Raw Paleo collaborative book

[majormark]

Hey,

Let's create a Raw Paleo collaborative book.

It could be the first thing a newbie could read and it would save a lot of repeated Q&As.
Also it could serve as a centralized wiki that gathers all our common ideas in a structured way so that we can all quickly revise them, refine them, etc.

Write here your ideas about how it should be formed, which chapters to include or whatever you think it could be useful.

Here is my quick suggestion for a chapter listing:
0. Preface (why the book was written, research methods)
1. Introduction (brief description of RPD, how it came to be, story)
2. Cooked vs raw arguments
3. Why Neolithic foods are bad for us
4. Different RPD flavors
5. Food storage, best practices
6. Food combining and mono-eating
7. General guidelines about certain foods
8. Warnings about certain foods
9. Action plans and important notes
10. RPD Recipes (with pics!)
12. The Raw Paleo lifestyle (advice on how to deal with society etc)
# Appendix
# Glossary
# Resources
# Bibliography

[Josh]

Good idea. There's a lot of information on here but it's hard to find, and every newbie seems to reinvent the wheel with their questions.

Maybe not a book though...just a long faq?

[TylerDurden]

I have already tried to do address some of the subjects raised above, among others,  on rawpaleodiet.com(re cooked vs raw arguments/raw food myths etc.) but haven't had time to deal with them all and gotten bogged down with other matters. Unfortunately, I am the only one currently interested in adding new articles to rawpaleodiet.com. I would far rather have others helping out as well.

[dsohei]

so delegate!

[TylerDurden]

I tried, the ones who offered didn't come through.

[majormark]

This book can easily be done in a collaborative way and it does not have to be 10000 pages long, covering all aspects of human history. It is intended to capture the essence of RPD so that a newbie does not need to browse through endless topics to find the basic stuff.

All we have to do is each pick a chapter and at least make a short sketch of it. I mean just the principal ideas and a short description. Next we can develop them and put them together in a meaningful way.

If you have just an idea that you think should go into any of the listed chapters, just write it here and we could integrate it. Have you seen the movie Inception? .

So, who wants to pick a chapter, there is a limited stock offered  .

I'll pick the Preface.


PS: we can use Google Docs to centralize these ideas.
PS2: I was thinking of a catchy title, like "RPD The Forgotten Secrets" 

[raw-al]

Why not attach this thread to the beginning of the thread list as a permanent feature (I think it is called a stickie).

Sounds like a great way to keep the forum on topic also. Having said that newbie questions are often the best as that is what wuffos ask.

[majormark]

Good idea with the sticky topic. Will someone make it sticky?

I created 3 public documents for the book (anyone can edit):

# Main collaborative document
http://tinyurl.com/26hakjg

# Chapter Owners (complete your username)
http://tinyurl.com/2dza852

# Additional Suggestions document
http://tinyurl.com/28wzc5d

It would be great if the links would be in the first post as well.

[Sully]

I wouldn't mind helping.   

[PaleoPhil]

Good work, Majormark. I had the same thought after I encountered a collaborative e-book created by a forum some time ago, but I feel like I still have more to learn before I can write much of a book, but maybe I could contribute some.

The food combining / mono eating chapter should probably mention that it's a controversial idea within raw Paleo circles. From what I've seen, those concepts seem mostly like bunk from the Natural Hygiene, vegetarian, and raw vegan movements, though I'm open to any hard evidence someone might provide.

If I contribute anything I'd like to keep the right to also use it in my potential future book.

[majormark]

PaleoPhil,

Everything you contribute will be acknowledged. We will have a list of authors in Chapter Owners and we can extend that to include paragraph owners too.

I would like the book be available to all though.

I wouldn't mind helping.   

Pick a chapter and let's go.

Maybe we can exchange ideas over chat. We have to schedule a specific time because of the timezone difference.

[TylerDurden]

If this were turned into a RVAF diet wiki, it might be very useful indeed. Hope it gets going.

[raw-al]

If this were turned into a RVAF diet wiki, it might be very useful indeed. Hope it gets going.

Excellent idea. Get to Wiki before some wacky myth buster type does 

The difficulty with Wiki is that any numbnuts with a keyboard can post what they want or revise at their leisure. I call it Wackipedia.

Once I had a link to a study on Iatrogenic disorders (doctor/nurse/medical system mistakes created illness) posted on a site. Next time I looked at the published studies, somebody (obviously a person with something to hide, probably a doctor or a consultant working for a doctor) had gone in and eliminated a lot of the data and wording, so you have to be careful and monitor it word by word.

Nobody monitors anything on Wiki. It's wide open. It's like a big rumour mill. Sure you have to give your name or supposedly your name when you post, but nobody reads the name of the revisor and that's easy to falsify anyhow.

Heck go in and make one on yourself and tell the world what a hero you are...

[djr_81]

Excellent idea. Get to Wiki before some wacky myth buster type does 

The difficulty with Wiki is that any numbnuts with a keyboard can post what they want or revise at their leisure. I call it Wackipedia.

Once I had a link to a study on Iatrogenic disorders (doctor/nurse/medical system mistakes created illness) posted on a site. Next time I looked at the published studies, somebody (obviously a person with something to hide, probably a doctor or a consultant working for a doctor) had gone in and eliminated a lot of the data and wording, so you have to be careful and monitor it word by word.

Nobody monitors anything on Wiki. It's wide open. It's like a big rumour mill. Sure you have to give your name or supposedly your name when you post, but nobody reads the name of the revisor and that's easy to falsify anyhow.

Heck go in and make one on yourself and tell the world what a hero you are...

We can make a wiki which is not hosted on the Wikipedia page. It would be a similar set of connected pages to a Wikipedia wiki but hosted and controlled by real RPDers.

[raw-al]

We can make a wiki which is not hosted on the Wikipedia page. It would be a similar set of connected pages to a Wikipedia wiki but hosted and controlled by real RPDers.

Excellent! So to clarify are you saying that you make up the page(s) and put a link to that page on a Wiki page so when you Wiki "RPD" you actually get the version that we have created that looks like a regular Wiki page? However it is like a "Locked PDF file" in that you have control over revisions?

[PaleoPhil]

OK, I could contribute something to "4. Different RPD flavors" on the carnivore flavors of RPD. First I'll do a poll thread to see if people are actually doing the various flavors--facultative/modified carnivore, obligate carnivore, Zero Carb.

I also could contribute something to a chapter that I'm planning on including in my book--tentatively titled "The Creatures Within Us" (meaning bacteria, parasites, fungi, symbionts, mitochondria). I figure Tyler would also have something to contribute to such a chapter, and he can suggest a better title if he'd like.

I'm not big on chat. I tend to come up with better stuff when I have time to think and research, as with forums and email--maybe because I'm an oldy who grew up in a pre-chat era.

[Parker Reid]

I would love to design the cover and format.

[donrad]

What is nice about Wiki is that you can't just say something without giving references to support your position.

I like the RPF format in that it is a bunch of people just sharing their experiences. But a published book needs to withstand the critics by not being biased. Contraversial ideas should give links to both arguments.

It takes of lot of time researching. You may want to break the chapters down into subtopics that people can write about who have expertise in that particular area and can prove it.

[irenekrey]

The topic on raw versus cooked is highly talked about one. Providing expert testimonials could be added as well here or some quotations proving this and that.

Great work overall on the topics covered!

[PaleoPhil]

This book doesn't seem to have taken off anyway, but I removed my handle from the assignments because I changed my mind about doing it. I'd rather not be associated with some of the views promoted at this forum, especially recently, and I don't like the idea that my handle would be associated with text I have no control over. Sorry. Good luck with it.

[majormark]

I think the reason it has not spark too much interest yet is because it seems like too big a task for the moment. I could try to split each chapter into little bits of ideas and expand from there.

Another solution is to pay someone else to aggregate the huge amounts of info in this forum (this forum generates 500+ posts per week). I was thinking of Elance, but I'm not sure I'll be pleased with the results. There is also the risk that a nonpaleo eating person may involuntarily insert their own preconceptions into the mix.

A working "advanced search" function would be of great help too!

[TylerDurden]

I think the reason it has not spark too much interest yet is because it seems like too big a task for the moment. I could try to split each chapter into little bits of ideas and expand from there.

Another solution is to pay someone else to aggregate the huge amounts of info in this forum (this forum generates 500+ posts per week). I was thinking of Elance, but I'm not sure I'll be pleased with the results. There is also the risk that a nonpaleo eating person may involuntarily insert their own preconceptions into the mix.

A working "advanced search" function would be of great help too!

Paying some nonrawpalaeo person to do it, would be a bad idea as genuine RPDers know most of the issues that need to be addressed once they've read enough posts on rawpaleoforum.

I am afraid that the real problem is that the Internet makes us humans shorten our attention-span considerably. I mean, I have ended up being the main contributor to rawpaleodiet.com, despite asking others to contribute, and that was only because I pushed myself for a time.

I should add that a number of articles I have already added to rawpaleodiet.com already cover some of the subjects that you mentioned in that 1st post.  I am sure that some details need to be added or changed and would appreciate it if people could post short sentences in the suggestions box as to how to improve that site. I even asked people to correct any spelling-mistakes/grammar-errors, some time back, but no one replied.

[TylerDurden]

A good search function would indeed be useful as well.

[yuli]

Why not make an online book of articles that only certain people can add or edit?
Why not use WordPress engine for it it has search and a million of other plugins and its free.
Blog type websites are very popular with everyone these days, they are easy to search and browse plus people can comment on articles.
For example http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ uses Wordpress, it a pretty nice site..
I can customize the Wordpress, make it look good, if you guys need.

[majormark]

Interesting, I see WP has a nice revision control system too, but we should not rush in with different structures atm. The more important thing is getting enough interest for the raw work.