by Gitter

通过吉特

建立在线社区：Numenta (Building online communities: Numenta)

We caught up with Matt Taylor from Numenta — an organization whose mission is to lead a new era of machine intelligence and build computer systems around the principles of the brain. Matt shared his thoughts and insights on the open source community around their exciting projects. Find out what he says, and check out the Numenta community channel on Gitter.

我们追赶了来自Numenta的 Matt Taylor ，该组织的使命是引领机器智能的新时代，并围绕大脑原理构建计算机系统。 Matt围绕他们的令人兴奋的项目，分享了他对开源社区的想法和见解。 找出他说的话，并查看Gitter上的Numenta社区频道。

Tell us about a little bit about yourself and the Numenta community. How did it all begin?

告诉我们一些关于您自己和Numenta社区的信息。 这一切是怎么开始的？

I am the Open Source Community Flag-Bearer for Numenta (self-titled ?). Numenta has been around for over 10 years, mostly in a research and development capacity. Our dual mission is to understand the operating principles of the neocortex and build computer systems based upon those principles. These are pretty lofty goals, and explains why a small “startup” like us has been around for such a long time!

我是Numenta的开源社区旗手 (自称为？)。 Numenta已经存在了10多年，主要从事研究和开发。 我们的双重任务是了解新皮质和基于这些原理的内置计算机系统的操作原理。 这些都是崇高的目标，并解释了为什么像我们这样的小型“创业公司”已经存在这么长时间了！

Once we had established some fundamental algorithms based off the neocortex that actually seemed to be working, we open-sourced our entire codebase under the AGPLv3 with the intent of eventually monetizing by licensing our technology. This technology is called Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM), and we have multiple software implementations of it in different environments within our community codebase. The most popular of these are NuPIC (Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing), which is a Python / C++ codebase, and HTM.Java for the JVM. There is also a community-created Clojure implementation that is still in a “research” state.

一旦基于新皮质建立了一些基本可行的基本算法，我们便在AGPLv3下开源了整个代码库，以期最终通过许可我们的技术获利。 这项技术称为“ 分层临时内存 (HTM)” ，我们在社区代码库的不同环境中拥有多种软件实现。 其中最受欢迎的是NuPIC (用于智能计算的Numenta平台)，它是Python / C ++代码库，以及用于JVM的HTM.Java 。 还有一个社区创建的Clojure实现仍处于“研究”状态。

What are the main issues discussed in the Numenta channel?

Numenta频道中讨论的主要问题是什么？

Most discussions are about HTM theory and the technical details of our open source HTM implementations. HTM is a deep subject, so a lot of people come in with questions about spatial pooling, the temporal memory algorithm, or classifiers. There always seems to be someone around to answer them if I’m not there, which is great. It is nice to have a few dedicated experts who frequent the channel to engage people and build relationships even when I’m not around.

大多数讨论都涉及HTM理论以及我们开源HTM实现的技术细节。 HTM是一门很深的学科，因此很多人都提出了有关空间池，时间记忆算法或分类器的问题。 如果我不在那里，似乎总是会有人来回答他们，这很棒。 非常高兴有一些专门的专家即使在我不在的时候也经常与人们互动并建立人际关系。

We also chat about ongoing development of the codebases, issues that are being solved, and bug reports. There is no small amount of tech support where we help people get up-and-running with NuPIC and HTM.Java as well.

我们还将讨论代码库的持续开发，正在解决的问题以及错误报告。 我们提供了不计其数的技术支持，以帮助人们使用NuPIC和HTM.Java进行调试。

And since we have such a friendly and diverse community, we have many off-topic and inane discussions simply to entertain ourselves. I think the last one was about Kanji or recumbent bikes.

而且，由于我们拥有如此友好而多元的社区，因此我们进行了许多主题外和无聊的讨论，只是为了娱乐自己。 我认为最后一个是关于汉字或卧式自行车的 。

What common goals do you have as a community?

作为社区，您有哪些共同目标？

I think there are two common goals in our community. One is to build cool applications using the HTM technology that exists in software today. The second is to continue evolving HTM theory so more features of the neocortex and general intelligence can be added to the software over time. We currently model one layer of one region of cortex, up to 65,000 neurons or so, but future developments of HTM will build out hierarchies of these regions as well as add more layers to regions to support upcoming developments like sensorimotor integration, feedback, and attention. The future for this technology is very bright, given that we can do interesting things with such a limited set of neurons today.

我认为我们社区有两个共同的目标。 一种是使用当今软件中存在的HTM技术构建出色的应用程序 。 第二个是继续发展HTM理论，以便随着时间的推移，可以将新皮层的更多功能和通用情报添加到该软件中。 目前，我们对一个皮质区域的一层进行建模，最多可容纳65,000个神经元，但是HTM的未来发展将建立这些区域的层次结构，并为区域增加更多的层以支持诸如感觉运动整合，反馈和注意力等未来发展。 鉴于我们今天可以使用有限的一组神经元来做有趣的事情，因此这项技术的未来非常光明。

What are the most important factors that you have taken into account while creating and maintaining the community? What factors contribute to the success of your community?

在创建和维护社区时，要考虑哪些最重要的因素？ 哪些因素有助于您社区的成功？

Two things: transparency and inclusion.

两件事： 透明度和包容性 。

Numenta and I starting building this community when we open-sourced our algorithms in June 2013. From the start we had an emphasis on transparency. Since the day I started as the OS Community Flag-Bearer at Numenta, I’ve been pushing to ensure we as a company are very open about our technology and our future plans. We regularly hold HTM Hackers’ Hangouts online where anyone in our community can join and video chat with Numenta engineers. We also hold online Office Hours with our founder Jeff Hawkins and VP of Research Subutai Ahmad every few months, allowing folks to ask them questions directly. These are all posted on our YouTube channel. We have even made our research code open source, so anyone can see exactly what algorithms we are working on before it goes mainstream.

2013年6月，当我们将算法开源时，Numenta和我开始建立这个社区。 从一开始，我们就强调透明度。 从我在Numenta担任OS社区旗手的那一天开始，我一直在努力确保我们作为一家公司对我们的技术和未来计划非常开放。 我们会定期在线举办HTM Hackers'Hangouts，我们社区中的任何人都可以加入并与Numenta工程师进行视频聊天。 我们还每隔几个月与创始人Jeff Hawkins和Subutai Ahmad研究副总裁举行在线办公时间 ，使人们可以直接向他们提问。 这些都发布在我们的YouTube频道上 。 我们甚至已经将研究代码公开了 ，因此任何人都可以在它成为主流之前准确地了解我们正在研究的算法。

A lot of people from all walks of life are interested in the development of cognitive computing technologies like HTM, so we get a healthy mixture of diverse personalities in our community. So I’ve tried from the beginning to make our work as approachable and accessible as possible, allowing laypersons to get involved in ways other very technical projects cannot. We have opportunities for community members to help with documentation, bug reports, proofreading, etc. It’s not just for scientists and engineers. We have people from all walks of life: high school students, octogenarians, neuroscientists, computer engineers, professors, college students, philosophers, etc. I want to make our community appealing to everyone.

来自各行各业的许多人都对诸如HTM之类的认知计算技术的发展感兴趣，因此我们在社区中健康地融合了多种个性。 因此，我从一开始就尝试使我们的工作尽可能平易近人，使非专业人士能够以其他技术性项目无法参与的方式参与其中。 我们有机会为社区成员提供文档，错误报告，校对等方面的帮助。不仅限于科学家和工程师。 我们有各行各业的人：高中生，八十岁老人，神经科学家，计算机工程师，教授，大学生，哲学家等。我想让我们的社区吸引所有人。

What are the key challenges that you encounter while managing the community?

您在管理社区时遇到的主要挑战是什么？

It can be a challenge to recognize what different people are working on and where they are coming from. Our community sees a lot of new faces, and some of them are brilliant and doing really interesting things. But it is hard to tell sometimes who is working on what.

认识到不同的人在做什么以及他们来自哪里，这可能是一个挑战。 我们的社区看到了很多新面Kong，其中有些很聪明，做着非常有趣的事情。 但是有时候很难说是谁在做什么。

HTM technology has a steep learning curve, and it is still very new. The software itself can be tricky to get installed on all operating systems (Python with C++ extensions ?). We get many people in our community who are learning to program just so they can work with HTMs. One of my primary challenges is to make our tech and tech stack more approachable. We’ve come a long way since we started in 2013, but there’s always more to do! I’m currently producing a series of YouTube videos called HTM School to help educate people of HTM concepts from the ground up. I’m hoping things like this will help me answer questions on our mailing lists about HTM theory. And oh, by the way, the way YouTube videos embed in Gitter is great! ?

HTM技术具有陡峭的学习曲线，但它仍然是非常新的。 要在所有操作系统(具有C ++扩展名的Python？)上安装该软件本身可能会比较棘手。 我们社区中有很多人正在学习编程， 以便他们可以使用HTM。 我的一个主要挑战是使我们的技术和高科技小号粘性更平易近人。 自2013年成立以来，我们已经走了很长一段路，但总会有更多工作要做！ 我目前正在制作一系列名为H TM School的YouTube视频，以帮助人们从头开始学习HTM概念。 我希望这样的事情可以帮助我回答有关HTM理论的邮件列表中的问题。 哦，顺便说一下，YouTube视频嵌入Gitter的方式很棒！ ？

How do you encourage participants’ commitment and contribution to the community?

您如何鼓励参与者对社区的承诺和贡献？

If someone wants to work on code, we have a stack of newbie issues that are pretty non-threatening, although it would help if you knew a little something about python. We also have people who write translations of our white papers, which is very helpful to educate in other languages.

如果有人想处理代码，我们会遇到很多新问题 ，这些问题几乎没有威胁，尽管如果您对python有所了解也可以有所帮助。 我们也有写白皮书翻译的人，这对于用其他语言进行教育非常有帮助。

I never discourage crazy people. We have not discovered all the ways to encode different data into SDRs for HTMs to consume, so I’m just waiting for someone to build something that blows me away. I feel like the best way to quicken that is to share ideas and encourage people to build strange and interesting things. There are a lot of very creative people in our community. Some might call them crazy, but I know a certain percentage of them are pure genius.

我从不劝阻疯狂的人 。 我们还没有发现将不同的数据编码到SDR以供HTM使用的所有方法，所以我只是在等待有人建立某种东西使我震惊。 我觉得最好的加速方法是分享想法并鼓励人们建立奇怪而有趣的事物。 我们社区中有很多很有创造力的人。 有些人可能称他们为疯子，但我知道其中有一定比例的人是纯真天才 。

Based on your experience, do you feel that the open source communities have changed and evolved over the past years? If so, how?

根据您的经验，您是否觉得开源社区在过去几年中发生了变化和发展？ 如果是这样，怎么办？

I think face-to-face communication is very important for active people in the community. Your face contains a lot of information that augments vocal communication. The more people see each other, the closer they feel. The emergence of better video teleconferencing tools has made it much easier to keep a community adhesive. We publish regular online meetings where anyone in the community may join and voice their opinions and ideas. They all go on our YouTube channel, and I can see how engaged people are by how many views they get. Having the ability to bring people together in conversation like this and publish the entire thing live on the internet is amazing. It is very cool to meet someone at an event and recognize them from YouTube meetings!

我认为面对面的交流对于社区中活跃的人们非常重要。 您的脸部包含许多可增强人声交流的信息。 彼此见面的人越多，他们的感受就越近。 更好的视频电话会议工具的出现使保持社区联系更加容易。 我们定期发布在线会议，社区中的任何人都可以参加并发表意见和想法。 他们都在我们的YouTube频道上播出，我可以通过他们获得的观看次数来了解他们的参与度。 能够像这样将人们召集在一起并在互联网上实时发布整个内容，这一点令人惊讶。 在活动中认识某人并在YouTube会议中认出他们真是太酷了！

Gitter has been really useful, too, especially the way it attaches directly to all our OS codebases and gives us a space to chat about code in a much more personal way than a Github issue.

Gitter也确实非常有用，特别是它直接附加到我们所有OS代码库的方式上，并为我们提供了一个比Github问题更个人化的方式来讨论代码。

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start an online open source community from scratch?

您对想从头开始建立在线开源社区的人有什么建议？

Either be an extrovert, or really good at pretending like you’re an extrovert. ?

要么是一个外向的人，要么真的很会假装自己像一个外向的人。 ？

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/building-online-communities-numenta-9053ad89bb23/