Omnimaga
Calculator Community => Other Calc-Related Projects and Ideas => Topic started by: tifreak on February 07, 2010, 12:26:32 pm
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As to these proposed 'ticalc.org needs an overhaul' discussions.. let's actually discuss them!
I was talking with a user on #ti about changing the layout of the projects section. Basically, instead of having their posting set up, it would just be a listing of projects being worked on, seperated by calc type.
I came up with a mock-up of sorts, but.. it obviously needs the help of the community to make it so we all can agree on things and how it looks.
http://tifreakware.net/tifreak8x/misc/ticalcmockup.htm
Yes, I used my own project for this. :p
I was told as long as we could come up with a satisfactory mock-up of what was wanted, then it could possibly be coded in.
Keep in mind. I am not asking them to host a forum for us to discuss projects. The point of this is to get the projects on one central site, linking back to someplace else for the actual discussion of said projects. Having them either link to screenshots, or hosting up to maybe 4 of them, I dunno. I think I would rather they just link to the screenies and save space on their servers.
What else do you think should be added? Anything you think should be taken out?
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that would be awesome. It should be a bit like TI-News but with either comment listed like on forums or topics
Altough this might kill other sites activity in long term, especially those that are mostly centered around projects x.x
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no no!! That is where you are wrong. This would actually INCREASE traffic to sites.
See, there would be no form of forums or anything for these projects ON ticalc, that is why one would link to THEIR site, or a place where they discuss their projects.
Basically I would like to have ticalc be a feature point, similar to that of TI-NEWS without the hassle of needing to moderate comments and such, just projects themselves.
Might be a good thing for my site and bring back SOME traffic to my forums, as it is almost all but dead now. 1-3 posts per weeks sucks =/
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oh I thought you meant it would allow people to post comments on projects and the like. That's where I was worried, because then ppl would comment there instead of here and UTI for example
Users should be allowed to update their project pages altough they would need to be monitored by moderators in case someone uploads obscene content
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yeah, some moderation is a given to that extent, but the staff won't have to worry about moderating a subforum.
And yes, the people that are tied to the project will have to be able to edit said project listing.
Would be nice, as well, if there were at least 2 ways to list projects: Alphabetically and by most recently updated.
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Yeah, and by projects that has screenshots and those that have none
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Should there be an option for asm and basic?
We want to make sure we don't over complicate this either. Right now there is no real guarantee this happens, but it is a really good chance of it happening the more we plan and plot this out.
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How would projects be monitored? If someone starts a project and then just never finishes it does it just sit there forever? And what about once a project is completed, is it removed from the projects list, and who would remove it?
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I would say that the projects if they are inactive for over a year they're gone or put on a section for held projects. I say once a project is finished then ya its going to go into their archives as a file and then it's page is removed. I think there should be an option for asm and basic projects. Every author could have their own project section in their profile.
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I think projects that goes inactive for a while should be automatically moved to an dead/inactive project section after one year with no update then if they get revived, move them to the undead section
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I would say that the projects if they are inactive for over a year they're gone or put on a section for held projects. I say once a project is finished then ya its going to go into their archives as a file and then it's page is removed. I think there should be an option for asm and basic projects. Every author could have their own project section in their profile.
I like this idea. I'd also like to mention that their archives layout could use an overhaul. All results under a heading don't need to be displayed on one page, and it would be nice to have a small screen shot beside the program before you open up it's individual page.
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I would say that the projects if they are inactive for over a year they're gone or put on a section for held projects. I say once a project is finished then ya its going to go into their archives as a file and then it's page is removed. I think there should be an option for asm and basic projects. Every author could have their own project section in their profile.
I like this idea. I'd also like to mention that their archives layout could use an overhaul. All results under a heading don't need to be displayed on one page, and it would be nice to have a small screen shot beside the program before you open up it's individual page.
That is a good idea, but one for a different topic. Right now, let's do this one section at a time.
So for the moment, a person viewing the projects section would see:
Catagories of:
TI-82
TI-83
TI-83+/SE/84+/SE
TI-85/86
TI-89/ti/92/+/Voy200
TI Nspire
Can view the listing of projects as follows:
sorted by Alpha-numeric names (default)
sorted by Latest updated
sorted by ASM only
sorted by BASIC only
Would have projects that are 1 year since last updates moved to 'inactive' (invisible) until author updates
Anything I missed?
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As discussed on #TI, there might be a bunch of problems that would arise with this:
-People would flood the project section with useless shit (guessing games)
-If a rating system is added, the same problem as the file archives would arise: people rating good programs 1 star for the lulz, or even votebotting them.
-To fix problem 1: someone neutral would need to be made ticalc staff to filter content by quality. Basically someone who is not biased against either BASIC or ASM. Filtering content by quality would be hard if the author provides no animated screenshots other than the title screen and good description.
What I think is that projects would need to have a tag system or be divided by calculator models, type (games/utilities/math/animation/etc) and genre (in game case: RPG, shooter, action, number guessing game, Rock-paper-scissors, casino. In math case: physics, quadratic formula, etc)
At this point, a moderator would just need to fix what's uploaded in the wrong categories and it would make it much easier to search, while still being easy to moderate. While filtering quality might be good, it would become a major chore/hassle to moderate all the quadratic solvers that would arrive.
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I've got an idea: if 'quadratic' occurs in the description, refuse :P
Seriously now:
I think it is very hard in practice to thoroughly check for quality on all programs. It would probably be doable to reject stuff computing only one damn physics formula, and the like.
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Submitting a work in progress should be approved similar to the way files are approved to the archives. That way, the ticalc.org staff can filter out the files that need filtering before they actually appear on the website. Ratings and reviews are probably a bad idea, I think that should be the purpose of providing a link to the project.
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Submitting a work in progress should be approved similar to the way files are approved to the archives. That way, the ticalc.org staff can filter out the files that need filtering before they actually appear on the website. Ratings and reviews are probably a bad idea, I think that should be the purpose of providing a link to the project.
-Right I agree on the ratings/reviews, that is the point of link to the projects main page/forum it isnt necessary for the ticalc.org project page. I think the approval idea is also a great one, as you said that will weed out the many useless projects.
On that note a guideline system would have to be in place for the staffer who handles the projects. I would make it mandatory that there has to be a website or forum link for the project. My only reasoning for this is simply that that would remove a lot of the random number generators etc. But what about the people that dont have web space...well they could sign up on one of the many forums out there in the community and announce their project.
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In the GreenfootGallery, they use a voting system that i have not seen implemented before, but works suprisingly well. First, you can only vote for programs you like. Programs are rated by the amount of votes, not by a rating system. The second, is that they use a formula that combines votes/views/recent votes/recent views/new updates in order to come up with a 'popularity' rating that also is a good estimate of general interest on the site. The thing that seems to protect it from malicious intent is that you can really only give programs positive press, the worst way to affect a program is to ignore it completely.
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Submitting a work in progress should be approved similar to the way files are approved to the archives. That way, the ticalc.org staff can filter out the files that need filtering before they actually appear on the website. Ratings and reviews are probably a bad idea, I think that should be the purpose of providing a link to the project.
I like this idea. If you provide a description of a "Program in Progress" and a link for where to discuss it, then you generate a lot of travel to the site from the link. Sounds good!
In the GreenfootGallery, they use a voting system that i have not seen implemented before, but works suprisingly well. First, you can only vote for programs you like. Programs are rated by the amount of votes, not by a rating system. The second, is that they use a formula that combines votes/views/recent votes/recent views/new updates in order to come up with a 'popularity' rating that also is a good estimate of general interest on the site. The thing that seems to protect it from malicious intent is that you can really only give programs positive press, the worst way to affect a program is to ignore it completely.
That's an awesome system! It's great that you can't really bash a project. Genius! ;D
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Lol Ztrumpet you have 777 posts :P </offtopic> How did u get that many without spamming lol? :P
Back on topic I like the greenfoot idea.
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Interesting ideas and nice initiative tifreak.
A list of pages needed to be templated:
Frontpage (navigation bar, news, search, ads, survey, others)
Search page
The list of articles
Article page
Archive browsing
File page
Page to submit an entry
Account Management Page
Author Profile
I think this is almost everything we need. Note that the pages should be consistent and have the same needed fields (e.g. the file page must have the same fields as in the submission page).