Phase II (Ideas for Implementation) - DC User's Resource

[CodeTRUCKER]

Out of 130+ views of the "Phase I" thread there have been 13 responses to this point.  This provides a represents sample of a 10% response rate, but out of that 10%, 11 out of 13 responses were either "Yes" or "Yes and I would like to help!" This equates to a positive response of 85%!  There have been no dissenters and only two of the responses were neutral.

Given the above, it appears that it is safe enough to move forward with "Phase II - Ideas for Implementation."    

FYI - I have copied the ideas from the previous thread to this one for your convenience.

Keeping in mind that this should remain a membership-driven and membership-maintained initiative, is a wiki the only/best course to follow?  What other ideas does anyone else have in mind?

Also, the only way this will come to reality is if the workload of initial implementation and maintenance is not over-burdensome.  What is realistic for DonationCoder?

@Mouser - is establishing a wiki with a membership-only, minimum post count requirement (per f0dder) a doable and realistic plan?  Can the "wiki" be set up with minimum of inconvenience to you and the staff?  Further, how would a "wiki" dovetail into the tagging initiative?

@f0dder & @Ampa - you both indicated that there would be considerable maintenance required to make a "wiki" work.  Could you please explain in detail?

Everyone - For those that have not yet expressed your level of "Interest" in this project, please vote in the poll and leave a comment about your feelings/thoughts in the DC User's Resource - Phase I (Interest survey - Please post comments) thread and then return here to offer your ideas/plans on how to make this happen.

Thank you.

[CodeTRUCKER]

Right now we are using a very primitive "tagging" system using the blog engine i wrote for the forum, to permanently create special pages like:

• http://minireviews.donationcoder.com
• http://codingsnacks.donationcoder.com
• http://goe2007.donationcoder.com
• http://nany2008.donationcoder.com
• http://nany.donationcoder.com
• http://blog.donationcoder.com
• etc.

But a more powerful tagging system could help us provide some content-organized sections easily, to supplement the pure search-based methods of finding stuff on the forum.

-mouser (January 31, 2008, 06:07 PM)

[CodeTRUCKER]

The actual framework should probably by different for different subject types, but thinking about software reviews/experiences/comments, I've always thought that an organisation that:

1. Separated the software into Categories and/or SubCategories
2. Had an "article" that gave an overview and collated results of Member Reviews (a bit more Wiki-like that could be co-authored)
3. Member Reviews (or Mini-Reviews) as its children, which should also include some standard Review items (Synopsis, Score, Conclusion for example)
4. Comments/Experiences can be posted about the software against the Review/Mini-Review
5. Members can vote for various aspects

So for example we had the Category: Productivity Software / Text Editors. And imagine that there were 10 reviews of 7 applications.

The main Text Editor article would present the standard scores and findings of the reviews (maybe Averaging the multiple values) and include Synopsis and Conclusion from the reviews. As reviews are updated and more done, the main Article is updated as required (maybe old reviews are dropped off as they are not appropriate for newer versions?). Comments about the Reviews and experiences of other users are added to the Reviews (much like the Mini-Reviews are now).

For software I'd love to see a Poll like counter that members could post that they use the software, and/or it's their main application for that class.

All well and good  but the main point in what I'm saying is that I think having a little more organisation, structure and co-authoring would help develop and present the wealth of talent and experience we have here.   

-Perry Mowbray (February 01, 2008, 08:59 AM)

[CodeTRUCKER]

In theory this would be great, but it would take significant effort to keep information up-to-date and accurate.

Sounds like a job for a wiki to me...?

-Ampa (February 01, 2008, 10:02 AM)

[CodeTRUCKER]

Yeah, a wiki (only editable by DC members with some amount of posts, to avoid drive-by graffiti!) is probably the way to go. We've taken that approach at the ASM community. But it requires a massive amount of work... also in establishing what's worth preserving and what isn't.

-f0dder (February 01, 2008, 10:24 AM)

[CodeTRUCKER]

k... also in establishing what's worth preserving and what isn't.

-f0dder (February 01, 2008, 10:24 AM)

I would suggest keeping it simple to start, i.e., "Product" micro-reviews (a single, concise formatted post within a thread).  The de facto case is everyone's individual experience would be valid and usable info provided that enough info on their system was included to provide comparative  data .