Invitation to Join the Maple Global Network on LinkedIn
66Dear All,
I am writing to invite every MaplePrimes member to join the new Maple Global Network group on LinkedIn, which you can find at this address:
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/846497
My purpose in starting this group on LinkedIn is to bring Maple to a new audience and at the same time empower the Maple community with the unique professional networking tools that only LinkedIn provides. Please note that the Maple Global Network is intended to complement the MaplePrimes community, not replace it. I recently announced this new LinkedIn group on LinkedIn itself as well as on Usenet. When we have built up the Maple Global Network membership enough to have meaningful discussions, one of the first things I plan to do is tell them all about MaplePrimes, the most vibrant online Maple community around!
MaplePrimes certainly offers some wonderful resources which LinkedIn does not, such as the ability to use mathematical notation and upload and run Maple worksheets. What does LinkedIn offer that MaplePrimes does not? LinkedIn allows you to build a professional network of contacts who can help you advance your career, help you find jobs or fill job openings, and provide you with online recommendation letters. You can also use LinkedIn to earn recognition for your expertise in a wide range of areas, and you can join or start LinkedIn groups based on a wide range of common interests.
In short, LinkedIn is a very useful career development tool. Many Maplesoft employees have LinkedIn accounts, and some Maplesoft employees already belong to the Maple Global Network. Whereas MaplePrimes is hosted and administered by Maplesoft, the Maple Global Network is hosted by LinkedIn and administered by me, which provides an added level of independence which I believe will only benefit the Maple community.
I started the Maple Global Network group on LinkedIn to bring together users, developers, clients, consultants, academics, and professionals worldwide who do technical computing with Maple and related Maplesoft products like MapleSim, Maple T.A., and MapleNet. Please note that the Mathematica Users group on LinkedIn currently has about 120 more members than the Maple Global Network. We have a long way to go to catch up, so please join the Maple Global Network today, and encourage your colleagues to join us too. Thank you for your interest and support!
With best wishes,
Frederick W. Chapman, PhD
Mathematician/Consultant
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
- A procedure
1 hour 29 min ago - ellipse
2 hours 51 min ago - Also try the options scaling, gridrefine and crossingrefine
4 hours 9 min ago - Try implicitplot
4 hours 52 min ago - The patch
6 hours 28 min ago - thx!
6 hours 53 min ago - The source of the bug
7 hours 12 min ago - my concern is ...
8 hours 7 min ago - plotting with the "Standard interface"
8 hours 26 min ago - variant
8 hours 45 min ago
Maple Wiki
For me, the problem with that is that I have to join LinkedIn for that, which I don't want to do. It is similar to joining Yahoo that we had to do earlier for a few Maple related groops started there by Carl DeVore.
Another possibility (that I personally prefer), is to post in Maple Wiki. One doesn't have to join any commercial organizations for that, and it is independent from Maplesoft.
By the way, it would be good if Maplesoft added a link to Maple Wiki somewhere on its site. That could attract a few more people interested in wiki to it.
Alec
Maple Wiki
I read through a lot of the Maple Wiki but it didn't really help with any of my questions.
Perhaps if there were more Maplesoft developers and other Maple Primes members contributing to the Maple Wiki, it would be more useful.
Sure
Sure, the more people contribute, the more helpful that would be. The problem with Maplesoft developers is, however, that they don't post in the maple newgroup and don't post on this site (except a couple of them) - why would they start to post there? The only hope is the community, which also doesn't seem to be very active (or knowledgeable) neither here, nor in the maple newsgroup.
Alec
shortcomings
That Maple Wiki has a lot of shortcomings.
Many of the pages on it that describe Maple in detail contain inaccuracies. For example, this page indicates that the author does not understand that Maple uses an interpreter rather than a compiler by default. Basic notions are either incorrect or seriously incomplete on a selection of other pages I sampled, here, and here, say.
And other pages (eg. here, or here, or here) seem to not have much more content than collection of links back here to mapleprimes. Some may just be a collection of possible copyright transgressions (which is also incongruous with this).
Lack of control of the site by Maplesoft is no redeeming quality in and of itself. The site's access is still controlled by a very small number of people (possibly one single person). And access is restricted (blocked, unblocked, and who knows what next the next day will bring...) according to the whims of individuals. This does not instil confidence in the stability of the site. It's difficult to see that the independence from Maplesoft has helped that wiki, in these respects.
Altogether, this is highly inconducive to making me want to contribute new material or fix any of the inaccuracies. Perhaps it also relates to why only two or three people have contributed anything major to it.
It needs tons of work, has no high quality control, has very low contribution from Maple community, and has suffered from (unjustified, in my opinion, if temporary) censorship.
I would prefer a full online (pristine) set of Maple's own documentation as webpages, and this mapleprimes site for commentary/techniques/etc.
incorrect or seriously incomplete
You are right, the pages here, and here, are incorrect or seriously incomplete. That is why I have added the comments warnings (press Comments). They need collaboration from you and all other Maple experts.
I find that a collection of interesting link pages is better than nothing. You are also welcomed to improve them or make better ones.
The site is under US legislation and as I was told, a proper linked and acknowledged excerpt of a post classifies as fair use for non-profit purposes.
Security is an hot issue for wiki sites. Indeed this wiki was under attack some time ago. It would be interesting to know your ideas to help with that.
Stability. This site (hardware and software) is an individual contribution from Alec to the Maple community. Nobody else did something like that before. I hope that he could keep it running for a few years. Do you have a better option to offer?
Yes, it needs tons of work. You and everybody are invited to contribute a with a few grams.
There is no quality control or any other censorship control in this wiki. Indeed, your contributions will help to improve quality. And you are invited to discuss on the wiki list ideas for quality control.
In this blog, I have shown multiple promises by Maplesoft to set up an official wiki, and evidence that its realization is unlikely. But you may want to wait it.
citation
I guess we differ in opinion about what is an excerpt, and what is more than that. Reproducing seven of ten (or so) "paragraphs" is more than an excerpt where the purpose seems to be to support a point, I think.
You do give the citation, which is nice. Indicating [deleted] or some such, to indicate the missing bits, might be nicer still.
what is an excerpt
No, I do not have a concrete opinion on what an "excerpt" means in this context. Note that I am not a US citizen, nor a layer, so that I am not aware on the "correct" usage of that norm. Your help on this subject is welcomed.
This "excerpts" page is a new "experiment" (this site as you see is still experimental), precisely to go beyond the bare link pages that you have criticised. As you have noted, I have deleted some text not to the point, but I was not sure yet how to mark that. Your suggestion is very useful.
Some comments
First, it is wiki - everything can be edited by everybody, and one doesn't even have to log in to do that. It can be done completely anonymously. Frankly, I am quite surprised that you, obviously, spend a lot of time there, and didn't leave any comment, or made any change there.
Access to the site is completely open, and as far as I can tell, it was accessible all the time since its openning, even during site updates, in sharp contrast with, for example, this site, or Maplesoft main site, regularly broken, especially during weekends, for a couple of days or more.
I didn't exactly understand the censorship comment. I don't censor anything there, again in sharp contrast with this site, for instance, or Maple beta site, where few of my posts were deleted by moderators, and a lot of my old posts simply disappear.
About Maple community activity. First of all, there are no many active people there (and here) and most of them (including me) have their own websites. Not many people, obviously, (again you and me including) feel that the work of putting their materials there is worth their time needed for that.
Still, it is currently the most active and the most interesting Maple wiki out there. If more people participated, it would be certainly more valuable.
Alec
censorship
censorship does necessarily mean editing or removal. Blocking an entire site or IP range (in this case, Maplesoft's), even if only temporarily, means censorship to me.
Blocking access
Well, it was a security measure - I had to restore wiki after a couple of vandalism attacks from 2 other sites (located in Latvia and India) just a few days before that. They were caused by a virus, distributed as an email attachment, installing a program (so called trojan horse) attacking various wikis.
It was only one IP address, not a range. Probably, it was the IP address of a server through which Maplesoft access Internet - that's how other computers get affected.
Anyway, that was just a protecting against vandalism measure, not a censorship.
Do you use spam filters, for example, in your email, and do you call that censorship of the spam sending sites, too?
Alec
evidence
Did you have any evidence that vandalism against your wiki was coming from the blocked maplesoft address?
Vandalism
There were no vandalism against Maple wiki from the blocked Maplesoft IP address, and there couldn't be, because it was blocked.
There is an evidence of the vandalism from that IP address against the wikipedia. Which created an evident threat to the Maple wiki, especially keeping in mind that it was my editing in the wikipedia which was wiped out from that IP address, and the history of deleting (censorhip, using your term) my posts on this and other Maplesoft owned sites.
Alec
Edit: I also don't agree with calling it my wiki. While I host it on my webspace (because nobody else wanted to do that), and do system administration (again because nobody else wanted, or qualified, to do that), it is a wiki - a piece of the web that everybody can edit. I don't own it. I own only the copyright to the materials that I personally posted there.
Currently, 4 people posted their materials there - Robert Israel, Alejandro Jakubi, Fred Lunnon, and me - in this sense it may be called Robert Israel's, Alejandro Jakubi's, Fred Lunnon's, and mine wiki. But when somebody else will post his/her materials, it will be his/her part of the wiki, too.
Alec
Maple Wiki vs. LinkedIn & Google Apps
Alec, thanks for your comments. I have some questions and comments in reply.
1. Is there a specific reason you don't want to join LinkedIn? The basic services are totally free. I only use the free services, and I find LinkedIn to be a great way to reconnect with old colleagues and meet interesting new ones. LinkedIn is a powerful professional networking and career development tool and thus has value in its own right. A lot of Maplesoft employees are already LinkedIn members, as are some very high-profile experts in computational mathematics, such as Jon Borwein and David Bailey.
2. The Maple Global Network is independent of Maplesoft. Though I believe Maplesoft to be a force for considerable good in our field, I think it is beneficial to also have independent Maple groups like the ones we're discussing.
3. You can add a link to the Maple Wiki on MaplePrimes yourself in Books > Great Maple Links > Great Maple tools and resources. That's where I added a permanent link to the Maple Global Network group on LinkedIn.
4. Finally, I'd like to add that I am considering expanding the resources of the Maple Global Network beyond LinkedIn. We're currently discussing a proposal on LinkedIn to use Google Apps to offer a suite of online communication and collaboration tools to all group members. This would include wiki-style websites for all group members and group projects. The advantage of Google Apps over a typical wiki is that we can control exactly who can see each web page and who can change it, in essence moderating selected portions of the site.
Now how do you feel about joining the Maple Global Network? Am I wearing you down or just wearing you out? :-)
Fred
Frederick W. Chapman, PhD (Waterloo), MMath (Waterloo), BA (Lehigh)
Research Mathematician / Mathematical Software Specialist / Maple Expert
Full Credentials & Freelance Consulting Services: linkedin.fwchapman.info
LinkedIn
1. There are many reasons. One of them is that I don't like LinkedIn.
2. While it is independent of Maplesoft, it is dependent on LinkedIn.
3. On this site, I think, Maple Wiki is promoted enough. I'd like to have a link on the Maplesoft site.
4. I don't like Google, too. Mapleadvisor site also could provide members with personal webspace and groop project collaboration tools if there were somebody interested in that. The ACL (access control lists) in wiki provide control on who can read and who can write certain pages.
Alec
One Maple group is enough
I don't like the idea of another forum on the same subject. Just a single go to source to find answers - mapleprimes.
I agree
another forum on the same subject is not a good idea. The purpose of a wiki is different and complementary. Quite a number of proposals have been made about its contents by members of the Mapleprimes community as you can read here.
Differences
There are differences between MaplePrimes, LinkedIn, and Maple Wiki.
MaplePrimes site is good if you have a quick question and need a quick answer.
LinkedIn Maple network is not a question answering group, it is a network of professionals working with Maple, who either has an account on LinkedIn or wants to have such an account. The main purpose of it to get to know each other and to work on some joint projects together.
Maple Wiki is also not a question answering group, it is a wiki. Currently it is rather small, and duplicating some of mine and other people's blogs here, but if more people participate, it could me more valuable.
The advantages of a wiki comparing to this site is that everything is editable, all the time, while on this site some people can't edit anything after it was posted, and some other people can edit their own posts if they were not replied to. Also, from my point of view, both math and Maple examples look better in Maple wiki comparing to this site.
Originally I was pessimistic about wiki (and I don't even want to provide a link to my original post about the wiki idea), but being a pessimist, as it is well known, has a nice side that in any case you are either right, or get pleasantly surprised. Thus far, even with much less people actually working on wiki rather than talking here about that, I would say that I was pleasantly surprised.
Alec
Another difference
is about organization of the material and easiness of access. Quite frequently it takes me a long time of search to find interesting posts to MaplePrimes that I have read time ago. In a wiki, the same material can be continuously reorganized and interlinked with related documents and index/reference pages making possible a much more direct access.
Complementary Maple Groups -- Avoiding Duplication
Alec, thanks for making clear the differences between the various online Maple communities. It is certainly important to understand the unique purpose of each one.
Chris and Alejandro, thank you both for pointing out the danger of having too many places to post Maple questions and answers. For that very reason, I will steer LinkedIn group members to MaplePrimes for Q&A about Maplesoft products.
In general, I agree with all your concerns. The Maple community is too small to splinter into separate groups without a good reason. Furthermore, none of us can afford to waste our limited time by duplicating the efforts of others.
I started the Maple Global Network group on LinkedIn to fill an obvious void -- there was no international Maple group on LinkedIn. There were already Maple and MapleSim groups to serve the local needs of Italian users, but there was no international Maple group until I started one. We now have 46 members!
I knew about MaplePrimes and wanted to avoid duplicating what already exists here. I am trying to steer the LinkedIn group in directions which are complementary to MaplePrimes. I do not want to compete with or attempt to replace MaplePrimes.
I was unaware of the Maple Wiki, but I know about it now. One of the things I propose to do if I build an independent website for the Maple Global Network is to "direct traffic" -- to have a well-organized directory of Maple resources which clearly explains where to go for each kind of resource. I can mention MaplePrimes and the Maple Wiki, for example.
As for the role of Google Apps in the Maple Global Network, I'm still thinking about that and discussing it with the group on LinkedIn. I was going to require people to open LinkedIn accounts before signing up for Google Apps accounts (as a way to authenticate the membership), but perhaps I will reconsider that policy and offer the services in an a la cart fashion -- some members may be interested in one but not the other.
Nothing is set in stone at this point. I appreciate your comments, which are definitely helping me to evolve my plans in a better direction.
Thanks again,
Fred
Frederick W. Chapman, PhD (Waterloo), MMath (Waterloo), BA (Lehigh)
Research Mathematician / Mathematical Software Specialist / Maple Expert
Full Credentials & Freelance Consulting Services: linkedin.fwchapman.info