[webdev] Re: reflecting on initial idea

[Tom Hull <thull@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Koji Hayakawa wrote:
> 
> -- Tom Hull wrote:
> > * user/member database, per-user workspaces, user tracking by cookie,
> >   users can add feedback to virtually all pages
> 
> Can you elaborate on "per-user workspaces" a bit?  Is it like having
> personal web space geared toward Linux related topics?  Or something else?

I think the minimum is a single web page (per user) that has a structured
outline of information that the user can fill in: contact info, photo,
enumerated list of interests, some self-descriptive text, links to user-
provided comments/reviews/writings, etc. (voluntary information, some
reasonable privacy options). Maybe some self-assessment. Could be more,
depending on demand, space, etc. One implementation (a good site to look
at to get a sense of openacs) is:

  http://www.photo.net/

Another (programmer-oriented) site, which includes support for diaries:

  http://www.advogato.net/

There are a bunch of blog sites (basically a web diary).

> > * calendar/news
> > * topical directories as framework for user reviews/ratings (e.g.,
> >   software projects, books, Linux-friendly businesses)
> 
> I can value comments from local user on these topics...  Maybe we can even
> include ISP evaluation by users too.

Rating ISPs is already a FAQ, so this would keep it all in one place, easy
to use, rather than having to rehash it each time.

> > * FAQ front-end and thin framework for linking to Linux documentation
> > * frameworks for developing tutorials and presentations
> > * community interests (job board, classified ads, auctions?)
> > * ability to distribute site responsibilities
> 
> I thought I saw an idea on "per-page response" system:  what you see on PHP
> or MySQL documentation pages, among others.  I don't know how much of
> interest there is, but it MAY be of some interest within certain section of
> the pages.  Wouldn't it be fun to be able to reflect on certain
> presentations/reviews posted on the web, right on the web page itself?  (Of
> course, we could do the same thing on ML too...)

Again, photo.net does this; in fact, Philip Greenspun offers a free service
where you add links to your pages, and he keeps these page comments in his
database. Click on the link and it fetches the comments from (or adds a comment
to) his database. The biggest problem I have with this approach is that you
start to accumulate long comment logs. One thing you can do here is to rate
the comments (like amazon.com or slashdot), and then prioritize visibility
(extra click to get 'em all). Another thing would be to edit the webpages
and cull extraneous comments -- especially for tutorial-type things, the
comments may just be temporary holding places for information that hasn't
been integrated yet.

> Koji

-- 
/*
 *  Tom Hull * thull at kscable.com * http://www.tomhull.com/
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