POD Internal Development meeting area, utilizing POD 0.1.1, 1/19-7/9/2004:
(Click here for documents)
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| bugs FIXED, podint good to go! | brendan | a nasty inifinte loop bug related to the reordering of the discussion index pane, has been fixed. Welcome to the pod internal group! | 2004-01-19 20:26:47 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Document: "d-rule & polling method help" | brendan | Currently we have two versions of the d-rule and method help window (which you get from the Decision creation screen from "Choose Voting Options"). Here's both versions so we can hash out differences if there are any. I think it's best probably just to put in Todd's completely. | 2004-01-19 20:40:45 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| muss up demo group | brendan | Feel free to mess around with the demo group all you want. I think I've figured out how to restore it when necessary; we'll have to, well, screw it up first to test that out. (I'm also archiving the current state just in case if a restore proves hard/impossible) | 2004-01-19 21:12:24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Document: "d-rule & polling method help (rev A)" | todd | This is a revision of "d-rule & polling method help".
I have just added spaces after the asterisks in my version of the explanations, to make it clearer that they are list bullets. | 2004-01-19 23:07:23 | 0 | 2 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| bug note | todd | I just posted this, and it loaded my rev in the item display and nav bar, and in the discussion index, but did not load it into the comment reader. I am in Netscape 7.1 under Windows 98, in case that matters.
Todd | 2004-01-19 23:10:46 | 2 | 1 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Where should we post bugs? | todd | Should bugs be posted here or somewhere else? We now have Podwiki, the Podint group, and of ssp-service. Could get confusing if design comments are spread across all three without a scheme.
Todd | 2004-01-19 23:12:27 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| post bugs here, others... | brendan | (everyone else: we're talking about http://piece.stanford.edu/podwiki . To see why it's cool, click on "edit this text" on the bottom.)
Posting bugs here is the right place, since discussion is easier. ssp-service is bad for that (since bugs should have some sort of shared-space, archival nature, and email does *not* do that) I view the ToDoList as a developers' tool; it's good as wiki since when developers finish off bugs it's easy to mark that; and new things to do are always coming in. It's not very easy in POD to do that. We should initially post bugs herein POD-int, then either Alex or I can migrate bugs over to the wiki if we can't fix them trivially. The point is, changes to the ToDoList don't require thought, so they shouldn't be in a common discussion area like POD. The problem with bugs is that putting certain ones on is bad because they're hard to fix or require rethinking; but some are quite trivial to fix. Also, the wiki markup language is superior for creating structured documents, like ToDoList at least till we improve POD some more. We definitely should migrate PodGlossary *out* of the wiki. FutureFeatures could be migrated, too. That'll help stabilize it (since POD is a more static medium) but let everyone be aware what's going on -- and it's a document more amenable to discussion. | 2004-01-20 00:56:21 | 6 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| freshmeat hordes | brendan | My little freshmeat submission was accepted, we're currently on the frontpage of www.freshmeat.net; see the Demo group for lots of fun new postings. | 2004-01-21 10:14:44 | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Yeah, I see it there! | todd | Already off the front page, though. Meat doesn't stay fresh for long, I guess.
One thing I noticed was that they linked our "Affero GPL" to their list of licenses, except the Affero license isn't on their list. I wouldn't want that to throw people. Maybe we should just revert to standard GPL? Todd | 2004-01-21 11:20:03 | 8 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| order of Index of Items page | todd | In "Learn POD here!", the index of items page in the folio is now ordered other than chronologically. Do you know why this is? | 2004-01-21 11:40:34 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| restores | brendan | oh, there were some problems when I was trying to archive things; I accidentally deleted some meta information and had to restore it. I'll fix it. | 2004-01-21 11:53:41 | 10 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| affero gpl | brendan | > Maybe we should just revert to standard GPL?
I really think it's fine, not worth worrying about. Who the heck is going to object? | 2004-01-21 12:04:09 | 9 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I agree, now that... | todd | I have looked more fully at Freshmeat.net, and found that several other projects are using the Affero license and it's one of the ones you can search by for projects.
Todd | 2004-01-22 00:07:46 | 12 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| slight UI change suggested | todd | The tooltips flag, i.e. "Help is on.. turn off" is overlapping with the name of the meeting area in some groups (like this one) on my browswer. Can you place it under the login indicator ("You are todd.. Logout) so the meeting area name has more space?
Todd | 2004-01-22 00:09:57 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| On iframes | todd | Hi, guys,
So I'm looking in my copy of O'Reilley's HTML Pocket Reference, and it indicates that inline frames are supported in Netscape Navigator 6 (2nd edition of the book came out in 2002, before NN 7) in addition to IE, WebTV, Opera5, and that it is part of HTML 4.01. Doesn't mention Mozilla, but... Are you sure we can't use these? Todd | 2004-01-23 22:03:55 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| POD interest replies | todd | We've gotten a few form-filers. We should develop a routine for contacting these folks. Any suggestions? | 2004-01-24 07:22:17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| general commentref bug | todd | General comment references are not indicating replies in the item display. | 2004-01-24 07:28:23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| thought about the long-term | todd | I've been thinking that it might be good for us to develop a desktop version of POD, so that home users can have a smoother experience. This would not be intended to replace or take away from the web version. There are several issues with this, clearly:
(1) Would a desktop interface really perform better enough to justify creating it? (2) Is the hassle of maintaining two versions very great? I would want them to mirror each other. (3) If it's a good idea, when and where should it be done? Within the next six months at Stanford, or as part of whatever funding creates the application service provider for POD, probably at Plugged In? I ask now because I am considering creating a summer intern position for programming POD this summer, and if this should be part of it, I want to include it in the description. An alternative is to include it in a plan for the ASP. Comments? Todd | 2004-01-24 13:31:51 | 0 | 0 | 11 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| more on the desktop idea | todd | Just to save you from churning too long on this:
The idea of better performance for home users does seem at odds with our philosophy, which has been to put everyone on an even playing field (platform, heh heh). But creating a desktop version would not just benefit home users. I'm thinking that Plugged In's stature among community technology centers, for example, might enable it to encourage other CTCs to install POD on their machines. This is obviously thinking far ahead. The more I consider it, it seems like this might be better as part of a proposal for outside funding and migration to Plugged In than as a continuation of the Stanford part of the project. Still, feel free to comment. Todd | 2004-01-24 13:52:11 | 18 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| other issues | brendan | True, IFrames are supported on most browsers these days. There are numerous other issues with them, however; for the particular application we talked about, embedding within the folioitem view panel, I'm not sure if they'll be especially useful. We defintely should use them if they're the best option, however.
I've also found them to be unstable -- crashing the browser and so forth. | 2004-01-24 17:09:48 | 15 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| desktop version | brendan | > (1) Would a desktop interface really perform better enough to justify creating it?
Yes, it would perform a good bit better; what's more, it would allow more creativity and better interface design. > (2) Is the hassle of maintaining two versions very great? I would want them to mirror each other. Yes, it's huge. Programming a web interface is COMPLETELY different from a desktop interface, at least with the level of abstraction we're using with current web programming frameworks. THere's some movements to make the techniques/architectures more similar -- for example, Microsoft's new frameworks with desktop-like API's and heavy use of SOAP remote calls are quite good in this regard, from what I've seen -- but nothing very mature in open-source land... yet. > (3) If it's a good idea, when and where should it be done? Within the next six months at Stanford, or as part of whatever funding creates the application service provider for POD, probably at Plugged In? It's quite a task to do it. It requires lots of rethinking of the general architecture of the system & lots of stuff. It would probably require re-archtecting parts of the current serverside code to play well with the desktop model of remote interaction (where client-server interactions are much rarer than in web programming). FURTHERMORE -- there's LOTS of interesting work going on right now in the desktop-groupware arena -- most notably Chandler project by the Open Source Applications Foundation http://www.osafoundation.org -- and it might be good to wait to see if something we could build on top of, will eventually come out. If Chandler pans out, they'll have a terrific framework for building a POD-like application -- will take care of numerous problems a desktop POD would have to have -- like remote storage, network-transparent data structures, standardized protocols for transmitting structured & packaged bits of information, a $5-million funded non-profit foundation on your side, etc. | 2004-01-24 17:29:45 | 18 | 0 | 9 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| when to do it | brendan | > (3) If it's a good idea, when and where should it be done? Within the next six months at Stanford, or as part of whatever funding creates the application service provider for POD, probably at Plugged In?
I forgot to finish my answer to this question -- I don't think the next 6 months at stanford are necessarily the time to do it. I'd want more maturity in both web POD as well as external tools and frameworks, before embarking on such a project. | 2004-01-24 17:32:20 | 21 | 0 | 8 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I agree | todd |
>I forgot to finish my answer to this question -- I don't think the next 6 months at stanford are necessarily the time to do it. I'd want more maturity in both web POD as well as external tools and frameworks, before embarking on such a project Yeah, that's how I see it. The way I think about it presently, however, this wouldn't entail much in the way of UI changes or even functionality enhancements - I'm just thinking about this as a way to boost speed for client-side tasks (e.g. switching between standard and expanded pane views). A lot of what we are doing is tied to the server, so I'm not sure how much we would gain, under the constraint that the web version defines the functionality. I'm unclear exactly what the desktop app could do that we can't do now, e.g. would it be easier to keep the current data in a meeting area in memory at the client for things like loading items when an itemref is clicked, switching sort views in the comment index, etec. Todd | 2004-01-24 23:53:09 | 22 | 0 | 7 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| not enough reason | brendan | >The way I think about it presently, however, this wouldn't entail much in the way of UI changes or even functionality enhancements - I'm just thinking about this as a way to boost speed for client-side tasks
That is NOT enough justification to do a huge rethink, rewrite, and track parallel versions. So much of how the interface works is predicated on assumptions about what web ui's can and can't do, it's almost a waste to rewrite as a desktop app just for that... That's true, many actions are tied to the server; however, after programming this for 6 months, I'm confident we would gain quite a bit by making the UI less tied to the server. Think of why desktop email apps are so much nicer than webmail, and multiply that by all the layers of complexity POD has. | 2004-01-25 11:12:42 | 23 | 0 | 6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Re: not enough reason | todd | >>The way I think about it presently, however, this wouldn't entail much in the way of UI changes or even functionality enhancements - I'm just thinking about this as a way to boost speed for client-side tasks
>That is NOT enough justification to do a huge rethink, rewrite, and track parallel versions. So much of how the interface works is predicated on assumptions about what web ui's can and can't do, it's almost a waste to rewrite as a desktop app just for that... Just to be clear on the motivation - what I'd like is to make the performance of POD for a user less dependent on the speed of their connection. It performed pretty well at my sister's house in tennessee with dialup AOL, but I didn't do a thorough test or anything. This would not be a small issue if people with slow connections found POD difficult to use for that reason. >That's true, many actions are tied to the server; however, after programming this for 6 months, I'm confident we would gain quite a bit by making the UI less tied to the server. Think of why desktop email apps are so much nicer than webmail, and multiply that by all the layers of complexity POD has. This was the comparison I had in mind, but of course with Outlook Express or FreeAgent newsreader, you download messages when you log in. Are you suggesting more push to the client-side for the web version? If so, how would that work? | 2004-01-25 14:51:11 | 24 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| quoting would be useful, eh? | todd | I'm noticing how useful it would be not to have to manually copy and paste prev comment text in responding to a thread. Maybe an option to copy in the previous comment would be good, i.e. three options instead of two: "Respond and quote", "Respond", and "Reply by email". I realize that quoting is an email thing, but Yahoo! Groups and other message board/email hybrid systems use it. I find quoting more structured and likely to lead to direct responses than adding comments to the bottom of a bulk thread display. Can we add this to the feature wishlist?
Todd | 2004-01-25 14:58:34 | 24 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| another option | brendan | another quoting UI option is to have a some sort of a "quote comment you're responding to" button in the *composition* window. This is what PanFora does -- and you still have only 2 buttons on the comment viewer like currently | 2004-01-25 16:35:49 | 26 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| test first, design second | brendan | If the motivation is to lighten up on dialup users, we need to actually *test* dialup setups first. Let me be very clear about this: it is a large undertaking to write a desktop version of POD.
> Are you suggesting more push to the client-side for the web version? If so, how would that work? I think desktop POD with more stuff happening on the client-side would have numersous architectural advantages over the current setup; but I'm not going to go into all of them here because an accurate technical explanation would get long and detailed; and I myself would have to research the possibilities even more. | 2004-01-25 16:41:58 | 25 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| got it | todd | I agree that we need hard data first. I don't think the desktop version write should go into a summer internship.
Todd | 2004-01-25 17:26:13 | 28 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| that would work too (nm) | todd | 2004-01-25 17:27:05 | 27 | 0 | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| double document posting | todd | A guest in the demo group this evening appears to have posted a second copy of document 2.1 in the sandbox meeting area - it has the same number, announcement etc. | 2004-01-26 00:15:49 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| nope | brendan | all that was wrong was the doctag "2.1" when it should have been "2.2". The miscount was a consequence of an earlier data loss when I ws figuring out how to archive the system. | 2004-01-26 00:55:27 | 31 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I see - no problem then (nm) | todd | 2004-01-26 10:31:05 | 32 | 0 | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Omnipod and POD.com | todd | I think I checked this last spring, but don't remember. Anyway, POD.com is, at it turns out, owned by a company called Omnipod, which makes "The POD" ("Professional Online Desktop"), a proprietary, secure instant messaging and file-sharing platform for businesses (sorry, "enterprises"). They have had a trademark for "POD" for a few years (company started in 1999). I am going to ask my friend who is an intellectual property lawyer what this means for us.
Check out the logo for Omnipod - basically one of the designs I came up with independently, as often happens when the space is constrained like this. Anyway. It is possible that we will need to come up with a different name, just to warn you. I had assumed at the beginning that POD would probably be just a development or project name, but I've grown attached to it recently and kind of hate to give it up. Todd | 2004-01-30 17:17:05 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| overlap too | brendan | Their software actually has a decent amount of overlap with ours in terms of functionality -- groupware-type stuff with filesharing and messaging, though not exactly the same as a web-asynchronous environment. But it's a plausible to confuse the two projects. That might be a problem. | 2004-01-30 17:27:44 | 34 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| my opinion | todd | I had dinner with my friend Bryn who is a patent attorney at Transmeta (Linus Torvalds' old company). He told me all about trademark law, and suggested I do a trademark search at www.uspto.gov, to determine how common "POD" is as a live trademark, and whether I could learn from the search if we could reasonably distinguish ourselves from The POD, Omnipod's product, and other products called "POD". This would only be an issue if they felt we were infringing, because we are just an open-source project with no commercial ambitions. The search, which you can duplicate if you like, produced 340 hits (live and dead), including other software with the name "POD". My feeling is that we can release it under the name POD, but that it is possible we could face a challenge down the line if the program gets popular and Omnipod feels like pursuing it. It's not even clear we are the closest service to theirs with the name POD (there is an online music sharing service with that name, for example).
One thing he said is that we should strive for a name that could be a trademark, even if we don't seek one, because that may be our only protection against someone using the name POD for proprietary software that does substantially what our program does. "Platform for Online Deliberation" itself probably won't work, because it is "descriptive". "POD" is better because it is "playful" - i.e. indicates some creativity rather than just describing what the program does. Anyway, we should probably decide about this before releasing more widely. We might want to call it something else just to distinguish it from the throng of things called "POD", or we might want to keep the name. I'm not sure. Todd | 2004-01-31 00:05:36 | 35 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| D-Lib and DeLib | todd | So it turns out D-Lib is a registered trademark and the name of a magazine devoted to digital libraries. So it looks to me like "DeLib" would be better. "DELIB" is a differential equations library, and delib.com appears to be owned by them. But delib.org is not owned by anyone as far as I can tell. What do you think? Should we grab it?
Todd | 2004-02-05 15:20:42 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Poll: "Our Platform's Name" | todd | What should we call this thing? | 2004-02-05 15:43:35 | 0 | 3 | 21 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Is de-liberate the opposite of liberate? | todd | This just occurred to me today. I like "DeLib" but am worried about the implication of the prefix "de". Is "de-libbing" something Rush Limbaugh would try to do?
Confused in Jacks Hall | 2004-02-05 17:45:35 | 38 | 3 | 19 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| no implications but odd | brendan | From first impressions, I'd think that "de-lib" does sound odd, like un-libbing, but i'm not sure what "lib"ing quite is. "Liberate" is definitely a secondary impression for me. | 2004-02-05 20:54:55 | 39 | 3 | 18 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| oops, I goofed | todd | The POD option should read "POD: A Platform for Online Deliberation" instead.
Todd | 2004-02-05 21:51:51 | 38 | 3 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Another idea | todd | Brendan's mention of greek words today just made me think of Pnyx - the hill where the ancient athenians (a random sample of free men, actually) gathered to decide the affairs of the city/state. In its form, some have said this was the purest democracy ever practiced in a city of that size. Pnyx.org is available, it seems. Pnyx.com is occupied, but just by a sort of tourist site from what I can tell.
The correct pronunciation includes saying the p: "Puh-NIX". Todd | 2004-02-05 22:05:00 | 40 | 3 | 17 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| agora? | brendan | that also reminds me of "agora" where the athenians would meet and debate. That's a bit more common I think.
Possibilities of a more pronounceable pnyx: Pinucks, Pinooks, Pinuks? | 2004-02-05 22:12:04 | 42 | 3 | 16 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Re: agora? | todd | Actually, there is already an open source forum package called W-Agora (http://www.w-agora.com/en/index.php).
Also, "agora" is associated at least as much with markets, buying and selling as with democratic debate. I think that, if we want to go for a greek name, pnyx is hard to beat. It's also been revived within deliberative democracy circles through mentions by Fishkin (see http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/jointsessions/paperarchive/turin/ws24/Fishkin.pdf). See the reference in this interesting tome about cyberdemocracy by Beth Simone Noveck, which I just found: http://www.bu.edu/law/scitech/volume9issue1/Noveck.pdf. Finally, check out http://www.pnyx.com for some pix of the pnyx. Todd | 2004-02-05 23:46:49 | 43 | 3 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| another link | todd | The wikipedia entry for pnyx: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnyx.
I didn't know the ancient pronunciation was "pnooks". Some possibilities there, although it sounds a bit like "nukes". Also using the ancient pronuciation seems a bit pedantic to me - when Fishkin spoke of it he called it "pnix". Kind of resonates with "gnu" and "unix", no? Todd | 2004-02-05 23:53:48 | 44 | 3 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| todd | Actually, as I consider it, Brendan, your idea of changing the spelling makes some sense. How about "Pinux", which we might pronounce "pinooks" I guess, but could also be read as "PINux", close to some pronunciations I've seen recommended on the web for "pnyx" in ancient greek. Obvious closeness to Linux.
Todd | 2004-02-06 00:10:38 | 43 | 3 | 13 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| more on "Pinux" | todd | One thing I like about "Pinux" is that it is a blend of old and new: the pnyx and linux.
Todd | 2004-02-06 00:12:44 | 46 | 3 | 12 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pnyx Unchat, and more on the name issue | todd | It looks like Bodies Electric, chaired by Benjamin Barber, has at least experimented with applying "Pnyx" as a moniker for its Unchat synchronous deliberation environment (http://www.benjaminrbarber.com/unchat.html). If you go to http://mit.unchat.com or http://www.bodieselectric.com/ you'll see "Pnyx" in front of "Unchat", but then it sort of goes away, and it isnt' refered to on the "About Us" page. The paper by Beth Simone Noveck that I sent the link to last night reports on experiments she did using what appears to be an open-source version of Unchat.
I don't think any of this means we couldn't use a term like pnyx, pinux, or pinooks (I'm kind of warming up to the last). Note the reference on the Barber page to "demes" - the tribes that gathered on the pnyx (Collier's Dictionary says a deme was a geographical unit of local government in ancient attica (the territory of athens)). In biology demes are groups within species that share particular characteristics. What do you think of "demes" as a name? It's actually an english word, pronounced like "memes" (and that's a nice association, eh?). Demes.com is a company that makes data cables, but Demes.org appears just to be someone's personal photo site in germany. Todd | 2004-02-06 17:58:41 | 47 | 3 | 11 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "demes" good | brendan | I think "demes" is much more pronounceable and reasonable than pnyx (or its variations). Somehow it seems less silly, or more believable as a word, to me. | 2004-02-06 18:44:09 | 48 | 3 | 10 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| demes | jje | I also like Demes and I think it lends itself well to some sort of reverse engineered acronym...for example:
Deliberation Environment Meets Empowerment System. -Jon | 2004-02-06 18:53:54 | 49 | 3 | 9 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| demes vs deme | todd | How about just "deme" (singular). E.g.,
Deliberation Environment for Meeting Electronically Deme.com looks to be untaken, though deme.org is a japanese horse racing blog site. | 2004-02-06 19:03:58 | 50 | 3 | 8 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a little advantage of "deme" | todd | Then we could be called "The Deme Team". :)
Todd | 2004-02-06 19:10:44 | 51 | 3 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deme issue | jje | Are there any situations where the similarity of "deme" and "deem" as homonyms would be sticky? Or beneficial?
Jon | 2004-02-06 19:13:16 | 51 | 3 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| hmmm | todd | I would deem it not to be an issue, an advantage if anything.
I reserve the right to change my mind, but at the moment, I like deme - a word, relatively pronounceable, 4 letters, and loaded with appropriate meaning with rich combination potential (e.g. "the deme meme"). Todd | 2004-02-06 19:17:44 | 53 | 3 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deme.com | jje | I just checked register.com and deme.com, deme.net, deme.org and deme.info all appear to be taken (http://www.register.com/whois.cgi?cmp=OT11310), though deme.us, deme.cc and deme.ws are available (though those are also available for "demes" as well as .biz and .tv) | 2004-02-06 19:18:21 | 51 | 3 | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| thanks | todd | That doesn't mean we can't get them. I think just about every pronounceable 3 or 4 letter word is taken, even if it isn't being used. You can usually buy it from whoever owns it if they are not really using it for much. The domains I like best are .net and .org.
Todd | 2004-02-06 19:31:27 | 55 | 3 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| agreed | jje | This is true. I also think deme.net or deme.org are a better fit. However, among the deme domain names currently taken, deme.net and deme.com are likely to be most easily attained as they are being used for little if anything. deme.org and deme.info seem to be somewhat developed and in use by comparison.
Jon | 2004-02-06 19:40:41 | 56 | 3 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Poll: "The name game" | todd | One more time! How shall we be called? | 2004-02-06 19:40:52 | 0 | 4 | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| true (nm) | todd | 2004-02-06 19:41:57 | 57 | 3 | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| more ideas | todd | If you don't like deme, how about:
SEAM (Software Environment for Asynchronous Meetings) WEED (Web and Email Environment for Deliberation) - I kind of like this :) Todd | 2004-02-06 23:26:10 | 58 | 4 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| more weed | todd | It looks like weed.com and weed.org are being cybersquatted. Oh, and if you are not easily offended, check out the top 10 searches on weed.net. <:}
Todd | 2004-02-06 23:39:28 | 60 | 4 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| more on "deme" | todd | It looks like, in modern greece, "deme" means "commune", which I like since it shows the progression of the word over its ancient origins and adds to the multiplicity of associations (birds of a feather, etc.).
Todd | 2004-02-07 20:21:59 | 51 | 3 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| blocking | mic | voting "disaprove" on poll that is decided via consensus has the same ultimate effect as "blocking", but blocking seems to have some more meaning to it.
maybe a block option in the consensus polling environment (if such a thing exsists) would be of value? | 2004-02-07 20:49:27 | 4 | 2 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| general file document revisions? | brendan | An issue has come up with designing general file documents: should they have a revision scheme like current textual documents?
Imagine that you upload video file with tag "1.". Then later you might upload a new video file later that was intended to be a revision,to be "1.1". There are interface issues: currently, the only way to make known that a given document is a revision of another, is when you start the authoring of the new document, you click "Revise this document" while viewing the old "1." document. This makes less sense for uploaded documents, since you don't edit them in-browser, you edit them somewhere else, save the file then upload that. Either (1) we have to come up with a different interface for the author to mark what it's a revision of -- for example, in the file upload interface, maybe there'd be a dropdown to indicate what it's a revision of -- or, (2) we can make do without revision numbering/structuring at all for uploaded documents. Thoughts? | 2004-02-07 21:07:03 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| my suggestion | todd | I would keep revisions as products of "Edit/revise", and if it is not a text file, prompt for a new upload. Is there some problem with doing it that way?
Todd | 2004-02-07 21:57:21 | 64 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| good point | todd | Mic, welcome. For the rest of you - I invited Mic to join the podint group. Mic has been involved from the early phases and is an SSP alum who now does activist media and works for Free Speech Radio News (last I heard :) ).
For this early version, I just wanted us to be able to support consensus decision making at a basic level. There was so much for Brendan to implement. Now that Alex is on board, and Jon for user testing, I hope we'll have time to differentiate it more. At a minimum, we could add a note when consensus is in effect saying something like "Note: Under consensus, voting disapprove is equivalent to blocking." With time it would be good to support more expressive options for consensus, such as stand aside (currently equivalent to not voting), and object or express reservations but don't bock (which can be noted in the annotation to one's vote currently). These have different meanings generally (under the system I'm most familiar with, stand aside means "I won't participate but am not blocking", object means "I will go along but want to register my objection", and concern means "I approve but have reservations."). Todd | 2004-02-07 22:09:06 | 63 | 2 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UI note | todd | Currently, the voting options are displayed at the bottom of the report for an ongoing decision, which means you have to scroll below the summary to see them. This should be changed so they display in the preface, I think.
Todd | 2004-02-07 22:12:50 | 58 | 4 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Discussion Item: "SCO's congressional campaign" | todd | Check out this link on SCO's attempts to turn politicians against open source: http://www.osaia.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=10
and especially the pdf of SCO's letter at the bottom. What do you think? | 2004-02-08 12:44:50 | 0 | 5 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HCI & Design | jje | I've put up some usability links on the Wiki as well as my initial analysis of POD including the meeting area.
You can find the usability links here: http://piece.stanford.edu/podwiki/HumanComputerInteractionLinks and the analysis here: http://piece.stanford.edu/podwiki/DesignIssues Any design issues you agree with could be taken into account right away in the meeting area development. -Jon | 2004-02-09 15:42:39 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vote Has Closed | This vote was automatically closed at Tue Feb 10 00:00:01 2004 | 2004-02-10 00:00:01 | 0 | 6 | 3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| turnout hits alltime low | brendan | as the sole turnout for the voting on this Decision, I must say that the group's opinion is highly split.
brendan. | 2004-02-10 00:05:48 | 70 | 6 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| if i could i'd vote for deme (nm) | mic | 2004-02-10 00:14:22 | 71 | 6 | 1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I like deme too. | todd | Meant to vote before the deadline but I didn't quite make it. I guess no one else appreciates "weed". Heh. Anyone else have strong opinions?
Todd | 2004-02-10 01:47:19 | 72 | 6 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| YANI (Yet another name idea) | todd | I still have my doubts about deme, though I like it well enough. What do you all think of this?
Flock Not an acronym, just "Flock". Flock.net and .org are both taken, but .net is not in use from what I can tell, and .org is just some guy's personal site. A bit of background: "flocking" is a term that Howard Rheingold has reported being used in various places for what he calls "smart mobs", i.e. groups that organize themselves to meet, go someplace, or do something, using new communication technologies. Todd | 2004-02-10 18:50:29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Poll Has Closed | This poll was automatically closed at Wed Feb 11 00:00:00 2004 | 2004-02-11 00:00:00 | 0 | 7 | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| focus groups, other user observation | jje | To all interested,
I've started building a wiki page with user observation/research and focus group links/info. You'll be able to find it here: http://piece.stanford.edu/podwiki/UserResearch Piece, Jon | 2004-02-13 12:37:47 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| document files | todd | Brendan and Alex,
I was thinking about our design for documents as strings of files. One thing I had said was that image files should have a field for a "caption". But I think a cleaner way to do this is just to create a field for each file in a document called "title", in which the file could be described, and the description would appear in the contents. The title would exist for user-entered text files too, e.g. "Chapter 1: Introduction". It would, of course, be distinct from the file system filename, which would be the hyperlink reference of the title. For photos, the title might be something like "Figure 2: A view of San Quentin State Prison from the east gate". That would obviate the need to have captions, and therefore should make the schema easier, though I realize adding titles is a change to the existing schema. Does this seem workable? Todd | 2004-02-13 20:17:42 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Report on LaborTech meeting | todd | Hi, team,
We had a f2f meeting of LaborTech organizers this evening, with 5 present including me. We discussed POD/Deme (I haven't yet used the term "Deme" outside of our group), and why people aren't using the Labortech group space yet. The main conclusion I reached from their comments is that, for a group like this that is used to doing things in a certain way (periodic f2f meetings with an email list), switching to POD requires more active intervention. Basically, the group owner (me, I guess, in this case) needs to bulk subscribe everyone with full email notification turned on by default, but with a welcome message that indicates how to change email options, where to go for a tutorial/more info, etc. So this really should be a built-in feature - bulk subscribe a list of email addresses and names. I can do it all manually for now, but it's clear that it needs to be done. What doesn't work so well is each person having to do something as an individual to subscribe, because then you get loafing, i.e. people don't subscribe because they don't see others subscribing, so everyone puts it off. The second thing, reaffirmed for me, is that we are really going to need clickable links and links as items before this can be really useful, because so much of what the group needs to do is bring in information on other webpages, including the conference website which can be an object of discussion on its own. A richer set of document types is also necessary. It would be nice if we could have these things implemented this week so that I can subscribe everyone under a new version that has link-type items and multi-file documents built in, even if it's a little rough. Also, it would be nice to have dates and authors in the index of items page when it's loaded in the item display, along with seen/unseen highlighting as in the comments index. What do you think? Todd | 2004-02-16 21:53:49 | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Report from Friday meeting | todd | Thanks, Jon, the methods toolbox link in particular (the first one) is very useful, as are the others.
To summarize our Friday meeting on user research with Jon, Rolando, and me (Rolando or Jon, feel free to add comments): We focused on how to study users of EPA.Net, but the methods and results are of use for POD as well. We agreed that focus groups should not be used for usability/UI testing. They are good for assessing opinions that are hard to elicit from individuals, and for brainstorming. Jon talked about co-discovery as a good vehicle for observing user behavior. It is an interesting method and one we should consider using. It is quite labor intensive, however. So we discussed augmenting passive data collection of navigation behavior. Dave Danielson, Ph.D. student in Comm, is a good resource on methods and tools. One idea is to set up a controlled study of homepage designs for EPA.Net, e.g. a simple one like Google and a more complex one like Yahoo and the current site. Designs could be done by teams, targeting users who may choose either design ultimately as their default view on login, or could vote on them, e.g. at the TAPs. Todd | 2004-02-16 22:21:45 | 76 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| part of that this week | brendan | I think we can have part of all that this week. Alex already has clickable links working, and that code is simple to port over to the main installation.
I'm still working on multifile documents, and that'll be a bit tricky -- i might finish this week but am not sure. The dates/authors change is also possible. | 2004-02-16 22:45:13 | 78 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Great! (nm) | todd | 2004-02-16 22:51:57 | 80 | 0 | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| names, titles, etc. | brendan | Adding titles is quite easy. We should be sure we need them however.
We already have a name for every document that is used to reference it everywhere in the UI, and is also used in a hyperlink leading to it. Would it be unreasonable to just use the name as the title/caption? So we'd have to differentiate a name, which is the "system filename" and whose text is used to refer to the document/item, versus a title, which is a more descriptive thing. Then there's also prefaces -- however, our current assumption is that subdocuments *never* have prefaces. Only top head documents do have them. | 2004-02-17 00:48:04 | 77 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| bulk subscribes | brendan | > So this really should be a built-in feature - bulk subscribe a list of email addresses and names
Makes sense -- All mailing lists systems let you add people without their initiative (beyond clicking on a link they receive in an email to confirm membership). It's certainly a useful capability to have. | 2004-02-17 01:21:07 | 78 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Don't see how this solves it | todd | >We already have a name for every document that is used to reference it everywhere in the UI, and is also used in a hyperlink leading to it. Would it be unreasonable to just use the name as the title/caption?
Currently each *document* has a name, but we have been discussing a design change that will make documents into a string of *files*. You could call the "title" I'm proposing for each file the "name" instead, but it would be distinct from both the name of the document (of which the file is a part) and the system filename of the file. I do prefer the term "title" for referring to these files. >So we'd have to differentiate a name, which is the "system filename" and whose text is used to refer to the document/item, versus a title, which is a more descriptive thing. Then there's also prefaces -- however, our current assumption is that subdocuments *never* have prefaces. Only top head documents do have them. Yes, and at this point I'm not proposing to change that. A preface is associated with an item, in this case a document, and generates an announcement for the discussion. I don't think we need this for each part (file) of a document. The titles of files within a document could be a bit wordier than we are encouraging document names to be, since they would not appear in item references or the navigation toolbar, which have limited space, but only in the table of contents for the document. I do think that each file type (including images) should be able to have comment references in it. Presumably for nontext files this would be just a general comments space. I gather that associating a list of files with a document may require a database schema change anyway, so adding titles for the files is not such a big deal. I don't know how this is all represented and stored, but from my naive perspective I'm thinking it would be better to store documents entirely in the file system, with the file for a document calling other files - the preface file and others. Presumably you would also have a database for the meeting area which lists all the documents, and maybe that wouldn't need to include any info about the internal structure of documents (i.e. files within them). Todd | 2004-02-17 10:50:40 | 82 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| good point | todd | I had forgotten about the user confirmation step, which is important and would need to be added as well.
Todd | 2004-02-17 10:51:40 | 83 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| websites in new windows | todd | I was thinking about Brendan's comment that we should limit buttons and gizmos. Once outside websites can be displayed in their own frame within the item display (not for this week's version, but beyond that), one way of making the external site itself (without the rest of the folio viewer) exported to a new window would be, rather than adding a text button below the preface, instead just putting another little expander button in the upper right corner of the site frame itself in the standard view. FreeAgent actually has these little buttons at different levels like that, and they work great and are unobtrusive from my point of view.
Todd | 2004-02-19 18:20:35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Welcome to 0.1.2! | guest | Welcome the new DEME 0.1.2! We've ported over all the changes into the base1 installations, including podint, demo, and labortech; You will notice the fine new features:
1) Hyperlinks for URL's in messages, documents and the like. Look, for example, at one of Jon's messages above. 2) Arbitrary file uploads!! Under "New Document..." you can select "uploaded file" instead of typing in text. That is all. Like usual, use http://piece.stanford.edu/pod/demo to test out these features, of course. -Brendan | 2004-02-20 15:43:53 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| bulk subscribe? | todd | Hi, guys,
How tough would it be to write a simple feature allowing a group member to bulk subscribe a list of email addresses? This should generate a message to each new subscriber with a link to the registration page so they can set up their own password and username, and enter their name, along with an option to leave the group, but meanwhile they would get email notifications even before they register (viz, they would already be joined before completing registration). Todd | 2004-03-02 12:02:20 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| partially | brendan | It's very easy to generate an email saying "click here to register and join"
It's a little bit harder to make it so that they are receiving emails before they register for real. The best way I can think of to do it, is different than you imagine it: it would be to add people to a secondary list of email addressses that get email notifications, but are not actual members. This could get done this week, however. | 2004-03-02 13:28:20 | 88 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| great! | todd | Let's do it that way then. It would be great if this could be done soon, so I can set up everyone on the Labortech list.
Todd | 2004-03-02 13:42:35 | 89 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| finding your meetin area | mic | how would one go about finding a particular meetin area -that are already a part of
-or that they may not be a part of yet | 2004-03-02 15:02:09 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| isn't working yet | todd | Right now, unless it's in the group space you are in (indicated on the group home page), you can't search for it, Mic. You just need to bookmark the groups you are in, and you can get to the meeting areas within each from their home pages. You can also follow the link from any comment you receive through email. Future versions will have a user home page where you can get to all the groups you are a member of, and search for new ones presumably. | 2004-03-04 16:07:12 | 91 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New wiki page | todd | I've created a new wiki page "UserIssues" on Podwiki, which is much like the old one called "NameChanges" except that I've taken out the old "DONE" items and am putting in new ones (with dates in parens after new items). First new item is under folio viewer control panel, in action bar.
Todd | 2004-03-04 22:01:01 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| linking bug | todd | Hot linking mistakenly is picking up commas after the link, e.g. http://piece.stanford.edu/pod/, which if you notice doesn't load correctly from this link because of the bug. | 2004-03-04 22:07:12 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| fixed? | brendan | I put in a few fixes. I think the heuristics should work better now -- trailing punctuation seems to be removed corerctly now. If there are any more problems please post. | 2004-03-05 03:48:49 | 94 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| worked this time | todd | The trailing comma problem is fixed at least. I just noticed how you can use CTRL-P and CTRL-N, like in Emacs, in these windows. Kind of neat. Did one of you add that?
Todd | 2004-03-05 16:37:44 | 95 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| error in linking to document | todd | I tried to link to a document (4.1) in the Labortech meeting area, and when I click on the posted link it gives the following error:
Fatal error: Failed opening required 'view-doc).inc.php' (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear') in /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/marea/folioview.php on line 44 | 2004-03-05 21:45:41 | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| where? | brendan | Todd, if I click on the 4.1 document in either the folio index, from the comment index, or from the green dropdown, I get the document to appear. Is your error occurring somewhere else? | 2004-03-05 23:45:49 | 97 | 0 | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| it's in document 6 | todd | I referenced it there. The problem is with trailing punctuation again - in this case a right paren.
| 2004-03-05 23:54:05 | 98 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| more fixes | brendan | more of these nitty-gritty http:// finding operations have been fixed. The Doc 6 bug, specifically, is fixed. | 2004-03-06 01:04:55 | 99 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thanks! (nm) | todd | 2004-03-06 12:48:09 | 100 | 0 | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| notification message | todd | In the comment notification messages that get sent out, I think there should be an explanation for what people need to do.
Specifically, in comment notifications, my suggested new wording is: Meeting area: "general dev & design" Click here to read and respond: http://piece.stanford.edu/pod/base1/podint/marea/?marea_id=1&msg_id=100 Todd | 2004-03-06 12:51:20 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| slight correction | todd | change wording to "Click the following link to read and respond:"
Todd | 2004-03-06 12:52:49 | 102 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| little problem | todd | "New document' comment ref should indicate that there have been 2 responses here:
http://piece.stanford.edu/pod/labortech/marea/?marea_id=1&obj_id=9&obj_type=doc Todd | 2004-03-09 01:14:22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| bug -- daily summaries | brendan | Daily email notifications are NOT working for POD, all over. So don't tell people to rely on them, I guess. I was stymied debugging this earlier due to all the time-dependent stuff in the code; I'll work on it this week, hopefully.
Brendan | 2004-03-09 21:10:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| small action bar problem | todd | "Revise document" currently appears twice in the list of actions sometimes. I'll try to nail down the circumstances.
Todd | 2004-03-09 22:05:38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| plans for paper, other external stuff | todd | Brendan, Alex, and Jon,
I think we should revise the paper I was going to send to PISTA and send it to CSCW, the Computer Supported Cooperative Work Conference (http://www.acm.org/cscw2004/). The deadline is March 19, a week from Friday. If it gets accepted, hopefully I'll be able to take all of you to chicago in November if you want to go. Brendan, I will need the two Habermas books back this week, so I can quote from and refer to them in the paper. Meanwhile, you should all read the draft from last month and post comments if you have any. I got a message today from Andrew Chadwick at Oxford, who read the paper we wrote about PIECE from the American Political Science Association convention in 2002 and then started writing to me in December about what we are doing. He wants me to go to Oxford in May to give a talk at a forum on e-democracy with some u.s. and u.k. folks, and I am supposed to have a paper to share ahead of time. So I think we should make it the one we submit for CSCW about POD. I would like us to make a more general release and make announcements in various places next month. The LaborTech/Access conference April 2-4 will be the next big occasion for demonstrating it. One thing I think we need soon is an efficient way for users to create group spaces and to access the groups of which they are members. Todd | 2004-03-09 22:30:39 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Document: "CSCW draft" | todd | Here's the paper originally written for PISTA-04. Format is OpenOffice, available for free download from OpenOffice.org. | 2004-03-09 22:37:11 | 0 | 8 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Link not working | todd | I get an error when I click on New LInk in the action menu.
| 2004-03-18 18:36:15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Document: "CSCW submitted paper" | todd | Here's the version I submitted, in OpenOffice format. | 2004-03-23 18:19:47 | 0 | 9 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| new release | todd | Can we get a new release out soon, with the name changed to Deme? "Deme" and I bonded as I wrote the paper, and I now like the name. The project homepage should be updated a little to reflect Alex and Jonathan as members of the Deme Team too. | 2004-03-23 18:23:22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alex, a quick task | todd | Hi, Alex, welcome back. We should meet this week to get started. What is your schedule like? Thursday afternoon works for me, as would Tuesday (tomorrow) afternoon.
Also, a couple of fixes that would be real useful: document numbers are currently mis-sorting on the item index page (see e.g. http://piece.stanford.edu/pod/labortech/marea/?marea_id=1), e.g. 13 is listed before 2. Also, the link item type isn't working properly. | 2004-03-29 17:07:46 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| another small milestone | todd | Lots of complements on POD (soon to be Deme) in today's LaborTech conference call. There are now 4 other groups that have asked to have spaces set up (KPFA Labor Radio, UPPNet - the Union Producers and Programmers Network, Workers Information News Service (WINS), and the Million Worker March). These would be a good base for an early user study.
But the sweetest moment occurred toward the end of the call when someone said we should meet again before the conference, and Steve said "We can just do the organizing on POD". Yeah!!! | 2004-03-29 19:40:51 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| sorry that should be "compliments" | todd | not "complements".
| 2004-03-30 00:41:56 | 113 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Document: ""Initial experience with POD"" | todd | This is an email message I received from Carolyn Constantino this morning. Carolyn came to my presentation at LaborTech on Saturday and asked us to set up a group space for her organization, with the understanding that the platform is very alpha and buggy. She makes some very helpful comments we should address before releasing 0.2. | 2004-04-07 10:56:00 | 0 | 10 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Can I invite Carolyn to join this group? | todd | Given her interest in helping us out, I suggest that we invite Carolyn into this group so she can watch and contribute to the discussion. Is that okay? | 2004-04-07 10:57:27 | 0 | 11 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| We can confirm this, right? (nm) | todd | 2004-04-07 10:59:22 | 0 | 12 | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notes on LaborTech | todd | The LaborTech demo went well. Many people heaped praise on the project, while also (as to be expected) finding the meeting area a bit hard to figure out in its present form. There was a good suggestion that we look into textbooks on newspaper and layout principles (e.g. "graphic hierarchy") and to generally prioritize the look and feel before seeking funding. Rich Cowan, who runs the Organizer's Collaborative in cambridge, mass, said he thinks the activist roots of our tool will put it ahead of others as he evaluates environments for nonprofits (one of the things his group does). He was the one who said we should focus on UI before adding features. I told him we feel email integration is key along with fixing bugs for our next release (0.2 in a few weeks), after which we expect multiple groups to be using it who are comfortable with the alpha-level and UI unfriendliness of the current version. That will generate crucial data for Andrew this summer. Carolyn Constantino, who followed up immediately with a request to have a group set up, was very positive (see her comments in the doc I just posted http://piece.stanford.edu/pod/base1/podint/marea/?marea_id=1&obj_id=5&obj_type=doc), as were a number of others from labor groups and other orgs. The whole thing was taped and is supposed to be streamed soon - I'll put up the link when I know it.
Next presentation is at the ACM Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in berkeley on April 22, then a Digital Vision seminar at CSLI on May 4. Stay tuned! | 2004-04-07 11:10:06 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Are the error's Mac-specific? | todd | 2004-04-07 11:16:04 | 0 | 13 | 1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fine by me if Carolyn joins | alex | It's fine by me if she joins. Also, I fixed the document problem. There was a whole permission scheme that I was unaware of. Unfortunetly that means re-making the files and I'll have to go in manually to delete the old, bogus ones. Could you have her email me so we can work it out? | 2004-04-07 12:57:42 | 116 | 11 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Revise document is not working | todd | I get
Document.readText(): Oops, '/var/www/html/pod/podint/filestore/4/CSCW_submitted_paper.orig.txt' doesnt exist | 2004-04-15 11:17:25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link posting in symsys150 group home | todd | Link posting in this group works from the group home page, but it doesn't work for symsys150. I get
Warning: fopen("../data/linkstore.inc", "a") - Permission denied in /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/main/links.php on line 15 Warning: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid File-Handle resource in /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/main/links.php on line 16 Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid File-Handle resource in /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/main/links.php on line 17 Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/main/links.php:15) in /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/main/links.php on line 19 | 2004-04-15 11:18:16 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Can't edit description in symsys150 | todd | "Edit this summary" on group home page doesn't work for symsys150. It's okay in this group, though. | 2004-04-15 11:19:59 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| linking should work | alex | It should work now ... more permission problems that didn't copy correctly | 2004-04-15 12:54:53 | 122 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| same problem | alex | Similar permission problem now fixed | 2004-04-15 12:55:20 | 123 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link: "Article by Eugene Eric Kim" | todd | "A Manifesto for Collaborative Tools" - kind of interesting. | 2004-04-18 23:37:19 | 0 | 14 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| link posting error again | todd | This time I get it for the group ssp-af, posting a link from the group home page:
Warning: fopen("../data/linkstore.inc", "a") - Permission denied in /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/main/links.php on line 15 Warning: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid File-Handle resource in /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/main/links.php on line 16 Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid File-Handle resource in /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/main/links.php on line 17 Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/main/links.php:15) in /var/www/html/pod/base1/code/main/links.php on line 19 | 2004-04-19 15:01:33 | 0 | 0 | 5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| problem fixed | alex | I fixed the permission problem. It's weird, because this is a group brendan set up a while ago. I wonder why the issue hasn't come up yet? | 2004-04-19 15:48:22 | 127 | 0 | 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Does this have to be done for each group individually? | todd | Is there a way of standardizing the code so that you can fix it once for all groups?
| 2004-04-19 15:52:42 | 128 | 0 | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| standardizing | alex | It's an easy solution that involves copying the files correctly the first time. However, this is a unix file structure issue, not a code issue so there is no real one-fix standardization that can be done. | 2004-04-19 16:02:17 | 129 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| okay... | todd | I can get the lowdown when we meet. Thanks.
| 2004-04-20 10:43:17 | 130 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Document: "message from Rich Cowan" | todd | This is a message I just received from Rich Cowan, head of the Organizers Collaborative in cambridge, mass, a nonprofit that reviews and promotes open source tools for other nonprofits. They are a good organization and fairly high profile I think. Rich came to my presentation at LaborTech,and we spoke afterward. This is his follow-up. | 2004-04-20 10:46:29 | 0 | 15 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| cp -a | brendan | Hey. If it helps at all, "cp -a" instead of "cp -r" preserves permissions correctly (I think addgroup.sh uses it). | 2004-04-20 12:44:57 | 130 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| great! | brendan | Great to see more people getting engaged with POD! (I don't have anything substantive to say just encouragement from out here) | 2004-04-20 12:45:53 | 132 | 15 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| thanks for the encouragement... | todd | Substance should sometimes take a stroll down the Ku'damm.
Here's a pseudo-german joke I heard long ago, for which you need a good pseudo-german accent: Two peanuts vas valking down ze strasse. Und von of zem vas assaulted...peanut. :) Feel free to share mit your friends in berlin, or not as you judge. Todd | 2004-04-20 14:32:03 | 134 | 15 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| can't post link in new meeting area | todd | I created a new meeting area for the group project in group space ssp-150, but got an error when I tried to post a link item:
Not Found The requested URL /pod/symsys150/marea/newlink.framed.php was not found on this server. Apache/2.0.40 Server at piece.stanford.edu Port 80 | 2004-04-22 11:21:10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| link fixed now | alex | I don't know why the file was missing ... I'll dig around to see if anything else is strange | 2004-04-22 12:35:58 | 136 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Discussion Item: "A new discussion item" | todd | test | 2004-04-30 14:05:07 | 0 | 16 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link: "Social Text" | todd | An interesting proprietary social software app bases on wikis and weblogs for collaboration. Pointed out to me by someone at my Reuters Digital Vision Fellows talk today. | 2004-05-04 19:34:24 | 0 | 17 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| socialtext | alex | Actually, I use this site for my Captology class with B.J. Fogg. For our purposes, it's basically a very good wiki site. What it does very well is track changes, and allow you to see previous versions and who edited them. I haven't seen the weblogs features, but I'll play around. | 2004-05-05 14:27:23 | 139 | 17 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "Community" at Microsoft | todd | I went to the presentation in the Comm Dept yesterday by Marc Smith of the Community Technologies Group at Microsoft for a sneak preview of new Microsoft asynchronous groupware. They are clearly not going for anything like POD/Deme, but I found what they are doing interesting. Microsoft Research is interested in "community" as a way to save Microsoft money on tech support - they want users to be able to get more answers from other users through newsgroups (Usenet). Smith said that it costs Microsoft $38 just to pick up the phone on a tech support call, and the average cost is over $70 per call. They like Usenet because it is fairly universal, I gather, and because it easily accommodates new groups. But growth in the use of Usenet has fallen behind Internet growth as a whole (what a shock!) and they are trying to address this by providing people with a browser for newsgroups that gives users more info (statistics and visual display of information tools) about them. You can check out some of what he showed at http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/Static/Default.asp?. The interesting stuff was in the metrics they use to track things like neighboring groups (measured by percent of shared messages) and user personalities (flamers, conversation initiators, answerers who never initiate or debate, etc.), and also the browser features that have grown out of user experience in a tool called My Portal that will be out later this year: rearview mirror reflecting users own activity, conversations I care about, threads I contributed to, and people I care about (generally top authors for newcomers, newcomers for old timers), and a tool for thread visualization. I pointed out that the browser doesn't have a search tool, and he said they are planning to add it. The wheels turn slowly even for the well heeled.
He also talked about a tool called AURA for handhelds that scans in barcodes for looking up information about products on the Internet as you shop, or after you have bought something. We'll all be wearing barcodes or RFIDs soon I fear. | 2004-05-11 11:23:14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link: "Sociology of open source" | todd | You can watch this guy's talk online - link to his group's website looks interesting. | 2004-05-11 16:57:57 | 0 | 18 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I watched the video | todd | Worth seeing if you have time, though it's a bit slow; interesting points emerge if you stay with it. | 2004-05-12 11:59:50 | 142 | 18 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Couple of design goals | todd | After the discussion with Jonathan today, I decided it would be good for us to move up a couple of things as priorities for 0.2:
(1) Building on the new permission scheme, it should be possible for the owner of the group to set read/write and join permissions. This is the main thing keeping political groups like the SB1419 campaign from using POD/Deme, I think. Solution would be to have an option for the group space owner to restrict viewing a group to members only, and for members to have to be approved by the owner. Inviting e.g through bulk subscribe could be a de facto form of approval. (2) Frames should stay in rigid relative size and position within each pane, i.e. they should expand together and in proportion, and the problem in IE with crowding the discussion and comment control panels should be solved. | 2004-05-20 20:03:30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link: "Intranets.com" | todd | This is definitely a site to explore - very enterprise level, high-end toolset for businesses and orgs. Not really suited to grassroots organizing, but many interesting features and excellent intros. I learned about this site today from Eric Leland at the Community Technology Network of the Bay Area conference. Will post more notes from our meeting soon. | 2004-05-21 23:42:12 | 0 | 19 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| intranets.com | jje | That's funny that you should mention it. The father of a good friend of mine at Stanford is actually the CEO of Intranets.com. If you need to get in touch with them I could probably arrange something.
-Jon | 2004-05-21 23:46:16 | 145 | 19 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Discussion Item: "OpenTopic" | todd | Another interesting forum environment:
http://community.infopop.net/eve/ubb.x?a=frm&s=729094322&f=630091422 | 2004-05-28 01:47:16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link: "Brendan's Online Deliberation Links" | todd | I have posted this on Podwiki, and replaced the link on the About page to this one instead of the broken one that led to Brendan's personal wiki site. | 2004-05-28 14:30:26 | 0 | 21 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link: "CMU Picola project" | todd | This is the current version of Picola, the synchronous deliberation project at CMU. Nice interface. | 2004-05-28 15:49:21 | 0 | 22 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link: "eVote/Clerk" | todd | Very interesting email client tool for having votes within email. I am going to try to have lunch soon with the developer and may propose a collaboration. This was posted on the IODD discussion being sponsored online by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium (http://discuss.politalk.com/iodd ). | 2004-05-30 01:28:13 | 0 | 23 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The "name" topic again | todd | I've purchased the domain name "Groupspace.org" for a mere $9. I kind of like that as the name for our ASP, with Deme being the name of the software itself. What do you all think? This is kind of like having two names, and seeing which one works better over time. I like the simplicity and evocativeness of Groupspace. No one else seems to be using it. Groupspace.com and .net are owned but not in use, so we may be able to purchase those too. | 2004-06-05 02:31:32 | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| google "groupspace" | brendan | "groupspace" seems like a great name -- but do the google search, there's a whole bunch of computer groupware systems, at least one business-oriented company, and some research projects with that name... | 2004-06-05 12:16:10 | 151 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| thanks | todd | I remember googling it a long time ago I think. It looks to me like the commercial "Groupspace.info" is dead. The company that created it (area51.com) has a news section that ends abruptly in November 2001. Also the domain groupspace.com is for sale by its owner. Neither groupspace.com nor groupspace.net go to anything, and we now own groupspace.org. The fact that there are several other projects with this name is not much of a problem, imo, and it probably even helps us wrt any copyright claims. | 2004-06-05 21:49:49 | 152 | 0 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| correction | todd | The url for the commercial Groupspace creator is www.area51media.com, not area51.com. | 2004-06-05 22:03:04 | 153 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Document: "Reviews from CSCW '04" | todd | Here are the reviews from our submission to CSCW '04. Bottom line: we need to do more work. | 2004-06-08 13:58:59 | 0 | 24 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link: "Working paper link" | todd | I've posted this on my homepage (http://www.stanford.edu/~davies) and the "Projects" section of the PIECE website (http://piece.stanford.edu). It is a reformatted version of our submission to CSCW, posted as a working paper for all the web to see. If you have a problem with me posting it, or want something changed, let me know and I'll change it faster than you can say "search engine". | 2004-06-10 16:05:21 | 0 | 25 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Couldn't get "Deme.Net" | todd | I was unsuccessful in my attempt to purchase Deme.Net. So I think that means we should go with groupspace.org as the domain for everything right now, with Deme as the name of the software. Here is the exchange in spanish:
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 11:24:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Davies To: comercial deme Subject: Re: una propuesta de comprar "deme.net" Okay, Jose. Lo comprendo totalmente. Buena suerte a ti tambien. Saludos, Todd Davies On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, comercial deme wrote: > Hola Todd > > Gracias por tu ofrecimiento , pero de momento no estamos interesados, en la > venta del dominio. Mucha suerte. > > Saludos > Jos? Mar?a Peralva > Director Comercial > DEME espa?a > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Todd Davies" > To: > Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 10:42 AM > Subject: una propuesta de comprar "deme.net" > > > > Hola y saludos, > > > > Me llamo Todd, y soy de los estados unidos, en california. Quisiera > > comprar su domain "Deme.Net" que posee usted, para un sitio en el Internet > > que desarrollo. Por favor escribeme si se interesa vender este domain. > > Pues, puedo ofrecerle 50 dolares (EE.UU.) si me lo puede transferir. > > > > Muchas gracias, > > Todd Davies 2004-06-10 16:09:25 | 0 | 0 | 0
| response | todd | 2004-06-30 14:55:44 | 119 | 13 | 0
| Link: "Email exacerbates tensions?" | guest | Interesting article from the dialogue skeptic camp, of which I am a partial member. Summary is at http://www.rice.edu/sallyport/2004/spring/features/mail/index.html. | 2004-07-01 19:14:34 | 0 | 26 | 0
| Link: "Paper link" | guest | I meant to post this above. | 2004-07-01 19:16:42 | 0 | 27 | 1
| Never mind | guest | Looks like the paper has been taken down. The summary article in item 4 will do though. | 2004-07-01 19:17:28 | 160 | 27 | 0
| Transfer Discussion | AndrewParker | Hi all. With the new release of Deme next week, I recommend we all transfer discussion to a group running the latest software. The new group location is:
| http://piece.stanford.edu/pod/base2/groups/Deme_013_Deve/ You need to go to this URL to sign up for the latest dev group. However you won't need to remember this URL because in the latest version of Deme, users have "my groups" homepages which link to all the groups of which they are members. Your personal homepage is at: http://piece.stanford.edu/pod/base2/ Unfortunately, there are lots of incompatibilities between the latest version of Deme and older versions, so you all will need to register for new account. It shouldn't take more than a couple seconds. 2004-07-09 10:32:09 | 0 | 0 | 1
| hah... | AndrewParker | Looks like the old version of pod has trouble making the first url I listed into a hyperlink... however, I think you all know what URL that is supposed to be... just copy and paste it into your browser.
| ~Andrew 2004-07-09 10:34:06 | 162 | 0 | 0
| |