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Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

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app103:
The only thing I'm personally not sure of is how to implement the feedback process and systems. Comments in e.g. WP are more amenable to reviews (e.g. "love this app!"), not so much to bug reporting or tracking. One thought was to have a full sub-forum or even just a single discussion thread for each app in the forum and just link from the app's directory entry. That gives us the full capability of the forums for formatting, discussion, etc. I don't think a formal bug tracker is needed for 90% of the software that will be listed. The rest can use our existing Redmine setup that devs have access to. The question remains though whether a simple "commenting" functionality is enough, or if we should continue to rely on the forums for at least the major part of the actual *discussion*.
-JavaJones (March 06, 2011, 02:54 PM)
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My idea was to disable the built-in WP commenting system and direct any discussions on any app to the original forum threads. My desire was to keep all discussions where they are now and not split them between the forum and the directory.

Furthermore, by doing it this way, there would be no chance of spam in the directory, no useless "nice app" comments, and only one place for a developer to have to subscribe to keep up to date with new comments (the forum thread)

Providing the forum links in the PAD files, as well as links to the author's profile, and donate links, would be a good use of the extensions that Renegade spoke of here.

I did want to provide some way for users to give a little non-text feedback, without having to register on the forum. I figured I'd do that with a star rating system. It seems to be working out pretty good on my book directory. People that wouldn't consider taking the time to register or write a comment can just click a star and go about their lives.

With the additional exposure a directory may bring, some of the old "publish & forget" days may be coming to an end. Since most of them do this for free and in their spare time, it may get to be a "job" staying on top of the comments. Especially if a title gets popular due to wider exposure and generates a lot of feedback asking for responses from the author.
-40hz (March 06, 2011, 03:16 PM)
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I had thought about this, and part of the reason for the directory is to give all the forgotten gems on the forum the exposure they deserve.

I think every author posted their apps knowing there was a chance it could become popular. But if responding to users becomes too much of a chore for any developer, all they would have to do is let us know and we can either take advantage of the fact that we have a whole community here and pitch in, helping with answering questions (like we have been doing for Skrommel's stuff, while he has been away building his new house), or make a note in the directory listing that the app is no longer supported (in extreme cases).

JavaJones:
App, sounds like you have a pretty good plan going. I'm definitely in favor of seeing you run with your intended approach at this point. WP may not be "the best thing" for this, but until we have something better I suspect it will be a "pretty darn good thing" for this, and if it lasts only a year it will have been worth it. My guess it will realistically be at least that long before a truly superior alternative is implemented.

- Oshyan

Armando:

I worry this kind of thing would lead us to over-complication.. Let's try to keep this as simple as we possibly can while trying for most of the functionality we think is important. I don't think we have so much software that we need to get crazy with letting people filter and sort entries, etc.  A good compromise might simply be a simple tagging system, and a way to present a page of software with that tag -- then we could create arbitrary collections using tags.
-mouser (March 06, 2011, 02:30 PM)
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Well, I didn't have anything complicated in mind. A tagging system is basically the same idea, but, yes, more basic.

IMO, if someone ever went to a library to get a book or even searched Google, that same someone should be able to filter a list by author, title, tag or whatever.

wraith808:
The only thing I'm personally not sure of is how to implement the feedback process and systems.
-JavaJones (March 06, 2011, 02:54 PM)
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Why does this have to be the one stop shop for all of this?  We've been using redmine for a while with pretty good results- why not just link to the redmine area from the software directory?  Perhaps even remove the ability to comment, since this is to be a directory, and instead direct comments to the forum?

jgpaiva:
I'm not sure about this, but I'll just call to your attention that it'd be nice if this software repository could include not only full apps, but also coding snacks and even code samples. It should be easy to upload any of the three, but we can't really expect small coding snacks or code samples to include screenshots and stuff like that. Truth is even though skwire has been doing a great job posting coding snacks that look like full apps, for me it's a pain to create icons and screenshots and etc.

On the other hand, we wouldn't want full apps to be displayed at the same level as these small coding snacks.

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