Archive:To do list

This page is very outdated. For more current tasks, see Todo.

=To Do Before Launch=

Finalize intro text
Intro - work on it here. DHB had something on What is free culture, and we have some preliminary text on the front page. And of course, there is the temporary under construction page, and all of those links should be prominent.

Get a logo
Here's what we have so far in that department: Logo

Get basic graphics in place
Nick from DHB said he would work on this. --Nelson 12:50, 24 Mar 2004 (PST)

Jake Wachman produced a nice web design proposal for the site, displaying graphics design skills that I certainly do not possess. The only downside is that his approach assumes a completely different structure for the website, but I definitely like some of his ideas. I've uploaded the picture, when we upgrade the Wikipedia software you'll see a thumbnail using this code:. Until we get the upgrade, check it out on this page: Jake's radical redesign. --Nelson 13:19, 29 Mar 2004 (PST)

NullPainter Very nice. Fortunately, for actual implementation this isn't all that radical. The site's layout and style are all CSS driven and everything's templated, so this wouldn't require too much effort to implement.


 * I meant a change in the flow of the different pages and the categories that the pages are divided into, etc. I'd like to vaguely organize the site according to the 4 bullet points in the Intro that I wrote.--Nelson 13:45, 29 Mar 2004 (PST)

Contact page
Contact - I think this done OK for the moment... we have a generic contact e-mail address, we have a discussion mailing list, we have an IRC channel. I think that eventually we should have different departments, and have a different contact person for each department, complete with AIM screenames and all. Should we try to do this before launch or just go the way we are? --Nelson

Prettier URLs
Move Wiki to wiki.freeculture.org and put Apache's mod_rewrite into action as indicated at http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewrite_Rules


 * Well, the Wiki is now at http://wiki.freeculture.org, but we're questioning the wisdom of that as we would like to integrate the wiki into the site more. mod_rewrite is not happening at the moment. --Nelson 11:10, 1 Apr 2004 (PST)


 * NullPainter 04:44, 17 Apr 2004 (PDT) To implement mod_rewrite, we need to bribe the server administrator to add it for us in Apache's

Integrate Wiki into the site
Take the wiki out of the ghetto. Realize that we'll probably have a better, more up-to-date, and more participative site if the wiki is the site. Wiki works. Trust it. --Evan P
 * The problem that Luke has brought up is that Free Culture is less universal than an objective encyclopedia like Wikipedia, and a Wiki alone may not be ideal for building a new movement. Many people will visit this site who do not understand or agree with our ideology or our agenda.  I believe that our early visitors will be largely self selecting, and that we have little to worry about in that department, but Luke is much more pessimistic.  Essentially, he thinks that the incidence of "Trolls" and non-useful contributions will be much higher on a site that is intended to produce ideological tracts than on a site that is simply for facts.  He is actually in favor of making the Wiki invite only, which I find abhorrent, but I think that the fair compromise is to have an official position propounded in the "elitist" blog and general principles put forth on static pages, while the community works out the details and produces content on the Wiki.  --Nelson 14:42, 19 Mar 2004 (PST)


 * Luke needs to take a good look at SoftSecurity.


 * Anyways, I think you should keep it in mind to think about moving to a WikiBlog at some point. I know I'm kind of a Wiki nut, but I've found that it works. It's great. --EvanProdromou 13:39, 8 Apr 2004 (PDT)


 * I think that if Wikipedia gets RSS feeds and trackbacks that we should kill Wordpress and go fully Wikipedia. Until then, Wordpress it is... -- Nelson 05:31, 17 Apr 2004 (PDT)


 * NullPainter 04:44, 17 Apr 2004 (PDT) The wiki has been moved out of the ghetto now :)

Separate RSS feeds for News and Blog
We need separate RSS feeds so that people can subscribe to the different kinds of content. --Nelson 18:56, 3 Apr 2004 (PST)

FreeCulture.org : the organization
We should get at least the rudimentary skeleton of an organizational structure and financial structure set up. Should we be 501(C)3? Here are two articles that might help us answer some questions:

http://www.mapnp.org/library/strt_org/strt_np/strt_np.htm http://www.nonprofits.org/npofaq/02/

= Doesn't work =

Not all pages are XHTML compliant
The front page with "excerpts" from the blog is not XHTML compliant, because the excerpts do not have closing paragraph tags. The blog itself is compliant, of course. --Nelson 09:57, 20 Mar 2004 (PST)


 * NullPainter The excerpts may not have closing paragraph tags - it depends on where the excerpt cuts off. Seems that my excerpt code was a little too naive and didn't determine whether closing paragraph tags were necessary. I'll get to this shortly.

NullPainter This has been partially fixed for  tags

It appears there was a problem with closing markup tags like  as well on the front page, but Matt has solved that too it seems. The other blog pages do not validate because the RDF metadata for the posts doesn't seem to be supported by the validator. Why god, why? --Nelson 05:40, 26 Mar 2004 (PST)


 * NullPainter 04:44, 17 Apr 2004 (PDT) MediaWiki seems to have great difficulty in generating compliant code, for example, closing paragraph tags are, at best, sporadic, and at worst, in the wrong places.

Wiki doesn't remember my login
When I close the browser window and come back, the Wiki forgets my name, even though I checked the box telling it to remember my name. --Nelson 11:45, 19 Mar 2004 (PST)


 * A lot of privacy tools block permanent cookies. Try restarting your browser, and before going to this site, check your cookie jar. Is the cookie in there? --EvanProdromou 13:50, 19 Mar 2004 (PST)

= Needs to be done =

More places to click, less scrolling
Add editing control buttons for the Wiki along the bottom as well as the side, and along the top too if possible. I'd like to have the full Wikipedia functionality, but we can lean towards a less complex embedded interface like http://kb.mozillazine.org.

Make Searchbox more prominent
It's vital to have the searchbox along with your login stuff in the upper right-hand corner, not lumped into the menu with everything else.


 * User:Nullpainter Vital? Why? Familiarity?


 * nick: yeah, i don't really get that either. i don't think we can start moving the nav page around on the site for specific sections.  maybe we could sequester the wiki page in its own area if you want it to look identical to wikipedia, but otherwise things are going to get inconsistent and confusing


 * This is the search bar for the Wiki. It should be at the top on all Wiki pages, because it's important for getting around the Wiki.  The Wiki doesn't have to look identical to Wikipedia, look at the Mozilla KB, but it does have to have the same functionality, I don't want to cripple our Wiki in the name of appearance.  It may be good to sequester the Wiki in its own area, but at the same time I would like most of the site to be Wikified, so I don't know about that. -- Nelson 05:47, 9 Mar 2004 (PST)

Make Wiki URLs simpler using Apache's mod_rewrite
~ their links look like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page , while ours look like http://www.freeculture.org/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Tutorials That's not very good. Of course, the Mozilla Knowledge Base is worse: http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=Mirrors&PHPSESSID=d08939b86420d9a299c85010074c9b2f It doesn't even fit on one line of an e-mail! At least we're not that bad...
 * Make the Wiki links prettier. I'm not sure how Wikipedia does it, but


 * User:Nullpainter They most likely use mod_rewrite (Apache module). No idea if this is available on the freeculture.org servers.

...


 * What I'm talking about here is the name of the URLs on the Wiki. We want the names of the URLs to be as short as possible, and they should be pretty, without special symbols in them.  ... -- Nelson 05:47, 9 Mar 2004 (PST)

...


 * NullPainter I've made the URLs a little shorter by removing the  bit.


 * The simplest URIs I've seen so far are at CommunityWiki; for example

http://CommunityWiki.org/WhatIsAffordance
 * See ? There's the name of the wiki (CommunityWiki), and the name of the page (WhatIsAffordance), and a few syntax characters (" http:// " and ".org/"). (We can't get rid of those syntax characters, can we?) --DavidCary 15:41, 10 Feb 2005 (EST)

make the wiki look prettier
Nick: I don't really understand this point. What links are we talking about? I think the wikipedia page is kind of ugly and intimidating actually, but I'm not totally clear on what parts we're trying to copy.


 * ... As for Wikipedia being ugly, you obviously haven't used Wikis much... Wikipedia is the prettiest Wiki out there.-- Nelson 05:47, 9 Mar 2004 (PST)

Nick: even if wikipedia is the prettiest wiki out there, that doesn't mean that it's pretty enough. The design of this site needs to be acceptable to both arts and culture people as well as internet and tech people. The wikipedia site is not visually attractive or inviting.


 * Point taken. I don't think that having huge empty spaces on the side will improve the Wiki, however. And it's important to not sacrifice functionality to style.  -- Nelson

NullPainter 20:29, 18 Mar 2004 (PST) Speaking as a designer, I view Wikipedia as generally very usable (apart from my coloured link rant later in this TODO), but it really is ugly as sin. I'd personally like to see Freeculture as being one of the prettiest Wikis out there :-)

The general layout should be fine. The only real improvements I can think of are: --Beoba 16:31, 11 Feb 2005 (EST)
 * Get a FC-related logo of some sort in place of the sunflower.
 * Possibly add some links to major/important/popular content to the menus in the left column.

Hack WordPress to let users put in their Jabber name (not really important)
hack WordPress so that users can put their Jabber name in their profile as well (NOT ACTUALLY IMPORTANT). You can see my attempt that didn't work at /home/freecult/www/blog/wp-admin/profile2.php

Get Wordpress to include the full text of blog posts into the RSS feed
So many people read through aggregators now that it is becoming standard to do it this way ... much more likely that people will actually pay attention to our content.

Hack Wordpress to provide a live preview for comments (not vital)
This uses Javascript to provide a real-time preview for comments on the blog: http://chrisjdavis.org/index/2004/03/15/live-preview-for-comments/463/

Sell mad frisbees
The Downhill Battle folks designed and ordered a frisbee with a Creative Commons logo to use as a fundraiser for freeculture.org and an awesome outreach tool to college students (who like throwing frisbees, we hear). Anyway, for more info about the plan to sell the frisbee, check out Frisbee Plan and for a draft of the frisbee-order page go here Frisbee Order.

= Needs to be looked at =

Get a Jabber account
Jabber with Gaim Go get Jabbering!
 * The Jabber tutorial is now on the FreeCulture wiki

There's a conference on conference.jabber.org called "freeculture". So check it out! --EvanProdromou 13:36, 8 Apr 2004 (PDT)

Join the Freeculture IRC channel
NickServ, so that I can make you a permanent chanop. I'm working on a tutorial for that if you don't know how, it is at: IRC with Gaim
 * Join the #freeculture channel on freenode.net, register your nick with FreeNode's

Create a userpage by clicking on your username
You kind of misunderstood how userpages work in the Mediawiki software, you have an official userpage that is the same as your login name. To see it, look at the recent changes. User "Nullpainter" is you I'm guessing, click on your name to create your userpage.


 * User:Nullpainter No, I am well aware of the official user pages. The front page was just a very quick sanity test to make sure that things were working.


 * OK, you can also automatically sign your articles with a nice nickname (instead of "User:Nullpainter") and a date stamp by typing ~ wherever you want your name and the time you posted to appear. Date stamps are very useful, especially for things like to do lists.  If you don't want a date stamp, just use three tildes . Normally you should not sign articles, however; you should only sign comments posted in the "Talk" pages attached to each article.  This To do list is different, it's a special page.  I'm actually thinking of moving it to the "Free Culture" namespace, so that it will be "Free Culture: To do list"... this indicates that it is a "meta" page, a page about the Wiki itself.  However, it's also a to do list for the rest of the website, so I'm not certain.  Sorry, points like this might seem unimportant, but it's necessary to organize info in a logical fashion. --Nelson

Fix Campus Groups URL On 'Get Involved' Page
Not sure if this has been made known before, but the "Get Involved" and "Chapters" pages link to two different Campus groups pages. 'Chapters' links to (what I assume is) the correct page ( http://freeculture.org/wiki/index.php/Campus_groups ), while 'Get Involved' links to a just-about-completely-broken wiki page (http://wiki.freeculture.org/?title=Campus_Groups ). Both display the same info, but the addresses and presentation differ signicantly. Can be quite confusing for a new visitor.

=Done= Move things down here as they are completed!

When you're sure they're really permanently done, move them to done to-dos.

Change Namespace
Change the special namespace on our wiki from "FreeCulture.org:" to "Free Culture:" For instance, we have a page called "FreeCulture.org:Help" which is silly because we are not Wikipedia.


 * User:Nullpainter Done.

Actually, I'm starting to think that the "Free Culture" namespace on the wiki should really be "FreeCulture.org" or something. Free Culture is too vague and generic, especially with Lessig's book floating around. We can't even say "Free Culture wiki" because that might mean the wikified version of the book. Well, we can say it, Lessig actually said that this should be an experiment in showing that the concept of restricting speech because of fear of brand name confusion is silly. It's clear that our organization is in a different "namespace" than Lessig's book, although not drastically different. But it is good to avoid needless confusion where possible. -- Nelson 21:51, 12 Apr 2004 (PDT)


 * NullPainter 04:44, 17 Apr 2004 (PDT) Changed namespace to Freeculture.org

Wordpress comments and permalinks are not showing
You can see them in the admin interface, but they do not show up for normal users. There is a thread on the Wordpress support forums that mentions this problem, but does not reveal a solution. The blog in question, http://www.fuzzypinkslippers.com, seems to have resolved its problems, but there is no information on how she fixed it. -- Nelson

Update: It seems that she switched to using popup comments? Here's what she told me: Now, as for the comments, I actually didn't fix the problem. I still don't even know what was causing it. I just decided to try and see if the comments were posting on the popup screen, since they weren't on the index screen. They were working fine on the popup screen, so I decided to just switch over to using the popup comments instead.


 * NullPainter 02:08, 16 Mar 2004 (PST) This should be fixed now. The comments and permalinks were not showing because they were intentionally commented out (!). I've forgotten the WordPress login, so somebody else will have to test this. I've added one anonymous comment to the first post, which should be in the moderators queue by now.


 * Not all of the pages show the comments yet, though. Readers shouldn't have to play hide-and-go-seek with the comments! ;-)  http://www.freeculture.org/index.php?page=Home does not show any comments, for instance.-- Nelson


 * Actually, we've determined that the posts on the front page will be summaries, so they don't need comments. So this one is completed. -- Nelson 12:06, 18 Mar 2004 (PST)

Make the Wiki pages have little or no borders on the sides
You really need the whole width of the screen for Wiki articles. Just look at http://wikipedia.org (Wikipedia) or http://kb.mozillazine.org (the Mozilla Knowledge Base)


 * User:Nullpainter Done, although I should point out that the current CSS and design was only intended to be an interim mockup, not to be used in the final design. You may need to shift-reload on the blog to retrieve the non-cached page.


 * Nick: Why do we need the full width for wiki articles? On wikipedia, the have a wide margin on the left that starts as nav, but continues all the way down.  Also, I just can't really think of a reason why wiki articles are so special that they need the full width. Plus, as a general rule, I think that modeling things after the wiki site is going to end up looking like the wiki site, which isn't really attractive-- especially for non-internet devotees.


 * We need the full width if we are to have both a navbar and articles. Having screen space for articles (as opposed to blog entries) is important for usability, as will become obvious when we start including pictures and screenshots in the articles.  Trust me, you'll thank me for pushing this one. -- Nelson 05:47, 9 Mar 2004 (PST)

Make sure internal and external links look different
Can you change the link colors on the Wiki to normal for the moment?

Right now external links and Wiki links are both the same grey, and they don't jump out at you at all. We can decide what colors we want different links to be later, but right now it's reducing usability. Wiki links should be normal blue, external links should be light blue, non-existent pages should be red. Look at Wikipedia.


 * Nick: we can deal with this in the CSS, i think. But i'm not sure that we want the links to be normal blue anyway, we should talk about this first.


 * The point is not that the links have to be normal blue, it's that external links and internal Wiki links should be different colors, and I personally think that internal links should jump out at you more, but that's just personal opinion. -- Nelson 05:47, 9 Mar 2004 (PST)
 * Did a temporary fix, we can change the link colors to something that fits the theme better later, I just want the links to be different colors, and the traditional colors that people expect are great for usability. -- Nelson 21:07, 11 Mar 2004 (PST)

NullPainter 19:02, 18 Mar 2004 (PST) I disagree that changing the link colours increases usability; to the contrary, I believe it actually decreases usability. What does a blue link mean? What does a light blue link mean? How are they different? The user shouldn't be forced to click to find out. On a related note, I strongly disagree with Wikipedia's decision to use red links for non-existant articles, as this is the standard colour for visited links. Avoid surprising users.

If we do want a distinguisher for external links, I'd advocate using a little image instead, as per http://www.stopdesign.com/ (look under the Recent Links section on the RHS).


 * Visited links are purple by default in browsers that I am familiar with (IE, Mozilla). What on earth are you using?


 * Also, it only takes a little while to figure out what the different color links mean, and using little images makes it less readable and more annoying. We can make non-existent articles have a "?" link appear next to them instead, but I prefer the red link text because it's a more enticing clicking target, and the ?'s break up the text (as do the images).  The goal is to have something that looks more or less like a normal webpage.  Putting little images in the text makes the page uglier, IMHO.  Your argument that the user shouldn't be forced to click on a link to find out how it is different applies to the images too.  "WTF are all these little arrows or globes or whatever?"  The thing is, once they click on it, if we keep our colors the same as Wikipedia, they're trained, they'll recognize the link color scheme on any other default-colored Mediawiki install (and there are more of those every day), or they might even already be familiar with Wikipedia and say, "oh, hey, I know how this works!  Cool!"  The total newbies won't understand a Wiki right off the bat anyway, it's foolish to think that anything we will do will make them automatically understand, and it's not good to simply hide the increased functionality so that they THINK they understand everything.


 * And it DEFINITELY increases usability to have the different types of links be different colors, don't even suggest making them all the same color. I don't care as much what colors we use, as long as they are different colors.  Destroying information is a bad thing, it's important to have the different types of links be distinct. It is good to adhere to the standard Wikipedia coloring scheme though, otherwise people have to keep educating themselves on every new Mediawiki install as to what the different colors mean. --Nelson 20:21, 18 Mar 2004 (PST)

NullPainter 20:39, 18 Mar 2004 (PST) Okay, so visited links are purple. Close enough (I think they're red in lynx, actually). That's not the point though - the point is that the default colour behaviour of links indicates link states. Visited, active, inactive. Changing this behaviour is inexcusable IMHO. Within one page, users are used to different coloured links indicating whether or not they've visited a page. The colours may well be different dependent on the colour scheme (I'm definitely not in the "you must have blue unvisited links and purple visited links" camp), but the principal is the same.

As an aside (and admittedly not particularly relevent) - red is a fairly universal warning / danger colour.

If adding little 'external link' images makes the page uglier in your opinion, then so be it. I'd prefer an 'ugly' page to one which causes user confusion.

Users shouldn't need to learn how to use a website. This is an important point. Users have learnt through the common behaviour of all the sites they've visited in their past. Users expect a menu somewhere, and hope it makes sense. Users expect body text. Users expect that clicking on a menu takes them to that page. Users expect that different coloured links indicate link states.

Don't surprise the user. Don't employ 'fancy' rollover techiques that hide menu contents until you hover your mouse over them. Don't pop up windows arbitrarily. Don't make your windows take 100% of their screen. Don't disable the close button. Don't disable the scrollbars and replace them with your WidgetOMatic alternative navigation system. And don't mess with link colour behaviours.


 * But users are going to have to learn to use the website anyway, it's a Wiki, not a normal website. You can't expect the normal usage paradigms to map perfectly to a website with more functionality than a normal webpage.  And Wikipedia comes closest to resembling a normal website, out of all the Wikis out there, IMHO. --Nelson


 * NullPainter 21:29, 18 Mar 2004 (PST) The only thing that differentiates a wiki from a 'normal' website is the guts behind the scenes. For all intents and purposes to Joe user, there's nothing different. I don't really care what wonderfully magic and world-shattering stuff it does - if it's an application which makes use of html to present its content it should therefore abide by standard html conventions.


 * What's even worse is when wikis such as Wikipedia make use of 99% of the standard html conventions then modify just one or two. I wouldn't care so much if the whole jolly thing was in Flash, coded with the SuperWhammy 2000 widget set and using a joystick control. (I'd have different gripes, of course...)

Image Upload broken
Hm, Apache doesn't seem to want to let me see the pictures we've uploaded, even though the files and directories are set to be world-readable. Why? --Nelson 11:26, 19 Mar 2004 (PST)
 * Fixed by Matt. --Nelson 13:17, 21 Mar 2004 (PST)

Provide full set of Wiki controls
to "Nullpainter". Unfortunately, this is one of the usual Wiki control buttons that is missing. I'd actually like to have all of the controls that you have on Wikipedia if possible, look at all the stuff in the left-hand menu in Wikipedia, it's very powerful.
 * The proper way to move pages is to "Move this page" "Matt Painter"


 * User:Nullpainter Done, although they're not currently styled the same.


 * Nick says: I'm worried that the wiki controls right now make the page seem very complicated. I'd prefer to hide the controls and have them only dislplayed for users that might want to edit the page.  95% or more of users will probably never edit any of these pages.


 * You're missing the point, the reason we have a wiki is that we want as many people to participate in the site as possible. Although it may be true that most users won't edit pages, it's also true that most people sit around all day and watch TV instead of being activists.  That's not a good thing, it's something we'd like to change, we'd like people to be active participants in Free Culture, so we certainly don't want to discourage people from editing the page.  We want them to see the "edit this page" button and say, "hm, what's this?  A website that I can edit?  Awesome!" --Nelson 05:47, 9 Mar 2004 (PST)

Nick: the full set of wiki controls does not encourage people to edit, it discourages them. A nice, clear "edit this page" link is encouraging, but when it starts to seem complicated, it turns people away. Also, are we going to require logins for editing?


 * The wikipedia software is becoming popular, and it is becoming more and more likely that people will be familiar with the interface, and annoyed if they find it is crippled. We want to attract Wiki users to help us fill out this wiki, both because they are probably free culture advocates already if they like Wikis, and because they can help us edit and write stuff.  If someone is not familiar with Wikis, we should write articles that make it easy to understand, if the Wikipedia articles are not sufficient.  You seem to be assuming one-time visitors who have not seen a Wikipedia before, and who are not willing to hang around and become acquainted with the controls.  Also, I do not think that the controls are intimidating at all, and "Edit this page" is bolded, so that it stands out from the other less obvious controls. --Nelson


 * This is done, so I moved it to Done, but if it's still controversial discussion can continue here. --Nelson 13:21, 21 Mar 2004 (PST)

How do we give admin powers?
Give me admin powers on the Wiki so that I can delete your vanity page "Matt Painter" And change other important stuff, such as stuff on this list that you don't immediately get around to.


 * User:Nullpainter Done. And removed test pages. Granting 'bureaucrat' rights actually involves having to execute a SQL query, believe it or not.


 * Luke probably will need admin priviledges as well... can you show me how to do this? -- Nelson 21:16, 11 Mar 2004 (PST)


 * NullPainter I won't repeat the exact steps here since this page is publically viewable, but general information may be found here:


 * http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentation:Administration#Getting_administrative_rights


 * I've walked this through with Nelson.
 * Yeah, I know how to do this now, so it's done, just ask me. --Nelson

"Fill in from browser" time offset doesn't work
the "fill in from browser" button for the time offset in the user preferences for the Wiki doesn't seem to work.


 * NullPainter 15:39, 15 Apr 2004 (PDT) Fixed.

License for the Wiki
Pick a copyleft Open Content license for the wiki and other works


 * I believe that a Creative Commons BY-SA license or SA license is ideal. The GFDL, which Wikipedia uses, seems like overkill, it's really complicated, and I don't really understand that license. I THINK it requires that the work must be distributed in an easily edited form, i.e. not a PDF, but I'm not sure.  What do you guys think?  --Nelson 12:48, 24 Mar 2004 (PST)


 * OK, executive decision here, I'm declaring that our license will be BY-SA for the time being, feel free to argue. --Nelson 14:15, 1 Apr 2004 (PST)

Update the Wikipedia software
We are running an old release of Mediawiki, we need the new functionality. The number one thing that I want which is in the latest release is the new extended image syntax. This will make including images in the Wiki easier. There is alot of other cool stuff we're missing as well. I suppose we should resolve the issues with integrating the Wiki into the site before we do this, however. --Nelson 14:19, 1 Apr 2004 (PST)


 * NullPainter 04:44, 17 Apr 2004 (PDT) After much bloodshed and gnashing of teeth, I've upgraded Mediawiki. Issues with not having root permissions made update script rather painful, but I got it working in the end.

Separate Wiki navigation and General navigation
The Wiki's navigation must be in a separate place from general site navigation. Mozillazine's implementation, where the general site navigation is in a separate box further down the page, is a decent way to do it, because you want the Wiki navigation to jump out at you, you don't want the main site navigation distracting you.


 * nick: but the main site navigation is more important than the wiki navigation for almost every user. and the users that care more about the wiki navigation will be the ones that are better able to adapt their usage habits.


 * No, while the user is in the Wiki, the Wiki navigation is the most important. We want people to hang out in the Wiki, educate themselves and update pages, not leave right away, and if it's hard to get around the wiki because you have to scroll down to get at the navigation, that's not good.  Ideally both the Wiki nav and the main site nav would both be accessible from the top of the page.  I would like to see the main site nav across the top, and the Wiki nav and the nav for other sub-sections of the site down the side. -- Nelson 05:47, 9 Mar 2004 (PST)


 * OK, we now have site nav across the top and the Wiki controls on the right. I'm actually thinking that we should put the Wiki controls on the left so that they don't vanish when you post a large image or something, but that's a job for another day, long after launch, when we redesign the site yet again. --Nelson 05:58, 17 Apr 2004 (PDT)

=Postponed=

Future Mediawiki updates
We'll definitely have to update the Mediawiki software when Wikipedia gets RSS feeds: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDF_spool

Set up logo contest
Possibly along the lines of the Wikipedia logo contest? Except they had a much larger userbase when they did that... --Nelson


 * The SCDC came to the conclusion at our Tuesday meeting that we need a logo now, to put on flyers and stickers and stuff. So we're not going to kick off the site with a Logo contest, maybe we'll try to revamp the logo in a few months when we have a large reader/user base.  Or maybe not, if we grow attached to the logo that we just came up with.  --Nelson 11:09, 24 Mar 2004 (PST)