Idealogs:Documentation

Handles

Unlike in a traditional wiki, articles on this site are identified by a unique handle. Handles are composed of a domain and a range, and are formatted as [domain]x[range]. Ranges are encoded in hexadecimal (see ranges).

This article has the handle @0x66F7B7, which means it is in the ‘@0’ domain and thus refers to a subject. Some more examples:

Domains

Domains are a tool to quickly identify which type of article you are reading. There are four default domains, corresponding to the four types of articles in a synesiary. When you create an account, you are also assigned your own domain which corresponds to the Pen Name you chose. See works for more info.

Ranges

Ranges are automatically generated by the software when you create a new article. They are relevant only in that they allow you to uniquely refer to any article in a given domain. Ranges use the hexadecimal numeral system.

Titles

The title of an article is located at the top of the page. It identifies the item being cataloged in the fewest words possible.

The title of an article can be changed freely from edit to edit. This is because an article is uniquely identified by its handle, not its titlethis is in direct contrast to Wikipedia, where articles must be “moved” in order to change their title

. In practice, title edits must be properly justified or else they will be reverted.

Subtitles

The subtitle of an article, located directly beneath the title when visible, displays the article’s handle. If you are on the article’s “Read” page, the shortcut CMD+S will show or hide the subtitle.

Meta

You can easily view pertinent information about the commit you are viewing by clicking the handle of the article, located in the subtitle. For example, scroll to the top of this page and click the link for ‘@0x66F7B7’. The log will also provide a button for editing the article (if you have permission to do so), and also a button for viewing the changes made by this commit, among others.

If you are on the article’s “Meta” page, the shortcut CMD+M will show or hide the meta box.

URLs

The URL of an article is simply the article’s handle.

Commits

An article in a synesiary is the sum of a finite number of commits. A commit is roughly equivalent to an ‘edit’ in a wiki.

Suffixes

The four article types in a synesiary each have an associated suffix that is used for searching for and creating new articles of that type.

For example, to query the index for all finite articles (i.e. questions) concerning World War 2, you would input World War 2?.

If your query does not end in an appropriate suffix, then you will receive results from all four domains.

Article page

Identical in function to the ArticleAlso known as a “Ken” page. Ken (n.) means understanding, as in beyond one’s ken. A Ken page is place for understanding.

page of a Wikipedia article.

Talk page

Identical in function to the Talk page of a Wikipedia article. Common syntax for editing a Talk page:

Text page

All transfinite articles are associated with a writing which the article is meant to catalog and describe. If the writing was published as a work or was published elsewhere on the web, then the “Text page” is simply a link to the writing itself; if, however, the writing is in the public domain or we have secured the rights to republish it, then it is a bona fide wiki page itself which can be edited like any other page in the synesiary.

In other words, there are three categories of writings based on where the writing was originally published:

Writings

If you are cataloging a piece of writing that has a unique identifier, use it in your query. Doing so will allow the software to automatically add relevant bibliographic metadata to the article. Examples of unique identifiers include

• URL (ideally, a stable one)
• DOI
• arXiv ID
• PMID
• ISBN

Notice the comma at the end, which is the suffix for cataloging writings and not part of the identifier.

Authenticated vs. Anonymous

The editing workflow of an article differs depending on whether you are signed in or not.

The latter is nearly identical to the editing workflow on Wikipedia: make your changes, write a short message which describes your changes, preview the changes you are about to make, and then commit them to the database.

The former provides more flexibility. You can

• save uncommitted changes as you work;
• click the ‘Changes’ button to highlight the changes you have made so far; and
• quickly access all the articles you are actively working on from your ‘Workspace’, located in the upper right corner of the screen.

Markdown

Articles on this site are written in Markdown. If you are unfamiliar with Markdown, do not be afraid! It is easy to learn. I recommend googling ‘Markdown Tutorial’ and checking out the first few links. Another easy way to learn it is to simply click ‘Edit’ on some articles on this site to see how it works. This site uses Pandoc-flavored Markdown.

Citation Style Language

The vast majority of the fields in a synesiary article YAML header are as specified by the Citation Style Language (CSL) format. See their spec [TxF3] for more details.

Synesiary YAML Specification

There are, however, a couple custom and/or modified fields which are specified below.

References

In addition to the above, transfinite articles use the YAML header block to store bibliographic data about the writing in the Citation Style Language (CSL) format [TxF3]. This metadata is then used to generate a reference for the writing using CiteProc [TxF4]. To display a reference at the bottom of a writing article, ensure that the final line of the document is

...
## Reference

The software will then autogenerate a reference using the metadata provided. Note: this line is added to the end of writing articles by default.

Direct linking

Within transfinite articles and works, there is a special syntax for making links directly to text fragments [Tx1D] or other specific locations within the primary source that is being cataloged.

Note: this text fragment highlighting feature is only supported by Chromium based browsers (e.g. Chrome, Edge) at the moment.

Reciprocal Linking

A synesiary uses the KenScore metric to rank each article based on how many reciprocated internal links it contains. In short, the more reciprocal links an article has, the higher its visibility is in searches, and vice versa.

Basics

Every time an article links to another in the synesiary, one of the articles receives a score for that link, according to the following logic: the article with a lower number of symmetrical links receives a negative “link initiation” score at the time when the asymmetrical link is first created, while the article with a greater number receives a positive “link reciprocation” score at the time when the asymmetrical link is reciprocated and becomes symmetrical. If the articles have the same number of symmetrical links, then the more recently created article is considered to be article with less symmetrical links.

An article’s KenScore is the median value of all its link initiation and link reciprocation scores.

In theory, this

• creates a live, up-to-date feed of the best writings, statements, and questions being discussed in the world right now, ie a veritable slice of what is “currently going on”;
• increases exposure to ideas which are already well-established according to the number of reciprocated links they contain;
• decreases exposure to newer ideas that have not yet gained traction;
• and incentivizes authors who publish works or writing elsewhere on the web to be creative and include new, original thought in their work if they want to have it receive exposure in the synesiary as a transfinite article. This is a direct result of the emphasis on reciprocal linking: asymmetrical links are associated with repetitive and/or derivative thinking, and when not reciprocated they either decrease or have no effect on the exposure of the articles involved.

Setup: givens, definitions

Let \(|X_t|_{sym}\) and \(|X_t|_{asym}\) be the number of symmetrical and asymmetrical links in article \(X\), respectively, at time \(t\).

Let \(\mathbb{L}_{X_t}\) be the set of articles which link to \(X\) or are linked to by \(X\).

Let articles \(A\) and \(B\) be two articles in the synesiary such that \(|A_t |_{sym} \leq |B_t |_{sym}\).

Let time \(U\) be the moment that an asymmetrical link \(L_{AB}\) was initiated between articles \(A\) and \(B\), and time \(V\) be the moment that the asymmetrical link \(L_{AB}\) was reciprocated by the other article, \(U < V\). It is irrelevant which article initiated the link and which reciprocated; article \(A\)–the one with fewer symmetrical links–will always receive the lower score and article \(B\) will always receive the higher score.

Let time \(W\) be September 9th, 2003 1:21:17 p.m. ET

Let \(s_{asym}\) be the difference in seconds \[s_{asym} = U - W,\] and \(s_{sym}\) be the difference in seconds \[s_{sym} = V - W.\]

Let \(x(t)\) be the average of the difference in asymmetrical and symmetrical link counts in \(A\) and \(B\) at time \(t\) \[x(t) = \text{avg}(|A_t|_{sym} - |A_t|_{asym}, |B_t|_{sym} - |B_t|_{asym})\] and \(y(t)\) be the maximal value of \(x(t)\) and 1 \[y(t) = \max(x(t),1).\]

Setup: Link Initiation Score

At time \(U\), \(L_{AB}\) is initiated and article \(A\) receives the link initiation score \(LS_{init}\) \[LS_{init}(L_{AB}) = log_4 y(U) - \dfrac{s_{asym}}{27000}.\]

Setup: Link Reciprocation Score

At time \(V\), \(L_{AB}\) is reciprocated and article \(B\) receives the link reciprocation score \(LS_{recip}\) \[LS_{recip}(L_{AB}) = log_4 y(V) + \dfrac{s_{sym}}{27000}.\]

KenScore

The KenScore for article \(A\) at time \(t\) is calculated as the median value of all of \(A\)’s link initiation and link reciprocation scores \[KS(A_t) = \text{med}( LS_{init}(A_t) \cup LS_{recip}(A_t))\] where \[LS_{init}(A_t) = \{ LS_{init}(L_{AX}) \ \text{for} \ X \in \mathbb{L}_{A_t} \}\] and \[LS_{recip}(A_t) = \{ LS_{init}(L_{XA}) \ \text{for} \ X \in \mathbb{L}_{A_t} \}.\]

Result

The result of the KenScore metric is a time-based feed of all the articles in the synesiary based on how often and recently each individual article has been linked to and the relative quality of all of its links. It is very similar to and inspired by Reddit’s original front page algorithm.

Read Page

Edit Page

Changes/Stage Page

List view

“List view” refers to any page on the site that is a list of objects.

Home Page

Your account home page is accessible from the top right corner of the screen. Your home page shows a log of all your commits on the site, sorted by time.

Panel

Your account settings are located in your panel. The panel is accessible from your user home page when you are logged in. From your panel you can access your workspace, set your bio, turn hints on/off, see the articles you are watching, see the domains that you contribute to, etc.

Workspace

Starting from the ‘Workspace’ tab in the top right, press ‘new’. This will allow you to create an empty work.

Domains

By default, works are published under your default domain, the one that is associated with the account you created. You can also create new domains to publish under. All user-created domains must begin with “The”. Domain creation is accessible from the ‘Domains’ tab in the top right corner of the screen. It is not possible to change the domain of a work once it has been created.

Handles

Like articles in the wiki, all works have a handle that uniquely identifies it. A handle is composed in the same way: [domain]x[range], where ‘domain’ is the domain that the work is being published under.

Home Page

The work home page is the document itself, and is located at /@[domain]x[range].

Visibility

When creating a draft, you can choose its visibility.

Contributors

You can add contributors to your domains to allow for collaboration among multiple users. This is most applicable when you have a private work that you want to give another user access to. To add a new contributor to your domain: from the domain home page, click the ‘contributors’ link, and then ‘new’.

Contributor Roles

As the owner of a work, you can assign roles to users who are contributors to that domain. This feature is accessible from the ‘Settings’ link on the work’s home page.