The goal of this guide is to help you choose a path through our posts. This page suggests ways to choose which post to start with and which ones to read after that; the other pages provide an overview of how the site works, and explain features of the posts themselves.

Finding your way among the posts

With one exception the graphs do not present determined sequences of posts. They offer multiple paths; the function of this site is to interpret options, in order to inform your choice of what post to read next.

• You can certainly read posts in an arbitrary order. Select any view, and simply click on posts.
• Use the Contents View to see the posts presented in alphabetical order by author.
• In any view you can use the List of Posts available from the Contents tab in the top menu to see titles to help you choose.
• Or, you can click "Random Post" below the graph to have the site choose for you (if not visible click horizontal line button at right of bar below graph).
• Only the Chronological View presents a determined sequence of posts: they are presented in the order they appeared on the original blog. This sequence has no particular significance--posts appeared as fit the authors' schedules.
• The Approaches and Themes Views represent the conceptual structure of the relationships among the posts. You can use them to explore different relationships.
• The Approaches View shows how posts are linked by common intellectual approaches (refer to the Key and hover on approach nodes to see Comments)
• After reading a post you can read another that takes the same approach.
• Follow the edge to the approach node you are interested in and click to show other posts related in this way.
• The Themes View shows how posts are linked by themes they address in common (refer to the Key and hover on approach nodes to see Comments)
  • After reading a post you can read another that addresses the same theme.
  • Follow the edge to the theme node you are interested in and click to show other posts related in this way.
• NOTE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STYLE OF THE EDGES.
• Posts are classed as taking one of two outlooks on the given theme.
• The outlooks are explained in the page you see when you enter the Themes View, and when you click on each theme node--and are summarized in the Comments when you hover on an edge.
• Note the style of the edge that links to the theme you are interesed in--either solid or broken.
• After you click on that theme, follow the same edge style to read posts that have the same outlook, and the other edge style to read posts that have the contrasting outlook.
• The Emergent Pairings View shows connections that were generated using social network analysis to calculate the degree of similarity between two posts
  • Any pair of posts can have up to two approaches in common, and up to two outlooks on themes in common--the Approaches and Themes Views make these commonalities easy to see.
  • The social network analysis calculated how many commonalities (0-4) are present for each pair of posts.
  • The graph represents the number of commonalities by the width of the edge--the widest edge represents 4 commonalities, the narrowest edge 1 commonality, and nodes that are not linked had no commonalities.
  • Thus, after reading a post follow wider links to get to posts that are broadly similar to that post, narrower links to get to less similar posts, or jump to an unlinked node (there are actually few of these) to get to posts that have least in common.
• The Author-Supplied Pairings View shows the authors' suggestions for direct post-to-post connections.
• For each of their posts the authors suggested two by other authors--one that is broadly similar, one that is broadly different.
• The edge colors indicate who suggested the pairing; the line style indicates his or her suggestion that the linked posts are similar (broken) or different (faint).
• (A solid edge indicates that the linked posts are by the same author.)
• The authors supplied explanations of these pairings, which refer to the approaches, themes and outlooks covered in the posts; these appear in the Comment area when an edge is hovered or clicked.
• The authors also made some suggestions about the order in which posts should be read--indicated with arrows.
• To make use of the authors' suggestions
• Select a starting post--arbitrarily or click Random Post below the graph (if not visible click button at right of bar below graph).
• When you have read the post, hover over its edges to see suggestions from its author or other authors about companion posts.