrey talking about CSS file structure and organization
12:37 < asolove> dancohen is about to start the zotero demo
12:39 < matthewgaventa> dave lester is talking about scholarpress
12:41 < asolove> zotero demo starting
12:49 < elli> Goodbye and thank you to everyone at ThatCamp, enjoy the rest of the day. It’s been great camping with you all.
12:49 < asolove> leaving early?
12:50 < sgillies> cheers, elli. great to meet you
12:50 < elli> yes. have to take a train. It’s been great to meet you, too.
12:53 < asolove> Twitter seems to be down
12:53 < asolove> just thing
12:53 < asolove> Jobs at WWDC, Cohen announcing Zotero server
13:20 < karindalziel> The librarians on twitter are asking me lots of questions about Zotero server. Much excitement.
13:32 < dancohen__> good visualizations anyone? post them to IRC
13:33 < jgsmith> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte – Tufte’s done a lot of work on data visualization in general
13:34 < asolove_> Interesting discussion of event microformat standard
13:35 < asolove_> and now the event discussion is moving into visualization issues and we ought to be talking to the people in 402
13:36 < dancohen__> hey people talking about time in rm 462: why not join us in rm 402?
13:37 < asolove_> winds changed and now we’re into interdisciplinary discussion
13:39 < dchud> if only we could fold time and space. and then visualize that.
13:41 < dancohen__> come on down!
13:42 < dchud> somehow i read that as “interplanetary”
13:44 < asolove> whoops, misunderstood visualization
13:48 < karindalziel> asolove: What did you think visualization meant?
13:49 < asolove> I thought we were talking about GIS type issues and graphing not quick display of information
13:50 < karindalziel> asolove:ah, OK
14:02 < bess__> we solved all our problems in the international issues session, so we’ve dispersed to other sessions
21:27 < shekhar> any thatcampers want to grab a drink in DC?
21:28 * shekhar opens a beer for thatcampbot
22:02 < davelester> hey shekhar, where in DC are you at? I’m in Arlington right now
22:14 < shekhar> davelester: i’m in columbia heights
22:14 < shekhar> a bit far, i imagine
22:14 * shekhar passes the pipe to omeka-bot
— Day changed Mon Jun 02 2008
14:03 < davelester> sgillies and jgsmith: great to meet you both this weekend!
14:03 < davelester> hope you enjoyed #thatcamp
14:04 < sgillies> davelester: it rocked
14:04 < sgillies> i have a feeling that good things will ripple out of it
— Day changed Tue Jun 03 2008

Since yesterday, the digital humanities blogotwittersphere has been discussing a post by digital marketer Mitch Joel somewhat misleadingly titled “The Death of the Unconference.” (Reminds me a bit of famed literary critic Harold Bloom, who apparently also likes to pronounce things dead.) Joel writes, “I was a massive proponent of the unconference movement (I still am!), but that word has been used so poorly by so many groups that it seems to have all but disappeared.”

I’ve had a most instructive Google Alert on “unconference” for awhile now, which has taught me that there’s an unconference on Christianity, an unconference on real estate, and an unconference on coworking. I like to tweet these unconferences from the THATCamp account when I find them, just to show support from one unconference to another, and to remind myself that it’s not just coders and librarians and digital humanists engaging in “mob rule learning,” as the title of the recent book has it. But that Google alert has also taught me that Mitch Joel may have a point: the term “unconference” is sometimes used in cases where it’s hard to see what’s so “un” about the conference. I specifically remember deciding not to tweet the otherwise intriguing-sounding “Indigenous Innovation Unconference” when I saw how much they were emphasizing their six eminent speakers and how little they were emphasizing any kind of participant-driven program. Similarly, plenty of events that call themselves unconferences seem to have whole slews of presentations, which strikes me as odd.

Early on in my position as THATCamp Coordinator I was surprised to realize that I would occasionally have to enforce — not just explain — the unconference “rules,” and that’s been even more the case as THATCamp and digital humanities general have grown. Some have wanted to limit THATCamp attendance to members of their own community, some have wanted to charge registration fees, some have wanted to name a facilitator and/or a note-taker for every session, some have wanted to have presentations and keynote speakers, some have wanted to vote on sessions online beforehand rather than in the first session on the first morning, and so on and so forth. Some of these ideas made me uncomfortable — they seemed rather unTHATCampy — but then the idea of saying yes or no to such ideas and determining what is or is not THATCampy also made me uncomfortable. Suffice it to say that when I first began, I would have entirely agreed with Timothy Burke’s impassioned declaration that “‘Do as thou wilt’ and ‘Ur doing it wrong’ don’t add up,” but these days I’m more willing to take the latter position.

That being said, I hope that the rules we (and in some cases I) have set up for THATCamp, the rules I’m willing to be Madame Enforcer about, are rules that allow the kind of fluidity Timothy wants: “Improvisation has signal, it has pattern, it has structure, it has plans, but it also has the freedom to say or play what it seems right to say or play at that moment. Whatever works is what I want to be free to do … ” You bet. And of course improvisation has rules. Always say yes. Give the other guy a turn to solo and don’t step all over him. Put all the leftovers into the pasta except the pudding. The rules of THATCamp, ideally, are like that, or like the rules of copyleft. They are rules that require you to be free. In fact, one of the seminal texts of THATCamp is Tom Scheinfeldt’s “THATCamp Ground Rules”, in which Tom violently demands that THATCamp participants 1) have fun, 2) get some work done, and 3) be nice to each other. (Fascist.)

We also developed some rules for THATCamp organizers, which, similarly, are pretty much rules that require you to be free:

I agree that our THATCamp will be

• FREE or CHEAP to attend (registration fees of up to $30 USD are fine)
• OPEN to anyone who wishes to apply or register (no institutional, professional, or rank restrictions)
• INFORMAL and participatory (no presentations, papers, or demos longer than 5 minutes)
• PUBLIC on the open web (sessions can be blogged, twittered, photographed, recorded, and posted)
• SELF-ORGANIZING (no program committee: all participants are given a chance to help set the agenda, either before or during the unconference)

As long as you adhere to those rules (and keep our logo in Whitney), you can pretty much do whatever you want at your THATCamp. I’m full of advice on planning a THATCamp and a little advice on going to a THATCamp, but you’re also free to ignore that. Mitch Joel gives a whole stern list on the topic of “Your conference is not an unconference if…” I’m glad to say that even according to his strict definition, THATCamp is an unconference. Long may it live.