[hackers] RE: More on Deanster Participant Content
Sure, I think it might work. But there is a more basic role for Deanster, and the reason for its urgency (w/the idea of experimenting w/this functionality on top of it). People can't find eachother. Dean supporters in the same area can't find eachother. Dean supporters w/the same interests can't find eachother. We have, incredibly, a nationwide movement of people who happen to run into eachother if they use the get local tools -- or show up wearing buttons -- or are on a listserv. Imagine what it could be if I could search for local people to ask them to join me? The second-and third-level functions are those Josh talked about -- and ultimately very important -- Z Zephyr Teachout Internet Organizing Outreach Dean for America [EMAIL PROTECTED] Meetup at http://www.deanforamerica.com/meetup Get local at http://action.deanforamerica.com Contribute at http://www.deanforamerica.com/contribute -Original Message- From: Joshua Koenig [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 12:13 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Zephyr Teachout Subject: More on Deanster Participant Content After Zephyr's previous posting about content for Deanster, I just wanted to give y'all a little more of my vision for the whole Deanster user expression piece. You're indubitably the boss on this one, so the call is yours, but I wanted to give you the whole nine yards. The notion for this sprung from the fact that there's a wealth of ideas and content being created by the devotees of the Official Campaign Blog. Originally, I had thought of hacking Movable Type so that there would be a way for users to concur with other users' comments; to mark them as an idea, a phrase, a story worth saving. This way at the end of the day, you can have someone from your team browse through the 25 most highlighted posts. Creating a way for the Official Site to grant recognition to stellar user participation will spur greater participation as well as greater quality. From that came a discussion with Britt about how deanforamerica.com might be re-designed. I've attached an image of what he's come up with. It shows the idea pretty well: a quote from a participant for every section. This would be easy enough to set up if it were static, but my immediate thought was that it should be dynamic. It should be a rotation of many quotes, which will further drive participation as it shows that everyone has a chance of having their voice heard. But for you to try and do this -- incorporate participant content -- requires some structure be built around it. So I thought of a facility on Deanster which would let you elicit on-topic quotes from your userbase; there would be some administrative overhead in terms of flagging content either as worth highlighting (good) or administrative review (bad), but this won't take much time at all. 90% of it can be done by users. Here's how: 1) Most of the content will be neither worth posting on DFA or worth badgering anyone about in terms of taking it down. The process I describe here will happen less than 10% of the time. 2) Objectionable content (e.g. explicit photos, objectionable statements) can be flagged by any user and quickly addressed by the moderation staff. If you create an environment that doesn't provide an opportunity to create entropy, then it won't happen. In other words, if people don't see bogus profiles, they're far less likely to try it themselves. 3) High-quality content can also be flagged by any user (though not for themselves), and dealt with in the same fashion. 4) Volunteer moderators (trusted participants) can further vet flagged content. People will kill to have this job. They can send warning letters to objectionable content posters and give a more seasoned thumbs up to high-quality profiles. 5) Finally, one staff member can invest an hour a day selecting the best of the best and flagging them as worthy of the DFA homepage. Likewise they can take the official action of booting people who don't respond to a warning letter. At this point were talking about 1% of total posts, so it's not really a lot of overhead. Do we think this will cure a potential troll problem? IMHO, rigorous moderation is sufficient for stopping harmful BS. By giving users a flag for review button, you give them a means of doing something about trolls without feeding them. cheers -josh Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate! Elect Howard Dean President in 2004! http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/
Re: [hackers] RE: More on Deanster Participant Content
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003, Zephyr Teachout wrote: Sure, I think it might work. But there is a more basic role for Deanster, and the reason for its urgency (w/the idea of experimenting w/this functionality on top of it). People can't find eachother. Dean supporters in the same area can't find eachother. Dean supporters w/the same interests can't find eachother. If you take the profile module i just posted, adjust privacy settings to taste, and add some category terms for interests, you should be 3/4 of the way there, no? The only two missing pieces are (a) to hook up the taxonomy module so it can tag users as well as content nodes, and (b) to search for zipcodes by distance, but that can't be too hard, since we already have zipcode - latitude + longitude data. -- ?!ng
Re: [hackers] RE: More on Deanster Participant Content
On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 02:41:44PM -0500, Jon Lebkowsky wrote: One other point about Deanster: you might get some flak from Friendster if you combine that concept with that name. The Friendster guys aren't necessarily Dean supporters. Zephyr, you might discuss with legal whether there's any exposure - obviously it's a great name but a legal hassle would make it counterproductive, I'm afraid. Do you really think so, Jon, inasmuch as they're *both* (fairly explicitly) derivative of Napster, which in itself didn't really mean anything? Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth[EMAIL PROTECTED] Member of the Technical Staff Baylink RFC 2100 The Suncoast Freenet The Things I Think Tampa Bay, Floridahttp://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274 OS X: Because making Unix user-friendly was easier than debugging Windows -- Simon Slavin, on a.f.c
Re: [hackers] RE: More on Deanster Participant Content
One other point about Deanster: you might get some flak from Friendster if you combine that concept with that name. The Friendster guys aren't necessarily Dean supporters. Zephyr, you might discuss with legal whether there's any exposure - obviously it's a great name but a legal hassle would make it counterproductive, I'm afraid. Surely we'll vet the name before launching. It makes a good internal name though. Pretty clear what we're all talkin' about. We should ask the friendster guys. Maybe they -are- deanies. And when it comes down to it, there are about a zillion *-ster sites out there. Just like there's also iEverything and Apple can't do much about it. But let the law-folk make the call by all means. -j
RE: [hackers] RE: More on Deanster Participant Content
I don't really like deanster myself, but at least we all know what we mean :). We'll put up a naming thread later -- but keep coming up w/ideas! Z Zephyr Teachout Internet Organizing Outreach Dean for America [EMAIL PROTECTED] Meetup at http://www.deanforamerica.com/meetup Get local at http://action.deanforamerica.com Contribute at http://www.deanforamerica.com/contribute -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jay R. Ashworth Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 2:43 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [hackers] RE: More on Deanster Participant Content On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 02:41:44PM -0500, Jon Lebkowsky wrote: One other point about Deanster: you might get some flak from Friendster if you combine that concept with that name. The Friendster guys aren't necessarily Dean supporters. Zephyr, you might discuss with legal whether there's any exposure - obviously it's a great name but a legal hassle would make it counterproductive, I'm afraid. Do you really think so, Jon, inasmuch as they're *both* (fairly explicitly) derivative of Napster, which in itself didn't really mean anything? Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] Member of the Technical Staff Baylink RFC 2100 The Suncoast Freenet The Things I Think Tampa Bay, Floridahttp://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274 OS X: Because making Unix user-friendly was easier than debugging Windows -- Simon Slavin, on a.f.c
RE: [hackers] RE: More on Deanster Participant Content
On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 02:41:44PM -0500, Jon Lebkowsky wrote: One other point about Deanster: you might get some flak from Friendster if you combine that concept with that name. The Friendster guys aren't necessarily Dean supporters. Zephyr, you might discuss with legal whether there's any exposure - obviously it's a great name but a legal hassle would make it counterproductive, I'm afraid. Do you really think so, Jon, inasmuch as they're *both* (fairly explicitly) derivative of Napster, which in itself didn't really mean anything? Napster was in no position to file suit! :) From what I know of Friendster, their reaction would be hard to predict, but from a biz perspective they might like the idea. We should just ask if we're going to use the name... Zephyr says probably not, so moot point, I guess. ~ Jonster
