[Imc-alternatives] user stories

[Jay]

ekes,

This is great!  I like the way you've separated 
your thoughts into techincal questions and 
political questions.  I'll leave the techincal 
discussion to others but run down the list and 
add my responses to the political questions.

There are so many things to think about here.  I 
know my responses are going to be too long.  Read forth at your own risk.

At 8/7/2007, you wrote:
>There doesn't seem to be a talk page or something similar for the wiki -
>maybe I should have just made a new page? But I've not - so I'm dumping
>this here.

>If I have the time I'll give a proper summary input, but for now I've
>just put my immediate Drupal-geek and personal reactions to the user
>stories (so they progress as I read - sorry I've just not got time to
>construct a proper reply). Having read though it seems important to
>clarify so that the new/current user stories come together toward the
>same site (rather than some shockingly divergent ones):
>
>(a) What is meant by a user/group/organisation
>(b) How does an individual using the site identify themselves
>(c) Where is the trust between individuals (and their
>users/groups/organisations)
>
>These seem important to interpreting the intention of the users stories,
>to see if it is one site or more! See other notes in the
>run-of-consciousness below about the politics (and required
>technologies) of the different potential sites...
>
>  * 1. The front page will feature clearly laid features about news,
>success stories and other things relating to alternatives.  (I  envision
>this as a center column and open newswire layout similar to most
>indymedia sites).
>
>  ekes: very easy to do in Drupal. More a political question of what you
>are presenting to the casual user. Many IMCs are moving away from the
>middle-column, open-newswire layout to something more categorized. The
>discussion is then about how much open publishing content gets to the
>front page without editorial input.

This is part of the same thought as the recent 
newswire/knowledge-base thread.  For better or 
worse the main driving engine behind most IMCs is 
still the open newswire, which inspires site 
users to keep visiting in order to see what is 
the most recent news.  As we are building both a 
news and organizing site, I think our front page 
should balance both.  To me, this means at least 
one top feature, a "solutions-wire" and a 
well-organized list of categories that take users 
into the networking and knowledge-base areas of the site.

Some IMCs have their open newswire on a different 
page than the front page and present an edited or 
user-ranked version of the newswire on the front 
page.  We could consider this.  Most people will 
post relevant things to our newswire, but, in 
additon to spam or attacks, I'm sure we'd still 
get a lot of reports from protests and other 
things that don't fit our "solutions" criteria.


>     * 2. Users [who?] should be able to add features to a center column
>of the front page.
>
>  ekes: very easy in Drupal - in most standard ways. The who is
>interesting, as a devolved site with no community based on face2face
>meetings the user community will have to work in a different way to
>create trust to add features. Graduated access to the site, using
>multiple roles in Drupal would be one way of doing this. Voting systems
>maybe another way, these are less developed in Drupal - and I have my
>reservations about the communities they build.

I may be an old fogey, but I still like the idea 
of there being an editorial collective that has 
some control over a feature  on the front page 
and some content control over the site.  I'm all 
for any reasonable form of user ratings or of 
other user-generated means of ranking articles as 
a way to present much of the site information.  I 
guess if the "editorial collective" consists of 
the bulk of site active users rather than just 
two or three of us, the dynamic would be much more participatory.


>     * 3. Users should be able to post news and success stories to the
>site, and the stories should be listed in an open newswire box on the
>front page (similar to most indymedia sites).
>
>  ekes: very easy in Drupal. Does it want to be one uncatogrised default
>newswire? These work fine if there are few posts, but as above sites
>with more traffic are looking to break them up. Also what is happening
>with moderation of the wire - how is this participatory and open.

Thinking on the fly, maybe we should in fact have 
our open solutions-wire on a page other than the 
front page and have registered users participate 
somehow (rankings? voting?) on stories that go 
onto the front page solutions-wire, based upon 
their appropriateness to our site.  I think there 
still should be administrator/editorial 
collective oversight though, and don't feel 
strongly that non-active site users should be the 
only ones to determine what goes anywhere on the site.

>     * 4. Users should be able to comment on posted stories.
>
>  ekes: no probs here with Drupal. But again a moderation, and
>participation in open editing of the site question.

With different levels of user registration we 
could develop a rather large "editorial 
collective" that would consist of regular site 
visitors who could do things like clear 
solutions-wire stories for the front page and moderate comments.
If we do things right, we'll present the site as 
a participatory environment and people will 
actually participate.  If we don't, we'll end up 
with the thing that happens to too many IMCs: 
just one or two people taking active control of 
site administration, then burning out.


>     * 5. There should be a wikified general overview of each general
>category, so that users should be able to get an overview of different
>issues in the world of alternatives.  These general overviews should be
>generally editable, like a wiki.  (meaning, the site should have clearly
>navigable general categories, so if I want to learn about alternative
>education, for example, I can get to a general overview that will give
>me some information about that without having to know everything about it).
>
>  ekes: like the idea. Drupal-head thinks aloud: using the wiki module
>(which I've not used yet) you could create either create a view, or make
>a simple module to add to wiki.module nodes to appropriate category pages.
>
>     * 6.  Users should be able to find alternatives-oriented
>organizations, events and individuals in my geographic area (maps are nice).
>
>  ekes: like this too. Drupal-head thinks aloud: just using the taxonomy
>  system (ie topics) should cover a lot if not all of this, some other
>modules could complement.
>
>     * 7. Users should be able to  view and edit "how-to" information for
>how to do things (like build rooftop solar collectors or start an
>alternative school).  [wiki-style?]
>
>  ekes: sounds like the wiki module again (not yet used by me)... well
>that or a wiki. That, or using group pages, with the more experimental
>group permissions on them.
>
>     * 8. Users should be able to create forums about
>alternatives-oriented topics.
>
>  ekes: good and easy.
>
>     * 9. Users should be able to chat with other users.  [real time?
>Private messages?]
>
>  ekes: real time within the site - shoutbox block stuff, my security
>head immediately goes on; off site it's chat.indymedia.org! pm on site
>no probs.
>
>     * 10. Users should be able to rate newswire articles.
>
>  ekes: drupal head, can be done - it's not the most mature tech though.
>Political head on - WHY? Who are the 'users' in this sense, what sort of
>community are you expecting to build... where is the trust model?

Similarly to the discussion above...My vision of 
the ideal user community would be people all over 
the world who are actively doing alternatives 
organizing in their communities.  If we're truly 
successuful in building a "web 2.0" site, these 
people will take charge of information on the 
site.  I think we're more likely to have that 
happen than traditional IMC sites that just deal 
in news because our site will give those people a 
place to build community online based on their activism.


>     * 11. Users should have access to a ride-board/couch-surf space.
>
>  ekes: woo like couch surfing network... hmm... interested to think
>about how to network this into site - or offsite it. Nothing instant.
>
>     * 12. Users should have the option of receiving news and event
>listings via e-mail.
>
>  ekes: Drupal several modules for this, groups makes it much more refined.
>
>     * 13. Users should  be able to list available skills and needs, as
>well as search for other users with similar skills and/or
>organizations/users with compatible needs.
>
>  ekes: nice. Suspect for Drupal it would need some module writing or
>tailoring to make it fit. What is the user expectation for sharing here?
>
>     * 103.  Users can publish information in a way that it will be
>distributed to an international network of sites.   For instance if they
>post an event, add a group, or upload a resource - it is automatically
>(within a couple days) distributed to a network of sites. Users are
>empowered by the ability to not just publish, but also be heard.
>
>  ekes: big picture one this... (i) what is the network of sites that are
>going to carry it - are they indymedia sites (which tend to be
>geographic) (ii) there needs to be a richer interchange format for
>indymedia (type) sites anyway (lots of people have mooted it, it's just
>not been done yet).

This is definitely a big picture issue, part of 
which Strypey, Aaron and others have been 
discussing regarding Activism Network and the way 
information is distributed.

>     * 104.  Users should be able to find trainers and speakers.  (This
>is similar to #13, but slightly different in that by speakers and
>trainers I'm referring to people with a higher degree of expertise
>and/or skill.)  Trainers are people who can train on skills. Speakers
>are people who are experts on an issue. There are people who are both
>speakers and trainers.
>
>  ekes: not sure how this differs to #13 depends on the expectaions I
>questions about #13.
>
>Multimedia
>
>     * 14. Video and audio should be embedded in the webpages themselves,
>as opposed to spawning a separate viewer or player.
>
>  ekes: yep. Drupal immature but in full development.
>
>     * 15. Users should be able to view photo galleries through a set of
>“thumbnails” before choosing to see the full photos.
>
>  ekes: yep. Drupal pretty mature - some user discontent about getting
>photos into content rather than the easy galleries really.
>
>     * 16. “popular media gallery based on tags/topics”.  [I’m not sure
>what this means.] [Maybe it means a list of either pictures or video,
>based on what is most downloaded/viewed?]
>
>  ekes: Drupal listing freetags on number easy... logging viewed is as
>dodgy as any site - especially if you don't keep IPs etc...
>
>Usability
>
>     * 17. Clean simple user interface. Easier than existing imc's. As
>straightforward as Google, Flickr, YouTube.
>
>  ekes: something to aim for ;) certainly possible.
>
>     * 18. Mostly functionality should be available without having to
>register for anything.
>
>  ekes: given all the networking and trust stuff above there is going to
>have to be some registration/identification model for a great deal of
>the functionality desired.

Yeah, I guess there are divergent instincts 
here.  Maybe site visitors should be able to see 
everything, contribute to the solutionswire and 
comment on articles there, but only registered 
users should be able to contribute to fixed 
content (modify wikis, rank solutionswire 
aricles, have their own homepage, e-mail each 
other through the site).  Mypsace pages are 
available to all site users but there are many 
layers of features that are only available if you 
register.  I think site visitors will understand and appreciate that.


>     * 19. The site should be confident, elegant and clear and give easy
>access to information. * 100. The web-pages should load fast (3 second
>maximum on high speed internet). * 104. Users should be able to easily
>find content on this site by searching for things at Google or Yahoo
>(eg. search engine optimization).
>
>  ekes: as #17
>
>Social Networking and non-Social Networking
>
>     * 20. Integrate current Indymedia model into a "Myspace for
>activists" type of social networking site with personal and organization
>centered start pages/collaborative space.
>
>  ekes: yay! Politically I'm all for this. Technically it's a development
>on Drupal groups - they can do it basically, but in developing the site
>it would involve creating code to give back to the community that would
>be more 'group/collaborative' than drupal groups are so far.
>
>     * 101. Users can search for progressive groups, people, events,
>online resources (aka materials, not website links) - in their local
>area, or anywhere in the world (this is an extension of #6 going beyond
>"alternative" organizations to include the rest of the political left).
>
>  ekes: a content and categorisation thing... and politically probably
>something that wants a framework built for deciding what are
>'alternative organisations... [in] the political left'.
>
>RSS Feeds and Web Services
>
>     * 21. All content should produce RSS feeds that external sites can
>access.  This includes features, the newswire, blogwire, blogs, topics,
>media, tagged content, and should support content in particular languages.
>
>  ekes: technically no problem. This is the first time I18N has been
>mentioned I think this is *important*. RSS won't solve all the needs.
>
>     * 102. All content made available by RSS should also be available
>using web services (eg. SOAP or another method).
>
>  ekes: see above #103 need for richer interchange format
>
>User Accounts and Customization
>
>     * 22. Users should be able to create individualized accounts.
>
>  ekes: np
>
>     * 23. Users should be able to have their own personal homepages that
>list information about them, list their interests, and allow users to
>link up with “friends”.
>
>  ekes: technically np. some reservations politically - are we trying to
>ape the atomised 'social networking web 2' stuff, or develop something
>to do with collaborative work that is focused on the group not the
>individual?

My sense is that if individuals feel they have a 
home on the site via their user page this will 
lead to both "social networking" and "social 
justice networking."  For individual users we 
will be creating an environment that will be 
conducive to their connecting with other 
actdivists to build projects.  For organizations, 
we will be offering very fuctional tools that 
will aid them in their organizing.


>     * 24. Users should be able to request that other users become their
>“friends” in a social networking site sense, and users should be able to
>view their friends.
>     * 25. Users should be able to customize the front page so I can see
>news about alternatives the user is interested in.
>
>  ekes: cf #23. It's more interesting if they can look at the front page
>a group is interested in... another collaborative project they could join.

Individuals could sign up as supporters (friends) 
of organizations, sign up for group mailing 
lists, etc., and have their favorite 
organizations listed on their own home page.


>     * 26. Users should be able to customize the front page so they can
>see important announcements from local organizations (event and
>announcements for which I've signed up).
>
>  ekes: this contradicts the earlier simple two column indy presentation,
>but it makes sense. It would require a bit of work for Drupal to do this
>- probably using a custom block to select a region topic?

>    * 27. Individual users should be able to customize the appearance of
>the site and integrate external RSS feeds into the presentation of their
>customized site view.  For example, when a user logs into her account,
>she can add particular RSS news feeds she is interested in, and the
>headlines from that news feed will show up on the homepage in a box on a
>sidebar.
>
>  ekes: politically - why? technically - big overhead if it's server
>side. Why not have groups with access to a groups aggregator type module?

Are we talking about two different things here?
-- how a user views and customizes the main alt-indy page, vs.
-- what a user's can add to his/her own personal page on the site

I think this does get to a question of how we 
want users to engage with the site.  I believe we 
should offer the traditional indymedia two or 
three column view to general site visitors, but 
if people who get involved in the site want to 
view the front page their own way, if this is 
technically possible, maybe we should offer opportunities for customization.

Or, maybe we don't need to offer front page 
customization, just personal page 
customization.  Thinking aloud again...On 
Myspace, regular users don't go first to 
Myspace.com, they live through the site by 
accessing and customizing their own page.  On our 
site, we will have an information flow of 
features and the solutions-wire going through the 
main page and we'll want people to share that 
information.  If someone has a personal page, 
will they ever check the main page and see the 
solutions-wire?  Do we think this important for users to do?

If so, should we (could we?) have the title of 
the main feature, the top five solutions-wire 
articles and our knowledge-base category list 
appear on each personal/organizational home 
page?  This would create some kind of coherence 
of information-sharing, even among very diverse 
personal pages.  I do think we would benefit from 
creating a unified enough user experience that 
site users are all aware of the latest breaking news.

I don't know if I've just talked myself into a 
cirle or envisioned something that's techincally unfeasible.  Probably both.

>     * 28. There should be additional optional modules that users can use
>on their personal start pages, that might include calendaring, Digital
>Library Project for resources/skills trading, Craigslist, Freecycle,
>ride sharing, etc.
>
>  ekes: feels like one for the longer picture this one.
>
>     * 29. User accounts should get their own blog.
>
>  ekes: technically no problem. politically - WHY? same as others about
>recreating some atomised commercial app that's already been done (and
>done pretty well) or doing something for OUR-space that involves
>collaboration.

I understand what you're getting at -- how will 
we benefit by having a zillion site users 
blogging about what club they went to over the 
weekend?  Is there a way to encourage blogs about 
political theory and alternatives organizing and 
discourage the blather?  Or, maybe only by 
encougning blather will we find (and editorially 
feature) the really good personal alternatives blogs created on the site?


>     * 30. User accounts should their their own “tagging” ability.  [What
>does this mean?  Can any user tag any article, and that tag is
>considered a “global” tag?]
>
>  ekes: not to clear on this either
>
>     * 31. User accounts should get their own history of posts and comments.
>
>  ekes: no probs
>
>     * 32. User accounts should get their own wiki space.  [Is this a
>page on a global wiki, or an individual wiki?]
>
>  ekes: wiki's are collaborative why do you want individual users space?
>
>     * 33. Users should get an area to post their own media galleries,
>podcasts, and torrent.  [Presumably other users should have an easy way
>to access other users’ posting area?]
>
>  ekes: a lot of this should be covered by #31, any more back to my
>political WHY?

All these questions are really important: How 
should we balance the "social networking" aspect 
of the project with the "social justice 
networking" features?  Are we trying to make the 
site a home base for alternatives organizers, 
allowing for all the personal information that 
creating a home base entails?  If 
alternatives-activists are going to have a home 
on Alt-indy, then yes, I think we should provide 
basic tools to let them share pictures of 
themselves dancing the tango or playing catch 
with their kids.  Politically, the goal would be 
community-building among those who are working 
toward social justice, specifically activists who work on alternatives.


>Internationalization
>
>     * 34. Stories should be able to be posted in various languages, the
>site viewed in various languages, and there should be a system for
>adding new translations of existing content.
>
>  ekes: YES. Drupal can do at the moment, but it's messy. Drupal 6 does
>do - but the open publish translation will probably need to be reworked
>again.
>
>     * 105. Users should be able to provide their location (city, state,
>country) and have their longitude and latitude mapped correctly.
>
>  ekes: possible. Would require someone to code it I think. A lot of the
>rest required more general locations catagorisations.
>
>Tagging
>
>     * 35. Individual pieces of content (stories, media) should be able
>to be “tagged” by users to indicate topic or category.  Content should
>be searchable by tags.
>
>  ekes: no problem.
>
>Administration
>
>     * 36. The administrative interface should be simple, intuitive, and
>fast.
>
>  ekes: something to aim for - needs more specifics
>
>     * 37. Admins should have an easy method to move content around the
>site, like putting a great newswire article into the center column or
>being able to feature an interesting blog entry.
>
>  ekes: absolutely. Set up properly this is no problem for Drupal.
>Politically who are the Admin's, how do they decide, and how is this an
>open process so the non-admins know what's been decided and why. How do
>non-admins become admins?

Great questions.  No real answers here.  Is 
anyone familiar with how this works in projects 
like wikipedia?  How to regular users gain more site responsibility?


>     * 38. There should be an automatic spam and abuse filtering mechanism.
>
>  ekes: yep. but spam and abuse are possibly different things.
>
>     * 39. There should be an easy way for an administrator to filter for
>spam or abuse.
>
>  ekes: no problem.
>
>     * 40. There should be a mechanism for “breaking news” to be easily
>posted to the front page of the website.  Through an interface, a few
>sentences can be entered as a “breaking news” piece.  That information
>will automatically be posted to the front page in a “breaking news”
>section.  Additional breaking news pieces can also be posted, in order
>to cover an ongoing situation.  After a period of time, breaking news
>pieces automatically “expire” and are not presented on the home page.
>
>  ekes: no problem.
>
>     * 41.  User-level moderation of front-page viewable content, less
>intervention by the collective (perhaps limiting control only to
>featured center-column stories).
>
>  ekes: this is very general and raises all of the questions above about
>catagorisation of the open wire(s), admins/users, how the process is
>open, if there is levels of access, what the trust model is etc.... see
>above anyway!
>
>     * 42.  Content may be filtered and delivered by users based on
>locality in social network, based on tags/topics.
>
>  ekes: see topics above.
>
>Organizations
>
>     * 43. Organizations should have a special type of user account.
>[This requires some elaboration, as user account types are spelled out.]
>
>  ekes: agree, see notes about groups above.
>
>     * 44.  Organizations should have their own forums that users can
>join.  [Do we mean blogs?  News wires?  Traditional forums?]
>
>  ekes: agree, see notes about user blogs, group pages etc above.

For organizations I believe we should try to make 
the site as practical and functional as 
possible.  I think having the ability to open a 
forum for members may be a very important tool 
for organizations.  The question comes in 
user-group distinctions, and I don't know how 
complicated it would get.  Maybe each 
organization could set its own level of access 
for users, just like mailman allows list admins 
to decide who can post, whether archives are 
private or public, etc.  Some organizations may 
want all their information public, others may 
want to use the site as a very functional tool 
for their members only.  Again, I don't know what 
drupal modules in this regard can do.

>     * 45. Users should be able to join an organization's mailing list.
>[Do we mean that the site supports individual mailing lists for
>organizations, or there is a way for users to join external mailing lists?]
>
>  ekes: dupe of #12 if done properly
>
>     * 46. Organizations should have access to organizational how-to
>pages, successes, best practices, and lists of similar organizations
>broken up geographically.

I'm envisioning a how-to wiki being part of our knowledge-base.

>     * 47. Organizations should have access to a calendar of events,
>local and beyond depending on our choice, related to our field/s of
>interest.
>     * 48. Organizations should be able to have the alternatives site be
>their “home base” which includes many features, and might be a special
>kind of organizational account.
>     * 49. Organizations should be able to have a home page on the site,
>with information about the group and its issues as well as links to a
>mailing list, any forums, any blogs  by members or interesting blogs
>about the issue/s at hand, meeting times/event calendar, "friends" such
>as group members or supporters,  and links to organizational "friends"
>working on similar issues --i.e. to "network".
>     * 50. Organizations should have a place to post meeting minutes and
>other internal information for the group (being able to choose whether
>members need to log-on or if minutes are public)
>
>  ekes: 46-50 are dupes of 'users should'. I actually think that 'groups
>should'. Are we worried about formally structured organisations? Are we
>bothered about recreating a users commercial social networking site?
>These groups should be allowed to be fluid, but they should be
>collaborative.
>  Technically most of this is possible (see note about Drupal groups and
>requirements for development above).

Above I've made the distinction between 
"individuals" and "organizations," with 
individuals having access to many social 
networking features to make the site feel like 
home, while organizations would look at the site 
from a very practical standpoint of whether the 
tools we offer will advance their organizing.  (I 
guess I'm not bothered about recreating a social 
networking space, as long as the end result is 
that it's social networking for alternatives-creators.)
  What you're getting at is that there will be a 
more fluid category, that of groups that form 
based upon networking through the site, or 
informal networks of users that don't rise to the 
level of an active organization but are a group 
of people who come together somehow with more 
amorphous reasons.  Interesting.  I'll have to put some thought into this.


>     * 51. Organizations should have a searchable mailing list archives
>(accessible publicly or not, by choice of organization)
>
>  ekes: yes. Mailman integration into Drupal would be a wonderful thing
>though. Long term.
>
>     * 52. Organizations should have wiki pages for organizational projects.
>
>  ekes: as 46-50
>
>     * 53. Organizations should have an announcement e-mail list that can
>shoot e-mails or front page alerts to site users who sign up
>
>  ekes: yes. in this one Drupal Groups does this as default for users
>that join a group and agree to e-mails.
>
>     * 54. Organizations should have decision-making software so group
>can come to consensus/tally votes on-line
>
>  ekes: interesting. like http://labs.riseup.net/ ?

I'm responding to this off-line right now so I 
can't get to the link, but I want to explore 
it.  I may be overstating this, but having an 
organization use the web to actually make 
decisions sounds like a leap forward from Web 
2.0, beyond use of online tools as a way to make 
friends and organize information and toward the 
use of the internet as a real form of practical 
collective intelligence.  We would see 
organizations and networks (whole collective 
systems!) actually *thinking* online!

As both an example and an aside, can you imagine 
where Indymedia would be today if from the 
beginning we'd had access to and actually used 
robust software that helped us track and clarify 
group decisions online?  I know the world and the 
internet were both so different back then, but if 
from the beginning every time we had a decision 
to make we would have been able to do so clearly, 
with the aid of some kind of agreed-upon 
web-based software to track proposals, take straw 
polls and enable us to work clearly toward 
consensus, we actually may have gotten into the 
habit of making decisions together.  Not that the 
failure of indymedia to develop a decision-making 
process was purely a technological failing, but 
boy, software that could help clarify the 
decision-making process really could have come in handy.


>    * 55. Organizations should have a chat space.
>
>  ekes: as 46-50 (although what sort of chat... real time/messages)
>
>     * 56. Organizations should be able to list skills available and
>organizational needs, as well as search for individuals/organizations
>with compatible needs.
>
>  ekes: as 46-50
>
>Networks
>
>     * 57. The organizational functionality should be extended to support
>networks of organizations.  See
>http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-alternatives/2007-April/0406-y0.html
>  [This should get expanded into individual stories.]

Wow, I made it to the end!  I can't believe I 
wrote all that.  I mean, yeah, I can believe it.

Jay









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