P2P Collaboration Stack Architecture
From P2P Foundation
The P2P Collaboration Stack is organized around a central work process that facilitates the construction of P2P Network Models that serve real world needs. The architecture document outlines the work process and the tools that are available.
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P2P Network Models
What do P2P Networks look like? How do they work? Can a cooperative be a P2P Network? How is P2P relevant to the Commons?
On the internet it seems like most of the queries around the P2P Collaboration Stack are related to the P2P Network Models because these are often times large scale initiatives involving many people that serve a host of needs. It makes sense, since no one can accomplish these models alone, that the traffic an inquiries are directed towards these larger initiatives.
P2P Collaboration Systems
P2P Network models are at the top of the food chain here on the wiki, but these network models are made up of one or more collaboration systems. These are systems like Peer Governance systems, Peer Property systems, and more discreet collaboration systems like shared accounting, publishing, and organizing systems.
P2P Concepts
P2P Network Models and P2P Collaboration Systems rest on the shoulders of giants, the P2P Concepts. These are the foundational concepts that academia, the business world, and everyone who wants to change anything develops some familiarity with.
Even though a lot of word of mouth traffic is associated with the big models, those models are directly connected and built soundly upon the core concepts.
P2P leans towards modularity when it comes to work product. Dividing up tasks and allowing for specialist to add their magic to the mix is an important part of the collaboration process, and as such, these interactions constitute the glue, the social connections, within a network. Dividing up the work allows many people to participate in the outcome, and creating and enforcing an open modular architecture insures balance for dominant perspectives within the network.
Our method in the P2P Collaboration Stack works along with modularity. At the base level there are hundreds of concepts that are pivotal in P2P Network operations. Some of the most salient of these concepts are listed in the P2P Companion Concepts article.
Treatment of Concepts
When you visit a page like Transparency you will see a number of treatments of the concept of Transparency. The principle of modularity recommends that, if you want to write about Transparency in a P2P Network that is a Multi-Unit Housing network, then the best place to write about Transparency is on the Transparency page.
On a concept page you will see a simple logc unfolding. If the concept is Transparency, here are some of the subjects that could be treated:
- Transparency between Peers
- Financial Transparency between Peers
- Transparency in P2P Collaboration Systems
- Transparency in P2P Decision Making Systems
- Financial Transparency between P2P Networks and the Market
Each of these aspects of Transparency is general, but specific enough to create something that could be used as P2P Protocol. With a context defined, content can be re-used. This allows us to cultivate raw materials on the wiki that can be used to cook up your network model.
Mediawiki's "Labeled Section Transclusion" is used to draw text from a concept page into another collaboration system article or network model page. You can find out how to use this feature on the Help:Using LST page.
Category System for the P2P Collaboration Stack
The P2P Collaboration Stack Category, at Category:P2P Collaboration Stack has a relatively simple architecture.
- "The Category:P2P Collaboration Stack is the top level of the P2P Collaboration Stack on the P2P Foundation Wiki, and is nested as a sub-category within the Category:P2P Foundation Knowledge Commons. The documents in this category describe the form and function of system, and the subcategories contain the working documents." (see P2P Collaboration Stack)
- "The Category:P2P Network Models is a part of the P2P Collaboration Stack. The Articles within this category are generalized descriptions that use the P2P Collaboration Stack Architecture, an approach that assumes a Peer-to-Peer approach to problem solving and solutions. Networks described here re-use P2P Collaboration Systems and draw on support from articles in the P2P Concept Groups category." (see P2P Network Models)
- "The Category:P2P Collaboration Systems is a part of the P2P Collaboration Stack. The Articles within category description of systems that peers within a network can used to accomplish their commons-based outcomes. Systems described here are re-used to support P2P Network Models and draw on support from articles in the P2P Concept Groups category. These articles in this category are in accord with the P2P Collaboration Stack Architecture which assumes a P2P approach to problem solving and solutions." (see P2P Collaboration Systems)
- "The Category:P2P Concept Groups is a part of the P2P Collaboration Stack. The Articles within the sub-categories of the P2P concept groups category are used to support P2P Collaboration Systems and P2P Network Models. These articles use the P2P Collaboration Stack Architecture which encourages editors to adopt the practice of discussing a perspective or use of a concept like Transparency within the context of the Transparency article. Specific treatments can then be "included" into other articles using LST." (see P2P Concept Groups)
Additional subcategories are created as needed. If issues arise please make notes on the appropriate talk pages.
This is how the categories look right now. To view the pages within the categories you will need to visit Category:P2P Collaboration Stack.
<categorytree mode=categories>P2P Collaboration Stack</categorytree>
Why Should Anyone Deal With Such Granularity?
By working in a modular fashion you, personally, can achieve several gains:
- Less text to maintain in your special Multi-Unit Housing article
- Work with information on the Transparency page that is specific to your task
- Potentially re-use what has already been written there.
- You will maintain more links to your page, and your project will be more integrated with the wiki
- You can revisit and easily edit the special section in the Transparency as needed
- Others will be able to find and use your text because you have bounded the subject as being "within the realm of transparency"
- The more people who care about your writing and reuse it the better off you and everyone else is
Instructions for reusing sections across the wiki are easy and available at P2P Foundation Wiki LST. LST stands for Labeled Section Transclusion, a MediaWiki extension that does the heavy lifting for us.
What's This Really About?
By working together to create a wiki that has lots of focused, re-usable sections, we can build extremely sophisticated network models with relative ease. If we jump to fast to create the network models without building the foundation we'll end up in some trouble and confusion, top-heavy, and end up regressing much further than we would otherwise.
We are all in this to see the network models through, and working on the foundation concepts is the rising tide that lifts all the boats.
How to Play
If you are interested in editing documents in the Stack please do view the Help:Contents page to review the conventions for the site. Additionally you might find it useful to read a little bit about what Wikipedia has to say about convention, policy, and etiquette. An especially useful page is the Wikipedia principles.
