life-itself
List all research related work in one place (on research.lifeitself.org)
We just set up markdown + https://Flowershow.app -powered research.lifeitself.org in #1206
Now we want to get all the research materials in one place. Suggest 2 stages:
- Raw catalog/inventory: this is a pretty raw, not very tidy listing of pretty much all the projects and materials we have with one page per item
- Some kind of tidied listing of more polished materials (at very least some kind of listing on main page and maybe even a page per project / publication)
Tasks
Raw inventory
- [x] Stub the raw inventory ✅2025-05-14 we have this working at https://github.com/life-itself/research/tree/main/raw
- [ ] Brainstorm list of materials we have ...
Polished publication list
...
N.B. This duplicates or is a sub-part of https://github.com/life-itself/studio/issues/251. UPDATE: inlined in issue description above
@JonahWilberg if you're working on this, there is helpful context and documentation of what I've done so far in there.
N.B. This duplicates or is a sub-part of life-itself/studio#251.
@JonahWilberg if you're working on this, there is helpful context and documentation of what I've done so far in there.
OK thanks Catherine - I can see that this is already quite advanced, and it's a bit hard to tell what's still in progress, maybe let me know if there's a particular area you could you use help with.
My main suggestions regarding the 'brainstorming' mentioned above would be:
- [ ] Would be nice to include the list of 'research' related podcasts/videos on the life itself podcast/youtube (I see you've already added Wiser technology, which is a podcast, to the list of main research outputs, but a dedicated section on podcasts might be good
- [ ] Likewise - we have the contents of the Life Itself Research substack that could potentially be showcased better on this site.
- [ ] We also need to think about the process for getting more polished written outputs by current members of the research group, (which could help motivate more outputs there). For example as I've discussed with Rufus, I think my Wise Altruism piece is a good fit, and I'm happy to convert this into pdf for example so that there's more alignment in output style. There's also my earlier pieces on Metamodernism and Scientific Grand narratives - do we need to agree an approval process for inclusion?
Great comments, thanks, Jonah. I'm out of office now until Tuesday, can read and respond properly after then -- + I believe Rufus will be continuing to work on this in the meantime.
Catherine Tran
@.*** @.***>
www.lifeitself.org
We are a multidisciplinary network committed to a wiser, weller world by creating a culture and community grounded in presence and purpose. Subscribe http://www.lifeitself.us/contact to our bi-monthly newsletter for updates on our hubs, events and research.
On Fri, 16 May 2025, 08:28 Jonah Wilberg, @.***> wrote:
JonahWilberg left a comment (life-itself/community#1207) https://github.com/life-itself/community/issues/1207#issuecomment-2885766573
N.B. This duplicates or is a sub-part of life-itself/studio#251 https://github.com/life-itself/studio/issues/251.
@JonahWilberg https://github.com/JonahWilberg if you're working on this, there is helpful context and documentation of what I've done so far in there.
OK thanks Catherine - I can see that this is already quite advanced, and it's a bit hard to tell what's still in progress, maybe let me know if there's a particular area you could you use help with.
My main suggestions regarding the 'brainstorming' mentioned above would be:
- Would be nice to include the list of 'research' related podcasts/videos on the life itself podcast/youtube (I see you've already added Wiser technology, which is a podcast, to the list of main research outputs, but a dedicated section on podcasts might be good
- Likewise - we have the contents of the Life Itself Research substack that could potentially be showcased better on this site.
- We also need to think about the process for getting more polished written outputs by current members of the research group, (which could help motivate more outputs there). For example as I've discussed with Rufus, I think my Wise Altruism piece is a good fit, and I'm happy to convert this into pdf for example so that there's more alignment in output style. There's also my earlier pieces on Metamodernism and Scientific Grand narratives - do we need to agree an approval process for inclusion?
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/life-itself/community/issues/1207#issuecomment-2885766573, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AXER35YRVWQBQS2YHEVHPQ326WARRAVCNFSM6AAAAAB5CTNGMKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDQOBVG43DMNJXGM . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>
I'm at a loss to understand why one would want to do the full collection of research on Flowershow, which is less easy for collaborators to get into, than on the wiki, which is much easier? What's the rationale here? Some guesses:
- It's Rufus's favourite tech stack. Fair point. However this risks biasing contributions towards those who find that particular tech stack easy to use (which is not everyone, naturally).
- There is a desire to keep control through being more easily able to limit or restrict who maintains the material.
I can see pros and cons of (2). Yes, if there really is a danger of spamming etc., it's one approach: others would include a more customisable arrangement as comes out of the box on Dokuwiki. The most obvious contraindication is that the fewer contributors there are, the less likely it is that the material will be kept up to date, and it may also be harder to establish a sense of an open research community.
Personally, I see it as a goal to establish a trustful, egalitarian research community here. Of course, it should go without saying that I don't mean the pseudo-postmodern "everyone's ideas are of equal value" (which they aren't) but that we aspire to a convivial community where there is respect both for established wisdom and for new insights.
@asimong because
a) One wants a reasonably elegant website not a wiki page ... b) One wants to avoid merging the website material with a general wiki which goes well beyond the research collective ... (IMO) (NB: IMO i wouldn't put much "wiki" like content in the research subsite - it's for showcasing publications etc)
And ... for me personally (which is longer discussion about wiki tech stack): I really want something markdown based and maintanable in git(hub) if at all possible as it is the best integration of sustainability, open formats and UX that i have so far found.
a) One wants a reasonably elegant website not a wiki page ...
As landing pages, I agree.
b) One wants to avoid merging the website material with a general wiki which goes well beyond the research collective ..(IMO) (NB: IMO i wouldn't put much "wiki" like content in the research subsite - it's for showcasing publications etc)
Fair enough to showcase valuable stuff in a showcase. Showcases, however, usually insulate their contents from external contact, like the display of priceless jewellery.
And ... for me personally (which is longer discussion about wiki tech stack): I really want something markdown based and maintanable in git(hub) if at all possible as it is the best integration of sustainability, open formats and UX that i have so far found.
Let's have that longer discussion! I would be delighted if we found something based on Markdown that worked as well and as easily as other wikis work. Not so sure about that idea of maintaining it in Github though. Seems to me to add constraints that may not fit with general usability. Can we find funding for the open source development of a wiki system that meets all of our requirements together? That would be nice...
N.B. This duplicates or is a sub-part of life-itself/studio#251. @JonahWilberg if you're working on this, there is helpful context and documentation of what I've done so far in there.
OK thanks Catherine - I can see that this is already quite advanced, and it's a bit hard to tell what's still in progress, maybe let me know if there's a particular area you could you use help with.
My main suggestions regarding the 'brainstorming' mentioned above would be:
- [ ] Would be nice to include the list of 'research' related podcasts/videos on the life itself podcast/youtube (I see you've already added Wiser technology, which is a podcast, to the list of main research outputs, but a dedicated section on podcasts might be good
- [ ] Likewise - we have the contents of the Life Itself Research substack that could potentially be showcased better on this site.
- [ ] We also need to think about the process for getting more polished written outputs by current members of the research group, (which could help motivate more outputs there). For example as I've discussed with Rufus, I think my Wise Altruism piece is a good fit, and I'm happy to convert this into pdf for example so that there's more alignment in output style. There's also my earlier pieces on Metamodernism and Scientific Grand narratives - do we need to agree an approval process for inclusion?
Hey @JonahWilberg, I think these are great suggestions, thanks.
Re podcasts/videos, I thought it was a nice idea to list research community presentations on the site and created this page https://research.lifeitself.org/publications/research-community-presentations where I have listed all presentations published at https://news.lifeitself.org/s/research.
However, having done so, I now have some doubts whether this is smart -- since we publish research community presentations and research-related podcasts (which I didn't include, as think it's hard to draw a boundary between Life Itself's podcast content generally and "research-related" podcast/video content) more frequently than "more polished" research projects and publications, I wonder whether creating the extra work of listing on site (as well as publishing on YouTube and Substack) for each item is unhelpful. Current research.lifeitself.org homepage says "Recordings of recent sessions and some written outputs can be found here." and I wonder whether that is/was sufficient for showcasing this kind of content. In any case, leaving this new page here for now.
Re Research Substack, it is currently linked via ‘Newsletter’ in top navigation bar. I see that the Substack seems newly set up and currently has one cross-posted research community call presentation from 2024. I wouldn't take any further action on this now. I note that if Research Substack is going to take over from https://news.lifeitself.org/s/research, then would make sense to update the link from research.lifeitself.org homepage text.
Great question re what's the submission/approval process for including more polished outputs by collective members on the site. Would you be up for drafting a short proposal for such a process? I imagine it could be something quite simple.
FIXED. We have:
- New Markdown-based/Flowershow site research.lifeitself.org
- Raw inventory of all Life Itself research outputs/publications and projects in research repo: https://github.com/life-itself/research/tree/main/raw
- 8 polished project pages for the most recent externally funded research projects (see Acceptance for detail)
- 8 polished publications pages (see Acceptance for detail)
- Homepage updated with new projects listing
I suggest that new issues be created to address other suggestions raised in this issue, e.g. have booted #1216, @JonahWilberg booted #1215 which is somewhat related, and we might want issues e.g. to address the question of submissions/approval process for publishing work by collective members...