[p2p-research] Defining terms for clear communication

Fri Jan 11 21:17:22 CET 2008

On Jan 10, 2008 9:49 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Patrick,
>
> I think your aim is totally irrealistic. Terms do never stabilize, they are ever moving > and used from particular perspectives which change over time, your example of
> value is right on target for that. I did a lot of reading last year on that value thing,
> only to conclude that it is used in a variety of ways. You can only enforce it in small
> communities, probably with some power to back up your definitions. But the P2P
> Foundation is a pluralist collective, with only a minimal consensus that peer to peer
> is generally a good thing ...

Ok.  I understand your goals for the wiki now.  I faultily assumed it
was to be used toward the goal of *proving* or *disproving* parts of
any one person's claims.  If the only purpose is to dump data that
single humans have conjured into existence without debate or
correction (I assume some of what I  write is also incorrect), then my
approach is completely out of place.

> What you can do is choose terms and define terms in the particular context of your
> project, with the people who are willing to follow you on that path ... and for me
> that means that it should be clearly indicated where that particular definition
> comes from. Take cost, I'm using it in a very general way to refer to the debates
> about coordination costs and transaction costs, as put forward by Benkler et al
> and they are widely understood 'in a broad sense' in social science and economist
> communities. As I reference the source, anyone can then verify what the
> perspective is.

Yes, we can view Benkler's arbitrary definition of 'cost', and we can
view a dozen other definitions for 'cost', but when using the word in
a sentence where we are trying to establish it's relation to 'price',
'profit', 'wage', etc. so that we can move forward with discovering
the *truth* (assuming such a thing exists),  there is almost no hope
of conveying our meaning to readers or for them to make meaningful
replies because all of those terms are floating.

What a mess.  Would it be any less effective to use random strings of
characters to denote those terms?  Are you interested in discovering
the real problems and solutions, or only in reporting what others have
already dreamed up?

>
> In contrast, you give a definition, which in my view is terse and which I do not
> understand, there is no reference, no contextual or perspectival add-on, and the
> only way I could understand it, is if I have the willingness to follow you on a
> long-term path of user ownership theory ...

To clarify: I am not trying to "take over" any definition.  Anything I
have written in the wiki is only my 'vote' toward that term's
definition.  I assumed others would 'fight' with me about this until
we could come to a semi-stable agreement.  As I said before, I really
don't care which word is used for each definition, only that they can
(eventually) be used when constructing sentences to each other so we
don't have so many iterations and irritations.

> the role of the wiki as I see it, is to offer a multi-perspectival vision on peer to peer
> related subjects, not one particular view; if a particular view is offered, it should be
> contextualized,

Offering differing perspectives is useful at first, but will we ever
use that data to come to any conclusions?   Is the whole point to
simply record and to never act?  How will we know if any part of any
theory is correct or incorrect if all we do is keep all authors
separated by variations in terms?  That seems like a lonely and
unproductive road.

Anyway, I'll make the changes you suggest with the tag
[[Category:User_Owned]] if that is ok with you.

(I think "User Owned" sounds better, as it compares well with the well
known idea of "Worker Owned" corporations.)

>
> Michel
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 10, 2008 10:43 PM, Lord AGNUcius <agnucius at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Hello fellow P2P Researchers!
> >
> >
> > My name is Patrick Anderson.  I've been lurking here for a few months, but
> > when I tried to post a reply to Michel yesterday, my email was not
> > recognized I think because of something to do with the way DNS resolves my
> > email address to my hosting provider instead of to my registered domain...
> >
> > Anyway, that's all fixed and here is my slightly edited response:
> >
> >
> >
> > Michel,
> >
> > I agree with your concern, but the fix you propose would not help
> > our community come to any sort of "agreement" on the definition of the
> > terms we need to communicate clearly with each other.  Any such
> > "agreement" would probably need to be held in a sort of semi-stable
> > 'tension' after many suggestions, battles, and rewrites, but at least we
> > would know what terms to choose when writing new sentences to minimize
> > confusion.
> >
> > I consider term definition the primary reason for faulty communication and
> > misunderstanding that often leads to unnecessary conflict and lack of
> > resolution.
> >
> > For instance, what does the word 'Value' mean?  To some people, 'Value'
> > means the ability withhold the physical sources of production from user
> > control for the sole purpose of keeping price above cost.  Governments use
> > this definition and the scarcity logic based on it to do terrible things
> > in the name of progress including using OUR tax dollars to pay farmers to
> > NOT grow foods such as wheat so supply is artificially restrained and
> > profit is perpetuated.
> >
> >
> > After writing that last paragraph I was reading the Oekonux list and
> > noticed a great example of this:
> >
> > Dmytri Kleiner writes at http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04129.html
> > >> Here Stefan appears to have lost his command of the distinction
> > >> between "value" (use-value) and "price" (exchange-value). Does
> > >> he mean that workers can capture the "use-value" of their
> > >> labour-power ("work-force")? This would mean his claim was
> > >> self-contradictory as with equal access to productive assets
> > >> this by definition would be the final product of their
> > >> labour ("value of their work")?
> >
> > Stefan Meretz responds with
> > http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04145.html
> > >>> Due to "translations" being wrong, you are mislead. Value means value,
> > >>> and not use-value. Price means price and not exchange-value.
> >
> > How can we ever expect to help each other resolve concerns when we are not
> > even speaking the same language?  We each live in our own little world
> > where every word and phrase means slightly different things to each of us
> > depending upon our background and the assumptions we make.
> >
> > I don't really care which definition is chosen for each term, only
> > that we can finally use them in regular discourse and that they are
> > 'stable' enough to allow the creation of claims and proofs that have
> > deterministic meaning.
> >
> > Once these definitions stabilize, the meaning of a sentence such as:
> > "Profit can be calculated as the difference between the Price a consumer
> > pays, and all the Costs (including Wages) that the Owners already paid for
> > that round of Production." will either make sense to the reader, or that
> > reader can click on any of those terms to find what the community has
> > already decided about how that word or phrase is to be interpreted.  The
> > clickability of those words is not yet automated, but could be through a
> > plugin that implements the ideas at http://CommunityWiki.org/en/PlainLink
> > .
> >
> > I will add the tags you suggest if you reject this proposal, but otherwise
> > would like to see pages such as the following adjusted according to what
> > is most "correct" in the collective minds of the P2P Foundation members.
> >
> > http://P2PFoundation.net/Rent
> > http://P2PFoundation.net/Cost
> > http://P2PFoundation.net/Price
> > http://P2PFoundation.net/Profit
> > http://P2PFoundation.net/Wage
> > http://P2PFoundation.net/Product
> > http://P2PFoundation.net/Physical_Source
> > http://P2PFoundation.net/Value
> >
> > ... There are others I've forgotten for now...
> >
> >
> > Your peer,
> > Patrick
> >
> > > Hi Patrick,
> > >
> > > thanks for adding your items to the wiki, which I think is a good thing
> > > ...
> > >
> > > however, I'm concerned by the lack of context for readers, as your prose
> > > is
> > > very terse, and self-referential, referring to a context most people will
> > > be
> > > unfamiliar with.
> > >
> > > I therefore propose to things:
> > >
> > > 1) that you would have your own area under Projects (see bottom of right
> > > column); that you would tag your items so they also appear automatically
> > > in
> > > that category, and that you clearly indicate in your entries, some
> > > indication of the context, for example: "as used in [[User Ownership]]
> > > theory .. Readers have to know why there is no general description of the
> > > term, but a definition within a specific context .
> > >
> > > What do you think? If you agree, what should you/we use as a specialized
> > > tag? Perhaps: [[Category:Usertheory]] ??
> > >
> > > Michel
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > p2presearch at listcultures.org
> > http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
> >
> >
>
>
>
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