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From DTPWiki
Welcome to the Digital Tipping Point wiki.
Thanks for coming to the DTP wiki. This wiki is the tool that we will be using to create the world's first open source feature film-length documentary. The decisions that we, as a community, make on these pages will shape the actual movie that will be released to the world. This is YOUR movie. Have fun!
Our Video Library lives on-line!
Our video is being hosted by the Internet Archive, which has built a Digital Tipping Point Video Collection for us. We are releasing our video under a Creative Commons Attribute-ShareAlike license that will allow you to rip, mix, and improve our footage, with only a few limitations. Please feel free to get creative with our footage, and please consider re-submitting your remixes back to the DTP project.
How you can contribute to the DTP film project
We welcome contributions of time or money, or both! For those people who would like to contribute time, please choose one of the major sub-projects below, roll up your sleeves, and play in our sand box! For those who would to contribute money, please email Christian Einfeldt at einfeldt@gmail.com . Thanks either way for visiting our site!
How to find our most important pages
- Transcriptions Catalog Transcriptions for each of our hundreds of video segments are here
- Tips for Transcribers If you need help transcribing, go here
- Tapes Master List If you want to find out who is on which tape, click here
- Hard Drive Index A list of what tapes are on which hard drives is here.
- Wiki Roadmap Forum Find out who is doing what by going here.
Introducing TuxZine!
On January 3, 2007, several members of the WFTL-LUG discussed setting up a community-run magazine for newbies. The TuxZine page is the result of that conversation. If you have tips that you would like to share with other newbies about Linux (GNU/Linux), or if you have an article that you would like to write about anything Linux-related, please feel free to head over to the TuxZine page and contribute there!
Many thanks to Marcel Gagne, the creator of the WFTL-LUG discuss list for creating and hosting that list. Shameless commercial plug: Please check out Marcel Gagne's excellent How-to books for Linux newbies. If you are a Linux newbie, there's nothing like having a hard copy how-to book to answer basic questions about using your new Linux operating system.
Major sub-projects: please choose one or more to contribute to!!
Right now (in late 2006) our focus is going to be on completing the transcription of our video; translating those pages into every written human language; and editing video into sound bites to support our modular themes project. Here is a list of our current Major sub-projects. Our primary focus at this time is going to be on these two projects:
- Major sub-project: Transcription.
- Major subproject: The DTP Free Open Source Names Project
Major sub-project: Transcription
Creating a dramatic movie such as Star Wars begins with a script, then moves to casting, and then shooting. In a documentary like the Digital Tipping Point film, it's almost the reverse. You shoot interviews, and then choose the best sound bites to form the script. Then you edit those sound bites together, add animation, graphics, and music, and voila! you're done!
We have 350 hours of footage for the DTP film project. We are releasing it all on the Internet Archive under a Creative Commons Attribute-ShareAlike license. You are welcome to do anything you want with the footage, as long as you follow that license. You could even make your own film!! We are hoping that people will join the DTP film project, and that they will start by transcribing the audio track into written text.
If you would like to transcribe the video, it's pretty simple to do. Just follow these instructions for downloading and transcribing the video. In our ideal world, you would first read and follow the standards for transcribing on our Tips for Transcribers page. If you have already read that page, and would like to just dive right into transcribing, you will find our Transcriptions Catalog here, where you can follow links to our video and just start typing what you hear!
It's helpful if you transcribe even a few minutes of video, although of course we would like to encourage people to transcribe an entire segment or even an entire tape, if possible! Your work in transcribing this video will help not just our single project, but anyone else for generations to come who would like to access the transcripts for any purpose. Like the Internet itself, your work will be used in ways that we can't currently imagine. You are leaving a great legacy to humanity with your work! So thanks a lot!
Major sub-project: Translation
We would like to make our film project as open as possible to the international community. To do so, we will need translation. If you see a page that you find interesting, please consider translating it to a language not already represented on that page.
Here are some of the prime opportunities for translation:
- This front page
- Transcriptions, transcriptions, transcriptions !!
- Any other page on this site!
If you would like to translate this page or any other into your language, please send your work as a .txt file or an Open Document file to Christian Einfeld at einfeldt at g mail dot com. Thank you!
Major sub-project: Video editing
Our film will be built of small, modular, video segments of no more than about 30 seconds or so. Gradually, we will connect those small modular parts to form the whole movie. Please follow these instructions here and here for grabbing and editing video. If you don't have a video editor on your computer, don't worry! You can edit video on-line from your web browser!! Yup! Pretty amazing, huh? Just go to Eyespot.com, and you can do all the editing that you need right there from your browser. They even have some pretty cool special effects that you can add to the footage. Who needs fancy, expensive video editing software and expensive hardware? Go Eyespot! Go Firefox!
Major sub-project: Creating the Plot
It has been said that a film or a book can't be created in an open source fashion, because a story inherently MUST be created from one perspective by one mind. According to this theory, only one or two minds can be sufficiently familiar with the transcripts and the footage to create a coherent plot. If too many people get involved, the plot will lose focus, and become a mishmash.
I disagree. I think that many people can brainstorm about a plot, although ultimately a core group will decide the script. For right now, we are collecting ideas about what you think would make a good plot. You can view the footage on-line at the Internet Archive's Digital Tipping Point Video Collection; and you can read the transcripts by going to our wiki Transcriptions Catalog; and you can comment on the plot by going to our Digital Tipping Point Plot Forum.
The Free Open Source Names Project
Individual support is the main way that free open source software grows. Most of us have been helped by someone else in the free open source software community, and most of us have helped someone else. The DTP Names Project is designed to provide a place for people to create a list of people who have helped them or people whom they have helped. A wiki is an ideal way for us to create links among people who have helped one another in one way or another. Please feel free to go to our Names Project and add your name and the names of those who have changed your life with free open source software.
Major sub-project: The Music Sandbox
Adam Doxtater is heading up the musical score for the DTP film. But it's too big for him to handle by himself. We need input from lots and lots of people. So please go to our Music Sandbox and talk about your favorite bands; submit legal remixes; and pimp your own band's website.
Major sub-project: The KIPPster Sand Box
One of the greatest pleasure that my individual digital tipping point has brought to me is my volunteer work with the KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy, which is a public middle school in San Francisco (I'll just call them KIPP for short here). The KIPP teachers and administrators are dedicated to creating a public middle school that is every bit as good as a private middle school, and they have accomplished tremendous strides, so much so that you actually have to visit the school to experience it.
The digital tipping point at KIPP is the school's decision to get the kids familiar with basic computing skills by using free open source software as appropriate. The school also uses proprietary software where they deem it appropriate, so they are employing a best of breed approach to their computing needs.
The KIPPster Sand Box is a place for students to explore posting their blogs, their thoughts, their journals, their homework, and anything else that is deemed age appropriate by the school staff and the students' parents. The goal of the project is to teach the kids basic wiki skills, while enhancing their skills in planning to write, and then executing their writing plans. It will also be a place for them to organize the video that we will be creating at the KIPP school.
I have called it the KIPPster Sand Box, because we will be erasing the students' work periodically as deemed appropriate by the school staff and the students' parents. We ask that any posts to the KIPPster Sand Box be age appropriate for children from ages 10 through 13. (Inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated by students or adults, and will result in banning from all DTP sites and projects.)
Have fun KIPPsters!
How do I find out what the next step is? Where is your roadmap?
We are using our Wiki Roadmap Forum to keep track of what we have done, and what we still need to do.
Useful external links
- Our video is located here on the Internet Archive's Digital Tipping Point collection
- Tips for using our wiki software is located here on the Wikipedia Tutorial.
Our News Page
The Digital Tipping Point news crew has created a front page for posting news and analysis of events shaping our digital world. From Google's on-line delivery of open source-powered software services such as Google Docs & Spreadsheet to the Government of Extremadura's remarkable work in Spain, we cover it all. Our DTP Wiki News will be our main news page while we are squashing bugs associated with Mambo on our DTP home page.
