From owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Mar 22 07:16:07 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BF743106566B for ; Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:16:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from murray@stokely.org) Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com (ug-out-1314.google.com [66.249.92.171]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 775258FC19 for ; Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:16:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from murray@stokely.org) Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id y2so2031719uge.37 for ; Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:16:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.66.236.13 with SMTP id j13mr2896362ugh.30.1206170165989; Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:16:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.67.103.9 with HTTP; Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:16:05 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <2a7894eb0803220016m2b20b042x54456da9ec260043@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:16:05 -0700 From: "Murray Stokely" To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org, freebsd-www@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Cc: Robert Watson , Matt Olander , netchild@freebsd.org, loader Subject: Please Review: design doc for Project Ideas web application X-BeenThere: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Documentation project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:16:08 -0000 [CCing current ideas.xml maintainers and heavy contributors] I've written up some design thoughts and developed a mock web application in Python/Django to demonstrate the direction that I think we should move the ideas database to. The main drawbacks I see with the current system include : * Strict XML schema requires careful text editing in a tedious file format to add new ideas to the list. * Anyone can propose an idea, but there is no feedback mechanism to separate the good ideas from the very bad ideas on the list. o Some very senior developers have vehement objections to prominently placed items on the current list, but have no avenue of listing their alternate point of views on the project. o It is not possible to see the ideas with the most recent "buzz" of users commenting/voting positively on them. * There is no notification mechanism when new ideas are added to the list. * Searching / sorting is primitive. And some of the many new features that I think a web app would give us include : * Allow anyone to propose a new idea online. * Allow anyone to comment and vote on previously proposed ideas. * Provide an RSS feed of the newest ideas. * Provide an RSS feed of the comments/votes for any specific idea. * Export the entire ideas list to something closely approximating our existing ideas.xml file (so that we could augment rather than replace the current system, if desired). * Allow one to sort and search the ideas list by category, proposer, votes, summary title, or full text. * Anonymous ideas/comments are hidden by default until cleared by a moderator. * Moderator bits to be set for certain users so that they can moderate the above (can subscribe to an rss file for unmoderated ideas and comments needing their attention). * Import functionality to import the current ideas.xml file. Screenshots and details on the wiki here : http://wiki.freebsd.org/IdeasWebApp. Most of the above functionality was implemented in a couple of hours based on the existing static CSS stylesheets from freebsd.org for the presentation. Login/authentication is a big remaining hurdle if we want to avoid making everyone create yet another account. I will look at integrating it with OpenID later this weekend. Would like to hear additional ideas about this proposal, and any concerns about replacing or at least augmenting the static xml system we currently use with a web application. Thanks, - Murray