My Biota.org interview

[Numsgil]

My biota.org interview is currently showing at Biota.Org.

You can also download it directly from http://www.nobleape.com/biota/biota_jlemmon_112606.mp3

[EricL]

Nice.  I thought you'd be taller...  

[Henk]

Nice  Hope this brings in some new users, perhaps

[Testlund]

Nice.  I thought you'd be taller...  

What do you mean? Taller? I only get sound, no image from that link.  

Anyway, it was interesting to listen to.  

[EricL]

What do you mean? Taller? I only get sound, no image from that link.  

Really?  hmm.  It's something to see.  I've never seen someone wear a purple fez to an interview before...

[shvarz]

Nice interview.  How big of an audience that web-site has?  It has a general feeling of "constant under construction because nobody cares".

[Numsgil]

I don't think thousands of people look at it necessarily, but certainly there is a small audience.  shvarz, if you have any particular criticisms about the site I bet Tom would like the feedback.

[shvarz]

Well, I did not mean it as a mean criticism.  Just the feeling I got from flipping through several pages.  From centered pictures, large fonts, all-caps titles and inconsistent (or non-existent) color scheme.  
And this is in sharp contrast to the big names that they list as contributors.

I was just curious as to what kind of audience they have.  Actually, it is not even the size that's important, but the number of people who might seriously get interested in DBs to give it a look.

[Jez]

Cool! N1 Nums!  

[Endy]

Cool  

Sent an e-mail to biota about possibly upgrading their page and adding a forum.

I'd really like to see a well written central page put together. The wikipedia page (thanks Nums) is really the most impressive collection of links and information, but it can't be really used to discuss cross simulator issues, like a forum could.

I'm going to send out some more requests to the different designers to post info on their projects, seems to have worked for at least a few of them.

[Endy]

-----Original Message-----
From: tom@nobleape.com
To: nd0816@aol.com
Cc: bdamer@digitalspace.com; numsgil2002@yahoo.com
Sent: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 7:19 PM
Subject: Re: Comment form from Biota.org.


Thanks for the comments Neil,
 
I'm assuming you are the same fellow I saw post in the DarwinBots forum. I requested membership to the forum but I suspect somewhere through the spam control etc the response was lost.
 
The problem with the Biota site - as I quickly found when I began editing it about two years ago - is that many of the pages on it have been linked by dozens of pages. The redesign I started enabled me to maintain the active sections of the site. We are using a wiki which is currently semi public for artificial life project collaboration - most importantly the Biota.org Conversation podcast, which is building from the Biota.org Interviews podcast that Jay participated in most recently.
 
http://www.biota.org/wiki/
 
In short, biota.org has been up since 1997. Rather than changing it through removing pages or sections, all that can be done realistically is to add to it and build more structure. One thing I have maintained is the links section of the site;
 
http://www.biota.org/links/
 
My understanding is that there is a strong symbiotic relationship between the Links section of the Biota.org site and Wikipedia's list of artificial life projects. My priorities currently are with the Conversations podcast and minor additions to the Biota.org site. I have talked about what I'd like to do/see with Biota.org;
 
http://www.nobleape.com/reality/nobleape_110206.mp3
 
In terms of Jay's rework of the artificial life entry on Wikipedia, I've been meaning to add some solid Talk feedback for Jay. I hope to get onto that before the end of the year.
 
Best regards,
 
Tom Barbalet.

Actually received a response  

Seems somethingof a legacy problem mixed in with cross linking issues.

It might be well worth to start completly fresh on a new central Site/forum. I just want a neutral community area where everyone can talk to each other about the differences between simulators and possible ways to improve them. Everyone is finding different aspects of what is required for successful alife, but they're not able to easily put the peices together  

Alright, I'm going to take a look into what all it'd take to put a truly beautiful site online with a forum attached. Hopefully done right it'll interest new members and provide a location for cross communication.

[Numsgil]

Alot of the issue I think is that the different ALife people are very different in terms of how they communicate.  Some like to use jargon-y terms, while others, like Darwinbots, tend to be more ameteur based.  Some aren't comfortable with things like forums, etc.

Try sending emails to the different ALife authors you want to court, and see what they would be most comfortable with.  Personally I like the forum/wiki combo Darwinbots has going on, but I'm a little biased.

[Jez]

Shame he never got his membership sorted for the DB forum.