[OWW-Discuss] "Contact Us" mods

Bill F bill.altmail at gmail.com
Mon Apr 7 14:43:49 EDT 2008 

1. The page is changed. Anyone with Sysop permission can change it. The link
is

      http://openwetware.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Contact

2. I've had experience with a number of discussion forum products. The
simplest and most efficient is the lightweight "PunBB" forum. It's not as
clumsy and garish as phpBB nor is it as well-supported with a large
community as phpBB, simple machine forum, or Vanilla ( a product and not an
OS project). But it's very solid and used by a lot of hosts.

There's no MediaWiki integration with it at this point. The only mediawiki
integration present with any forum is to allow MediaWiki's OpenID to become
a client to it. Since OWW currently is an OpenID server, this isn't
immediately an option.

Keep in mind that there's no integration with WordPressMU either and we
still use it.

I downloaded and installed the software here:

http://www.openwetware.org/forum

Take a look at it.

If we can get by without integration initially, it would be a lot better
than what we're doing. Over time, we can add integration to the wiki. We can
immediately add Google Analytics to it and make sure it gets spidered by
Google for search. We can add more sophisticated integration later.

This took 10-15 minutes to do: I'm not hijacking priorities to do this. I've
spent at least that long reading and replying to this thread: it's no big
deal. But if I need to spend more time on it, we'll have to schedule and
prioritize the work.

Remember. This is JUST a suggestion. If you kill the messenger, please tell
my wife that I won't be home for dinner.



On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Lorrie LeJeune <moltogatti at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't think it's too wild an idea. We use WordPress for blogging rather
> than the wiki because it's better suited for the task. Why not use a
> discussion list server for a discussion list? There must be some list server
> software out there that would give us the features we want and still
> integrate with OWW the way WordPress does.
>
> --L
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 2:02 PM, Ricardo Vidal <rvidal at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If there is so much discussion really going on, I'd think it be best to
> > have a discussion board and not a blackhole email discussion mailinglist.
> > You know, so that previous questions/answers can be found.
> >
> > But obviously a discussion board is a whole new matter. So I apologize
> > going a bit off topic.
> >
> > ~R
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 1:54 PM, julius.lucks <julius.lucks at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Then let's forward the feedback list to duscuss so more people see
> > > these
> > > messages and can respond.
> > >
> > > J
> > >
> > > Sent from my iPhone
> > >
> > > On Apr 7, 2008, at 10:46 AM, Austin Che <austin at csail.mit.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > >    Getting all contacts to be on the feedback list seems
> > > >    impractical. For example, recently on the feedback list:
> > > >    "Hi I was wondering were you purchased or harvested the algea
> > > that
> > > >    you used in the bio reator."
> > > >    It's impossible to determine who should even be on the feedback
> > > >    list to answer this question. And I really don't think someone
> > > who
> > > >    just wants to put up a protocol about algae wants to be on a list
> > > >    that receives questions about every topic under the sun. However,
> > > >    they probably are interested in questions related to algae
> > > >    protocols so some way of directing those questions to them is
> > > > useful.
> > > >
> > > >> Can we get lab contacts and protocol writers etc automatically
> > > >> sitting
> > > >> on the feedback list?
> > > >>
> > > >> Sent from my iPhone
> > > >>
> > > >> On Apr 7, 2008, at 9:37 AM, Austin Che <austin at csail.mit.edu>
> > > wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>>
> > > >>>   The message on the page already says to leave a message on the
> > > >>>   talk page. It is a much lower barrier to entry to type a message
> > > >>>   into a text box than getting an account and posting on a talk
> > > >>>   page. The majority of messages that we have already received
> > > have
> > > >>>   been for specific people/protocols. My feeling is that
> > > >>>   restricting the comments to only feedback about the site will
> > > mean
> > > >>>   we will get no feedback and those who really do have useful
> > > >>>   feedback for labs won't give them at all.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>> We should also put something in the message that if they want to
> > > >>>> leave
> > > >>>> a message for a particular person or lab, then they can join OWW
> > > >>>> and
> > > >>>> leave a message on a talk page.
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> J
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> On Apr 7, 2008, at 8:47 AM, "Barry Canton" <bcanton at mit.edu>
> > > wrote:
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>>>>  It'd be nice if the contact page could look at the referring
> > > >>>>>> page
> > > >>>>>>  and based on that, "do the right thing." For example, if I'm
> > > >>>>>>  looking at the Endy lab page, the contact form should send an
> > > >>>>>>  email to the endy lab contact. The simplest implementation I
> > > can
> > > >>>>>>  think of is to have a special tag people could put on pages
> > > for
> > > >>>>>>  example, {{contact:myemail at blah}}. Labs would put it into
> > > their
> > > >>>>>>  lab template, protocol writers would put it into their
> > > >>>>>> protocols,
> > > >>>>>>  etc. The contact page extension would try to find such a tag
> > > and
> > > >>>>>>  if it exists, send the comment email there. Otherwise, it
> > > sends
> > > >>>>>> to
> > > >>>>>>  the generic oww feedback address.
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> Personally, I think it makes more sense if the behavior of the
> > > >>>>> "Contact OWW" button is consistent across the wiki.  I think the
> > > >>>>> proposal to make the text on the contact us page better explain
> > > >>>>> who
> > > >>>>> the feedback is sent to will be sufficient.
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Austin Che           <austin at csail.mit.edu>          (617)253-5899
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > OpenWetWare Discussion Mailing List
> > > > discuss at openwetware.org
> > > > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/oww-discuss
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > OpenWetWare Discussion Mailing List
> > > discuss at openwetware.org
> > > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/oww-discuss
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Ricardo Vidal
> > rvidal at gmail.com | http://my.biotechlife.net
> > http://www.openwetware.org - Share your Science
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenWetWare Discussion Mailing List
> > discuss at openwetware.org
> > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/oww-discuss
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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