Member Participation

[Rezwan]

Per this post, we’re trying to increase member participation in the focus fusion society and improve this website by adding the tools and functionality to support a robust online community. Here, I’ll just quote the relevant bits:

Many entries in the forums belong on the website proper.

The SAEF will make it easy for users to post here directly. What’s the best way to do this? Do we set it up as user blogs? Should we distinguish these from the official site posts that cover news and announcements? It would be easy to do this by simply creating a seperate “user weblog” for the job. These can be posted in the member’s profiles, and also in other designated areas throughout the website.

Oh dear. That means we’ll need to format the member profiles to match better with the rest of the site. Right now, it’s just default setting.

We’ll also have to add tags, to improve labeling of topics. The “category” function is limiting. There’s some easy software I can install for that. In fact, see this site – http://www.solspace.com/software/ – for different modules that fit with our current set up.

I like the tags, with the handy tag clouds and so forth.

“Digg” type functionality would be good too. There’s a simple fix to give us this functionality within the site, as well. Ratings might also be a good idea. (The software above has different uses for “digging” and “rating”.)

I also need to scrape the gallery we have now and find a more functional one. Something that enables users to upload images as well as making it easier for us to do so. Right now it’s a little difficult to manipulate the images. Video recommendations and embedding by users is also a welcome idea.

All of this needs to be able to happen on the fly.

A lot of content is not getting on this site that belongs here. We need to develop this site to reach its potential. And by “we”, I mean “me”, unfortunately! Volunteers for web development are welcome! Please!

I will link this post to a forum article so that we can continue to discuss this idea. I’d like to hear more suggestions and requests for functionality.

There’s a lot of energy out there, I can feel it!

[Aeronaut]

I like the digg and cloud functionality. I can help out with image resizing and contrast adjustments if need be.

[Henning]

Actually not everybody who is registered in the forums should be able to post a blog on focusfusion.org. Someone who wants to add his/her blog on this site (only fusion related) should ask Rezwan for a account by private message, and she’ll select the ones eligible. I think we don’t want anyone proving the existence of any gods or any other bogus posts on the official frontpage.

By the way, the Solspace modules cost a few dollars. There a other content management solutions like Drupal, but I don’t know about it ease of usage. Or the one you’re using anyway.

[Rezwan]

That’s where the “digg” functionality will come in. Fellow members will flag the posts as inappropriate, and they will fall to a back page or something. Meanwhile the better posts (and posters) will rise to the top.

We wouldn’t have these things on the front page to begin with. Start them off on a proving ground and promote/demote. It’ll be all democratic.

Just been reading “Wisdom of Crowds” and it seems to be a good approach.

[Rezwan]

Henning wrote: I think we don’t want anyone proving the existence of any gods

Well, I don’t know. An actual proof, on our humble website…that would be auspicious.

By the way, the Solspace modules cost a few dollars. There a other content management solutions like Drupal, but I don’t know about it ease of usage. Or the one you’re using anyway.

Yeah, solspace is set up for use by the CMS we’re using now. I’m sure Drupal is useful. Also, I’ve heard of Joomla, and there may be others. But along with that stuff, we’d need someone who knows how to use it. As it is, I kind of understand the expression engine stuff so it’s something I can do without freaking out. I’m not a web developer by training. Just by necessity of making this site happen. I’ve found EE to be very supportive to someone with limited computer training like myself. The thought of switching to another…platform?…is daunting.

I’m not sure if the drupal modules are designed to work with EE. So…the cost of the solspace add ons doesn’t seem too bad in light of the time of figuring out all that other stuff. I’m slow enough as it is!

I guess we’re satisficing here, not optimizing.

[Rezwan]

Not sure how far to go with user generated content. Some insights re: viral marketing http://tr.im/yfKU from the LA Times.

Permission, alas, ruins it. Virality — that must-see, must-share quality that marketers so desperately want to capture — requires some transgression, Seger says, some stunt.

“Every Web job I’ve ever had,” Seger says, “they’ve said, ‘OK, let’s manufacture a viral video.’ You can’t do it because so many elements of luck and charm go into making something that doesn’t feel like you’re selling something.”

Marketers who would capitalize on user-generated content must also be prepared to let the inmates run the asylum.

[jamesr]

I definitely think we should stay on expression engine. It is very versatile, and with the add-on modules available I’m sure the site can be given a new lease of life.

A few other things that could be done is updating the member fields: remove AIM, ICQ, Yahoo etc as no one really uses them, and add a twitter username field. Then using some of the other modules available people could easily tweet about articles or other entries.

I thing the rating system & moderation will be enough to maintain the quality of blogs, rather than having everyone need special permission to post. However maybe the admins & senior members could get extra bonus ranking points.

At the end of the day what attracts people to a site is good content. Obviously the news of the ongoing focus fusion experiments is key, but also I think we need some other quality articles written on related topics to bring people in.

There are a number of members with scientific or engineering backgrounds of a level to contribute some good quality reviews. I was thinking of something we used to do at college – a ‘journal club’. Each month people were volunteered to present a review of a recent journal paper they found interesting. These don’t need to be on fusion, a link would be good though. Basically the review article should briefly explain the journal paper in as near laymen terms as possible, without dumbing down, and discuss possible implications or alternative work that is going on. This kind of quality writing, I think, will raise the profile of the site so others can link to us as a source of information rather than the other way round. If we could get 6-8 people to write a good quality article each a month it would be fantastic, and provide the fuel for the other members to discuss and comment on.

Another tier of articles could be brief guides to basic concepts in fusion physics, almost as slightly expanded glossary definitions – these will be a good basis for tags. So terms such as Coulomb barrier, or Lawson criteria have a clear definition to help educate newcomers to the field. I was thinking maybe a wiki format for this but I’m not sure.

[Henning]

I wasn’t sure what Solspace is, and that it would integrate in the currently used framework. I thought it would be something completely new.

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