Discussion Thread

Terry Disz disz at mcs.anl.gov
Thu Sep 12 11:27:48 CDT 2002


Yes, exactly, these ideas are consistent with the metaphor. I don't think
that is controversial. People will want to organize things in these and
other ways we probably haven't thought about yet - it is an area rich with
possibilities. We may provide some of this kind of organization ourselves,
but mainly I believe we should simply accommodate others who want to do so.

The questions I have are: Have we thought about the impact of these
requirements? What must a venue provide to accommodate people wanting to
organize things in these ways? Or, for that matter, should a venue make any
accommodation at all? Are we prepared to answer questions from AG users who
clearly want to be able to do this? What lessons should we take from web
pages and web page linking, discovery, etc? (Venues, after all, are not web
pages)

I think a discussion of these is interesting, and perhaps should include how
closely we want to stick to the constraints of the real world in our analog.
For instance, should we allow the MUD equivalent of an @who? Or a PAGE? (I
think maybe we should) If so, constrained by what scope? (That, I dunno).

Just wondering,

Terry

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick Stevens [mailto:stevens at mcs.anl.gov]
> Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 4:38 AM
> To: Terry Disz; Ag-Dev at Mcs. Anl. Gov; Hereld at Mcs. Anl. Gov
> Subject: Re: Discussion Thread
>
>
> I think we need multiple ways of addressing this.
>
> Search engines
> Directory Services
> Maps (overlays that provide navigable links to multiple venue servers)
> Public Plaza's that folks can connect too.
>
> I dont see any of these as being inconsistent with the metaphor.. in fact
> we have equivalents of all of these in the real world
>
> At 11:48 PM 9/11/2002 -0500, Terry Disz wrote:
> >This mail list ought to be good for more than just sending
> attachments, and
> >since we are all having a hard time being in the same place at the same
> >time, I thought I would try and start a discussion thread.
> >
> >What I want to discuss is scalability, in terms of what do we do
> if the AG
> >becomes really successful and there are bazillions of venues, or more. I
> >think this discussion is important because any possible solutions go
> >directly to Venue requirements and I don't want us to miss a requirement
> >because we didn't think hard enough about this problem.
> >
> >So, here's the issue - we at Argonne have been promoting the idea that
> >venues should be linked with door-like objects, and we can navigate from
> >venue to venue, just like the MUD. Although this can be fun, and can be
> >interesting in a social-experiment way, it's easy to see that
> this doesn't
> >scale very well when we start to talk about hundreds, let alone
> bazillions
> >of interconnected venues. Without structure, it would quickly become
> >impossible to find things and use the venues to conduct business.
> >
> >Although we have a stake in this idea, I think it might be a
> little wobbly
> >and I wonder if we shouldn't be talking about alternatives, or at least
> >about ways of imposing or discovering structure  in a network of linked
> >venues.
> >
> >Looking to some of our users, I know of at least two who operate venue
> >servers that have just a list of venues that users can choose and be
> >directly ported there. This idea of an index on a set of venues
> and a method
> >of jumping directly to one seems to be attractive to some. I know,
> >transiting venues is a fairly heavy operation today, but I think
> the problem
> >goes deeper and these other solutions would still exist even if
> transiting
> >were fast, as with the MUD today.
> >
> >Other ideas on what to do for scalability are;
> >1. dispatch venue-discovery bots to create a database to answer
> >google-search questions
> >2. Create a set of Yellow pages to help find venues by purpose.
> >3. Create a set of white pages to help find venues by name.
> >
> >
> >Put on your thinking caps -  what about scalability? How do we
> provide it?
> >What requirements do these solutions have for the venue? What are your
> >ideas?
> >
> >Terry
>




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