You are definitely insulated from loss of material by the distributed
character of git, but it would be difficult to replace the social network
around the projects. You really see this when you work with a non-Github
git repository: Getting a copy of it is trivial, but you have no mechanism
for alerting the original repository (much less its network) of potentially
valuable changes. Of course, there's the old-fashioned splash-pages and
contact emails, but the relative triviality of advertising changes to a
Github repository (and accepting them, for that matter) is pretty
groundbreaking.

- Ben


On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 2:04 PM, Tom Johnson <[log in to unmask]
> wrote:

> > But while I get the argument for utility, there does seem to be
> barrier-to-entry there for someone just wanting to submit a poem.
>
> The original suggestion wasn't about utility, but about modes of writing.
> Git repositories would make for poems which are easily shared, copied,
> "forked", and merged back together. I'm interested in the relationship this
> has to the idea of an "oral tradition". Especially given that a "git
> poetry" tradition would record its own history in the medium.
>
> I agree that wordpress is much more accessible. It seems obvious to me that
> we could post poems where we see fit and aggregate them. Written and oral
> is even more accessible than that. It seems obvious to me that we could
> write down and/or recite poems, pass them around, and commit them to
> memory. I think we should do all these things--and maybe play around with
> git, too.
>
> For me, the important take away from this discussion is that git art
> shouldn't be the dominant form of expression or the raison d'etre for the
> 'nerd poetry' idea.
>
> As an aside: I share the concerns about GitHub. I resisted joining for
> years because of exactly this issue. If Facebook is a man-in-the-middle
> exploit on social interaction, then surely GitHub is the same on Free
> Software development. I thought the FOSS community would be better served
> if we all put up our git repositories in our own ways, and tried to build
> tools for collaboration. As it turns out, GitHub has done wonders for code
> sharing and collaborative development and the company has been good to us,
> which is why I'm there now. I still worry about ways the our platform
> dependence could go badly. Luckily, the risk is mitigated by gits
> distributed and portable nature.
>
> - Tom
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Jason Stirnaman <[log in to unmask]
> >wrote:
>
> > Another option might be to set it up like the Planet. Where individuals
> > just post their poetry to their own blogs, Tumblrs, etc., tag them, and
> > have $PLANET_NERD_POETS aggregate them.
> >
> > Git and Github are great. But while I get the argument for utility, there
> > does seem to be barrier-to-entry there for someone just wanting to
> submit a
> > poem.
> >
> > Jason
> >
> > Jason Stirnaman
> > Digital Projects Librarian
> > A.R. Dykes Library
> > University of Kansas Medical Center
> > 913-588-7319
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Karen
> > Coyle [[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 10:42 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] GitHub Myths (was thanks and poetry)
> >
> > Shaun, you cannot decide whether github is a barrier to entry FOR ME (or
> > anyone else), any more than you can decide whether or not my foot hurts.
> > I'm telling you github is NOT what I want to use. Period.
> >
> > I'm actually thinking that a blog format would be nice. It could be
> > pretty (poetry and beauty go together). Poems tend to be short, so
> > they'd make a nice blog post. They could appear in the Planet blog roll.
> > They could be coded by author and topic. There could be comments! Even
> > poems as comments! The only down-side is managing users. Anyone have
> > ideas on that?
> >
> > kc
> >
> >
> > On 2/20/13 8:20 AM, Shaun Ellis wrote:
> > > > (As a general rule, for every programmer who prefers tool A, and says
> > > > that everybody should use it, there’s a programmer who disparages
> tool
> > > > A, and advocates tool B. So take what we say with a grain of salt!)
> > >
> > > It doesn't matter what tools you use, as long as you and your team are
> > > able to participate easily, if you want to.  But if you want to
> > > attract  contributions from a given development community, then
> > > choices should be balanced between the preferences of that community
> > > and what best serve the project.
> > >
> > > From what I've been hearing, I think there is a lot of confusion about
> > > GitHub.  Heck, I am constantly learning about new GitHub features,
> > > APIs, and best practices myself. But I find it to be an incredibly
> > > powerful platform for moving open source, distributed software
> > > development forward.  I am not telling anyone to use GitHub if they
> > > don't want to, but I want to dispel a few myths I've heard recently:
> > >
> > > ------------
> > >
> > > * Myth #1 : GitHub creates a barrier to entry.
> > > * "To contribute to a project on GitHub, you need to use the
> > > command-line. It's not for non-coders."
> > >
> > > GitHub != git.  While GitHub was initially built for publishing and
> > > sharing code via integration with git, all GitHub functionality can be
> > > performed directly through the web gui.  In fact, GitHub can even be
> > > used as your sole coding environment. There are other tools in the
> > > "eco-system" that allow non-coders to contribute documentation, issue
> > > reporting, and more to a project.
> > >
> > > ------------
> > >
> > > * Myth #2 : GitHub is for sharing/publishing code.
> > > * "I would be fun to have a wiki for more durable poetry (github
> > > unfortunately would be a barrier to many)."
> > >
> > > GitHub can be used to collaborate on and publish other types of
> > > content as well.  For example, GitHub has a great wiki component* (as
> > > well as a website component).  In a number of ways, has less of a
> > > "barrier to entry" than our Code4Lib wiki.
> > >
> > > While the path of least resistance requires a "repository" to have a
> > > wiki, public repos cost nothing and can consist of a simple "README"
> > > file.  The wiki can be locked down to a team, or it can be writable by
> > > anyone with a github account.  You don't need to do anything via
> > > command-line, don't need to understand "git-flow", and you don't even
> > > need to learn wiki markup to write content. All you need is an account
> > > and something to say, just like any wiki. Log in, go to the
> > > anti-harassment policy wiki, and see for yourself:
> > > https://github.com/code4lib/antiharassment-policy/wiki
> > >
> > > * The github wiki even has an API (via Gollum) that you can use to
> > > retrieve raw or formatted wiki content, write new content, and collect
> > > various meta data about the wiki as a whole:
> > > https://github.com/code4lib/antiharassment-policy/wiki/_access
> > >
> > > ------------
> > >
> > > * Myth #3 : GitHub is person-centric.
> > > > "(And as a further aside, there’s plenty to dislike about github as
> > > > well, from it’s person-centric view of projects (rather than
> > > > team-centric)..."
> > >
> > > Untrue. GitHub is very team centered when using organizational
> > > accounts, which formalize authorization controls for projects, among
> > > other things: https://github.com/blog/674-introducing-organizations
> > >
> > > ------------
> > >
> > > * Myth #4 : GitHub is monopolizing open source software development.
> > > > "... to its unfortunate centralizing of so much free/open
> > > > source software on one platform.)"
> > >
> > > Convergence is not always a bad thing. GitHub provides a great, free
> > > service with lots of helpful collaboration tools beyond version
> > > control.  It's natural that people would flock there, despite having
> > > lots of other options.
> > >
> > > ------------
> > >
> > > -Shaun
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 2/19/13 5:35 PM, Erik Hetzner wrote:
> > >> At Sat, 16 Feb 2013 06:42:04 -0800,
> > >> Karen Coyle wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> gitHub may have excellent startup documentation, but that startup
> > >>> documentation describes git in programming terms mainly using *nx
> > >>> commands. If you have never had to use a version control system
> > >>> (e.g. if
> > >>> you do not write code, especially in a shared environment), "clone"
> > >>> "push" "pull" are very poorly described. The documentation is all in
> > >>> terms of *nx commands. Honestly, anything where this is in the
> > >>> documentation:
> > >>>
> > >>> On Windows systems, Git looks for the |.gitconfig| file in the
> |$HOME|
> > >>> directory (|%USERPROFILE%| in Windows’ environment), which is
> > >>> |C:\Documents and Settings\$USER| or |C:\Users\$USER| for most
> people,
> > >>> depending on version (|$USER| is |%USERNAME%| in Windows’
> environment).
> > >>>
> > >>> is not going to work for anyone who doesn't work in Windows at the
> > >>> command line.
> > >>>
> > >>> No, git is NOT for non-coders.
> > >>
> > >> For what it’s worth, this programmer finds git’s interface pretty
> > >> terrible. I prefer mercurial (hg), but I don’t know if it’s any better
> > >> for people who aren’t familar with a command line.
> > >>
> > >>    http://mercurial.selenic.com/guide/
> > >>
> > >> (As a general rule, for every programmer who prefers tool A, and says
> > >> that everybody should use it, there’s a programmer who disparages tool
> > >> A, and advocates tool B. So take what we say with a grain of salt!)
> > >>
> > >> (And as a further aside, there’s plenty to dislike about github as
> > >> well, from it’s person-centric view of projects (rather than
> > >> team-centric) to its unfortunate centralizing of so much free/open
> > >> source software on one platform.)
> > >>
> > >> best, Erik
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Sent from my free software system <http://fsf.org/>.
> > >>
> >
> > --
> > Karen Coyle
> > [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
> > ph: 1-510-540-7596
> > m: 1-510-435-8234
> > skype: kcoylenet
> >
>