{"id":6374,"date":"2017-12-07T19:59:56","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T19:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/?page_id=6374"},"modified":"2018-05-24T14:27:03","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T14:27:03","slug":"the-case-of-teixidora-net-in-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/issues\/issue-11-city\/peer-reviewed-papers\/the-case-of-teixidora-net-in-barcelona\/","title":{"rendered":"Collaborative Online Writing and Techno-Social Communities of Practice Around the Commons: The Case of Teixidora.net in Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0M\u00f2nica Garriga Miret, David G\u00f3mez Fontanills, Enric Senabre Hidalgo, Mayo Fuster Morell<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Introduction <\/span><\/h2>\n

Teixidora.net [1]<\/a> is a digital platform \u2014working in the local commons and technosocial domains in Barcelona\u2014 for collaborative live-writing in community events based on community mapping, engagement and participation. Teixidora.net can be described as a communicative ecology<\/strong> (Foth and Hearn, 2007), with a social layer<\/strong> (people and the ways in which they are socially organised), a technological layer<\/strong> (digital platform, devices and connecting media) and a discursive layer <\/strong>(the content of communication).<\/p>\n

Teixidora.net was conceived as a process of digital transdisciplinary activism. It aims to connect distributed knowledge generated by communities of practice (social layer<\/em>) with the relationships among participants at events and with the subjects or discussions, thus creating a discursive layer<\/em>, in which the purpose is to produce collective narratives, follow what happens and weave relationships by sharing knowledge. Its technological layer<\/em>, based on several applications and devices, appropriates and combines Etherpad (a web-based collaborative real-time editor) with a Semantic MediaWiki (an extension of the popular open-source MediaWiki application developed by Wikipedia Foundation), and microblogging platforms, Quitter and Twitter. These three layers combine around an axis based on the commons, creating a joint collective dimension, by sharing, re-elaborating and experimenting with elements that are present in all three.<\/p>\n

This article first defines Teixidora\u2019s local context and the state of the art in the area of collaborative writing. Next, it describes how Teixidora\u2019s social layer is organised and its evolution, and also discusses the technological and discursive layers, based on a descriptive classification of the 249 registered events, 40 note-takers, 57 mapped organisations, 40 projects, and about 100 texts generated (as shared proceedings, notes, or context articles), up to June 2017.<\/p>\n

The methodology consists of an observational analysis of three events using Teixidora, with the purpose of identifying the role of the three communicative ecology layers of the platform in each one. Having extracted what has been learned and observed, it considers the opportunities and limitations of collaboration among peers when documenting their conversations. Although the project is still evolving, there is close integration among the three layers, in mapping of knowledge, in negotiating the degree of collaboration and governance around it, and its collectivisation. Finally, as a conclusion from the lessons obtained in the analysis, new means of action and development for the project are offered, and questions are raised regarding future research.<\/p>\n

Context <\/span><\/h2>\n

Teixidora\u2019s Local Context in Barcelona <\/h3>\n

Teixidora was launched in Barcelona in January 2016, in a context of a heated debate about technology related political, economic and social issues and how to construct or revitalise the commons. The Teixidora team had been involved for years with events including UrbanLabs [2]<\/a>, Hackmeeting, Hardmeeting [3]<\/a>, Media140 [4]<\/a>, Drumbeat [5]<\/a>, Digital Commons [6]<\/a>, Viquitrobades [7]<\/a>, Geoartivismos [8]<\/a>, among others. The documentation created at these events was often not published and remained exclusively available to organisers or individual participants (people taking notes or recording the events), it soon became clear that this was a problem. When it was published, it was random and scattered. Events were disconnected giving the impression of lack of continuity, redundancy, and varying degrees of divergence of discourse. The debate continued between events but was not visible.<\/p>\n

This occurred in a metropolitan context where, for more than two decades, a network of initiatives had been growing around technologies and free knowledge and where Platform 0.7 (1994), the anti-globalisation movement (1999), the “no war” protests (2003), the Catalan pro-independence movement (2010), 15M (2011) and the processes of creating an alternative-left municipalism (2015) had empowered people through both collective management, action and organisation, and through free culture (Fuster, 2012).<\/p>\n

In the global context, networked social movements appeared from Iran (2009), Iceland, Tunisia and Greece (2010), Egypt, Spain and Occupy Wall Street (2011). They arose in urban contexts but also in close interrelation with what was being debated and shared on online networks (Castells, 2015). Castells points out that these movements occurred in different settings and presented different demands, but they had shared elements (Castells, 2011): they were networked ( happening around the internet and on mobile communications), they were multimodal (online and face-to-face), spontaneous and viral; they were leaderless, reflective (open to debate and transformation) and non-violent; but, above all, they were, simultaneously, global and local.<\/p>\n

Against this background, Teixidora is positioned as a techno-social initiative with an action-research approach opening up spaces where technological resources are developed and transforming action and research occur. Analysing the impact of this transformation Teixidora explores relations among emerging discourses.<\/p>\n

Participation in previous projects \u2014which sought to establish connections or compile and organise documentation and activities using an online platform (Experimenta_wiki [9]<\/a>, HKp [10]<\/a>, Viquilletra [11]<\/a>, Germinador [12]<\/a> \u2014 inspired the methodological and technological approaches to the project. Teixidora also shares some basic concepts with CitizenSqKm5\u00a0[13]<\/a> (Km2Poblenou, in Barcelona, May 2014 – May 2015), an experiment involving citizens in a project of discovering and improving of their surroundings through gathering and organising relevant data. Meanwhile, Geoartivismos\u00a0[14]<\/a>, another project with which CitizenSqKm shared many features, had been launched by Constelaciones Online in Poblenou. This brought together researchers, developers of opensource GIS (geographic information systems) and social groups aiming to improve communication and digital training for local residents and groups, and to make a prototype from the application which the collective Constellations Online had developed for a webdoc about gentrification in Poblenou. Constellations Online organised a series of meetings where notes were taken in open documents. Some members of the CitzenSqKm, took part in the meetings and saw the need to organise and share the collectively generated information, they subsequently become the Teixidora team. In a broader context, Barcelona and its metropolitan area are rich in free-technology initiatives and commons and peer production. In 2014 the Barcelona Metropolitan Observatory, published a study on \u201cThe Urban Commons in Barcelona\u201d [15]<\/a> based on 17 practices in the city. Between 2014 and 2016 the P2PValue directory reflected the maturity of the ecosystem by identifying 1,000 cases of peer production in Catalonia. The BCN Smart City Commons Report 2016 identifies more than 300 local actors in the commons.<\/p>\n

It is in this context, and on these bases, that Teixidora was set up.<\/p>\n

State of the art in collaborative writing <\/span><\/h2>\n

Collaborative writing is one of the biggest areas of peer production. The most significant large-scale experience is the collective creation of the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, in several languages \u200b\u200bby thousands of volunteers worldwide using wiki platforms. Wikis were the first online workspaces that allowed members to jointly create and edit web pages without knowing HTML (Wei, Maust, Barrick, Cuddihy & Spyridakis 2005). At the beginning of the century, there were many blogs and websites. Some became online media, for example Indymedia (the global alternative outlet) or Slashdot (the technology news site), which used methodologies of the free software world (Bruns 2005). They were open-edited in an open-access and many-to-many environment. News production was collaborative, under no sanctioning institution or relying on any “official” source. The abundance of sources and channels made it necessary to change the points of control. The flow of information was opened up. But, at the same time, observation increased. ‘Gatekeeping’ was superseded by ‘gatewatching’, a new way of doing journalism in which materials were mixed, re-mediated and classified, and historical archives were created. The “phenomenon of the open edition encyclopedia” came about in the journalistic sphere (Bruns, 2005), allowing a \u201cmulti-perspective\u201d coverage of events in which audiences were able to participate in the development, compilation, editing and evaluation of contents. Audiences became communities, slowly replacing top-down approaches with bottom-up stances by taking ownership of the narratives through the use of media as a tool, and through more civic engagement (Garriga, Salcedo, Vives, Meseguer, 2015).<\/p>\n

Collaborative writing mediated by networked digital systems is a widespread practice in many projects and organisations. As noted, this practice has often been adopted, in recent years, at meetings where participants have devices connected to the Internet.<\/p>\n

Collective writing has a long history, in which, laws, regulations, reports, essays and literary texts have been collectively written. The procedure might begin with an outline of ideas which are then developed and written side-by-side (Ritchie & Rigano, 2007) or the writing work is divided into sections (parallel writing), or versions exchanged (sequential writing) (Lowry, Curtis & Lowry, 2004). Editing and word processing software has progressively incorporated features to facilitate collaboration among co-authors. New practices have then emerged from the way co-authors use this software, particularly new practices such as \u201creactive\u201d writing, identified by Lowry, Curtis & Lowry (2004) in their taxonomy of collective writing, where they observe that when typing a document simultaneously, co-authors respond (in-writing) to input from others.<\/p>\n

There are at least four types of programmes for collective writing: offline word processors, online word processors, wikis and pads. The following table summarises their features:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Offline
\nWord Processors<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

With track changes and comments to facilitate sequential collaboration
\nwith sharing file versions.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Microsoft
\nWord \/ Libre Office Write \/ iWorks Pages<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Online
\nWord Processors<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

With the option of document sharing between different users, track
\nchanges and versions, comments. Used for synchronous and
\nasynchronous writing.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Collabora
\n(Libre Office Online) \/ Google Docs<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Wikis<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

With asynchronous online publishing, version control, conflict
\ndetection<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

MediaWiki
\n\/ DokuWiki \/ Wikispaces \/ Pmwiki \/ Tikiwiki<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Pads<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

With synchronous simultaneous online editing, color identification of
\nwriters. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Gobby
\n\/ Etherpad \/ Dropbox paper<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

These types are not closed. Word processors, initially offline (Microsoft Word, LibreOffice), enabled file sharing, but when they went online and introduced editing on browser (Google docs, Collabora) they developed further functionalities to manage user permissions and simultaneous editing. This has led such programmes to linkup with pads,\u2014initially in the form of interconnected desktop applications (SubEthaEdit, Gobby) and, later, online systems on server for editing also available on Browser (Etherpad)\u2014, and to adopting some of their features. Wikis developed independently improving functionalities for asynchronous collaboration among multiple editors, but now they are also linking up with pads, in simultaneous editing options (like the addition of a TogetherJS based extension to MediaWiki or Etherpad\u2019s embedding extensions).<\/p>\n

Although these four types are taken as separate references, there is a degree of hybridization. Any programme can have characteristics of more than one type, independently of how it is classified. Below is a list that can help to identify the features of a programme for collective writing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Functionality<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Options<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Systems<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Time<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Synchronous<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> \/ Asynchronous<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Processors
\n\/ Wikis\/ Pads \/ Online Processors<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Historic of versions<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Compare versions \/ Sequentially see \/ Restore<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Wikis<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Track changes<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Register \/ See\/ Accept \/ Reject<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Text Processors<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Conflict control<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Detectar \/ Av\u00eds \/ Comparar \/ Resoldre<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n

Editor identification <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Anonymous edition <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\/ Register \/ <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Temporary pseudonym to write<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Google Drive \/ Collabora \/ Wikis \/<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Etherpad<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Anchor text reviews<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Insert comments <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\/ Reply to comments \/ Authorship and date-time <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\/ solve archive \/ mail Notifications<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Text Processors\/ Pads<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Rich text format<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Bold, italic, styles, titles, size, color<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Processors \/ Wiki \/Pad<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Text edition<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

WYSIWYG <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\/ code\/ enriched code \/ plain text <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Text Processors \/ Wiki (editor visual\/codi) \/ Pad<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Edit Permissions<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Open \/ share permissions \/ permissions: view, comment, suggest, edit<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Pad \/ Google Drive<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Generating
\nURL for document sharing<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n\n

Google Drive \/ Sandstorm<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Save<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

For menu or button \/ <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>automatic<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\/ <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>featured version<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Text Processors \/ Wikis \/
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Google Drive \/ Etherpad<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Distributed copies <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n\n

Gooby \/ Teem \/ Jetpad<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Arrange<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Folders \/ labels \/ Categorization \/ Search<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Drive \/ Wiki<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Device
\n\/ technological environment of use<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Desktop \/ <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Web <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\/
\nMobile App
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Gobby
\n\/ Drive \/ Collabora \/ Etherpad<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

License \/ Distribution<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Free <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\/ proprietary \/ software as a service<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n

Colored<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> features are present in the Etherpad used by Teixidora when taking notes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

The form of collective writing mainly promoted by Teixidora is documentation and note-taking at events. Participants don\u2019t see themselves as authors of the text but rather as people recording what is said. In some cases the people involved in a debate take turns to write. Taking notes is itself a particular form of writing, different from author writing. Its aim is to retain what is said and retrieve it later (Hartley and Marshall, 1974).<\/p>\n

Littauer, Scheidel, Schulder & Ciddi (2015), students in the Master\u2019s degree in Computational Linguistics at Saarland University in Germany, studied the use of four methods of collaboration among students, including collective writing on Etherpad (in addition to a wiki, mailing list and shared Dropbox storage). They showed that taking collaborative notes synchronously during a class allowed (without a prior distribution of tasks) effective performance of the four types of subtasks they had identified: 1) transcribe the content of the slides (unnecessary if integrated by the software) and of the board; 2) summarise instructions and additional comments of the professor; 3) record external references and 4) add personal comments and questions (Littauer, Scheidel, Schulder & Ciddi, 2015). They also observed that form and content of the class would make it easier or harder to take notes resulting in more or less participation of students in the task and more or less complete coverage of content. Thus, in tutorial classes, it was more difficult for students to take notes in parallel to preserving the insights gained and in logic or statistics classes the need to use specific symbols or make schemes meant that taking notes on paper was event more useful . It was found that in classes where students participate more actively in discussions they also take fewer notes (Littauer, Scheidel, Schulder & Ciddi, 2015: p. 1474-1475).<\/p>\n

With regard to the practice of note-taking, the fact that Etherpad displays in real time who is writing and where (through different of colors and displaying -when performing mouseover function- the pseudonym adopted) facilitated the spontaneous distribution of roles in the writing process. When seeing what others are doing, one can concentrate on what is still to do in another part of the document (Littauer, Scheidel, Schulder & Ciddi, 2015: p. 1474-1475). In their study, the students also observe how personal comments on the main text of the pad were relocated to the chat as the academic year went by. This tells us something about the evolution of an experienced community . The most salient notes, they say, are taken when a large number of collaborators know little about the subject (and therefore try to jot down everything) and at least one is at an advanced level (and can be concise and help with parts of the notes that are difficult for others) . If everyone is familiar with the subject, few notes are taken, and if no one is well informed, everything is transcribed but notes are empty of meaning. The students also note that collaboration gives linear structure to the notes. If the teacher changes the subject, and goes from one main subject to a secondary one, the writing continues to be linear . The discourse is kept in the same order as it is given by the teacher. Later when further processing the notes, changes are introduced to polish the text, avoid redundancies and improve the style. Moreover, notes come together in a shared repository that is not the responsibility of just one person (Littauer, Scheidel, Schulder & Ciddi 2015, p. 1480).<\/p>\n

Many of these observations are confirmed in note-taking experiences at Teixidora events. Teixidora completes the note-taking process with a subsequent sieving of contents and structuring them on a wiki platform which works with forms, thus combining pad characteristics and those of a semantic wiki with structured data. Hence, two of the collaborative strategies tested by the Saarland students are combined in one platform.<\/p>\n

Analysis of Teixidora as Communicative Ecology<\/span><\/h2>\n

The concept of communicative ecology, associated with work on communications and the media, combines ethnographic and participatory action research methods. It refers to “the context in which communication processes occur” aiming to analyse technology where it is used. New media should be studied and designed bearing in mind the social relationships of users, the nature of the communication and other means employed (Hearn, Tacchi, Foth & Lennie, 2009). It should therefore be possible to analyse whether or not a particular type of technology can be integrated into an environment and the extent to which it is used.<\/p>\n

Communicative ecology is conceived by Foth and Hearn (2007) as a social layer (individuals, social structures with which they identify and the ways in which they organise socially), a discursive layer (the communication content, mediated and not mediated) and a technological layer (digital platform, devices and media connection).<\/p>\n

The layers of communicative ecology are useful for conceptual separation of the different aspects of a technosocial ecosystem, without losing sight of their interactions. The description aims to be holistic, both close (from within the ecology), and distant (from the outside). It borrows from studies in classical ethnography which distinguish between two primary perspectives of research on communicative ecology, which is to say emic and ethic positions. A researcher can work from outside the communicative ecology scrutinising it to create an overall vision (emic) or take a position within it to see things from the perspective of participants (ethic). The outside view is useful if comparison between local systems is sought. Then the inside perspective can be used to understand how people construct and give meaning to their communicative ecology.<\/p>\n

We shall now take the three-layer perspective to explain Teixidora as communicative ecology in construction and combine observations from within the process with analogies to other processes and systems.<\/p>\n

Technological Layer <\/h3>\n

According to Foth and Hearn\u2019s (2007) concept of communicative ecology, devices and applications inside the technological layer, are distinguished by the model of communication they facilitate; one to many, many to many, online, in person, et cetera (Foth and Hearn, 2007). Teixidora also aims to facilitate ways of sharing information gathered in an event, according to this model (from one to many, many to many,…) and beyond the time and space where it occurs. In doing so, it combines several technological resources, the most relevant of which are: the Semantic MediaWiki for the platform, Etherpad for note-taking and microblogging accounts for communicating, exploring and establishing dialogue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure 1: Screenshot of Teixidora\u2019s semantic wiki, showing the options of documenting past, present and future events, becoming a user or exploring contents.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The main Teixidora tool is a semantic wiki [16]<\/a>. Besides being an online platform which can be edited by anyone, it allows information to be saved in a structured way with semantic properties, and to retrieve it by queries in dynamic lists like those used at the Seguim Fils sub-portals (Following the Threads) and Teixim Xarxes (Weaving the Networks) [17]<\/a>, and other pages. Much of the wiki can be edited by filling forms, in which parameters of templates are filled with information [18]<\/a>. Once documentation of an event has been incorporated, anyone can edit the page again and, through the form, distill the contents contained in notes or recordings of video and audio, extracting keywords and other tags that allow detection of relationships among events.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure 2: Screenshot of Teixidora where, through semantic queries, events occurring in La Comunificadora programme, are extracted, shown in a timeline and located on the map.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The idea of collectivising the story is a core concept of Teixidora and is taken into account at the earliest level of documentation. Teixidora therefore uses software that allows collective writing, the Etherpad. A self-installed Etherpad is not used. Organisers at each event are asked if they already have pads to take notes. New pads are activated in a \u201cfarm\u201d, mainly Guifinet\u2019s and la Mar de Bits, and also Wikimedia, Mozilla, Riseup, Titanpad, Piratepad or Etherpad Foundation.<\/p>\n

Etherpad is used in many communities to take notes or minutes at meetings and assemblies. At an early stage, Teixidora made extensive use of Etherpad as an online system for collaboratively taking notes, inviting attendees at each event to participate. The idea was to extend its use and to facilitate processing and re-use of content.<\/p>\n

Etherpad enables participants (those who take notes and those who do not) to interact with each other, not only through what is written on the pad, but also through the chat associated with it. In some cases, the chat can be a way of conveying questions or comments from online to face-to-face meetings.<\/p>\n

Another significant tool, as well as constituting a connecting element between technological and social layers, is the microblogging platforms, namely Twitter or Quitter. These platforms are useful for exploring, discovering event organisers, and establishing contacts with the actors of the technological and social scene, and later reporting the information collected. Microblogging platforms help to encourage the driving core to provide information before and during the events, encouraging other participants to take notes and give links to the pads, connecting Tweets – via hyperlink- to the pad where the notes of a specific event are taken. They also serve in the face-to-face contributors\u2019 ring, and are used by online contributors (people interested in the content generated by the event), who have learned about the meeting (from any location) while it occurred or later, because other twitterers mentioned it, or through keywords and hashtags on the platform.<\/p>\n

Social Layer <\/h3>\n

At Teixidora the social layer consists of interrelated communities of practice and interest (Fischer 2001), the contributions that occur among participants, and topics and discussions generated in events (what happens). The act of taking notes is determined collectively by a desire to capture, simultaneously and in real time, knowledge generated by personal statements, questions, comments or debates.<\/p>\n

Metaphorically speaking, the structure of this layer is onion rings. In the centre there is a small group of people who have previously agreed to cover a specific event. A number of rings of participation expand from this core with people engaged in different ways. Hence, the social layer consists of:<\/p>\n