Brainstorming Central
From Croquet Consortium
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Category Tags
20061004, DaveFaught said:
I see someone didn't like my idea and removed all the release tags that I put in. I guess that the "Active" in "Active Projects" is all relative. I think that removing these tags makes the page more slick and user-friendly and less developer-friendly.
20061004, Julian Lombardi said
It was after a discussion with Ed Boyce that I removed the tags. This section was intended to simply convey what people have been doing with the system so far - and not as a guide to Jasmine or Hedgehog code (terms which we have avoided in this doucmentation). We are trying to avoid confusion with terms like Jasmine or Hedgehog and simply talk about capabilities of the system that are embodied (or potentially embodied) in the "Croquet 1.0" release. Removing the term active is probably a good idea....
20061022, Edboyce said:
I do believe we should institute category tags. Back at the beginning of October, Jasmine vs, SDK was the only category, and I thought we ought to think out a set of initial categories before creating a bunch as we go.
Some suggested categories:
- Distribution: Solar, Jasmine 0.1, Jasmine 0.2, Jasmine 0.3, Jasmine, Hedgehog, Dormouse, SDK Release 1.0, ... others?
- Documentation: User, Developer, Deep Background
- Resource: Software distributions, Software components, 2D graphics, 3D Object model and scene definitions, textures, code examples, ...
Please add, and then we can implement after a brief discussion
20061023, Davefaught said:
I toyed with using categories a few weeks ago. Something like this is still a good idea, but the problem I ran into is that categories affect the entire page, not page sections. When I tried to code one category in one page section and a different category in another page section, I got only one category at the bottom of the whole page. I did not try putting multiple categories in one place, which I think would be included in what you are suggesting. Not sure what the best way to deal with this is ...
20061024, Edboyce said: Pages can certainly be assigned to multiple categories; I don't know about sections. If non-existant, that capability could be had by modifying SpecialCategories.php. But perhaps it is sufficient to understand that, if a page is tagged as belonging to a certain category, then there exists content on that page germaine to that category (but not necessarily that the whole page is all about that category topic).
Croquet Releases
20061005, DaveFaught said:
I think that several of the projects listed are specific to the old Jasmine release, and I don't think anyone is working on updating them. I wouldn't want to just delete them because they are of interest, and I guess that they are still "potentially embodied" in the 1.0 release if someone decides to pick them up again.
Here are the ones that I think are not really active anymore, although I could easily be wrong:
- CITRIS Gallery Builder
- Information Space
- A Croquet Game Called Q
- Croquet-Related Doctoral Thesis
Much of the content on this wiki is left over from Jasmine. This is especially true on the FAQs and Active_Projects pages, but others as well. The items that are referenced may or may not be updated for Hedgehog at some point, although obviously this wiki needs to be kept up to date. Some of the contributions for Jasmine are very important, and I would not want to see this older wiki content just go away. Maybe delineating the version of Croquet is more a technical concern, and I certainly understand the value of a polished visual appearance.
So how should Jasmine-related wiki content be dealt with?
Here are some ideas:
- Tag each Jasmine page or item with "Jasmine" at the bottom of the page/item. Then move all the Jasmine pages/items to an archive area in the wiki.
- Tag everything with the relevant release, similar to Mantis (e.g. "All", "Jasmine", "Hedgehog"). There should be a legend or key to the releases somewhere too. Maybe a "Being upgraded for Hedgehog" kind of tag. Note: Does MediaWiki have some kind of tagging or page meta-information facility that can be used for this?
- Do one of the above only in certain sections of the wiki (e.g. not the main page or basic FAQs).
- Just reference the older wiki at GA Tech [1] for Jasmine content. This is a bad idea as that wiki could go away at any time.
- Use the "interim" wiki at UWM [2] for Jasmine content and this one for current content. Speaking of which, there is already some content on the UWM wiki that is newer than what is here. That should probably be updated here too.
- Just delete older content and rely on the wiki's page history as an archive. I don't really like this idea because I don't believe page histories are searchable.
And what should be the "standard" way of naming the releases for item/article/page tags? Jasmine and Hedgehog, 0.1 and 1.0, pre-SDK and SDK Beta?
___
- Maybe just a "Jasmine" logo button that takes the visitor to the Jasmine download.
- Then a "Current Compatible" logo button for the current images linking to the current (Hedgehog, whatever's next) download.
- And a "Custom" logo button for the independent standalone images.
---Darius 02:37, 5 October 2006 (EDT)
Initial reactions
I'd like more bullet point type structure, especially for a home page, but I'm not so convinced that I'd change it right now.
For the home page I think it should focus on the "new visitor" and "what's for them". "Vision", "What is Croquet", and "Our Focus" could all be very prominent links to the very "next page".
Every phrase in the page could really become a link to more detail only hinted at in the phrase.
Now for the imagination...
Add just enough java script so that hovering over key works changes the content of the Croquet world image scene (keeping the same waterfall world background):
- Hover over "Collaboration and innovation stand at the center"
-- then 2d photos of people, youths, business suits, academics, appear standing in a semi-circle around a 3d (something, a globe maybe?, a small animated gif of the Coriolis effect from Croquet maybe?).
- Hover over "A new age of networked computing demands a new multi-dimensional online environment"
-- then open portals appear in a semi-circle around (something, a globe? or a person?) with a light/laser beam/ray projecting out of the center of each one converging on the item in the middle.
- Hover over "collaborative work and learning"
-- and the image contains people that appear to be just walking out the three semi-circle portals instead of laser rays, with an unorganized heap of other primitive 3D object models piled on the thing in the middle (an unfinished work).
- Hover over "among large numbers of people"
-- and the laser rays and the people both appear, and inside each portal doorway the rays can be seen branching and going into other open portals (kind of illustrating a network)
- Hover over "The mission of our international consortium is to advance and promote"
-- and an academic is handing a 3D portal to a business person
- Hover over "development, application and widespread use of open-source Croquet technologies in research, industry and education."
-- and you see someone (a youth?) handing a 3D portal through the first of the 3 initial portals in the simi-circle with a researcher in a lab coat on the other side, someone (another youth?) handing a 3D portal through the middle portal to a business person, and a third person (another youth?) handing a 3D portal through the last portal to an instructor in a university classroom.
- Hover over each part of the description of the tool
-- and the primary colored block use to describe a system architecture appear in their appropriate place within the scene.
- Hover over "These resources may be discussed, edited, annotated, and manipulated by all members of the group."
-- and annotations appear over people's heads with some little dialog text and one character holding the bubble part of another person's annotation (as if moving it).
- Hover over "groups of users can work together in real-time to create, manipulate, and annotate 3D objects and dynamic simulations,"
-- and you see two people bending over a 3D portal with one inserting a Croquet spreadsheet and the inserting an atom with electrons moving around in it (animated gif again?) to represent a system.
- Hover over "This multi-dimensional interface serves as a “meta-medium” where groups of users may congregate, visible to one another thanks to the built-in video conferencing capabilities of the platform."
-- and you see a conference table in the middle of the three surrounding portals and a photo of real people sitting at a table on the other side of each of the 3 portals.
etc.
More later.
Thanks to everyone who has worked hard to create this site and who cherish the vision that this site will fulfill.
--Darius 03:38, 25 August 2006 (EDT)
Next Step for everyone to see
Make a promiment section titled "Next Step" on the home page for us as a community to help keep us focused.
--Darius 03:46, 25 August 2006 (EDT)
Who, What, Where, When, How, Why
Always keep these questions and the popular answers to these questions in the forefront:
"Who, What, Where, When, How, Why"
(especially why)
--Darius 03:49, 25 August 2006 (EDT)
Solutions
Have a "this tool is great for these (markets, solutions, industries, disciplines, fields of research, personalities, etc.)" link and associated page.
--Darius 03:52, 25 August 2006 (EDT)
Referrals
Have a little "advice box blurb" on each page on how to ask for, follow up on, and record referrals. Word of mouth is still a powerful communication medium.
--Darius 03:56, 25 August 2006 (EDT)
"Possible use" brainstorming page
where no cirticism is allowed and regular date/time brainstorming sessions can be scheduled
with a separate page for "what's the resistance and how to overcome any resistance
--Darius 09:34, 25 August 2006 (EDT)
"Brainstorm for you" page
A personal page for each visitor where they tell us what they and their industry is into and we, as a community, suggest where Croquet could help them.
plus who to contact to make your vision a reality with Croquet.
--Darius
Is a Brainstorming Central page useful?
How about a Brainstorming Central page/portal where folks can insert any ideas that occur to them, and this page can get segmented to collect categorized similar ideas together draw connections with existing or new working groups to implement those ideas that develop legs.--Edboyce 10:28, 28 August 2006 (EDT)
Croquet Lite in HTML
To let potential Consortium members test Croquet w/o installing it, I suggest we have a hosted Croquet world that presents itself as a web page to overcome the initial psychological resistance to downloading the large package with the compatibility issues associated with it.
There would be one page with one image file that’s a view port to the “new visitor” Croquet world, like a web cam into the Croquet world. The image file could be updated every 5 sec. or so. Links on the page would move the avatar; activate things in the view port. The page would have streaming sound. An Input text field could place text portals in the world from the visitor.
Navigation would be “teleport to” rather than 6 degrees of freedom and construction would be minimal. This would not be such a hindrance since navigation is often just wandering and construction tools are currently minimal anyway.
Visitors could communicate with full Croquet participants via chat mode. They would also be able to demonstrate the same thing, and their own interactions to friends with the same minimal barrier to entrance.
Content created by the new visitor could be migrated into their own locally hosted worlds when they’re ready to take the next step.
This “new visitor” Croquet world would have 3D content illustrating, animating, and describing Croquet’s “unique value proposition”.
Comment from Greg Nuyens I agree that this would be hugely valuable. It will require considerable administration, however. (btw, who's proposal was this? Let's talk.)
Why a “Market”?
- A Market is an efficient tool to determine what is of value to a community, even which parts of a toolset and 3rd party additions to a toolset.
- Like creating an online game, 3D Croquet environments take many people with many tools and skills. A market is a way for those investing in the toolset to leverage others who have the additional skills and time to flesh out the more mundane aspects of toolset user's intended goal.
- Most successful open source projects have active markets of additional content and services surrounding them.
- A market suggests to the new potential adopter that the toolset has a productive community, following, and future worth their investing their time to pursue it further.
