Dear transformappers,
bitte enschuldigen das ich schreibe auf Englisch.
Unfortunately I will not be able to participate to the online call. I would still like to make the following comments.
After the mapping jam I organized in Berlin where I introduced non mappers to open mapping and to the taxonomy, here are some observations:
Positive points:
- congratulations for that intensive work being produced!
- the needs category is intuitive and easy to use: there are of great mapping value.
- modes_of_interaction seem quite comprehensive and are intuitive, they are very useful.
- political_identities: it sets the boundaries of what we want on TransforMap, it is useful for people to understand what this is about. However, some initiatives are voluntarily apolitical, it's just about "doing now and here" and we might force on some initiatives a label they do not necessarily want (eg. in case when initiative is mapped by third parties). Should we think of a specific attribute?
More mixed feelings:
- modes_of_production: here the taxonomy is getting quite specific and for many initiatives the attributes are not really useful. It is also somehow a bit artificial to distinguish modes of production from interaction as commoning, or P2P are modes of interaction.
- production_input: I generally think this category is getting too abstract and hard to operationalize. I am also a bit skeptic about talking about production. Is that not a concept that is too much attached to the old paradigm (production & consumption)? What does a place where people exchange things produce?
- _knowledge: the description are too general about various license configuration: explanations should be more specific to the taxonomy and maybe start with "Knowledge used by the initiative comes from the public domain..."
- mode_of_organization: the category is useful for thinking, but its current complexity makes it extremely hard to fit in a form for instance (I gave up for our Berlin mapping test) and then requires different questions for each attribute.
So my overall comment is that I see simple categories (needs, modes of interaction, political identities) very useful for users because they are intuitive. They are easy to use while making a new entry (adding an initiative) and useful to navigate.
However, I am wondering now what is our goal is going much further by adding the latter complex categories? The more aspects we want to cover, the more we'll reflect complex realities is what I understand. But, the more complex the taxonomy will be be the less it is going to be used, and the more conflict it will create.
I see two major goals for the taxonomy: navigate initiatives with filters and aggregate (unify) existing mappings. A complex taxonomy will, I think, fail at both.
One last comment. The success of the taxonomy will eventually lies in ensuring it is widely supported. I see the use of German as a radical barrier (this also explains why I haven't taken part to the effort so far). I would be supporting the idea to focus on the essence of the taxonomy and trying to engage with an international crowd to improve it. I see too much debates, documentation being now developed in German, which may undermine our objectives.
This said, the work achieved so far is substantial and was appreciated by the participants of the map jam! I wish you the best for the phone conference!
Liebe Grüsse,
Adrien