Christoph Koenig a.k.a. DonRedman

My real name is Christoph Koenig. I have become MusicBrainz' resident expert and advisor on social issues (commecial Projects call this their "Community Manager" -- although communities rarely like being mangaged). However since mid 2007 I have ceased to actively participate in the community activities, because I am currently writing my Ph.D. thesis. My current research deals with the consequences of Free and Open Source Software/Content for educational philosophy. I am doing this at the interdisciplinary post-graduate school on Feedback Based Quality Management in eLearning at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.

History

This is usually hopelessly out of date. But these are the bigger projects I have been involved here:

• Moderation of the MusicBrainzSummit8 in London, where I introduced the highly innovative Paper-Card(TM) System (June 2007).

• I suspect that I still am the Secretary of the StyleCouncil. My intention was not to lead the Council, but to make it work on its own. I suppose that I have succeeded. However it is working so much on its own (nowadays even without me reading the lists) that I cannot say whether it is working and if so how. (Jan 2006 -- ...)

• Moderation of the MusicBrainzSummit7 in Hamburg. I just happened to be there and did what pedagoges do when many people want to work together (Dec 2005).

• Design of the WikiDocs system (May 2005 -- ...).

  • As a part of that I have added my two cents to the WikiMigration (which is now completed), although JohnCarter, RobertKaye and DaveEvans have done the real work.

  • There are a couple of BadMoinMoinWikiNames left. I suppose the best thing is to move these pages to a GoodWikiName and create a redirect. Additionally all the links must be fixed, too.

• I have been arguing for a restructuring of the MailingLists for some time now. See MailingListDiscussion. This has lead to the creation of a new ExpertsMailingList in June 2005.

• Documentation of AdvancedRelationshipTypes together with MatthewExon (May 2005).

• Design of a SimpleAdvancedRelationshipsInterface mostly with RobertKaye (Nov 2004 -- Mar 2005)

• Found some time to help Dupuy with his great effort of RestructuringTheDocumentation (sometime in 2004).

• I started to RestructureTheWiki In May 2004. Many people have joined in, and since then the MusicBrainzWiki has become a usable place for MusicBrainz users.

How I came to MusicBrainz

I stumbled over open source and into MusicBrainz when I was somewhere in between educational philosophy (Bildung), theories of autonomous learning and postmodern sociology, and realized that open source hackers were doing what these scientists were writing about. I have since done a qualitative research on the Torvalds-Tanenbaum-Debate and written my masters thesis about "Processes of Learning and Bildung in Open Source Software Projects", and I am studying ethical implications of the dynamics of Open Source Projects in my current research.

So, this is a non-hackers version of how somebody gets addicted to MusicBrainz. I cannot code but am somewhat of a professional of communication, and I found MB pretty exciting in this regard.

I am a great fan of soft security and I argue against most formal structures when I believe that things could work without them. While often people tend to argue for formal structures when they believe that things might break without them. In this respect I got and get involved in lengthy discussions on the MailingLists and on the MusicBrainzWiki.

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