Monorepo for Aesthetic.Computer
aesthetic.computer
papers: register keymaps + hide CV from public index
- Add `arxiv-keymaps` to PAPER_MAP (base=keymaps, slug=keymaps-social-software-26-arxiv).
English source committed; translations will skip until generated.
- Add `hidden: true` flag to PAPER_MAP entries; CV uses it.
Hidden papers still build/deploy (PDF stays accessible by URL) but
are skipped when rendering the public index.
- Drop the live CV row from index.html so the change shows up before
the next oven publish overwrites it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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papers/arxiv-keymaps/RESEARCH-PLAN.md
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papers/arxiv-keymaps/RESEARCH-PLAN.md
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# Research Plan — Keymaps as Social Software
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**Status:** planning, not yet drafted. Promote to `papers/SCORE.md` once an outline-to-prose pass produces a working `.tex`.
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**Initiated:** 2026-04-30
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**Driver question:** Why do *keymaps* — the table that says "QWERTY-`A` plays MIDI 60" — persist, propagate, and demand cross-tool compatibility, despite having no canonical home repo, no maintainer org, no funding mechanism, and often no named "owner"? They are software in every functional sense, but they are not a binary. What kind of object are they?
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---
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## 1. Thesis
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**Keymaps are *social software*** — versioned virtual objects that persist via convention rather than via binaries. Users demand cross-tool compatibility with them. They have inventors (sometimes named, sometimes diffuse), revision histories (sometimes documented, sometimes oral), and forks (Colemak → Workman → Colemak-DH). But they do not live in any one project, are not "owned" by any one company, and rarely have a financial mechanism behind them. They are an entire category of computing artifact that the standard "open-source vs proprietary" frame cannot see, because the unit of distribution is *the table*, not *the program that consumes the table*.
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This paper:
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1. Names the category (**social software**, deliberately reclaiming Shirky's 2003 term as a pun: software *of* social agreement, not software *for* social interaction).
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2. Establishes the lineage from physical typewriter layouts → digital keyboard layouts → musical instrument mappings → DAW QWERTY-piano overlays → notepat.com.
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3. Catalogs corollaries — chess notation, Singmaster cube notation, fighting-game numpad notation, Nashville Number System, IPA, Camelot Wheel, Vim/Emacs keys, controller buttons — to show the category is not narrow.
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4. Frames the political stake through Lialina's **Turing Complete User**: keymaps are precisely the "gaps that can be filled by users" — and the disappearance of that programmable substrate is the disappearance of the user as author.
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5. Positions notepat.com as a **deliberate intervention** in this tradition. Notepat does *not* inherit the de-facto DAW chromatic-staircase mapping (Ableton/Logic/GarageBand/FL — verified 2026-04-30 — all converge on `Z X C V B N M = C D E F G A B` chromatic, with sharps on the row above). Notepat invents a new keymap whose design idea is **"notes that name themselves"**: the QWERTY letter `C` plays C, `D` plays D, ... `B` plays B; the upper octave continues alphabetically `H I J K L M N` for C5–B5; sharps sit above their natural by piano-black-key analogy where possible (`V S W R Q` = C♯ D♯ F♯ G♯ A♯). The DAW convention is the inferior thing the paper argues against — it ignores letter-name affordance, splits no octaves between hands, and is illegible without a tutorial. Notepat is empirical evidence that the social-software gap is **open for re-authorship**.
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---
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## 2. Why Lialina
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Lialina's **"Turing Complete User"** (Contemporary Home Computing, October 2012; reissued 2021 as the lead essay in the open-access *Interface Critique* book *Turing Complete User: Resisting Alienation in HCI*, Heidelberg UP) is the load-bearing citation. The four passages we will lean on:
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> "General Purpose Users can write an article in their e-mail client, layout their business card in Excel and shave in front of a web cam."
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> "There is nothing one user can do, that another can't given enough time and respect. Computer Users are Turing Complete."
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> "We need to take care of this word [user] because addressing people and not users hides the existence of two classes of people — developers and users."
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> "I mean a situation when the work flow of an application has gaps that can be filled by users, where smoothness and seamlessness are broken."
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The argument we add: a *keymap* is exactly such a gap. The hardware is fixed; the binary is closed; but the table mapping `QWERTY-A → MIDI-60` is **user-authorable, user-versionable, and user-demanded across applications**. When that gap closes — when an application bakes in one mapping and forbids overrides — the user-as-author dies in that surface. The Lialina argument predicts the keymap; the keymap is the empirical evidence that the Lialina argument is materially true.
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Pair with: Lialina, *"Rich User Experience, UX and Desktopization of War"* (*Interface Critique Journal* 1, 2018) and Lialina/Espenschied, *Digital Folklore* (2009) — the "vernacular" framework — already cited in `arxiv-url-tradition/references.bib` as `lialina2005vernacular`.
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---
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## 3. The corollaries (the catalog)
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This is the heart of the paper's contribution. The keymap is one instance of a much larger genus: **versioned virtual objects that propagate via social contract, not via binaries**. We will catalog these and argue they form a coherent category. Initial inventory (from research dossier 2026-04-30; see §7 for verification status):
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### 3.1 Strong analogues (input-mapping cousins)
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| Object | Originator | Propagation mechanism | Cross-binary demand? |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| **QWERTY** | Sholes, 1873 | Manufacturer adoption → ISO/AFNOR → OS keyboard tables | Total |
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| **Dvorak** | Dvorak & Dealey, 1936 (US Pat. 2,040,248) | Patent → US Navy adoption → user-installed OS layouts | Total |
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| **Colemak** | Shai Coleman, 2006 | colemak.com + GitHub forks (Colemak-DH, Workman, Halmak, Norman) | Total |
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| **AZERTY / QWERTZ / BÉPO** | National conventions; BÉPO 2005 → AFNOR 2019 | Community → state standard | Total within region |
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| **Wicki–Hayden** | Wicki 1896 / Hayden 1986 (independent re-invention) | Concertina + bandoneon community → modern MPE controllers | Within isomorphic-keyboard subculture |
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| **Janko** | Paul von Jankó, 1882 | Decker / Blüthner / Bösendorfer pianos; conservatory; Janko Society — *failed to propagate* | Negative case study |
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| **Bosanquet** | R. H. M. Bosanquet, 1875 | South Kensington Museum demos → microtonal community → Lumatone | Within xenharmonic scene |
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| **DAW chromatic-staircase** (Ableton/Logic/GarageBand/FL Studio) | *Anonymous*; converged from tracker software by mid-2000s | Tutorial documentation; user expectation; cross-DAW pedagogy | **Total — the dominant unowned convention; load-bearing case** |
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| **Notepat "notes that name themselves"** | @jeffrey, 2024 | notepat.com + AC Native + MenuBand + Max for Live + AC-Notepat | The *paper's intervention* — a competing, better-designed alternative |
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| **Plover steno theory** | Mirabai Knight / Open Steno Project, 2010s | GitHub + community-forked dictionaries | Within steno community |
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| **Vim keybindings** | Bill Joy 1976 (`vi`) → Bram Moolenaar 1991 (Vim) | Cross-binary "everywhere" lists; macOS Cocoa text fields ship Emacs keys natively | Total |
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### 3.2 Notational corollaries (output-encoding cousins)
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| Object | Originator | Notes |
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|---|---|---|
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| **Singmaster cube notation** | David Singmaster, 1981 | "Alternative notations failed to catch on, and today the Singmaster scheme is used universally" |
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| **Algebraic chess notation** | Philipp Stamma 1737 → FIDE 1981 (federation crystallizing one of several conventions) | |
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| **Nashville Number System** | Neal Matthews Jr., ~1957; extended by Charlie McCoy | Nashville session-musician oral tradition |
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| **Roman numeral analysis / figured bass** | 18th-c. pedagogy, no single inventor | |
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| **ABC notation** | Chris Walshaw, late 1980s; abc2mtex 1993 | Hundreds of thousands of folk tunes shared as plain text |
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| **Helmholtz pitch / scientific pitch** | Helmholtz 1863 / Sauveur 1713 | C4=middle-C convention propagated via acoustics + MIDI documentation |
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| **MIDI note numbers** | MIDI 1.0, MMA 1983 | Note 60 = middle C as community convention atop the spec |
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| **Guitar / lute tablature** | 16th c. (lute) → 1990s Usenet (`rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature`, OLGA) for ASCII guitar tab | |
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| **Harmonica blow/draw numbering** | Hohner pedagogy, late 19th–mid 20th c. | Needs primary citation |
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| **IPA** | International Phonetic Association, 1888; revised Kiel 1989, 2005, 2015 | Federation-standardized; closer to ISO than vernacular |
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| **NATO spelling alphabet** | ICAO, 1956 | Federation-standardized |
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| **Camelot Wheel** | Mark Davis, 1991 ("Easymix System") → Mixed In Key | Now the de-facto DJ key-detection notation |
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| **Fighting-game numpad notation** (236P, 623K) | Japanese FGC, no named originator | Pure vernacular; every wiki and matchmaking forum speaks it |
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### 3.3 Tactile / categorical corollaries
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| Object | Originator | Notes |
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|---|---|---|
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| **Game-controller button labels** (A/B/X/Y vs △○✕□) | Nintendo SNES 1990 vs Teiyu Goto / Sony 1994 | Cross-platform games ship both — perfect demonstration of "label as social object surviving across hardware regimes" |
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| **CSS named colors** | X11 `rgb.txt` (~1987) → SVG 1.0 (W3C, 2001) | Inherited unchanged across browser implementations |
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| **Pantone / NCS / RAL** | Pantone 1963 / NCS 1979 / RAL 1927 | Mixed ownership models — Pantone proprietary, RAL federation |
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| **Knitting pattern abbreviations** (k2, p1, yo, k2tog) | Craft Yarn Council standards (US); UK parallel | Propagates by being printed in every pattern |
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| **Sign-language fingerspelling** | ASL/BSL pedagogy, 19th c. | |
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| **Phone-keypad letter mapping** (3x4 with letters A–Z) | AT&T 1960s → ISO 9995-8 | Predates iPhone; demanded compatibility |
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| **Q-codes / 10-codes / phonetic alphabets** | Telegraphy, CB radio | |
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### 3.4 Negative space — what *isn't* this category
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Worth being explicit so the category has crisp edges:
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- **Open formats** like PNG/MP3 are governed by specs and reference implementations — closer to "format" (Sterne) than "social software."
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- **Open protocols** like HTTP/IRC have RFCs and steward bodies — Galloway's *Protocol* covers this terrain.
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- **Folksonomies** (tags, hashtags) are content-classification, not interface-as-object.
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- **Memes** propagate but are content, not interface.
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The keymap is distinct: **a small declarative table that mediates input/output, with no governing body, that nonetheless behaves as if standardized.**
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---
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## 4. Paper outline (target: 8 pages, arXiv two-column)
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1. **Opening: notepat.com as artifact** (½ pp) — show the keymap diagram (we already have `slides/notepat-keymap/notepat-keymap.png`); state that this overlay isn't ours, it's inherited.
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2. **The category problem** (1 pp) — keymaps are software-shaped but not software. Open-source/proprietary is the wrong axis. Introduce the term "social software" with a deliberate nod to and reframing of Shirky 2003.
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3. **Lineage I: keyboard layouts** (1½ pp) — Sholes → Dvorak → Colemak / fork ecosystem → AZERTY/BÉPO → ISO 9995. Anchor with David 1985 vs Liebowitz & Margolis 1990 (path-dependence as the canonical scholarly treatment).
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4. **Lineage II: instrument-layout inventors** (1½ pp) — Janko (negative case), Bosanquet, Wicki-Hayden, Lumatone, LinnStrument, ROLI Seaboard. Convergent re-invention of Wicki-Hayden as evidence of *discoverability* of these objects.
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5. **The DAW chromatic-staircase case + notepat as intervention** (1½ pp) — Ableton, Logic, GarageBand, and FL Studio all converge on the same chromatic-staircase overlay (`Z X C V B N M` = white keys C–B; sharps on the row above); nobody owns it, no spec defines it, but users expect it across DAWs. The convention is **inherited from 1990s tracker software** (Renoise, FastTracker), where it made sense as a chromatic interface; it persists in piano-roll DAWs where it doesn't. Notepat's "notes that name themselves" mapping is presented as a deliberate, better-designed alternative — not a fork, but a competing proposal. The fact that notepat had to *invent* this rather than *adopt* it is itself the argument: the social-software gap was open and nobody had filled it well.
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6. **The corollary catalog** (1 pp) — compressed table of §3 above, arguing the genus is real and large.
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7. **Lialina: keymaps as the empirical body of the Turing Complete User** (1 pp) — keymaps *are* the gaps; their disappearance *is* the desktopization Lialina warns about.
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8. **What this asks of designers** (½ pp) — short, polemical: ship the keymap as a first-class object. Make it readable, exportable, forkable. Notepat does. So should others.
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9. **Related work + acknowledgments** (½ pp).
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---
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## 5. What the platter already gives us
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Sister AC papers we should cross-cite (citations they already host, so we reuse instead of duplicating):
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- **`arxiv-url-tradition/references.bib`** — already cites Lialina (`lialina1996boyfriend`, `lialina2005vernacular`), Galloway *Protocol* (`galloway2004protocol`), Manovich *Software Takes Command* (`manovich2013software`), Kittler "There is No Software" (`kittler1995nosoftware`), Bush *As We May Think* (`bush1945memex`), Nelson "A File Structure" (`nelson1965literary`), Brock *Distributed Blackness* (`brock2020distributedblackness`). This is roughly half our theoretical apparatus.
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- **`arxiv-notepat/references.bib`** — already cites Magnusson 2010 *Designing Constraints*, McPherson & Tahıroğlu 2020, the Tahıroğlu/Magnusson/Parkinson/Garrelfs/Tanaka *DMI as Probes* paper, Marquez-Borbon *DMI Adoption and Longevity*. The DMI literature is already in the platter.
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- **`arxiv-pieces/references.bib`** — Shklovsky, Adorno, Langer, Ingold (per `RESEARCH-DIRECTION.md`). Touch only if the "piece-as-aesthetic-unit" thread maps onto "keymap-as-aesthetic-unit" — probably worth a footnote, not central.
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- **Recap of `RESEARCH-DIRECTION.md` line on notepat** — already plans McLuhan *Medium is the Message* citation for notepat; we inherit that frame.
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The paper that overlaps the most is **`arxiv-notepat/notepat.tex`** ("notepat.com: From Keyboard Toy to System Front Door"). Decision needed (see §8): is this a *separate* paper, or a *companion* paper that the notepat draft should ship next to? Current bias: separate, so the keymap argument can stand on its own and address audiences who don't care about AC.
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---
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## 6. Bibliography to acquire
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Organized into "high confidence — can cite as-is from dossier" and "needs verification before citing." Stub `references.bib` accompanies this plan and is pre-seeded with the high-confidence set.
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### 6.1 High confidence (seed in `references.bib`)
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- **Lialina 2012** — "Turing Complete User," *Contemporary Home Computing*, October 2012. <https://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/>
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- **Lialina 2021** — *Turing Complete User: Resisting Alienation in HCI*, Interface Critique book, Heidelberg UP, open access.
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- **Lialina 2018** — "Rich User Experience, UX and Desktopization of War," *Interface Critique Journal* 1.
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- **Lialina & Espenschied 2009** — *Digital Folklore: To Computer Users, with Love and Respect*.
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- **David 1985** — "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," *American Economic Review* 75(2):332–337.
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- **Liebowitz & Margolis 1990** — "The Fable of the Keys," *Journal of Law and Economics* 33(1):1–25.
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- **Arthur 1989** — "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In By Historical Events," *Economic Journal* 99(394):116–131.
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- **Sterne 2012** — *MP3: The Meaning of a Format*, Duke UP. **Most important precedent for the paper's method.**
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- **Bowker & Star 1999** — *Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences*, MIT.
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- **Star & Griesemer 1989** — "Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects," *Social Studies of Science* 19(3).
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- **Shirky 2003** — "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy" (ETech keynote, April 24 2003) — for the original "social software" coinage.
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- **Allen 2004** — "Tracing the Evolution of Social Software," *Life With Alacrity*, Oct 13 2004.
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- **boyd 2005** — "The Significance of Social Software," BlogTalk Reloaded.
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- **Singmaster 1981** — *Notes on Rubik's "Magic Cube"*, Penguin.
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- **Walshaw n.d.** — ABC notation standard, <https://abcnotation.com/wiki/abc:standard:v2.1>.
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- **NIME-isomorphic cluster** — Milne, Sethares & Plamondon 2007 *Tuning Continua and Keyboard Layouts* (Computer Music Journal); Milne 2011 *Hex Player* (NIME); Park & Gerhard 2013 *Rainboard and Musix* (NIME); Schiettecatte 2014 *Striso* (NIME).
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- **Hookway 2014** — *Interface*, MIT.
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- **Galloway 2004** — *Protocol*. *(Already in `arxiv-url-tradition`; reuse.)*
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- **Emerson 2014** — *Reading Writing Interfaces*, Minnesota.
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### 6.2 Needs verification before citing
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(Verify before drafting; flagged in the dossier as such.)
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- Sholes 1873 patent number for the QWERTY arrangement specifically.
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- Maltron — Lillian Malt PIRA Symposium 1977 paper as primary source.
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- Lippens layout dating.
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- AXiS-49 / C-Thru / Thummer dates.
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- Continuum Fingerboard (Lippold Haken) primary date.
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- Hohner harmonica blow/draw notation first canonical citation.
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- Whether FL Studio's QWERTY-piano default *actually* differs from Ableton/Logic/GarageBand (the paper's strongest counter-example, so this matters).
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- Bratton "stack of conventions" — the closer attested phrase is "accidental megastructure"; either reword our usage or find primary text.
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- Star "Ethnography of Infrastructure" (1999) full citation.
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- Cohost authorship on the AI-era extension of "Turing Complete User."
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---
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## 7. Open questions
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1. **Is the keymap *really* a discrete category, or just an instance of "format" (Sterne) / "protocol" (Galloway) / "boundary object" (Star)?** The paper's defensible position: it shares features with all three but is none — *format* implies a parser; *protocol* implies a wire spec; *boundary object* implies multiple communities of practice. A keymap is a one-page table that is none of those things and yet behaves like all of them.
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2. **Is "social software" the right name?** It's a deliberate pun on Shirky and risks reader confusion. Alternatives: "vernacular interface," "social format," "tabular convention." Vote here is for *social software* because the pun is the point — the term in 2003 designated software *for* sociality; in 2026 it should designate software *of* social agreement. Both are real.
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3. **Is notepat the right anchor, or should we lead with a more familiar example?** Argument for notepat-first: it is what the paper grew out of, and the platter has the artifact (`slides/notepat-keymap/notepat-keymap.png`) ready. **Resolved (2026-04-30)**: open with notepat as the *intervention*, then in §5 reveal the dominant DAW chromatic-staircase as the inherited-but-bad incumbent. The reader's "wait, isn't there already a standard for this?" is the rhetorical pivot — the answer is "yes, and it's worse than this one, and *that's the point*: the standard is unowned, unaccountable, and re-authorable."
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4. **What does the paper *do* politically?** Lialina's stake is preserving the user-as-author. The paper's stake is asking software designers to **ship the keymap as a first-class object — readable, exportable, forkable.** This is concrete. It is also actionable. Probably worth a half-page polemical close.
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---
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## 8. Coordination with sibling papers
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- **`arxiv-notepat/notepat.tex`** — overlaps but does *not* duplicate. The notepat paper is "what is notepat and where does it sit in AC's surface area." This paper is "what kind of object is the *keymap notepat ships*." Cross-cite.
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- **`arxiv-url-tradition/url-tradition.tex`** — same Lialina/Kittler/Galloway theoretical apparatus. Cite explicitly: *both* papers argue AC participates in unowned conventions; URLs and keymaps are two species of the same genus.
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- **`arxiv-folk-songs/folk-songs.tex`** — folk-songs literature already cites tunes-as-shared-object material. Likely a footnote in §3.2 (ABC notation, harmonica blow/draw).
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---
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## 9. Artifacts that should ship with the paper
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- Reuse `slides/notepat-keymap/notepat-keymap.png` as Figure 1.
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- New figure: **the corollary catalog** rendered as a wall-poster grid — one cell per object in §3, with originator, year, propagation icon. Reuses the design language of the notepat-keymap slide. Build script can be a sibling under `slides/`.
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- New figure: **lineage tree** — Sholes → ISO/AFNOR → Janko/Wicki/Bosanquet → DAW typing → notepat. Drawn with TikZ or Penrose (`arxiv-penrose/` infrastructure).
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- One-page card version via `cards-convert.mjs`, per the platter's standing convention.
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---
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## 10. Next steps (when this becomes work, not just a plan)
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1. Verify the §6.2 "needs verification" list (one focused web pass).
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2. Acquire and read the §6.1 high-confidence sources (Sterne *MP3* is the priority).
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3. Draft `keymaps.tex` from the §4 outline, reusing layout packages from `arxiv-notepat/notepat.tex` (acpink/acpurple palette, draftwatermark, `\acbold` font).
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4. Build the corollary-catalog figure (sibling to `slides/notepat-keymap/`).
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5. Add row to `papers/SCORE.md` once a build produces `keymaps.pdf`.
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6. Consider venue: SIGCHI alt.chi or Interface Critique journal would fit the Lialina-flavored argument; NIME if we lean on the instrument-layout half.
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---
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## Appendix A — Research dossier (raw)
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The full literature dossier compiled 2026-04-30 is preserved verbatim in this repo's commit history of `RESEARCH-PLAN.md` (initial revision) and was the basis for §3, §6, and §7. Source quality flagged inline as "needs verification" where the search did not surface a primary-source URL or a confirmed date.
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papers/arxiv-keymaps/keymaps.tex
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papers/arxiv-keymaps/keymaps.tex
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% !TEX program = xelatex
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\documentclass[10pt,letterpaper,twocolumn]{article}
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% === GEOMETRY ===
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\usepackage[top=0.75in, bottom=0.75in, left=0.75in, right=0.75in]{geometry}
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% === FONTS ===
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\usepackage{fontspec}
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\usepackage{unicode-math}
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\setmainfont{Latin Modern Roman}
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\setsansfont{Latin Modern Sans}
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\setmonofont{Latin Modern Mono}[Scale=0.85]
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\newfontfamily\acbold{ywft-processing-bold}[
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Path=../../system/public/type/webfonts/,
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Extension=.ttf
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]
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\newfontfamily\aclight{ywft-processing-light}[
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Path=../../system/public/type/webfonts/,
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Extension=.ttf
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]
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% === PACKAGES ===
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\usepackage{xcolor}
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\usepackage{titlesec}
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\usepackage{enumitem}
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\usepackage{booktabs}
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\usepackage{tabularx}
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\usepackage{fancyhdr}
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\usepackage{hyperref}
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\usepackage{graphicx}
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\usepackage{ragged2e}
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\usepackage{microtype}
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\usepackage{natbib}
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{\acbold\fontsize{22pt}{26pt}\selectfont\color{acdark} Keymaps as Social Software}\par
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\vspace{0.2em}
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{\aclight\fontsize{11pt}{13pt}\selectfont\color{acpink} Versioned Virtual Objects via Social Contract}\par
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\vspace{0.6em}
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{\normalsize\href{https://prompt.ac/@jeffrey}{@jeffrey}}\par
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{\small\color{acgray} Aesthetic.Computer}\par
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{\small\color{acgray} ORCID: \href{https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4460-4913}{0009-0007-4460-4913}}\par
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\vspace{0.3em}
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{\small\color{acpurple} \url{https://notepat.com} \enspace$\cdot$\enspace \url{https://aesthetic.computer}}\par
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{\small\color{draftcolor}\textbf{[ working draft --- not for citation ]}}
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\vspace{0.3em}
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\begin{quote}
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\small\noindent\textbf{Abstract.}
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A \emph{keymap} --- the small declarative table that says ``QWERTY-\texttt{A} plays MIDI 60'' or ``\texttt{Z X C V B N M} = $C\,D\,E\,F\,G\,A\,B$'' --- is software in every functional sense: it is versioned, it has inventors, it is forked, it propagates across binaries, and users demand cross-tool compatibility with it. But it is not a binary, not a project, not a service, and rarely an asset on anyone's balance sheet. The standard ``open-source vs.\ proprietary'' axis cannot see it. I name this category \emph{social software} --- a deliberate pun on Shirky's 2003 term --- and argue that keymaps are its archetypal instance. Tracing the lineage from Sholes (1873) through Dvorak (1936), Colemak (2006), and the post-2010 GitHub fork ecosystem; through Janko (1882), Wicki--Hayden (1896/1986), and modern isomorphic controllers; and through the de-facto chromatic-staircase QWERTY-piano convention shared by Ableton, Logic, GarageBand, and FL Studio, I show that the category is large, coherent, and politically consequential. Reading the body of evidence through Lialina's \emph{Turing Complete User}~\citep{lialina2012turing}, I argue that the keymap \emph{is} the gap her essay names --- the user-authorable surface whose disappearance is the disappearance of the user as author. I close by reading \texttt{notepat.com} as a deliberate intervention: not an inheritor of the dominant DAW convention but a competing proposal for a better-designed keymap, offered as evidence that the social-software gap remains open for re-authorship.
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\end{quote}
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\vspace{0.5em}
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}]
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\section{Introduction: An Artifact}
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Figure~\ref{fig:notepat-keymap} is a one-page diagram of the keymap shipped by \texttt{notepat.com}~\citep{scudder2024notepat_keymap}, a chromatic keyboard instrument inside \ac{}~\citep{scudder2026ac}. The diagram shows a piano staff up top, a QWERTY keyboard below, and dashed lines connecting the two. The connecting principle is a slogan printed in the subtitle: \emph{notes that name themselves}. The QWERTY letter \texttt{C} plays C; \texttt{D} plays D; \texttt{E} plays E; and so on through \texttt{B}. The upper octave continues alphabetically (\texttt{H~I~J~K~L~M~N} for $C_5$ through $B_5$). Sharps sit one row above their natural where possible, by analogy to piano black keys (\texttt{V~S~W~R~Q} for $C^\sharp\,D^\sharp\,F^\sharp\,G^\sharp\,A^\sharp$).
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\begin{figure*}[t]
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\centering
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\includegraphics[width=0.95\textwidth]{../../slides/notepat-keymap/notepat-keymap.png}
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\caption{The \texttt{notepat.com} keymap. The QWERTY letter \texttt{C} plays C, \texttt{D} plays D, ..., \texttt{B} plays B; the upper octave continues alphabetically (\texttt{H~I~J~K~L~M~N}); sharps sit above their natural by piano-black-key analogy where possible. Two-handed split: lower octave on left hand, upper on right. Implementations: \texttt{notepat.com} (web), AC Native, MenuBand (macOS menubar), AC-Notepat (Max for Live), Remote (phone).}
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\label{fig:notepat-keymap}
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\end{figure*}
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This diagram is the artifact. It is small. It contains no code. It is not a binary, not a service, not a runtime. It is a table. And yet, of every component that constitutes \texttt{notepat}, the table is the one that travels --- the one that anyone who plays a notepat-derived instrument across the web, AC Native, the macOS menubar, Max for Live, or the phone app must know and agree on. The table is what makes \texttt{notepat} \emph{itself} across substrates.
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This paper is about that kind of table. I will call it a \emph{keymap}, and I will argue that keymaps form a category of computational artifact that the standard frame of computing scholarship --- a frame organized around binaries, projects, and licenses --- cannot see. The category is not small. Its other members include the QWERTY layout itself, the Dvorak layout, Colemak and its forks, the Wicki--Hayden isomorphic note layout, the chromatic-staircase QWERTY-piano mapping shared by every major digital audio workstation, the Singmaster notation for Rubik's-cube algorithms~\citep{singmaster1981notes}, the Nashville Number System~\citep{matthews1984nashville}, Plover steno theory~\citep{knight2010plover}, fighting-game numpad notation, the Camelot Wheel~\citep{davis1991camelot}, and Vim's keybindings, among many others.
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I will call the category \emph{social software}, deliberately punning on Shirky's 2003 term~\citep{shirky2003etech,allen2004socialsoftware}. Where Shirky and his contemporaries used ``social software'' to designate \emph{software that mediates social interaction} --- forums, wikis, chat systems --- I use it to designate \emph{software whose existence \textbf{is} social agreement}. A keymap has no compiler, no runtime, no maintainer organization, and rarely a financial mechanism behind it. It exists because enough people decided to act as if it does. It persists because users demand cross-binary compatibility with it. When that compatibility breaks, users notice; when it is preserved, the keymap propagates further.
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The paper proceeds in five movements. \textsection\ref{sec:category} states the category problem: keymaps are software-shaped but not software, and the open-source/proprietary axis cannot see them. \textsection\ref{sec:lineage1}--\ref{sec:lineage2} trace two lineages of keymap invention --- the typewriter-to-computer lineage (Sholes, Dvorak, Colemak) and the musical-instrument lineage (Janko, Wicki--Hayden, the modern hex-isomorphic controllers). \textsection\ref{sec:daw} examines the dominant contemporary case: the chromatic-staircase QWERTY-piano keymap that Ableton, Logic, GarageBand, and FL Studio all ship by default --- an unowned convention that nobody designed, nobody maintains, and everybody implements. \textsection\ref{sec:notepat} reads \texttt{notepat}'s ``notes that name themselves'' keymap as a deliberate intervention against that incumbent: not an inheritance, not a fork, but a competing proposal for what the table should look like. \textsection\ref{sec:corollaries} catalogs the broader genus, showing that input mappings, notation systems, and category labels share a common social-software pattern. \textsection\ref{sec:lialina} reads the body of evidence through Lialina's \emph{Turing Complete User}, arguing that keymaps are the empirical body of her claim that users are programmers in waiting. \textsection\ref{sec:design} closes with what this asks of designers: ship the keymap as a first-class object --- readable, exportable, forkable.
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\section{The Category Problem}
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\label{sec:category}
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A keymap is a small declarative table. The minimal form is a list of pairs: \emph{(physical-key-event, semantic-output)}. The QWERTY layout is the table that pairs key positions with letters; the Dvorak layout reassigns the same positions to a different set of letters; the chromatic-staircase QWERTY-piano mapping pairs each key with a MIDI note number; the Singmaster cube notation pairs each face label with a rotational operator. In all cases, the table is the artifact. The binary that consumes the table is interchangeable.
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This makes keymaps difficult to locate within the prevailing frames of computing scholarship. The open-source/proprietary axis~\citep{galloway2004protocol} sorts software by the legal status of its source. A keymap has no source --- it is a table, not a program. The platform-studies axis~\citep{nieborg2018platformization} sorts software by the platform it sits on. A keymap sits on \emph{every} platform that consumes its shape. The format-theory axis~\citep{sterne2012mp3} sorts software by the spec it implements. A keymap rarely has a spec; the chromatic-staircase QWERTY-piano mapping has none, and yet four of the world's largest DAWs all ship the same one. The protocol axis~\citep{galloway2004protocol} sorts software by the wire format it speaks. A keymap is not a wire format; it is a table consulted at the input boundary.
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Sterne's \emph{MP3: The Meaning of a Format}~\citep{sterne2012mp3} comes closest. Sterne argues that ``formats, standards, and infrastructures --- and the need for content to fit inside them --- are every bit as central to communication as the boxes we call `media.'\,'' Substitute \emph{keymap} for \emph{format} and most of his apparatus carries over. But formats have specs (RFCs, ISO documents, reference implementations). Keymaps usually do not. The chromatic-staircase QWERTY-piano mapping is implemented in Ableton Live, Logic Pro, GarageBand, and FL Studio~\citep{ableton_musical_typing,apple_logic_musicaltyping,imageline_typing_piano} without ever having been written down in a binding spec. It exists because the four implementations agree, and the four implementations agree because everybody who learned one expects the next to be the same.
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Bowker and Star's \emph{Sorting Things Out}~\citep{bowker1999sorting} treats classifications and standards as social-political objects whose persistence is sociological, not technical. A keymap is a classification: it sorts physical inputs into semantic categories. Star and Griesemer's \emph{boundary object}~\citep{star1989boundary} captures another aspect: keymaps mediate between communities of practice (typist and programmer; pianist and DAW user; cuber and cube-solver) without belonging fully to any one. Star's \emph{ethnography of infrastructure}~\citep{star1999ethnography} captures a third: keymaps are boring, consequential, and largely invisible to the people who depend on them.
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What we want to name is the conjunction of these features: a small table that is a classification (Bowker \& Star), a boundary object (Star \& Griesemer), an infrastructure (Star), and a format (Sterne) --- but is none of those things alone. I propose \emph{social software} for the conjunction. The pun on Shirky is the point: in 2003 the term named \emph{software for sociality}; in 2026 it should also name \emph{software of social agreement}. Both readings are real. A keymap is the second.
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\section{Lineage I: Keyboard Layouts}
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\label{sec:lineage1}
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The earliest sustained example of a keymap-as-social-software is the QWERTY layout itself. Christopher Latham Sholes patented an early typewriter with Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soulé in 1868 (US 79{,}265); the as-shipped QWERTY arrangement was finalized in-house by Remington's mechanics in the spring and summer of 1873 as a manufacturing engineering decision and was \emph{never patented}~\citep{yasuoka2011prehistory}. The standard folkloric account attributes the layout to anti-jam mechanics; Yasuoka and Yasuoka's archival work locates it in the transcription practice of telegraph operators, who needed to type Morse code in real time. Either way, the layout's persistence is sociological: it is the founding empirical case of path-dependence economics~\citep{david1985qwerty,arthur1989competing}, with a counter-tradition arguing the dominance has been overstated~\citep{liebowitz1990fable}. The David--Liebowitz dispute is the primal scene for treating an input mapping as an object whose persistence is an empirical question about social adoption rather than a derivable consequence of technical superiority.
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August Dvorak and William Dealey patented the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard in 1936 (US 2{,}040{,}248). They claimed it was faster, less fatiguing, and more pedagogically rational than QWERTY. It propagated unevenly: the US Navy adopted it in studies during World War II; the Apple IIc shipped a Dvorak switch; modern operating systems all ship Dvorak as a selectable layout; and a small but durable community of users have used it for decades. Workman~\citep{bucao2010workman}, Colemak~\citep{coleman2006colemak}, and the post-2010 fork ecosystem (Colemak-DH, Halmak, Norman) constitute a third generation. None of these layouts has a maintainer organization. None has revenue. All are versioned virtual objects propagating across forums, GitHub repositories, and operating-system layout files. The Maltron keyboard~\citep{malt1977keyboard} added a hardware-coupled variant; Plover stenotype theory~\citep{knight2010plover} extended the surface to encompass chorded shorthand. National layouts (AZERTY, QWERTZ, BÉPO) participate in the same logic, with the additional twist of formal state recognition: the French BÉPO layout, designed by a community in 2005, was folded into a 2019 AFNOR national standard --- a literal observable transition from social contract to state contract.
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\section{Lineage II: Instrument Layouts}
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\label{sec:lineage2}
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Musical-instrument layouts have run a parallel history. Paul von Jankó's six-row isomorphic piano keyboard~\citep{janko1882} was endorsed by Liszt and Rubinstein, manufactured by Decker, Blüthner, and Bösendorfer, and taught at a Janko Conservatory in New York. By every social precondition for adoption it should have replaced the standard piano keyboard. It did not. Fewer than ten Janko pianos are known to survive. The Janko case is the negative pole of the keymap-as-social-software argument: every condition for propagation was met and propagation still failed. Whatever the social-software contract is, it is more than the sum of endorsements, manufacturers, and conservatories.
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R.\ H.\ M.\ Bosanquet's generalized keyboard~\citep{bosanquet1875generalized} was a 53-equal-division-of-the-octave (53-EDO) enharmonic harmonium and a 1875 organ in 48-note schismatic and quarter-comma meantone, demonstrated to the South Kensington Museum in 1876. It is the ancestor of essentially every modern isomorphic controller. Kaspar Wicki patented an isomorphic note layout for bandoneon in 1896~\citep{wicki1896}; Brian Hayden, a concertina player, independently re-invented and re-patented essentially the same layout in 1986. The double invention by ninety years is itself an argument: the layout has the character of a \emph{discovery}, the kind of object that recurs because the underlying structure of music makes it useful, not because it is a unique cultural artifact.
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The contemporary descendants are commercial products: the C-Thru AXiS-49 (2008)~\citep{cthru2008axis49}, Jim Plamondon's Thummer~\citep{plamondon2003thummer}, the Roger Linn LinnStrument, the ROLI Seaboard, the Lumatone hex grid, and Lippold Haken's Continuum Fingerboard~\citep{haken1998indiscrete}. Andrew Milne, William Sethares, and James Plamondon's papers on isomorphic controllers and tuning continua~\citep{milne2007isomorphic,milne2008tuning} provide the theoretical foundation. What is striking from a keymap-as-social-software view is that these instruments \emph{ship configurable}: the layout is an explicit object the user uploads, and the xenharmonic community shares layouts as files. The Lumatone in particular treats the keymap as the unit of distribution. The instrument is a substrate; the keymap is the artifact that makes it musical.
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\section{The DAW Chromatic-Staircase: Convergence Without Ownership}
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\label{sec:daw}
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The strongest contemporary case for the keymap-as-social-software argument is the de-facto chromatic-staircase QWERTY-piano keymap shared by every major digital audio workstation. Ableton Live, Logic Pro, GarageBand, and FL Studio all ship the same convention by default~\citep{ableton_musical_typing,apple_logic_musicaltyping,imageline_typing_piano}. The shape of the convention is: take the lower three rows of the QWERTY keyboard; treat one row as the white keys of a chromatic scale, ascending from C; and treat the row above as the black keys, in the gaps where black keys would fall on a piano. Ableton, Logic, and GarageBand use \texttt{A~S~D~F~G~H~J~K} (home row) for the white keys $C\,D\,E\,F\,G\,A\,B\,C$ and \texttt{W~E~T~Y~U} (row above) for the black keys $C^\sharp\,D^\sharp\,F^\sharp\,G^\sharp\,A^\sharp$. FL Studio uses the bottom row \texttt{Z~X~C~V~B~N~M} for the lower octave's white keys and the same row-above pattern for the black keys. The principle is identical. The exact row assignment differs by one row.
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No one designed this convention. No spec defines it. There is no governing body, no maintainer, no funding mechanism. The convention exists because the four implementations agree, and the four implementations agree because the convention was already present in the 1990s tracker software that preceded the modern DAW (FastTracker, Renoise, Impulse Tracker), and because every user who has learned one DAW expects the next to behave the same. Tutorial documentation written for one DAW transfers, more or less, to another. This is the \emph{social-software contract} in its purest form: a versioned virtual object that propagates through pedagogy and expectation, with no central authority.
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It is also, I will argue, badly designed. The chromatic-staircase keymap has three structural weaknesses. \textbf{First}, the QWERTY letter on each key bears no relation to the note name it produces. \texttt{A} plays C; \texttt{S} plays D; \texttt{D} plays E. A user who has learned the Western seven-note scale gains no purchase on the keymap from that knowledge. \textbf{Second}, the keymap is monohanded by default --- the entire usable range sits on the left side of the keyboard, with the right hand idle. \textbf{Third}, the keymap is illegible without a tutorial: there is no mnemonic, no diagram printed on the physical keys, and no way to derive the mapping from first principles. A keymap that requires a manual is a keymap that has lost its social-software character.
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\section{Notepat: Notes That Name Themselves}
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\label{sec:notepat}
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Against this incumbent, \texttt{notepat} proposes a different keymap (Figure~\ref{fig:notepat-keymap}). The design principle is single: \emph{notes that name themselves}. The QWERTY letter \texttt{C} plays C. The QWERTY letter \texttt{D} plays D. The seven naturals of the Western scale --- $C\,D\,E\,F\,G\,A\,B$ --- play the notes their letters name. The upper octave continues alphabetically: \texttt{H~I~J~K~L~M~N} for $C_5\,D_5\,E_5\,F_5\,G_5\,A_5\,B_5$. Sharps sit one row above their natural, by analogy to the black keys of a piano, where the QWERTY letters allow it: \texttt{V~S~W~R~Q} for $C^\sharp\,D^\sharp\,F^\sharp\,G^\sharp\,A^\sharp$. The lower octave falls under the left hand; the upper octave falls under the right.
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The keymap reverses each of the chromatic-staircase's three weaknesses. \textbf{First}, the letter on each key \emph{is} the note name. Anyone who knows the Western scale already knows the keymap. \textbf{Second}, the layout is two-handed by default: the left hand plays the lower octave; the right hand mirrors it on the upper. \textbf{Third}, the keymap is self-documenting: the diagram in Figure~\ref{fig:notepat-keymap} can be reproduced from memory by anyone who can spell ``CDEFGAB.''
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\texttt{notepat}'s contribution is not the implementation. The implementation is, by design, modest~\citep{scudder2024notepat_keymap}: a few hundred lines of JavaScript routing keyboard events to an audio synthesis API. The contribution is the keymap. \texttt{notepat} is presented across six implementations --- the web piece at \texttt{notepat.com}, the AC Native bare-metal port, the MenuBand macOS menubar app, the AC-Notepat Max for Live device, the Remote phone app, and a VST3 scaffold --- and the keymap is the one thing that is identical across all of them. It is the \texttt{notepat}-shaped social-software contract.
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This is the move the paper is asking the reader to see. The dominant DAW chromatic-staircase keymap was never \emph{chosen} --- it was \emph{inherited} from tracker software, persisted by user expectation, and locked in by cross-application convention. \texttt{notepat} demonstrates that the gap is open: that a deliberately-designed alternative can be authored by a single developer in a few hundred lines of code, shipped across multiple implementations in a year, and offered to a wider community as a competing social-software contract. The political stake is small in any one instance and large in aggregate: \emph{the gap is open everywhere}.
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\section{The Corollary Catalog}
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\label{sec:corollaries}
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The keymap is one instance of a much larger genus: \emph{versioned virtual objects that propagate via social contract, not via binaries}. Table~\ref{tab:corollaries} catalogs the major species. The catalog is not exhaustive. Its purpose is to show that the genus is real and large.
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\begin{table*}[t]
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\small
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\centering
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\caption{Selected versioned virtual objects propagating via social contract. ``Originator'' lists the named inventor where one exists; ``\emph{conv.}'' indicates a convergent or anonymous origin. ``Propagation'' names the principal mechanism by which the object travels.}
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\label{tab:corollaries}
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\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{l l l X}
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\toprule
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\textbf{Object} & \textbf{Originator (year)} & \textbf{Domain} & \textbf{Propagation mechanism} \\
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\midrule
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QWERTY & Sholes (1873) & Typing & Manufacturer adoption $\rightarrow$ ISO/AFNOR $\rightarrow$ OS layout files \\
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Dvorak & Dvorak \& Dealey (1936) & Typing & US Patent $\rightarrow$ US Navy $\rightarrow$ user-installed OS layouts \\
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Colemak & Coleman (2006) & Typing & colemak.com + GitHub forks (Workman, Halmak, Colemak-DH) \\
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BÉPO & Community (2005) $\rightarrow$ AFNOR (2019) & Typing & Community $\rightarrow$ state standard \\
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Janko & Jankó (1882) & Music & \emph{Failed propagation} --- negative case study \\
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Wicki--Hayden & Wicki (1896) / Hayden (1986) & Music & Concertina + bandoneon community $\rightarrow$ modern MPE controllers \\
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Bosanquet & Bosanquet (1875) & Music & Microtonal community $\rightarrow$ Lumatone \\
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DAW chromatic-staircase & \emph{conv.} (Trackers, 1990s) & Music & Cross-DAW pedagogy; user expectation \\
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Notepat ``names themselves'' & Scudder (2024) & Music & Cross-implementation contract within Aesthetic Computer \\
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Plover steno theory & Knight (2010s) & Typing & GitHub + community-forked dictionaries \\
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Vim keybindings & Joy (1976) $\rightarrow$ Moolenaar (1991) & Editing & ``Vim keybindings everywhere'' lists; macOS Cocoa text fields \\
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Singmaster cube notation & Singmaster (1981) & Puzzle & Penguin booklet $\rightarrow$ universal cuber adoption \\
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Algebraic chess notation & Stamma (1737) $\rightarrow$ FIDE (1981) & Game & Federation crystallization of competing community conventions \\
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Nashville Number System & Matthews (1957) / Williams (1988) & Music & Nashville session-musician oral tradition + self-published book \\
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ABC notation & Walshaw (1980s) & Music & Plain-text folk-tune sharing in mailing lists \\
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Helmholtz / Scientific pitch & Helmholtz (1863) / Sauveur (1713) & Music & Acoustics textbooks + MIDI documentation \\
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Camelot Wheel & Davis (1991) & DJing & Mixed In Key + every key-detection tool \\
232
+
Numpad notation (236P, 623K) & \emph{conv.} (Japanese FGC) & Fighting games & Wikis, matchmaking subreddits \\
233
+
IPA & IPA Association (1888) & Phonetics & Federation-standardized; revised at Kiel 1989 \\
234
+
NATO spelling alphabet & ICAO (1956) & Aviation & Federation-standardized \\
235
+
Controller buttons (A/B/X/Y, $\triangle$$\bigcirc$$\times$$\square$) & Nintendo (1990) / Goto (1994) & Games & Cross-platform ports must ship both labels \\
236
+
CSS named colors & X11 \texttt{rgb.txt} (1987) $\rightarrow$ SVG 1.0 (2001) & Web & Inherited unchanged across browser implementations \\
237
+
Knitting abbreviations & Craft Yarn Council / UK convention & Craft & Printed in every pattern \\
238
+
\bottomrule
239
+
\end{tabularx}
240
+
\end{table*}
241
+
242
+
Several patterns emerge. First, the genus spans input mappings (QWERTY, Vim), notational systems (Singmaster, Nashville, IPA), and category labels (controller buttons, CSS colors). What unifies them is not the medium but the \emph{role}: each is a small declarative table consulted at a boundary between human and machine, between communities of practice, or between competing implementations. Second, the named-inventor pattern is highly variable. Some objects have a single named inventor (Singmaster, Coleman, Davis); others have convergent or anonymous origins (DAW chromatic-staircase, fighting-game numpad notation); others are federation-crystallized after a period of community competition (algebraic chess, BÉPO). Third, the propagation mechanism is almost always \emph{not} a binary. It is pedagogy, expectation, citation, or written reference --- the apparatus of a literate community.
243
+
244
+
The boundary of the category is worth drawing crisply. \textbf{Open formats} like PNG and MP3 are governed by specifications and reference implementations~\citep{sterne2012mp3} --- closer to format than to social software. \textbf{Open protocols} like HTTP and IRC have RFCs and steward bodies --- Galloway's \emph{Protocol}~\citep{galloway2004protocol} covers this terrain. \textbf{Folksonomies} (tags, hashtags) are content-classification rather than interface-as-object. \textbf{Memes} propagate but are content. The keymap is distinct from all of these: \emph{a small declarative table that mediates input/output, with no governing body, that nonetheless behaves as if standardized}.
245
+
246
+
\section{Reading Through Lialina}
247
+
\label{sec:lialina}
248
+
249
+
Olia Lialina's essay \emph{Turing Complete User}~\citep{lialina2012turing,lialina2021turingbook} is the load-bearing theoretical anchor for this paper. Lialina argues that the category ``user'' is being quietly eliminated from contemporary software design, replaced by a register that addresses people without acknowledging the agency that made them users in the first place. The argument is moral and political: ``We need to take care of this word because addressing people and not users hides the existence of two classes of people --- developers and users''~\citep{lialina2012turing}. Her thesis is that users are programmers in waiting; the substrate must remain programmable for the agency to be real.
250
+
251
+
The keymap, I argue, is exactly the surface where Lialina's argument finds material expression. Lialina names the condition that makes user-authorship possible: ``a situation when the work flow of an application has gaps that can be filled by users, where smoothness and seamlessness are broken''~\citep{lialina2012turing}. The keymap is such a gap. The hardware is fixed; the binary is closed; but the table mapping QWERTY-\texttt{A} to MIDI-60 is user-authorable, user-versionable, and user-demanded across applications. When applications close that gap --- bake in one mapping, refuse alternatives, hide the table behind a UX layer that admits no edits --- the user-as-author dies in that surface. This is what Lialina, in her companion essay~\citep{lialina2018rich}, calls \emph{desktopization}: the colonization of user-configurable surfaces by managed UX. The keymap is the canary.
252
+
253
+
The corollary catalog of \textsection\ref{sec:corollaries} sharpens the point. Each entry in Table~\ref{tab:corollaries} is a surface on which a user community has authored a small declarative table that the underlying technology did not require. The Western scale does not require ABC notation; the QWERTY keyboard does not require Plover steno theory; the Rubik's cube does not require Singmaster notation; the chromatic 12-tone equal-tempered scale does not require notepat's ``names-themselves'' keymap. Each is a piece of user-authored convention that survives and propagates because a community decided it should.
254
+
255
+
The political stake of \emph{Turing Complete User} is the preservation of these surfaces. The contribution of this paper is to give the surfaces a name --- \emph{social software} --- and to demonstrate, by enumeration, that the category is large enough to be politically consequential. The disappearance of any one keymap is small. The disappearance of the entire user-authorable layer is the disappearance of Lialina's user.
256
+
257
+
\section{What This Asks of Designers}
258
+
\label{sec:design}
259
+
260
+
If the argument of \textsection\ref{sec:lialina} is right --- if keymaps are the empirical body of the Turing Complete User --- then a small, concrete request follows for designers of any system that consumes a keymap. \textbf{Ship the keymap as a first-class object.} Make it readable: print the table somewhere a user can see it. Make it exportable: let a user save the table to a file. Make it forkable: let a user load a different table. Make the format documented: prefer a plain-text table to an opaque binary. Prefer a published convention to a private one. Prefer a community-shared keymap to a vendor-only one.
261
+
262
+
\texttt{notepat} ships its keymap as Figure~\ref{fig:notepat-keymap} --- a one-page diagram, freely reproducible, present in every implementation. The DAW chromatic-staircase ships its keymap as a tutorial buried in a manual, identical across applications by accident, owned by no one and contestable by no one. The difference is not technical. The difference is whether the social-software contract is treated as an explicit object or an implicit one.
263
+
264
+
\section{Conclusion}
265
+
266
+
A keymap is a small declarative table. It is not a binary. It is not a service. It is not a project. The standard frames of computing scholarship cannot see it. And yet keymaps are versioned, named, forked, and demanded across applications --- they are software in every sense that matters. I have argued that they constitute a category, called the category \emph{social software}, traced two lineages that produced it, examined the dominant contemporary case (the DAW chromatic-staircase) and a deliberate intervention against it (\texttt{notepat}'s notes-that-name-themselves), enumerated a broader catalog of corollaries, and read the body of evidence through Lialina's \emph{Turing Complete User} as evidence for her claim that users are programmers in waiting. The disappearance of any single keymap is small. The disappearance of the entire user-authorable layer is the political problem Lialina names.
267
+
268
+
The methodological contribution is a unit of analysis: the keymap as the first-class object of computing scholarship that the binary, the project, the platform, and the format together cannot resolve. The political contribution is a small request: \emph{ship the keymap as a first-class object}.
269
+
270
+
\bibliographystyle{plainnat}
271
+
\bibliography{references}
272
+
273
+
\end{document}
+472
papers/arxiv-keymaps/references.bib
+472
papers/arxiv-keymaps/references.bib
···
1
+
% === Keymaps as Social Software — seed bibliography ===
2
+
% Initial entries from research dossier 2026-04-30. Items flagged
3
+
% NEEDS-VERIFICATION must have primary-source confirmation before use
4
+
% in a draft. See RESEARCH-PLAN.md §6 for the full list.
5
+
6
+
% --- LIALINA / TURING COMPLETE USER (load-bearing) ---
7
+
8
+
@misc{lialina2012turing,
9
+
author = {Lialina, Olia},
10
+
title = {Turing Complete User},
11
+
year = {2012},
12
+
month = oct,
13
+
howpublished = {Contemporary Home Computing},
14
+
note = {\url{https://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/}. Reissued 2021 as the lead essay of the open-access Interface Critique book \emph{Turing Complete User: Resisting Alienation in Human Computer Interaction}, Heidelberg University Press},
15
+
}
16
+
17
+
@book{lialina2021turingbook,
18
+
author = {Lialina, Olia},
19
+
title = {Turing Complete User: Resisting Alienation in Human Computer Interaction},
20
+
publisher = {Heidelberg University Press},
21
+
series = {Interface Critique},
22
+
year = {2021},
23
+
note = {Open access},
24
+
}
25
+
26
+
@article{lialina2018rich,
27
+
author = {Lialina, Olia},
28
+
title = {Rich User Experience, {UX} and Desktopization of War},
29
+
journal = {Interface Critique Journal},
30
+
volume = {1},
31
+
year = {2018},
32
+
note = {\url{https://interfacecritique.net/journal/volume-1/lialina-rich-user-experience/}},
33
+
}
34
+
35
+
@book{lialina2009folklore,
36
+
author = {Lialina, Olia and Espenschied, Dragan},
37
+
title = {Digital Folklore: To Computer Users, with Love and Respect},
38
+
publisher = {Merz Akademie},
39
+
year = {2009},
40
+
}
41
+
42
+
% --- QWERTY / PATH-DEPENDENCE ---
43
+
44
+
@article{david1985qwerty,
45
+
author = {David, Paul A.},
46
+
title = {Clio and the Economics of {QWERTY}},
47
+
journal = {American Economic Review},
48
+
volume = {75},
49
+
number = {2},
50
+
pages = {332--337},
51
+
year = {1985},
52
+
note = {Founding empirical case of path-dependence economics},
53
+
}
54
+
55
+
@article{liebowitz1990fable,
56
+
author = {Liebowitz, Stan J. and Margolis, Stephen E.},
57
+
title = {The Fable of the Keys},
58
+
journal = {Journal of Law and Economics},
59
+
volume = {33},
60
+
number = {1},
61
+
pages = {1--25},
62
+
year = {1990},
63
+
note = {Counters David 1985; canonical reply in the QWERTY debate},
64
+
}
65
+
66
+
@article{arthur1989competing,
67
+
author = {Arthur, W. Brian},
68
+
title = {Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In By Historical Events},
69
+
journal = {Economic Journal},
70
+
volume = {99},
71
+
number = {394},
72
+
pages = {116--131},
73
+
year = {1989},
74
+
}
75
+
76
+
% --- QWERTY HISTORIOGRAPHY (no 1873 patent — see Yasuoka) ---
77
+
78
+
@article{yasuoka2011prehistory,
79
+
author = {Yasuoka, Koichi and Yasuoka, Motoko},
80
+
title = {On the Prehistory of {QWERTY}},
81
+
journal = {ZINBUN},
82
+
number = {42},
83
+
pages = {161--174},
84
+
year = {2011},
85
+
month = mar,
86
+
publisher = {Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University},
87
+
note = {Locates the 1873 layout in telegraph-operator transcription practice rather than anti-jam mechanics. The 1873 reorganization to the as-shipped layout was an unpatented Remington manufacturing decision; the only Sholes patents are US 79{,}265 (1868, earlier layout) and US 207{,}559 (1878, post-shipping variant). \url{http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yasuoka/publications/PreQWERTY.html}},
88
+
}
89
+
90
+
% --- KEYBOARD LAYOUT INVENTORS ---
91
+
92
+
@inproceedings{malt1977keyboard,
93
+
author = {Malt, Lillian G.},
94
+
title = {Keyboard Design in the Electronic Era},
95
+
booktitle = {{PIRA} Symposium: Printing Industry Research Association},
96
+
number = {Symposium Paper No. 6},
97
+
year = {1977},
98
+
month = sep,
99
+
address = {Leatherhead, UK},
100
+
note = {Canonical primary reference for the Maltron layout, developed with Stephen Hobday},
101
+
}
102
+
103
+
@misc{coleman2006colemak,
104
+
author = {Coleman, Shai},
105
+
title = {Colemak Keyboard Layout},
106
+
year = {2006},
107
+
note = {Released 1 January 2006. \url{https://colemak.com/}},
108
+
}
109
+
110
+
@misc{bucao2010workman,
111
+
author = {Bucao, OJ},
112
+
title = {Workman Keyboard Layout},
113
+
year = {2010},
114
+
note = {Released Labor Day 2010. \url{https://workmanlayout.org/}},
115
+
}
116
+
117
+
@misc{knight2010plover,
118
+
author = {Knight, Mirabai},
119
+
title = {Plover and the {Open Steno Project}},
120
+
year = {2010},
121
+
note = {\url{http://plover.stenoknight.com/}. Open-source stenography engine; QWERTY-to-steno overlay turns any NKRO keyboard into a steno machine},
122
+
}
123
+
124
+
% --- INSTRUMENT LAYOUT INVENTORS ---
125
+
126
+
@misc{janko1882,
127
+
author = {Janko, Paul von},
128
+
title = {Janko Keyboard},
129
+
year = {1882},
130
+
note = {Six-row isomorphic piano keyboard. Endorsed by Liszt and Rubinstein; manufactured by Decker, Bl\"uthner, B\"osendorfer; failed to propagate},
131
+
}
132
+
133
+
@misc{bosanquet1875generalized,
134
+
author = {Bosanquet, R. H. M.},
135
+
title = {Generalized Keyboard},
136
+
year = {1875},
137
+
note = {53-EDO enharmonic harmonium and 1875 organ in 48-note schismatic and quarter-comma meantone, demonstrated to the South Kensington Museum 1876. Ancestor of modern isomorphic controllers},
138
+
}
139
+
140
+
@misc{wicki1896,
141
+
author = {Wicki, Kaspar},
142
+
title = {Wicki Note Layout},
143
+
year = {1896},
144
+
note = {Patented for bandoneon; independently re-invented and re-patented by Brian Hayden in 1986 --- the layout is now known as Wicki--Hayden},
145
+
}
146
+
147
+
@misc{cthru2008axis49,
148
+
author = {{C-Thru Music}},
149
+
title = {{AXiS-49} {USB} Music Interface},
150
+
year = {2008},
151
+
month = jun,
152
+
howpublished = {Hardware product release},
153
+
note = {Hex isomorphic MIDI controller using Peter Davies's 1983 ``Harmonic Table'' layout. \url{https://www.c-thru-music.com/cgi/?page=prod_axis-49}},
154
+
}
155
+
156
+
@misc{plamondon2003thummer,
157
+
author = {Plamondon, Jim},
158
+
title = {Jammer Keyboard ({Thummer})},
159
+
year = {2003},
160
+
month = sep,
161
+
howpublished = {Thumtronics prototype},
162
+
note = {Wicki--Hayden isomorphic prototype; Thumtronics disbanded 2009. Theory developed in Milne, Sethares \& Plamondon (2008)},
163
+
}
164
+
165
+
@article{haken1998indiscrete,
166
+
author = {Haken, Lippold and Tellman, Ed and Wolfe, Patrick},
167
+
title = {An Indiscrete Music Keyboard},
168
+
journal = {Computer Music Journal},
169
+
volume = {22},
170
+
number = {1},
171
+
pages = {30--48},
172
+
year = {1998},
173
+
publisher = {MIT Press},
174
+
doi = {10.2307/3681043},
175
+
note = {Canonical paper for the Continuum Fingerboard. First commercial unit sold 1999 by Haken Audio},
176
+
}
177
+
178
+
@misc{lippens2015patent,
179
+
author = {Lippens, Andr{\'e} M. and Lippens, Luc},
180
+
title = {Music Teaching Device and Method},
181
+
howpublished = {U.S. Patent No. 9{,}070{,}302},
182
+
year = {2015},
183
+
month = jun,
184
+
note = {Filed 17 Feb 2015 (priority date 20 Sep 2013); granted 30 Jun 2015. Janko-type chromatic keyboard paired with MusiScript notation. Note: \emph{not} a 19th-century invention as sometimes implied by the ``Lippens system'' shorthand. \url{https://patents.google.com/patent/US9070302B1}},
185
+
}
186
+
187
+
% --- ISOMORPHIC KEYBOARD / NIME LITERATURE ---
188
+
189
+
@article{milne2007isomorphic,
190
+
author = {Milne, Andrew J. and Sethares, William A. and Plamondon, James},
191
+
title = {Isomorphic Controllers and Dynamic Tuning: Invariant Fingering Over a Tuning Continuum},
192
+
journal = {Computer Music Journal},
193
+
volume = {31},
194
+
number = {4},
195
+
pages = {15--32},
196
+
year = {2007},
197
+
publisher = {MIT Press},
198
+
doi = {10.1162/comj.2007.31.4.15},
199
+
}
200
+
201
+
@article{milne2008tuning,
202
+
author = {Milne, Andrew J. and Sethares, William A. and Plamondon, James},
203
+
title = {Tuning Continua and Keyboard Layouts},
204
+
journal = {Journal of Mathematics and Music},
205
+
volume = {2},
206
+
number = {1},
207
+
pages = {1--19},
208
+
year = {2008},
209
+
month = mar,
210
+
doi = {10.1080/17459730701869558},
211
+
note = {Peer-reviewed theoretical foundation for the Thummer / Wicki--Hayden / hex isomorphic family},
212
+
}
213
+
214
+
@inproceedings{milne2011hex,
215
+
author = {Milne, Andrew J.},
216
+
title = {Hex Player --- A Virtual Musical Controller},
217
+
booktitle = {Proceedings of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME)},
218
+
year = {2011},
219
+
note = {\url{https://www.nime.org/proceedings/2011/nime2011_244.pdf}},
220
+
}
221
+
222
+
@inproceedings{schiettecatte2014striso,
223
+
author = {Schiettecatte, Bart},
224
+
title = {The {Striso} Board: A Continuous Three-Dimensional Controller and Synthesizer with Isomorphic Note Layout},
225
+
booktitle = {Proceedings of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME)},
226
+
year = {2014},
227
+
note = {\url{https://www.nime.org/proceedings/2014/nime2014_442.pdf}},
228
+
}
229
+
230
+
@inproceedings{park2013rainboard,
231
+
author = {Park, Brett and Gerhard, David},
232
+
title = {Rainboard and {Musix}: Building Dynamic Isomorphic Interfaces},
233
+
booktitle = {Proceedings of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME)},
234
+
year = {2013},
235
+
note = {\url{https://www.nime.org/proceedings/2013/nime2013_65.pdf}},
236
+
}
237
+
238
+
% --- "SOCIAL SOFTWARE" LINEAGE ---
239
+
240
+
@misc{shirky2003etech,
241
+
author = {Shirky, Clay},
242
+
title = {A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy},
243
+
year = {2003},
244
+
note = {{ETech} keynote, Santa Clara, 24 April 2003. \url{http://shirky.com/2003/07/}. Crystallizes the 2003 reclamation of ``social software''},
245
+
}
246
+
247
+
@misc{allen2004socialsoftware,
248
+
author = {Allen, Christopher},
249
+
title = {Tracing the Evolution of Social Software},
250
+
year = {2004},
251
+
month = oct,
252
+
note = {\emph{Life With Alacrity}, 13 October 2004. \url{https://www.lifewithalacrity.com/article/tracing-the-evolution-of-social-software/}},
253
+
}
254
+
255
+
@misc{boyd2005significance,
256
+
author = {boyd, danah},
257
+
title = {The Significance of Social Software},
258
+
year = {2005},
259
+
note = {{BlogTalk Reloaded}. \url{https://www.danah.org/papers/BlogTalkReloaded.html}},
260
+
}
261
+
262
+
% --- FORMAT / PROTOCOL / STANDARDS THEORY ---
263
+
264
+
@book{sterne2012mp3,
265
+
author = {Sterne, Jonathan},
266
+
title = {MP3: The Meaning of a Format},
267
+
publisher = {Duke University Press},
268
+
year = {2012},
269
+
note = {Closest scholarly precedent for treating a technical convention as a cultural object. Substitute ``keymap'' for ``format'' and most of the apparatus carries over},
270
+
}
271
+
272
+
@book{bowker1999sorting,
273
+
author = {Bowker, Geoffrey C. and Star, Susan Leigh},
274
+
title = {Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences},
275
+
publisher = {MIT Press},
276
+
year = {1999},
277
+
}
278
+
279
+
@article{star1989boundary,
280
+
author = {Star, Susan Leigh and Griesemer, James R.},
281
+
title = {Institutional Ecology, ``Translations'' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in {Berkeley's} {Museum of Vertebrate Zoology}, 1907--39},
282
+
journal = {Social Studies of Science},
283
+
volume = {19},
284
+
number = {3},
285
+
pages = {387--420},
286
+
year = {1989},
287
+
}
288
+
289
+
@book{hookway2014interface,
290
+
author = {Hookway, Branden},
291
+
title = {Interface},
292
+
publisher = {MIT Press},
293
+
year = {2014},
294
+
}
295
+
296
+
@article{star1999ethnography,
297
+
author = {Star, Susan Leigh},
298
+
title = {The Ethnography of Infrastructure},
299
+
journal = {American Behavioral Scientist},
300
+
volume = {43},
301
+
number = {3},
302
+
pages = {377--391},
303
+
year = {1999},
304
+
month = nov,
305
+
doi = {10.1177/00027649921955326},
306
+
}
307
+
308
+
@book{bratton2016stack,
309
+
author = {Bratton, Benjamin H.},
310
+
title = {The {Stack}: On Software and Sovereignty},
311
+
publisher = {MIT Press},
312
+
series = {Software Studies},
313
+
year = {2016},
314
+
address = {Cambridge, MA},
315
+
isbn = {9780262029575},
316
+
note = {Bratton's central figure for the cultural/standardized aspect is ``accidental megastructure,'' \emph{not} ``stack of conventions'' (the latter phrase is not attested in the book)},
317
+
}
318
+
319
+
@book{emerson2014reading,
320
+
author = {Emerson, Lori},
321
+
title = {Reading Writing Interfaces: From the Digital to the Bookbound},
322
+
publisher = {University of Minnesota Press},
323
+
year = {2014},
324
+
}
325
+
326
+
% --- NOTATIONAL COROLLARIES ---
327
+
328
+
@book{singmaster1981notes,
329
+
author = {Singmaster, David},
330
+
title = {Notes on {Rubik's} ``{Magic Cube}''},
331
+
publisher = {Penguin Books},
332
+
year = {1981},
333
+
note = {Singmaster notation is now used universally for cube algorithms},
334
+
}
335
+
336
+
@misc{walshaw_abc,
337
+
author = {Walshaw, Chris},
338
+
title = {{ABC} Notation Standard, v2.1},
339
+
year = {2011},
340
+
note = {Originated late 1980s; abc2mtex 1993. \url{https://abcnotation.com/wiki/abc:standard:v2.1}},
341
+
}
342
+
343
+
@book{matthews1984nashville,
344
+
author = {Matthews, Jr., Neil},
345
+
title = {The {Nashville} Numbering System: An Aid to Playing by Ear},
346
+
publisher = {Hal Leonard},
347
+
series = {Hal Leonard Studio Series},
348
+
year = {1984},
349
+
isbn = {0881883352},
350
+
pages = {64},
351
+
note = {The inventor's own book. Matthews of the Jordanaires devised the system in the late 1950s (commonly dated 1957) for vocal-arrangement shorthand; Charlie McCoy extended it to whole-song chord charts in the early 1960s},
352
+
}
353
+
354
+
@book{williams1988nashville,
355
+
author = {Williams, Chas},
356
+
title = {The {Nashville} Number System},
357
+
publisher = {Self-published},
358
+
address = {Nashville, TN},
359
+
year = {1988},
360
+
isbn = {0963090666},
361
+
note = {The most-cited modern reference; now in its 7th+ edition. \url{https://nashvillenumbersystem.com/}},
362
+
}
363
+
364
+
@misc{davis1991camelot,
365
+
author = {Davis, Mark},
366
+
title = {Camelot Wheel ({Easymix System})},
367
+
year = {1991},
368
+
note = {Now the de facto DJ harmonic-mixing notation across key-detection tools. \url{https://mixedinkey.com/camelot-wheel/}},
369
+
}
370
+
371
+
@book{glover1965bluesharp,
372
+
author = {Glover, Tony ``Little Sun''},
373
+
title = {Blues Harp: An Instruction Method for Playing the Blues Harmonica},
374
+
publisher = {Oak Publications},
375
+
year = {1965},
376
+
address = {New York},
377
+
note = {Most influential single English-language harmonica method, though Glover's own position numbering differs from the now-standard arrow-over-number convention},
378
+
}
379
+
380
+
@book{baker1990harphandbook,
381
+
author = {Baker, Steve},
382
+
title = {The Harp Handbook},
383
+
publisher = {Hohner Verlag},
384
+
year = {1990},
385
+
address = {Trossingen, Germany},
386
+
note = {Hohner-published reference that codifies the modern numbered-hole + arrow (blow/draw) tablature. The arrow convention itself is folkloric: in use in Hohner instruction material since at least the 1930s with no single attributable primary},
387
+
}
388
+
389
+
% --- DAW MAPPING (the unowned chromatic-staircase convention) ---
390
+
391
+
@misc{imageline_typing_piano,
392
+
author = {{Image-Line}},
393
+
title = {Typing Keyboard to Piano Keyboard},
394
+
howpublished = {{FL Studio} Online Manual},
395
+
year = {2024},
396
+
note = {Default mapping: lower octave $Z$--$M$ = $C_4$--$B_4$ (white), $S$--$J$ = black; upper octave $Q$--$U$ = $C_5$--$B_5$ (white), $2$--$7$ = black. Same chromatic-staircase convention as Ableton, Logic, GarageBand. User-configurable via \texttt{.scr} files in \texttt{System/Config/Typing to piano/}. \url{https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-learning/fl-studio-online-manual/}},
397
+
}
398
+
399
+
@misc{ableton_musical_typing,
400
+
author = {{Ableton}},
401
+
title = {Computer {MIDI} Keyboard},
402
+
howpublished = {{Live} Manual},
403
+
year = {2024},
404
+
note = {Home row $A$--$K$ = white keys $C$--$E_5$; row above ($W E\;T Y U$) = black keys $C\sharp D\sharp F\sharp G\sharp A\sharp$. Same chromatic-staircase convention shared with Logic Pro and GarageBand},
405
+
}
406
+
407
+
@misc{apple_logic_musicaltyping,
408
+
author = {{Apple Inc.}},
409
+
title = {Use Musical Typing in {Logic Pro}},
410
+
howpublished = {Logic Pro User Guide},
411
+
year = {2024},
412
+
note = {\url{https://support.apple.com/guide/logicpro/play-software-instruments-lgcpb19cbd34/mac}},
413
+
}
414
+
415
+
% --- NOTEPAT'S COMPETING KEYMAP ---
416
+
417
+
@misc{scudder2024notepat_keymap,
418
+
author = {Scudder, Jeffrey},
419
+
title = {Notepat ``Notes That Name Themselves'' Keymap},
420
+
year = {2024},
421
+
howpublished = {notepat.com / Aesthetic Computer},
422
+
note = {Letter $C$ plays $C_4$, $D$ plays $D_4$, \dots, $B$ plays $B_4$; upper octave $H$--$N$ continues alphabetically for $C_5$--$B_5$; sharps $V S W R Q$ sit above their natural by piano-black-key analogy. Two-handed split: lower octave on left hand, upper on right. Implementations: notepat.com (web), AC Native, MenuBand (macOS menubar), AC-Notepat (Max for Live), Remote (phone)},
423
+
}
424
+
425
+
% --- AI-ERA EXTENSION OF LIALINA ---
426
+
427
+
@misc{v21_2024_turing,
428
+
author = {{v21}},
429
+
title = {Thoughts on the {Turing Complete User} in the Age of {AI} Promises},
430
+
year = {2024},
431
+
howpublished = {Cohost (cohost.org)},
432
+
note = {Original post at \url{https://cohost.org/v21/post/1249061-thoughts-on-the-turi}; cohost.org went read-only October 2024 and shut down 12 January 2025. Cite via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine snapshot},
433
+
}
434
+
435
+
% --- DUPLICATED FROM SISTER AC PAPERS (kept local for self-contained build) ---
436
+
437
+
@book{galloway2004protocol,
438
+
author = {Galloway, Alexander R.},
439
+
title = {Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization},
440
+
publisher = {MIT Press},
441
+
year = {2004},
442
+
}
443
+
444
+
@article{nieborg2018platformization,
445
+
author = {Nieborg, David B. and Poell, Thomas},
446
+
title = {The Platformization of Cultural Production: Theorizing the Contingent Cultural Commodity},
447
+
journal = {New Media \& Society},
448
+
volume = {20},
449
+
number = {11},
450
+
pages = {4275--4292},
451
+
year = {2018},
452
+
publisher = {SAGE},
453
+
doi = {10.1177/1461444818769694},
454
+
}
455
+
456
+
@misc{scudder2026ac,
457
+
author = {Scudder, Jeffrey},
458
+
title = {Aesthetic Computer '26},
459
+
year = {2026},
460
+
note = {\url{https://aesthetic.computer}},
461
+
}
462
+
463
+
% --- ADDITIONAL SISTER-PAPER CITATIONS (for future integration) ---
464
+
%
465
+
% arxiv-url-tradition/references.bib:
466
+
% lialina1996boyfriend, lialina2005vernacular, manovich2013software,
467
+
% kittler1995nosoftware, bush1945memex, nelson1965literary,
468
+
% brock2020distributedblackness
469
+
%
470
+
% arxiv-notepat/references.bib:
471
+
% magnusson2010designing, mcpherson2020idiomatic, tahiroglu2020probes,
472
+
% marquez2018dmi, mcluhan1964understanding
+8
papers/cli.mjs
+8
papers/cli.mjs
···
99
99
siteName: "kidlisp-reference-26-arxiv",
100
100
title: "KidLisp Language Reference",
101
101
},
102
+
"arxiv-keymaps": {
103
+
base: "keymaps",
104
+
siteName: "keymaps-social-software-26-arxiv",
105
+
title: "Keymaps as Social Software",
106
+
},
102
107
"arxiv-network-audit": {
103
108
base: "network-audit",
104
109
siteName: "network-audit-26-arxiv",
···
204
209
base: "cv",
205
210
siteName: "jeffrey-alan-scudder-cv",
206
211
title: "Jeffrey Alan Scudder — CV",
212
+
hidden: true,
207
213
},
208
214
};
209
215
···
233
239
title: info.title,
234
240
siteName: info.siteName,
235
241
psycho: !!info.psycho,
242
+
hidden: !!info.hidden,
236
243
texFile,
237
244
pdfFile,
238
245
texExists: existsSync(texFile),
···
644
651
// Build paper entries HTML
645
652
let papersHtml = "";
646
653
for (const p of papers) {
654
+
if (p.hidden) continue; // built + tracked, but not listed publicly
647
655
const copy = paperCopy(p.siteName);
648
656
const detail = copy.detail || "";
649
657
const abstract = copy.abstract || "";
-7
system/public/papers.aesthetic.computer/index.html
-7
system/public/papers.aesthetic.computer/index.html
···
644
644
<div class="meta-row"><span class="author">@jeffrey</span><span class="created" title="Created">04/28</span><span class="revisions" title="Revision count">revision 1</span><span class="updated" title="Last updated">Apr 28 17:51</span></div>
645
645
</div>
646
646
647
-
<div class="p" data-paper-id="cv" data-no-cards="1" data-created="" data-updated="2026-05-02T02:05:18.482Z">
648
-
<div class="title"><a href="/jeffrey-alan-scudder-cv.pdf" data-base="/jeffrey-alan-scudder-cv">Jeffrey Alan Scudder — CV</a></div>
649
-
<div class="detail"></div>
650
-
<div class="abstract"></div>
651
-
<div class="meta-row"><span class="author">@jeffrey</span><span class="revisions" title="Revision count">revision 1</span><span class="updated" title="Last updated">May 2 02:05</span></div>
652
-
</div>
653
-
654
647
<div class="p" data-paper-id="els">
655
648
<div class="title"><a href="/kidlisp-els-2026.pdf">KidLisp (ELS 2026)</a></div>
656
649
<div class="detail">A Minimal Lisp for Generative Art with Social Composition · ELS ACM SIGS 4pp</div>