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In lugnet.general, Paul Hartzog wrote:
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I have been architecting/building a website for the lego community for over a
year now based on principles of bottom-up organization. We, the community
would run the site, a site FOR us BY us.
At BrickFest of 2002 I even spoke with TLC about the scope of such a massive
and diverse project. One goal of the site would be to promote
iteroperability and interactivity among all lego fan sites. (This is the same
concept as the .space Moonbase standards created by the .spacers at the 2002
Brickfest)
Why do it this way? Because no one maintains a Lego train site like Lego
Train enthusiasts, and no one gets into a .space site like .space
enthusiasts. In the quest for a generally useful site (like lugnet) the
burdens falling on the “managers” can be overwhelming and they don’t have the
level of interest required to produce really exciting content. This is one
of the reasons that specialized sites like FBTB or BZPower can become so
interesting. As a community we don’t need ONE central site that does
everything, we just need to create interoperability to facilitate all our
sites working together to enhance our online experience.
I would love for us to start a thread here on lugnet to discuss how we could
all work together to implement a community-run effort and a web-site
organized around that effort. Articles, Calendars, Newbie info, shared
databases, etc. can all go into the mix.
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It seems to me that if areas of the website could be editted/updated by
individuals who don’t necessarily have permissions to the overall format, the
website would have a lot more of a community feel, and the burden on any one
particular individual would be minimal. (Similar to curators on LUGNET.) This
would help a lot in helping the website gain support from all corners of the
community.
On the topic of Calanders, I have an idea that I think would be really useful.
Imagine a place where every club could announce their events in a central
location. And they hand out the url to people who attend their events and visit
their website. So a person goes to this website, gets a login (perhaps) and
tells the system that they would like to recieve (in their email) announcements
of LEGO events within 100miles (or whatever distance) of whatever zip code they
choose to give. That way a person is signed up for only one list but gets
notices of NILTC, Michiana-LUG, & MichLUG (1) events, assuming those events are
close to them.
As someone else mentioned, this would also be a good place to take over the
“everything Lego” links database. Again with the “curators” note, I think
having the option for multiple people to maintain that area would be useful.
(Also would it be possible to code something up that would automatically check
(maybe once a week, or once a month) to make sure all those links are live?
Then, if they aren’t, move those links into a non-public area that the admins
could go an find the new and updated link before moving back to the public area.
Or maybe I am putting the cart before the horse.)
Anyways, so there are a few ideas. What other ideas can this community come up
with? Only people posting will tell. ;)
Jason Spears | BrickCentral | MichLUG
(1) Clubs listed where just examples.
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In lugnet.general, Jason Spears wrote:
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It seems to me that if areas of the website could be editted/updated by
individuals who don’t necessarily have permissions to the overall format, the
website would have a lot more of a community feel, and the burden on any one
particular individual would be minimal. (Similar to curators on LUGNET.) This
would help a lot in helping the website gain support from all corners of the
community.
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So far, the architecture supports multiple levels of access to areas of the
site, including various administrative areas for statistics, and management of
content. It is my hope that much of the back-end reporting can be made useful
to TLC, perhaps by giving them some access to various reports, etc.
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On the topic of Calanders, I have an idea that I think would be really
useful. Imagine a place where every club could announce their events in a
central location. And they hand out the url to people who attend their
events and visit their website. So a person goes to this website, gets a
login (perhaps) and tells the system that they would like to recieve (in
their email) announcements of LEGO events within 100miles (or whatever
distance) of whatever zip code they choose to give. That way a person is
signed up for only one list but gets notices of NILTC, Michiana-LUG, &
MichLUG (1) events, assuming those events are close to them.
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The calendar idea so far in development is to provide a single worldwide lego
event calendar which various administrators can add events to and send out
posts/emails about them. The main thing is that anybody can simply view the
calendar and see things going on all over the world or just in their area.
-paul
(custom sig image courtesy of CGidd)
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In lugnet.general, Jason Spears wrote:
> In lugnet.general, Paul Hartzog wrote:
> > I have been architecting/building a website for the lego community for over
> > a year now based on principles of bottom-up organization. We, the community
> > would run the site, a site FOR us BY us.
> >
> > At BrickFest of 2002 I even spoke with TLC about the scope of such a massive
> > and diverse project. One goal of the site would be to promote
> > iteroperability and interactivity among all lego fan sites. (This is the
> > same concept as the .space Moonbase standards created by the .spacers at
> > the 2002 Brickfest)
> >
> > Why do it this way? Because no one maintains a Lego train site like Lego
> > Train enthusiasts, and no one gets into a .space site like .space
> > enthusiasts. In the quest for a generally useful site (like lugnet) the
> > burdens falling on the "managers" can be overwhelming and they don't have
> > the level of interest required to produce really exciting content. This is
> > one of the reasons that specialized sites like FBTB or BZPower can become so
> > interesting. {As a community we don't need ONE central site that does
> > everything}, we just need to create interoperability to facilitate all our
> > sites working together to enhance our online experience.
> >
> > I would love for us to start a thread here on lugnet to discuss how we could
> > all work together to implement a community-run effort and a web-site
> > organized around that effort. Articles, Calendars, Newbie info, shared
> > databases, etc. can all go into the mix.
>
> It seems to me that if areas of the website could be editted/updated by
> individuals who don't necessarily have permissions to the overall format, the
> website would have a lot more of a community feel, and the burden on any one
> particular individual would be minimal. (Similar to curators on LUGNET.) This
> would help a lot in helping the website gain support from all corners of the
> community.
>
> On the topic of Calanders, I have an idea that I think would be really
> useful. Imagine a place where every club could announce their events in a
> central location. And they hand out the url to people who attend their
> events and visit their website. So a person goes to this website, gets a
> login (perhaps) and tells the system that they would like to recieve (in
> their email) announcements of LEGO events within 100miles (or whatever
> distance) of whatever zip code they choose to give. That way a person is
> signed up for only one list but gets notices of NILTC, Michiana-LUG, &
> MichLUG (1) events, assuming those events are close to them.
I have more on the whole concept coming up in a later post, but just want to
bounce off of this idea. Calendar links could be entered in a central spot -
that would be good. But, taking it a step further (and underscoring that the
central site is a foundation to build _off of_), web objects could be developed
so a club could stick their interactive events calendar on their homepage.
See our upcoming events:
- public library 1/2/03
- big choo choo show 4/5/06
- meeting at joe's church 7/8/09
and then a link...
See LEGO Events by All Clubs
...that links off to the global event calendar, so people can see events all
over the world.
Just a thought - bring a piece of the foundation site to the club sites.
Interactivity and interoperability. :-)
-Tim
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In lugnet.general, Tim Courtney wrote:
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I have more on the whole concept coming up in a later post, but just want to
bounce off of this idea. Calendar links could be entered in a central spot -
that would be good. But, taking it a step further (and underscoring that the
central site is a foundation to build off of), web objects could be
developed so a club could stick their interactive events calendar on their
homepage.
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The whole concept of web objects rests on creating some community standards for
database interactivity and website interoperability, etc.
What is the Stud?
Lego is a perfect example. The stud is an interface standard. Each brick has
a way of connecting to it, the bricks agree on the standard, in geek terms they
implement the standard.
More importantly, as time when on Lego implemented more standards like the width
of a minifig hand or rod, axles, gears, trains, etc. These things all rely on
connectivity via interface standards.
Standards are not rules that you have to follow, they are techniques to achieve
interactivity across multiple domains. If you are a pessimist you might see
standards as limiting creativity, but if you are an optimits like me you see
them as fundamentally enabling creativity, and specifically new kinds of
creativity that you can’t achieve without standards.
-paul
(custom sig image courtesy of CGidd)
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In lugnet.general, Paul Hartzog wrote:
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In lugnet.general, Tim Courtney wrote:
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I have more on the whole concept coming up in a later post, but just want to
bounce off of this idea. Calendar links could be entered in a central spot -
that would be good. But, taking it a step further (and underscoring that the
central site is a foundation to build off of), web objects could be
developed so a club could stick their interactive events calendar on their
homepage.
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The whole concept of web objects rests on creating some community standards
for database interactivity and website interoperability, etc.
What is the Stud?
Lego is a perfect example. The stud is an interface standard. Each brick
has a way of connecting to it, the bricks agree on the standard, in geek
terms they implement the standard.
More importantly, as time when on Lego implemented more standards like the
width of a minifig hand or rod, axles, gears, trains, etc. These things all
rely on connectivity via interface standards.
Standards are not rules that you have to follow, they are techniques to
achieve interactivity across multiple domains. If you are a pessimist you
might see standards as limiting creativity, but if you are an optimits like
me you see them as fundamentally enabling creativity, and specifically new
kinds of creativity that you can’t achieve without standards.
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Ok, so if I am following what you are saying correctly then; If a standard for
event announcement was formalized, then as each webmaster updated their own page
using that standard the community calander would notice and update itself
accordingly?
Even if that isn’t exaclty what you were thinking, then is that the sort of
thing you are talking about? (Which if it is, is pretty cool.)
Jason Spears | BrickCentral | MichLUG
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In lugnet.general, Jason Spears wrote:
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Ok, so if I am following what you are saying correctly then; If a standard
for event announcement was formalized, then as each webmaster updated their
own page using that standard the community calander would notice and update
itself accordingly?
Even if that isn’t exaclty what you were thinking, then is that the sort of
thing you are talking about? (Which if it is, is pretty cool.)
Jason Spears
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Actually that’s backwards. Administrators could update information through a
central web-interface and then any information they wanted displayed on their
own pages would be done using web objects that retrieve information from various
community databases.
For example,
A central site registry where you put the URL for your site into a db could be
used to allow anyone to link to your site on their own page using a web object
which would automatically update if you change your URL in the central database,
i.e. no one would actually have to know your URL, just how to link to you
using a web object.
More powerfully,
as I mentioned in the interview, we could standardize our color-names if TLC
gave us that info (which they subsequently did). I think simple implementations
like this would be a good place to start: colors, part numbers, set numbers
(again TLC determines those), etc.
-paul
(custom sig image courtesy of CGidd)
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In lugnet.general, Paul Hartzog wrote:
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Actually that’s backwards. Administrators could update information through a
central web-interface and then any information they wanted displayed on their
own pages would be done using web objects that retrieve information from
various community databases.
For example,
A central site registry where you put the URL for your site into a db could
be used to allow anyone to link to your site on their own page using a web
object which would automatically update if you change your URL in the central
database, i.e. no one would actually have to know your URL, just how to
link to you using a web object.
More powerfully,
as I mentioned in the interview, we could standardize our color-names if TLC
gave us that info (which they subsequently did). I think simple
implementations like this would be a good place to start: colors, part
numbers, set numbers (again TLC determines those), etc.
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Ok, I understand now. And I like it a lot. IMO, that would be pretty darn cool.
(And also from what stuff I know, a lot easier to implement.)
So it all sounds good. Does anyone else have other ideas for places where this
kind of thing could be useful?
Jason Spears | BrickCentral | MichLUG
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