Introducing the Help Steve get his Ph.D. Wiki!

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I have a project that I could use your help on. Yes... you!

If that didn't get you excited I'm not sure what will ;)

Here's the essentials from the wiki:

Welcome to the Help Steve get his Ph.D. Wiki

This project aims to collect as many distinct scene gists as possible (as a first step - the later steps are classified at the moment!). These are separated into two categories, Scene Gist and Social Gist. A Scene gist is the basic name or category for a scene that does not consist of any humans. You should be able to name the scene nearly instantly as soon as you look at it. For example a jail cell, hospital room or basketball court is a perfect example. A Social gist is labeling what people are doing. For example camping (distinct from just a camp site which would be an example of Scene Gist), Church Service (as opposed to just the sanctuary), etc.

Previous research by myself and others have come up with a number of great examples of all these types of scenes but I believe there are still many more to go! This is where you come in. Read through this list of scene types and add as many as you possibly can without creating overlap. If you don't like the name of one of the scene categories please give us a better one that more people would find to be the most common and descriptive.

There are two separate pages for each of the scene category types. Head over there to check the lists and add your own suggestions.

Scene Gist

Social Gist

If you have a few minutes I'd really appreciate any additions/suggestions you have! Also, if you are interested in the research that I've done with scene gist you can find a publication list and reprints here.

More like this

It's a bit too phenomenological, and definitely too animal-centric, but who cares? David Attenborough's tree of life is very pretty and gets the gist of the story of life on earth across.
The NY Times has a pretty cool resource available on their website. It has the first chapters of hundreds of books that they have reviewed, split into fiction and non-fiction categories.
It's long and fairly detailed, but this synopsis by a lawyer will give you the gist.
After so, so many emails about a possible Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., appointment to head EPA, we had to blog about it over at Talking Science. The gist?