Action groups setup rules

What are action groups / activity spaces

Pierre George 5:41 PM
i would not favor giving "genetic"rights
5:41 PM
firs come occupies the place
5:41 PM
i was thinking of a system of extending equal rights
Benjamin Melançon 5:42 PM
That's another question-- I would prefer everyone in a group to have rights to editing actions proposed by that group.
Pierre George 5:42 PM
but i understand there are no groups in that site ....
Benjamin Melançon 5:42 PM
But Jason and I also successfully argued to not have joining a group closed off by the founders of the group
5:42 PM
Oh, I'm sorry, let me explain
5:42 PM
Essentially, the site would have "action groups"
Pierre George 5:43 PM
what i call activity spaces...i suppose
Jason 5:43 PM
Sorry if I get into the conversation now - but Pierre, I think we should keep the "organisation" profile low; promote the concept of group and action instead. Let's leave it as open as possible.
Benjamin Melançon 5:43 PM
yes
5:43 PM
on the activity spaces
Pierre George 5:43 PM
that is what we did jason - we just were exploring what
5:43 PM
we could do with a thin layer of organsiation : just a name attrribute in the person profile
5:44 PM
organisation are not entities in this site
Benjamin Melançon 5:44 PM
So people who join an "action space" can automatically send messages to everyone else in the action space, and one action space can propose one or more actions
Pierre George 5:44 PM
i understood that an action space propose one action
5:44 PM
just one
Benjamin Melançon 5:44 PM
the question is who can edit those actions. I agree everyone who has joined the action space
Jason 5:45 PM
Ok - but I was getting confused with the "coediting" bit... I think there is still some confusion between "action/activity" and "local page/node" or "portal" as you call it. So lets try to give some example
Benjamin Melançon 5:45 PM
We could enforce that limitation, but since there might be a two-part forum (at two times), or a coordinated protest (in multiple places), I thought we'd let an action space propose related actions
Pierre George 5:46 PM
bejamein - the connection space can play the linking role

i agree on sefsubscription toan action space but i am reluctant to have a completely flat stucture of editing rghts
5:46 PM
1- if there an aciton in rio and one in nairobi
5:47 PM
there are two acitivtyspace one for each because there is local dynamics
5:47 PM
tand there is a common conneciton space ( with features similar to an activity space ) that exist "between" two or more acitvity spaces
Benjamin Melançon 5:48 PM
yes, I only intended for action spaces to be for actions that were truly part of one planning process (not merely related in purpose, which would be connected in a different way)
5:49 PM
I am not sure how to sensibly have both connection and action spaces with similar functionality, though
Pierre George 5:50 PM
the idea is that first you need a local basis on you own and then you connect with other local basis that already exist
Jason 5:50 PM
Are we talking of different functions (action / connection), or of the same one? How do you actually visualize it? What is a connection space?
Pierre George 5:51 PM
there is a common space initiative by (coeds.of activity A.!) of one activity that link themselves to my activtyB
Benjamin Melançon 5:51 PM
OK, I can see that.
Pierre George 5:52 PM
they create a connection page/space where all coeds of both A and B becomes coeds of this conneciton space
5:52 PM
and all people present in the wiki and list of A and B can post and write
Benjamin Melançon 5:52 PM
I had been thinking that an event could signal its solidarity with another by being listed in both action spaces.
5:52 PM
And this may still be the bast way to do it.
Pierre George 5:52 PM
can you explain more
5:52 PM
event = activity
Benjamin Melançon 5:52 PM
But we could certainly do it your way.
5:53 PM
(I'm using action to refer to both event + activity)
5:53 PM
Let me take a step back:
5:54 PM
People who join an activity space / action group will by default receive all messages posted to that group in e-mail, and be able to post messages
Pierre George 5:55 PM
and wirte on the wiki of that space if any...
Benjamin Melançon 5:55 PM
Yes.
5:55 PM
They could also choose to not receive messages by e-mail, or we could set that as the default
Pierre George 5:55 PM
or receive some summary every week
Benjamin Melançon 5:56 PM
That functionality would have to be created, but I have already accepted as part of this project greatly improving the way Drupal organic groups handles e-mail
Jason 5:57 PM
They should opt-in when they join an action and may have options on how to receive mail. [we need to be extremely simple here... it has to be self-evident]
Pierre George 5:57 PM
we start wiht what you have of course
Benjamin Melançon 5:57 PM
So, ordinarily, to post messages / send e-mail to the Nairobi group you would have to join it as well as the Kenyan group.
Pierre George 5:57 PM
i am confused here
Jason 5:57 PM
me too
Benjamin Melançon 5:58 PM
Sorry, I tried to use actual examples
5:58 PM
of Nairobi and Rio
5:58 PM
and confused you both
Pierre George 5:58 PM
i think we are mixing common page and activity space
5:58 PM
i am part of an acitvity space in rio - one of them
5:58 PM
this activityè space is connected to the local rio page
Benjamin Melançon 5:58 PM
No.
Pierre George 5:59 PM
where all acitivites ocurring in rio are displayed
5:59 PM
this rio page is nobody's
5:59 PM
pls explain your no
Benjamin Melançon 5:59 PM
Sorry, bad shorthand on my part. Straightforward action group or activity space.
5:59 PM
So, the "Rio Protest at Parliament" group
6:00 PM
and the "Nairobi Protest at the Ministry" group
6:00 PM
Sorry, I thought we had that part established.
Pierre George 6:01 PM
one is listed in the rio page , linked to brasil page the other is listed in the nairobi page, linked to kenya page
6:01 PM
in the kenya page there is an agreed layout display protocol to show all actions occurring in kenya
Benjamin Melançon 6:01 PM
Yes I know, I wasn't trying to talk about that, I was just using bad shorthand for two action groups / activity spaces.
Pierre George 6:02 PM
okpls proceed
Benjamin Melançon 6:02 PM
So, joining these groups is open, but to post messages you do have to join them. And you ought to have your e-mail messages turned on to be a good participant in the group.
Pierre George 6:03 PM
yes we agreed that those activity spaces would be open - anyone can join unilateraly
6:03 PM
BUT
Benjamin Melançon 6:03 PM
So what you're asking for is a metagroup to which people in any group, which somehow becomes related to another group, can send messages to people in both groups.
6:03 PM
sorry, finish that but!
6:03 PM
//
Pierre George 6:04 PM
i will later this was entry piont for dicussion on coeditors of the activity FRONT PAGE
6:05 PM
because activity space is three fold mail list and wiki -open to all winds ... and front page wiht title descirpitn photo one minute video
6:05 PM
how is that subpace of front page regulated adn accountable - this is the most viisble part of the site
6:06 PM
the mailing list and wiki are oceans of individualities
6:06 PM
where collective decision might be hard to take
6:06 PM
that was the parenthesis of the but - we can discuss this later
6:06 PM
ben you were tlaking about the connection space
6:07 PM
in a way it is agroup formed by joinind the two groups (or thre ..)
6:08 PM
in this way it is a meta group - t structurally though it is about the same object as an acitivty space /action group
6:08 PM
it exists only in reference to exisitng activities /action groups
6:08 PM
it is "between " action group A B C
6:08 PM
it is a commojn space between them
6:09 PM
so when we see the MAP
6:09 PM
we have the actiitiy spaces ( the points in the map)
6:09 PM
and the conneciton spaces ( the links in the map)
Benjamin Melançon 6:10 PM
quick answer to the subspace, front pages: mostly by only listing actions and other defined types on the collective pages, and perhaps we can find a way to approve actions within the group by having some number of supporters before the action item or even news item goes live
6:10 PM
sorry, got taken away a second there.
Pierre George 6:10 PM
subspace is what ?
Jason 6:11 PM
Keep it simple...!
Let me see if I understand correctly Pierre: I register my activity.I put it on the map. It has a title, description, maybe picture, etc. It appears in the "local page" of the city where it takes place. This local page shows content automatically - with a predefined template. But it also has a wiki space where people are free to write.
Pierre George 6:11 PM
yes
Jason 6:11 PM
Then I see activity B and want to establish a connection
Benjamin Melançon 6:11 PM
That was your term! Subspace meaning the local page, what I call city portals and country portals
6:11 PM
as for connecting groups, some of the same ideas/issues may apply
Pierre George 6:11 PM
so we need a translation table here..:-)
6:12 PM
portals are common pages
Benjamin Melançon 6:12 PM
Yes, that was my quick answer to the common page question.
Pierre George 6:12 PM
which questoin ? sorry
Benjamin Melançon 6:13 PM
"i will later this was entry piont for dicussion on coeditors of the activity FRONT PAGE" etc
Pierre George 6:13 PM
the front page is not the local page
Jason 6:14 PM
Pierre, what is this front page???
Benjamin Melançon 6:14 PM
Oh, ok, I misread
6:14 PM
Pierre means the actual real front page
6:14 PM
But the issues are the same for city portal and country portal pages
Pierre George 6:14 PM
the front page is the most visible part of the activyt space with a title - a text - some photos and one minute video
Benjamin Melançon 6:15 PM
In all cases we're aggregating from what I call action groups
6:15 PM
or more precisely individuals within these groups (activity spaces)!
Pierre George 6:15 PM
the reason i prefer to call them sapces is that people get in as a n exhibition hall in the site there would be hopefully thousand of activiti spaces s;actions group each with on
Benjamin Melançon 6:16 PM
I will call them action spaces then, and be quite happy!
Pierre George 6:16 PM
OK
the reason i prefer to call them sapces is that people get in as a n exhibition hall
There is no protocol to get in so there is no protocol for decision
6:16 PM
these are not groups these are gatherings
6:16 PM
you see what i mean...
Benjamin Melançon 6:17 PM
yes.
Jason 6:17 PM
No - I don't understand.
6:18 PM
An action is an action, a group is a group. A portal is a "local page" (be it national or city). What is a Front page?
Pierre George 6:18 PM
when we say group do we imply 500 people on a open mailing list ?
6:18 PM
jason
Benjamin Melançon 6:18 PM
Front page, with the map, videos, etc.
Pierre George 6:19 PM
each activityspace ( or action space ) has its editing window which is equally promoted and visbile in thesite
6:19 PM
this is its front page , thousands of them
6:19 PM
hopefully
6:19 PM
nothing to do with the front page of the site
Benjamin Melançon 6:19 PM
I think Pierre is just saying that as these are open groups, the terminology of space makes more sense to him.
6:20 PM
However, groups / action spaces themselves don't get some subdivision of any portal or anything
Pierre George 6:20 PM
you acess this front page( of each activities) in one click when you clcik on the map
Benjamin Melançon 6:20 PM
they are just coordinating tools for listing actions, which are the point of the site
Jason 6:21 PM
Hmmm. But what is an action? It is a form that can be edited, different from a "space" like a mailing list or a wiki. Or am I missing something?
Benjamin Melançon 6:21 PM
True, an action is a form that can be edited.
Pierre George 6:21 PM
the action space is thre fold
6:21 PM
the form - the wiki space -the list
6:22 PM
the form contnent allow to edit the action space front page - while the wiki and list are for informal exchanges
6:22 PM
the edition of the form is "framing" the action space
6:23 PM
that is why it is a locus of power
6:23 PM
so how do we deal with this ... give edition right of this form to anyone entering the open group ?
6:24 PM
or visibilizing a clearcut coopted list of coeds?
Benjamin Melançon 6:25 PM
well, if we limit editing, the question is simply who can edit, or who can decide who can edit it.
6:25 PM
Whatever we call them.
Pierre George 6:25 PM
yes - i called them coeds in my vision paper

i might be a narrow minded person... but i am somehow dubious of the open group when it comes to editing the front page
6:26 PM
so the list of coeds is flexible ( based on cooptation) and public wiht the coeds profile
Benjamin Melançon 6:26 PM
define "cooptation" ?
Pierre George 6:26 PM
the first creator is first coed then appoints anyone in the open gruop as a coed
Benjamin Melançon 6:26 PM
(I just meant to say that no matter what, the names of all editors of a document will be public. The issue remains.)
Pierre George 6:26 PM
and a coed can appoint other coed
Benjamin Melançon 6:26 PM
OK.
Pierre George 6:27 PM
so it is a flat team anyone of them can destroy the team
6:27 PM
ticking all the others out
6:27 PM
there is no historical rigth given to the creator of the acton space
6:27 PM
he might not be a coed after a while
Benjamin Melançon 6:27 PM
All of this is also new functionality, but quite reasonable and doable.
Pierre George 6:28 PM
the selection of coeds might be a democratic exercise in the opên group
Benjamin Melançon 6:28 PM
My own preference is for much more difficult to make technology, that would allow collective editing and decision-making, with no "nuclear option"
Jason 6:28 PM
The way I see it: 1 person creates the action (form) which is displayed on the map. If I click on it, I will have a window with the description of the action. And a link to the wiki and to the list. I can: join the list, edit the wiki. The action description itself is "owned" by its creator. If people want to change it... they post a request to the owner (on the wiki or through the list). I would not go into coeditors, etc. It just makes it more complicated.
Pierre George 6:29 PM
jason - please note also that coeditor list is giving you a "rainbow" of organisation
Benjamin Melançon 6:29 PM
I tend to agree with Jason, especially with the idea that someone added with editing rights could destroy everything.
Pierre George 6:29 PM
it is the vehicle for forum plurality
Benjamin Melançon 6:30 PM
However, we could leave the creator with special rights, and he can add people who are actively involved in working on the action
6:30 PM
rather than tying this to editing
Pierre George 6:30 PM
well the forum idea is fragile it exists as long as there a consensus between a handful of organisations that cooperate to maintiain it open and alive
Benjamin Melançon 6:30 PM
editing the description of the action, after all, is hardly the most important part.
Pierre George 6:31 PM
it is a" framing" part
Benjamin Melançon 6:31 PM
Again, I favor tools for distributed democratic decision-making, and would be interested in pitching it to potential funders of WSF willing to put up more money for that, with my own matching funds
Jason 6:31 PM
It is a compromise, but people would not understand the "coediting" bit - the only trick we can use is what we had thought at the beginning, Pierre, which is a "collective editor" (rather than a coeditor), meaning that the same user is used by more people of the same "group".
Benjamin Melançon 6:31 PM
But in the scope of the project as it currently exists, I see no problem with the system in Jason's conception
6:31 PM
Except
Jason 6:32 PM
I would also like to have a more "democratic" process - but this means addressing people who have a democratic mind... which is not always the case...
Benjamin Melançon 6:32 PM
that we have to code in something that prevents one person from forming at action space/group, proposing an action, and getting it to the front page as a confirmed action, when they are the only person in the group.
6:32 PM
Although
6:33 PM
We do want proposed actions to be featured. A key, key feature for me is at least the possibility that an action will take place simply because this site connects the right people.
Pierre George 6:34 PM
the reason i was suggesting coediting is that is keeps things individual and create an information flux -list all coeds

the colelctive editing either i go informal or i need to manage a group strcuture which was not the case in the list of coeds
Benjamin Melançon 6:35 PM
So what I'm saying is we're talking about problems of success. We aren't currently planning to distinguish between actions, except to prevent spam.
Pierre George 6:35 PM
but both are acceptable to me as long as the list of name and orgnaisation of people in that particular subset of the open group is made public automatically to the rest of people
Benjamin Melançon 6:35 PM
The focus is local, after all, and if one place has 500 actions, then this becomes a pressing issue.
Pierre George 6:36 PM
ben can you reword this i dont get you
So what I'm saying is we're talking about problems of success. We aren't currently planning to distinguish between actions, except to prevent spam.
Benjamin Melançon 6:38 PM
OK, sorry. I'm focusing on a different problem, as you phrased it, what goes on the front page (and other collective spaces that are aggregated). So I'm saying that we're just listing actions, proposed and confirmed, as they come.
6:38 PM
As for internal group dynamics, and who is really a part of defining an action and who isn't, I haven't though about that as much.
Pierre George 6:38 PM
ah ok i reword that to be sure i understand : what is the layout and display protoco of activity realted information l in a local page
6:40 PM
Jason ,do you think there consensus on the fact that the dsiplay on those local pages or national is "automatic"
Benjamin Melançon 6:40 PM
A map, a proposed action list, a confirmed action list (both also appearing on the map), a link to a wiki if any (to de-emphasize fighting over it).
6:40 PM
some other things I don't remember, probably news items that come out of the action groups
Jason 6:41 PM
[I don't think we are supposed to look at internal group dynamics (we are not so masochists!) - but offer a good tool to avoid spam, yes.]
Pierre George 6:42 PM
Ben you are describint the local and national pages (right ?) may be ? also an open mailing list ...just an exchange space
Benjamin Melançon 6:43 PM
no, people can subscribe to what is put there, but what is put there comes up through action groups-- which can be just one person saying I'd like to suggest an action
Pierre George 6:43 PM
the protocol for displaying the list of acitities/action is alphabetic, chronological , by numer of people who are in the actiity space, by number of coeds ...
Benjamin Melançon 6:43 PM
most recent
6:43 PM
again, that's why I said, on the local level, which is what should matter most, this is only an issue in hyperactive places
Pierre George 6:44 PM
cant there be various option selectable by the user to search the activities ?
Jason 6:44 PM
Consensus is another of those "soft" words... no, there is no explicit consensus for "automatic" feeding. But there is no other solution I can think of, really - otherwise we get into the "national comittee" logic and who has the authority, etc...
Pierre George 6:45 PM
but in the national page ben this is going to be an issue in many countries
Benjamin Melançon 6:45 PM
I think the compromise is to offer organized nat'l groups an RSS feed on national pages
6:45 PM
everything else is bubbling up from groups, it's all displayed on a map, most recent actions to be proposed listed
Pierre George 6:45 PM
what will this bring them concretely
6:46 PM
the rss feed i mean
6:46 PM
also can you tell if there can be some search and display option selectable by the user or is this technically delicate
Benjamin Melançon 6:47 PM
If they post announcements to their web site, it will be listed on the nat'l page
6:47 PM
as a link
6:47 PM
There can be lots of search options for the user
6:47 PM
and there will be.
6:48 PM
Also sort and display. At the moment categorization is mostly organic, so search is probably the way to go rather than "all actions in the category XXXX"

More on how to decide what content goes where

Jason 6:48 PM
What I imagine is city portals with a greater "open" space (wiki type), multimedia content, tags, rss, etc. National portals have less "open" space, since a lot of content can be fed from the city portals. What we really need to define is how the template looks like.
Pierre George 6:49 PM
tthis we can sketch later on .....

so 1 - there would be a dynamic list of links to other sites visible oin the national page
2 - and several options ( to be defined ) of seeing the displayed avaialable data

may be we should get back to the connections....
6:49 PM
this is still colectively hazy .i guess
6:50 PM
1 and 2 are just point i wrote before , not a conclusion sorry...
Benjamin Melançon 6:50 PM
Again, I am all for tools to make the difficult resource-space decisions. And will at some point create them. but they aren't in the budget of this site.
6:51 PM
Straight voting on content, including links, is easy to implement.
Pierre George 6:51 PM
what is the visible consequence of this the content which get most vote is on top of the defaut display list ?
Benjamin Melançon 6:52 PM
Right now we have only discussed maybe doing this to increase the chance a video or image has of being shown on the front page
Pierre George 6:52 PM
the front page of the global site you mean,..
Benjamin Melançon 6:52 PM
oops, nat'l and city portals also I mean
6:53 PM
the selection could be random, favoring the most recent, and/or items with the most/highest votes
Pierre George 6:54 PM
this seems to offer reasonnable potential ....
6:55 PM
and optionnal listing (of actions, of conenctions, of organisations present through indiivduals , according to several simple criteria which you say is easy to impleent will make people happy
Jason 6:56 PM
Do you think people would actually vote? I mean, if there is a controversial issue, I can understand a tool of that sort. But it has to be used only for certain content and on request. I think we need time to study this kind of function and I don't exclude we can find some extra funds to develop it - but we first need to get the registration going... by next week...
Benjamin Melançon 6:56 PM
Pierre: Could you rephrase what you mean here so I can be sure I get it?
Pierre George 6:56 PM
i am speaking of what people can find in a portal
6:57 PM
1- some random display
Benjamin Melançon 6:57 PM
@Jason: Lletting just anyone vote on content is trivial.
6:58 PM
I just say very often these days, what I really want is someone to say here's time and a budget to develop tools to make important publicizing, distribution decisions such as what goes on the front, nat'l, and city pages: what could be perjoritatively called a scientific poll, and positively called shared democratic decision-making
Pierre George 6:58 PM
2- access to search and listing of various kinds /crterias of the entities existing in the portal "territory"
Benjamin Melançon 6:58 PM
@Jason: So the current plan is random / time based. With the possibility of throwing in open voting, no charge.
6:59 PM
I'm mostly trying to fully understand Pierre's optional listing idea here.
Pierre George 7:00 PM
the entities displayed could be : actions - connections of those actions to other out of the territory - organisations present in the territory thourhg there members, organisation signing the call as representative - ie subsets of GM 2008 directory related to the national page geographic territory
7:01 PM
we could also have thematic pages... which raise an issue of taxonomy , or we let people create thematic pages and just give a full text search access the the list of thematic pages
7:02 PM
so r X when creating an activity can decide to link to also to a thematic page ( the system ben explained of dynamic displya of words throuhg typing a few characters might help ...)
Benjamin Melançon 7:03 PM
OK, probably some custom coding that might not get done right away, but a good idea and definitely leverages information we're already taking in. Yes, we can have free tagging taxonomy with autocomplete and encourage people to use it to define themes.
7:03 PM
Unfortunately, I didn't complete yet, and probably won't have it production-ready for this site, http://drupal.org/project/cmt
Pierre George 7:03 PM
well....
Jason 7:04 PM
ok, Ben, I'm totally open for that. All I am concerned with now is that we make the correct first steps in the right direction, so all the features we would like can be added on the way without having to redo fundamental parts. And that these first steps be fast and simple...
That said, I need to go to sleep shortly, since I have to get up early. I still wanted to talk about 1 issue on design with Dan... so how can we do this - I don't want to interrupt Pierre.
Pierre George 7:04 PM
you can jason
Benjamin Melançon 7:05 PM
Oh! That's just my solution to taking a free-tagging list of categories and merging some, in a collective process. The autocomplete and everything I've described is part of Drupal!
Jason 7:05 PM
Dan - are you still there?
Dan Hakimzadeh 7:05 PM
yep
Pierre George 7:06 PM
Jason Ben Dan- in the remaining time may be we could just define an agenda through this week end and personnal homework and meetings
7:06 PM
define the registration form , activity. aciton form , creation of local page dialogue , conneciotn form
7:07 PM
at least a basic version of them with the essentials
Benjamin Melançon 7:07 PM
Yes, ideally all this sort of stuff will be worked out and handed to Dan and I
Pierre George 7:08 PM
ye i now it is our task to draft things liks this

how can there be fields added afterwards if we need it
Benjamin Melançon 7:08 PM
and it is important, but there's a lot of public text on this site to be decided, and then translated
7:08 PM
I mean "and" not but
7:08 PM
So Jason, what are the design questions?
7:09 PM
Oh, he and Dan are in a private room.
Pierre George 7:10 PM
oh... so ...may be we can have another such chat soon - with some homework in between
Benjamin Melançon 7:10 PM
I still have a work schedule that I'm behind on to clear things for programming this site
7:10 PM
but I am available
Jason 7:10 PM
Ben, you could send Pierre your proposal. And you can go ahead with test space.
Pierre George 7:11 PM
ok what is test space ? a test site ?
are you available sometime this week end ?
Benjamin Melançon 7:12 PM
Yes, to start developing on a test site. Dan and I are at a charity event Saturday, but available Sunday.
7:12 PM
and maybe later on Saturday

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