Brainstorm analysis
Contents
Brainstorm Analysis
This page contains the initial analysis of our brainstorm. The text is also available from the file area as .Discussion at Brainstorm analysis discussion please. We could use the discussion tab here but that's liable to prove unwieldy given the range and number of topics.
- ArbusDriver Nov 13, 2007
Introduction
Thanks to every one for the fantastic contributions to the brainstorm. The quality and quantity far exceeded what I’d anticipated – a testament to the enthusiasm of us all for the project. The only down side (if that’s what it is) is that it’s made this document rather long. No doubt you’ll persevere with it.
Our analysis and discussion of this wonderful material truly cries out for a round table. We’ll have to get by with wiki pages. It’s a far from perfect approach as it’s driven me to lead rather than chair the discussion. At a round table, we’d discuss each point as it arose. With wiki pages you’ll likely want to read the whole thing before responding. To make it a little easier for you I’ve tried to highlight (in bold) all points where there are questions to answer or issues to resolve. That doesn’t mean these are the only points where discussion is allowed, quite the contrary - please feel free to raise anything you feel is relevant and constructive.
Mission and vision
Let’s start with Mission and vision, because what we decide here will inform the discussion of the ideas.
You may find it useful to have [Brainstorm] open in another window for ease of reference.
Mission Statement
It’s noteworthy that no one felt the need to add anything to the extracts from Chuck’s comprehensive introduction. He’s had it spot on right from the start. The short, punchy version might be as follows. Please offer additions, amendments, punctuation, rewording...
The Moon Wiki is an encyclopaedia of features on the lunar surface, for the benefit of lunar observers and others thinking about the moon as a place. It aims to be the most convenient way to find all the photos and maps of any named lunar feature. Its credibility is assured by the oversight of its originator, Chuck Wood, a lunar scientist of x years standing.
Notes:
1. Dropped “series of descriptions of” (bullet 1) - implied by encyclopaedia.
2. Dropped bullet 3 per Mark.
3. Dropped bullet 4 - implied by encyclopaedia.
4. Dropped bullet 5 - implied by Wiki.
5. The end of the last sentence is weak.
6. There is an issue around the Wiki bit that we ought to resolve if this statement is to be fully honest. To most people, a Wiki is not just a collaborative creation (many tools allow for that). It also implies that the freely given contributions can be freely reused by any one for any non-commercial purpose. Our licence prohibits this. It is an issue that many people feel very strongly about and may well be a major reason why we have so few contributors. It certainly caused me to hesitate before joining in.
What the-moon wiki is
Following is a consolidated list.
• Basic coordinates, crater diameters, and Elger text.
• Basic image and descriptive data.
• Geochemical and geophysical data.
• Additional Information about features
• Provide basic biography of the person a feature is named after.
• Preserve information about the people who study the moon.
• Provide a comprehensive bibliography of lunar science literature.
• Record where, on Earth, things significant to our understanding of the Moon have occurred.
• Described the data returned by each successful lunar mission, together with sufficient historical background to put this data in context.
• List the basic documents concerning the history of lunar nomenclature
• Provide current and historic nomenclature information for each named feature. where available.
• Our primary focus seems to be on observable surface morphology (gross visible structures) with perhaps some geology (structure-forming mechanisms),…
• …but with almost no petrology (mineralogy of individual lunar rocks), gravity, orbital dynamics nor many other interesting fields in the vast lunar literature (I may not have the terms quite right).
Notes:
1. Removed bullet 6 – duplicate of bullet 11.
2. Split bullet 11 into two parts and added to second “where available” from former bullet 6.
3. Moved Jim’s bullet 3 from “What the-moon wiki is not“ to here and split in two.
4. The last bullet in the consolidated list is interesting. Do we want to leave the door open for these sorts of information?
Do you want to add, amend or delete anything on the list?
What the-moon wiki is not
A small section. That’s not too surprising as it’s fairly obvious from “What the-moon wiki is”. It’s largely just a place to record for posterity suggestions for content that the consensus agreed were not appropriate.
• Provider of almanac information for lunar observers (ephemeris, librations, eclipses, etc).
• Provider of current event information or news.
• The-moon wiki is not paper. The limitations that apply to a paper-based encyclopaedia do not apply to the-moon Wiki. In particular, there is essentially no limit to the number of articles we can create. Very small articles are OK. The readability of large articles may be enhanced by converting them into summaries with links to a series of other articles containing the details.
Notes:
1. Bullet three (my addition) is paraphrased from Wikipedia.
Do you want to add, amend or delete anything on the list?
Tag Line
The proposal is (thanks Danny and Ron):
“To bring the Moon to the people and more people to the Moon.”
Sounds great. Shall we go with that?
The ideas
So, at last, to the ideas. What an amazing list. 61 items in total. All great contributions. Very little duplication. Phenomenal for such a small group.
Because of its size and quality it was quite hard to see at first how to break it down. The clue was in MT01 (thanks Mark), the majority of them turn out to be “Personal Tasks”. Realistically, these will be done as and when the interested individual gets round to them. It’s a Wiki. That’s how it should be.
There is a second, smaller category that might be termed “Blue-sky” items – nice ideas but unlikely to be implemented for the foreseeable future.
A third even smaller category “General” is used for ideas of which we should all take note but which do not fit elsewhere.
That leaves a small number that could be done programmatically or by bot. The third table below lists these and indicates which might achievable in WikiSpaces and which in a WikiMedia based wiki.
There are similar tables for the other three categories.
There are a number of questions scattered throughout. The one that got us into this exercise in the first place: Is there enough here to push us into moving to a WikiMedia based wiki?
The spreadsheet used for analysis is in the file area: Brainstorm analysis.xls. Somewhere in the process of copying (WikiSpaces to Word to Excel and back) the links you had carefully entered were converted to text, and a UK English spell checker was inadvertently run. Apologies.
General
| ID |
Idea |
Notes |
| JM16 |
As a goal, if a new kind of information is added to one feature page, try to add it in a comprehensive and consistent way to all feature pages. |
Despite its general nature, bots & other automation might help achieve this. |
| JM22 |
Avoid duplicating what is done better elsewhere |
N/A |
| JM23 |
Try to attract additional contributors, but at the same time avoid overambitious plans that cannot be completed by a very small number of editors in a finite amount of time |
N/A |
| JM24 |
Keep the site accessible over low-speed internet connections. Example 1: if a reference has been located in NASA ADS/ABS, give a link to a summary text page from which the reader can download the (possibly very large) PDF file if they wish to, rather than giving a link directly to the PDF file. Example 2: give links to pages containing thumbnail-links to large images, rather than directly to the image itself (a practice we currently observe, for example, in citing images on the LPI site). Similarly do not force readers to download a large image to see a resized version of it. Example 3: avoid long complex scripts or multi-media plug-ins that slow the display of pages. |
N/A |
Personal tasks
| ID |
Idea |
Notes |
| CW05 |
Good image of each feature - Jim is working on this. |
N/A |
| CW06 |
Also an excellent Earth [based] image as well as space image for each feature. |
N/A |
| CW12 |
Gather scientific paper bibliolinks uniformly - botjob? The Moon Wiki does a great job collecting maps, images and data about specific features. My goal was to also make the wiki the place to go to find what professional papers have been published about the feature. NASA ADS is a great resource, but it really takes a lot of effort to search for the 2200 named features and select which of the ADS links are really pertinent. I prefer selected best info, rather than everything that is peripherally related. So there is lots of opportunities for people to search feature names in ADS and add the most relevant to our wiki. |
N/A |
| AD05 |
Add a pronunciation indication for each feature (copied from http://www.lpod.org/cwm/DataStuff/pronounce/Introduction.htm if it exists there). A good job for a bot (question to self, can bots read PDF?). |
N/A |
| AD07 |
Link more terms both internally and externally eg the many hasselblad ids that Danny has been adding. A job for a bot me thinks. |
N/A |
| AD08 |
Make consistent all book/map citations and link these to our description of the book/map. Another bot job. |
N/A |
| AD09 |
Link more (but not all) uses of abbreviations to our page defining it eg IAU. Bot. |
N/A |
| AD10 |
As the work on individual features matures, it would be good to have some more general articles on Lunar Science to tie it all together in a top down kind of way. For example, an article (or small series of articles) summarising GHM and updating it with more recent relevant discoveries. (This particular one could be done as a joint effort - any of us could write the summaries but only Chuck seems likely to be sufficiently familiar with recent Lunar Science literature to make the updates). There are doubtless other similar articles that cold be written which I do not have sufficient domain knowledge to even to begin to imagine - I'd love to read them though. |
Similar to JM19? |
| JM04 |
Add the missing IAU Transactions. |
N/A |
| JM05 |
Add the complete text/tables of Named Lunar Formations. |
N/A |
| JM06 |
Add the complete text/tables of the System of Lunar Craters (i.e., the LPL "list" – which I believe contains more than just named features). |
N/A |
| JM07 |
Provide good on-line copies of all maps from both of the previous publications. |
N/A |
| JM08 |
Link feature names to the appropriate paragraphs of biographical information in the BAA's Who's Who In the Moon. |
If this resource is online (Google doesn’t' turn it up) then it might be possible to automated it. |
| JM09 |
For persons who have made important contributions to lunar studies, have separate pages within the Wiki for the person and feature(s) named for them. For example, Hevelius_person in addition to Hevelius. The person page might link to more general biographical sources elsewhere (as we do now), but would be tightly focused on their lunar work and provide a place to list and describe in detail their lunar publications, time of activity, etc. (information in some cases now inserted on the feature pages, but perhaps inappropriate for a more general biography since it may represent only a small phase of the person's overall life). |
N/A |
| JM10 |
Supply complete current IAU nomenclature overlays of each image, by mouse-over or button. |
N/A |
| JM15 |
Make better use of Wiki "anchors" : links to items on long pages, like IAU Transactions or Lunar 100 or (now) Individual Scientists should ideally go directly to the item cited instead of to the page in general (i.e., links should scroll directly to relevant entry within the page rather than forcing the reader to search for it). |
Jim's proposed use is a good example of where this feature can be of benefit. However, it should be used with caution as it is, in general, depreciated. See [1]. |
| JM17 |
Document a useful set of recognisable small features with known three dimensional coordinates that can be used as reference points on the Moon. Show exactly what the feature is and how its position is known. Nothing of this sort current exists, at least in any comprehensive way. |
How does this differ from Lunar Control Networks? |
| JM18 |
Photographically document the locations of the former Greek-lettered lunar peaks. |
N/A |
| JM19 |
Add simple tutorial pages explaining and illustrating basic concepts necessary for understanding feature pages. E.g., basic mechanisms of lunar geology. Or at least links to external pages explaining them. |
N/A |
| JM20 |
Add brief articles (pages) on topics slightly tangential to the main objectives of the Wiki (whatever those prove to be), but possibly of interest to some readers. A couple I have been thinking about were: (1) Showing how to identify in overhead (satellite) photos the features producing the peaks seen on the Moon's limb at various librations. (2) Illustrating how to determine the "correct" coordinates of a feature in an uncharted area of the Moon using the 2005 ULCN. |
N/A |
| JM21 |
Add FAQ-type pages answering some of the typical (and perennial) lunar questions. Examples: (1) How many craters are there the Moon? -- illustrate with charts of crater densities & illustrations of surfaces of various ages; (2) What is the current rate of crater formation? -- explain odds that the current crop of lunar probes will see features not there 40 years ago in a certain number of square kilometres scanned; (3) What is the smallest feature on the Moon visible from Earth? -- illustrate difference between typical amateur image vs. what might be possible with professional grade adaptive optics vs. non-visible wavelengths (e.g., radar) vs. space probe. |
N/A |
| JM25 |
Add a comprehensive annotated "Resources/Links" page highlighting in one place external websites that would be of interest to our typical reader. Examples: LPI science pages, ASU Apollo Archive, Lunar Discussion Groups, sites with collections of exceptionally fine images, etc. -- or, if this is too hard to maintain, at least provide links to sites with good collections of lunar links. Ideally, designed so someone with no prior experience could quickly find the best available material. |
N/A |
| JM26 |
Illustrate all instances where there are views of a lunar area showing what it looks like from the ground vs. how it appears from overhead. |
N/A |
| MT01 |
Complete all biographies. This is my personal task. |
N/A |
| MT02 |
Link each 'name' to YOA-T and the Astronomy Compendium. Need feedback here. |
N/A |
| MT04 |
More lists of commonalities - central peaks, rays, secondaries, etc. |
Proper Wikipedia like categories (as opposed to WikiSpaces limited "tags") would be a good way to achieve this in a "self-maintaining" kind of way. |
| MT06 |
Expand Lunar Scientists section. |
N/A |
| DC01 |
Including all sorts of popular and well-known magazines with moon-related articles in them, such as: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, LIFE, the German DER STERN, the French PARIS-MATCH, etc... etc... (some of this kind of magazines are still available in libraries and/or second-hand bookstores, for example: shelves full of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC issues, those of the sixties and seventies)(the hey-days of Apollo!!!). |
N/A |
| DC02 |
Including the names and authors of "artistic" books about the moon (for example: FULL MOON by M.Light/ A.Chaikin). Something which I did on several pages. And also: all sorts of books, magazines, posters, album-covers (LP /CD) on which there are lunar photographs (Apollo-related, etc...). |
N/A |
| DC03 |
Including lots of lunar space-art (for example: Chesley Bonestell's, Don Davis's, Lucien Rudaux's, etc... etc...). |
N/A |
Technical (Automated solution possible)
Note: The first three may be considered Personal & or Technical
| ID |
Idea |
Notes |
WS |
WM |
| CW16 |
Map for each named feature showing all lettered craters, peaks etc associated with the feature - there is no existing product that does this. The USGS maps, Rukl, Clementine Atlas often have lettered craters associated with one named one scattered across 2-4 map sheets. |
See proposal at Abel Satellite Features. |
N/A |
Might be possible to pick up the table content from elsewhere if available. Is it? |
| MT05 |
A list on each page of "Lettered Craters". |
See proposal at Abel Satellite Features. |
N/A |
Might be possible to pick up the table content from elsewhere if available. Is it? |
| JM11 |
Provide some kind of context to feature positions. Tightly-focused images are fine for illustrating the features so painstakingly described in words on the Wikipedia pages, but give no sense of where it is located on the Moon or what the surrounding terrain looks like. A set of overlapping labelled Rükl-sized photomontages might be a possibility if they could be displayed with a marker dynamically linked to the feature of interest. If they were to cover the entire Moon, aerial views would seem more appropriate than the Earth-based orthographic ones in Rükl. |
Provided the montage exists, navigation to/selection of the appropriate portion might be automated. Detailed discussion and specification required. |
No |
Yes |
| CW01 |
One click to get Clementine image of feature |
Can be automated provided there is a consistent algorithm to get from feature name (or coordinates or similar) to Clementime image web address. |
Probably not. A bot might be able to perform the necessary edit. |
Yes |
| CW02 |
One click to get SMART-1 image of feature |
Can be automated provided there is a consistent algorithm to get from feature name (or coordinates or similar) to SMART-1 image web address. |
Probably not. A bot might be able to perform the necessary edit. |
Yes |
| CW03 |
One click to get Selene image of feature |
Can be automated provided there is a consistent algorithm to get from feature name (or coordinates or similar) to Selene image web address. |
Probably not. A bot might be able to perform the necessary edit. |
Yes |
| CW04 |
One click to get Etc image of feature |
Can be automated provided there is a consistent algorithm to get from feature name (or coordinates or similar) to Etc image web address. |
Probably not. A bot might be able to perform the necessary edit. |
Yes |
| CW07 |
Maps for all features (USGS is doing farside - we link to them - and they will ultimately do nearside) |
Can be automated provided there is a consistent algorithm to get from feature name (or coordinates or similar) to map web address. |
Probably not. A bot might be able to perform the necessary edit. |
Yes |
| CW08 |
When Selene/Kaguya gets topomap that would be nice to have too. |
Can be automated provided there is a consistent algorithm to get from feature name (or coordinates or similar) to map web address. |
Probably not. A bot might be able to perform the necessary edit. |
Yes |
| CW09 |
Next/previous arrows to allow easy (alphabetic) navigation through the features |
Should be automated and driven from alphabetic list of features. Manual = tedious to insert and to maintain if the alphabetic list changes (which it will). |
Probably not. A bot might be able to perform the necessary edit. |
Yes |
| CW10 |
Display gravity, geology, topo, etc maps centred on each feature... |
Can be automated provided there is a consistent algorithm to get from feature name (or coordinates or similar) to map web address. |
Probably not. A bot might be able to perform the necessary edit. |
Yes |
| CW11 |
Random page button - Wikispaces is working on this |
Nice to have but (arguably) not a key feature. |
Only if WikiSpace implement it. |
Yes |
| CW13 |
Display something different every visit on homepage - recent change link or random page link - to indicate dynamic nature of site |
The Wikipedia featured article approach is a great way to achieve this. |
Possibly. |
Yes. Could be driven from a simple date/page-name list set up as far into the future as wished so it keeps going through absences, etc. |
| CW15 |
Map of entire Moon (like USGS Map A Planet) to click on to go directly to feature of interest. |
- |
No - image maps not supported. |
Yes. |
| AD02 |
For the lunar novices like me, a farside or nearside locator map similar to those in red boxes in Rukl but generated from Lat / Long / Diameter as above. |
See proposal at Abel and Abel Satellite Locator Map. |
Unlikely. |
Yes. |
| AD03 |
A robot editor (bot) to do the repetitive edits to many pages that are necessary from time to time. There are two kinds of bot: fully automated (ie you tell it what to do and it goes off and does it) and human assisted (it finds where changes are probably needed and the operator agrees or cancels each in turn). We could use both. There are lots of them in use on Wikipedia, all open source and so clonable. 14yo had a go at writing a WikiSpaces bot from scratch during a couple of days of his half term last week. He got as far as invoking the Text Editor on a test page but then got an error message that we’re still striving to overcome. |
We have suspended our efforts pending outcome of brainstorm. |
Possibly. |
They already exist. |
| JM01 |
Link each IAU name to the corresponding entry in the IAU Gazetteer. For example, the link http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/jsp/FeatureNameDetail.jsp?feature=60178 brings up a window with nomenclatural and map information for "Abbe" (their database entry #60178) which may be more current than that in a hand-maintained Wiki. The problem with this (and the reason it wasn’t incorporated in the templates) is the USGS database programmer can’t guarantee that these feature numbers will not change at some time in the future, but my guess is they won't. |
Insertion of these links could be automated provided there is a consistent algorithm to get from feature name (or coordinates or similar) to its IAU Gazetteer feature number. |
Yes, provided the bot is completed. |
Yes. |
| JM02 |
Ideally link the Wiki position and diameter data "live" to the Gazetteer (to keep it in sync if changes are made to the latter). |
Might be worth developing a list of pros and cons (technical and other) before pursuing this. |
No. |
Yes. |
| JM03 |
More generally, keep all Wiki-specific information that affects more than one feature in centralised data-base type tables so that the information displayed on individual pages can be automatically updated and kept in sync. For example, basin ring diameters would be in a central table, and the displayed information on the page for a specific basin would be updated "live" when the table is changed. |
Need not be only "more than one feature". Failing JM02, we could hold the position, diameter, etc in this way (and might want to even with JM02). We already do this on the genealogy site - not "data-base like" but actually in an extra table we've added (WikiMedia wikis being underpinned by an SQL db). |
No. |
Yes. |
| JM14 |
The Italian amateur union (UAI) has carefully illustrated many named features with Earth-based photos on their http://www.PlanetMoon.org website, and we really should provide a link to their feature pages wherever appropriate. |
Can be automated provided there is a consistent algorithm to get from our feature name (or coordinates or similar) to theirs. |
No |
Yes |
Blue-sky
| ID |
Idea |
| AD04 |
My wild idea! There is a site called WikiMapia* that takes a feed from Google Earth and lets users mark on top of this features (using squares or polygons) and then write text to describe them. Imagine this with a Google Moon feed and a link from marked features to the relevant entry on the-moon wiki… |
| AD06 |
Add a link to an example of the pronunciation in the form of a .wav file or similar. This link might be distinguished by a loud speaker icon. My ideal "pronouncer" would be Stephen Fry (because he has the right skills, experience and voice for the job). Ed Harris would b a good alternative. Unfortunately neither of them is on my contacts list so a stand in would have to be sought. Smile. |
| JM13 |
Improve image search so that it finds links to all available images including a feature at a specific location with information as to scale, sun and viewing angles. The "Find Photos" button in LTVT demonstrates that this technology is quite feasible; but the "search by position" functions at the LPI do not work in this way. Not only do they search only very limited sets of photos, but they tell only if the centre point of the picture falls in the search box. In the "search by name" mode they return hits only if someone has manually annotated the image with the name. Note: the new ASU Apollo Image Archive has finally implemented something of the sort |
