# Zoran Skoda warszawa2013struna

(Talk Warszawa 2013)

Title: Experiences in online math: $n$Lab, Struna and so on

Abstract: The speaker has been extensively involved in building entries in a young, but very successful math wiki project initiated by Urs Schreiber, the $n$Lab concentrated on categorical mathematics and mathematical physics; as well as in math part of a scientific terminology database Struna for Croatian and to a lesser extent to some other online projects; as well as involved in activism about the free access for mathematical papers (including in the Fall of a then rogue Elsevier journal CSF and participating in Math2.0 forum). The basic impression is that the most of the effort in mathematical community on recording, building and diseminating written mathematical knowledge is not done in a proper, synchronized and informed way to have a reasonable efficiency and to use a reasonable fraction of the true potential. I will discuss the basic dilemmas with examples from my experience: choice of scope and mode of work (differences between terminographic, lexicographic, encyclopaedic, and group-wiki work; some existing standards like Vienna school of terminographic work and its limitations; question of TeX type code for formulas), nutshell comparison with strengths, limitations and weaknesses of major world projects in so far (Klein’s encyclopaedia, Bourbaki, wikipedia, EOM, MathOverflow, arXiv). Although it looks like reasonable topic where most mathematicians have basic orientation, some of the basic proportions and distinctions here are in fact not known to most mathematicians, and I myself had up to 3-4 years ago quite naive impressions.
I would also touch on the question of motivation for free contributors in such projects. Discussion from the audience is welcome.

Created on July 22, 2013 at 01:01:45. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.