Presentation proposal system

[Igal Koshevoy]

I put together a simple application for managing presentation
proposals based on Todd's sketch at: http://ignite-proposals.pragmaticraft.com/

The application has the following features:
- Creates new proposals, makes sure required fields are filled-in and
ensures the presenter accepts our terms
- Lists proposals, with the newest at the top
- Shows individual proposals with full details
- Edits and deletes proposals
- Feed of proposals via ATOM

Things that need to be done:
- Create an administration system so that only privileged users can
edit/delete proposals and view email addresses.
- Resize the proposal form's input fields for the speaker bio and
presentation description to sensible sizes.
- Adapt the look-and-feel of the application to match the main
WordPress site so that this looks like just another part of it. I'm
currently recycling the style from the on-site attendee registration
application.

Things we could do if we want:
- Create a list that shows all proposals and their details on a single
page to save people from having to click on each proposal
- Create a vetting system so that admins can approve proposals before
they're displayed on the publicly-visible pages or feed. However, even
without this, admins can just subscribe to the feed and delete bad
proposals.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

-igal

[Josh Bancroft]

Looks great, Igal!

[Todd Kenefsky]

Igal,

I think it looks great and your list of to-do's and could-do's are
right on target.

[Aaron B. Hockley]

At the risk of sounding like an AOLer - "Me too!"

Looks great. The idea of having some sort of quick vetting before the
form submissions get published on the site might not be a bad idea.

Aaron
http://www.aaronhockley.com

[Josh Bancroft]

The ability to "vet" ideas before they get posted to the site is exactly what we're going for.

The basic idea is that people can submit their proposals, which don't get displayed.

We then go over them, and accept/reject them, and only show the ones that have been screened.

503-334-1889

[Goddess of Good Ideas]

Do we have a policy if two (or more) people propose the same idea? Date stamp? Group them?

 

AM

---

From: ignitep...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ignitep...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Josh Bancroft
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 12:52 PM
To: ignitep...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [IgnitePortland] Re: Presentation proposal system

[Josh Bancroft]

Hmm. I hadn't thought about that. I think the odds of two people submitting the EXACT same presentation idea are slim, and if it happens, we can solicit a little more detail from each, to evaluate them. I say we keep them separate, rather than any kind of grouping. Each presentation should stand on its own.

--
Josh Bancroft
http://www.tinyscreenfuls.com
503-334-1889

[Igal Koshevoy]

Thanks for the feedback.

I'll build a moderation system for selectively publishing proposals and
add another feed so moderators can see new proposals that they need to
review.

I also made some minor improvements to the application:
- Preserved newlines of the description and bio on the proposal details
page and feed, e.g., this puts each bullet of a bulleted list on a
separate line rather than running them all together into a single paragraph
- Moved link for creating a new proposal to top, renamed it to 'Create
new proposal'
- Added warning message to the top announcing that this is a test system
- Added 'Subscribe to proposals feed' link
- Improved formatting of proposal details and feed
- Made notifications less hideous, e.g. the 'Proposal was successfully
created' message

-igal

[Dawn Foster]

Actually, I think the idea was to NOT vet them before they get to the site.  We're an open kind of group.  People can see all of the submissions on a submission page. Then we vet them and post the 14 winning presentations on the agenda page.

Just my 2c, but this is really Josh's call.

Dawn

On Dec 14, 2007 2:06 PM, Aaron B. Hockley <ahoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Igal Koshevoy]

Dawn Foster wrote:
> Actually, I think the idea was to NOT vet them before they get to the
> site. We're an open kind of group. People can see all of the
> submissions on a submission page. Then we vet them and post the 14
> winning presentations on the agenda page.

Methinks we're talking about two different selection processes.

I'm fairly sure we're all in agreement that the committee will choose
the winning presentation and post these somehow.

However, as I understand it, the vetting process discussed in this
thread was meant to make sure that only legitimate proposals are
displayed to the public on the site and feed. This would help eliminate
spam and inappropriate content before it becomes visible to the public.

Was this how others understood this?

-igal

[Aaron B. Hockley]

I wasn't thinking of the vetting as the approval/selection process but rather as a way of keeping inappropriate/absurd content from ending up on the public site.

-Aaron
-----Original Message-----
From: "Dawn Foster" <geekyg...@gmail.com>

Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:51:14

To:ignitep...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [IgnitePortland] Re: Presentation proposal system

Actually, I think the idea was to NOT vet them before they get to the site.  We're an open kind of group.  People can see all of the submissions on a submission page. Then we vet them and post the 14 winning presentations on the agenda page.

Just my 2c, but this is really Josh's call.

Dawn

On Dec 14, 2007 2:06 PM, Aaron B. Hockley <ahoc...@gmail.com <mailto:ahoc...@gmail.com> > wrote:

At the risk of sounding like an AOLer - "Me too!"

Looks great.  The idea of having some sort of quick vetting before the
form submissions get published on the site might not be a bad idea.

Aaron
http://www.aaronhockley.com <http://www.aaronhockley.com>

On Dec 14, 2007 12:56 PM, Todd Kenefsky <kene...@gmail.com

<mailto:kene...@gmail.com> > wrote:
>
> Igal,
>
> I think it looks great and your list of to-do's and could-do's are
> right on target.
>
>

> On Dec 14, 2007 12:52 PM, Josh Bancroft < jaban...@gmail.com <mailto:jaban...@gmail.com> > wrote:
> > Looks great, Igal!
> >
> >
> >
> > On Dec 14, 2007 11:53 AM, Igal Koshevoy <

ig...@pragmaticraft.com <mailto:ig...@pragmaticraft.com> > wrote:
> > >
> > > I put together a simple application for managing presentation
> > > proposals based on Todd's sketch at:
> >

http://ignite-proposals.pragmaticraft.com/ <http://ignite-proposals.pragmaticraft.com/>

[Josh Bancroft]

Dawn's right, let's show the submissions on the site without any screening.

Later, the organizers will select the lucky 14 presenters from among all entries.

Make sense?

-igal

http://www.tinyscreenfuls.com
503-334-1889

[Aaron B. Hockley]

It's up to you. I'm just a bit sensitive on the whole "blindly posting form submissions" thing after someone submitted a comment on my blog earlier today with the (previously-unreleased) name of a underage sex crime victim.

It isn't like that sort of thing would be likely here, but I figured having someone quickly mark things as ok might not hurt -Aaron

-----Original Message-----
From: "Josh Bancroft" <jaban...@gmail.com>

Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:15:38

To:ignitep...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [IgnitePortland] Re: Presentation proposal system

Dawn's right, let's show the submissions on the site without any screening.

Later, the organizers will select the lucky 14 presenters from among all entries.

Make sense?

[Josh Bancroft]

Yes, this will help keep truly absurd/spammy submissions off the site. It will also require a minimum level of detail, which we were lacking last time, using only a comments thread.

503-334-1889

[Igal Koshevoy]

Josh Bancroft wrote:
> Dawn's right, let's show the submissions on the site without any
> screening.

That's fine with me. The current system lets moderators sign up for the
feed and simply delete spam and other any inappropriate entries as they
come in. If we're inundated with spam, I can add a captcha to make it
harder for them to post. I can always add a moderation system later if
this isn't enough.

Thoughts?

-igal

[Josh Bancroft]

Should be fine as is. If we run into a spam problem, we'll take steps. I don't think it will be a huge issue.

-igal

http://www.tinyscreenfuls.com
503-334-1889

[Josh Bancroft]

This is a custom form/app, and is going to be new, so I think it will take a while for spam bots to find it (it's not going to smell like anything they know how to exploit). I think we'll be OK, but that's definitely not something we want to have happen, so we'll be vigilant.

503-334-1889

[Todd Kenefsky]

Ah, the ol' "Wikipedia vs. Britannica" debate. Do we keep it open and
risk abuse or lock it down? I agree with Dawn. Keep the process open
and nuke spam as needed. I'm inclined to think that spam is more
likely to come as a comment, rather than from the form as Josh pointed
out.

Aaron, what's the URL of your blog? It sounds pretty wild!

[Aaron B. Hockley]

On Dec 14, 2007 6:06 PM, Todd Kenefsky <kene...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Aaron, what's the URL of your blog? It sounds pretty wild!

Heh... don't get your hopes up too high :) This happened on
VanPortlander - the specific article that elicited the (not approved)
comment including the victim's name is at
http://www.vanportlander.com/neil-finger-guilty/

-Aaron
http://www.aaronhockley.com

[Igal Koshevoy]

Josh Bancroft wrote:

Should be fine as is. If we run into a spam problem, we'll take steps. I don't think it will be a huge issue.

Great. In that case, I believe the application is pretty much done other than restyling the app to use whatever design is chosen for the main WordPress-baesd site.

Latest changes:

1. Added authentication system, look for a new 'Login' link at the top-right corner which will let you login as 'admin'.
2. Added permissions filtering, now only admin users can see email addresses, and edit and delete proposals.
3. Added optimizations so this can handle silly amounts of traffic without missing a beat.
4. Added test suite to confirm the app works by running a bot through all the different actions.

Questions about what to do next:

1. Do we want to share a single admin login, or should we give an individual login to each person doing moderation? I currently have just one admin account that I created from the console. Giving each person their own login wouldn't be hard because I already have all the necessary back-end code ready, but making it possible to manage logins from the web would require that I create interfaces for listing, displaying, creating, editing and destroying logins. This would be fairly simple, but I'd rather only do this if there's a need.
   
2. Should the people submitting proposals be able to edit their own entries? If so, how?
   
1. A "simple" solution would allow limited editing immediately after submission. It would use the browser's cookie to remember which proposals the user created. Advantages: Easy to do and wouldn't change the proposal creation process. Disadvantages: User won't be able to edit their proposals if their cookie expires or they go to another computer, and it will be tricky to explain this unfamiliar approach to submitters.
2. A "proper" solution would require people to login to the system before being able to create or edit proposals. Advantages: Familiar approach would let users edit their proposals at any time from any computer. Disadvantages: Would require an additional step in the proposal creation process and would require the login manager portion described earlier and a "forgot my password" feature.
   
3. I'd like to release this application as open source when finished, along with an improved version of the program we used for on-site attendee registration on the laptops last time. Although these are simple apps, I think they'd help other groups get started and could be reused for other Legion of Tech events. Any objections to me releasing these under the MIT License when done?
   

-igal

[Paul Biggs]

That's awesome that you plan to share these (awesome) apps with other orgs!

Seems to me we keep it simple (hi Adam) and stick with one admin login unless something comes up. I think we're all probably pretty reasonable about what would constitute spam, and in agreement with the prior discussion, there's probably not going to be a whole lot of spam to deal with anyway -- we'll pretty much list any proposals on the site, but this would rather be used to kill things that we just plain don't want on their (unrelated submissions, error/duplicate submissions, spammy crap, etc).

I like the first (simple) version of user editing, like Digg or other sites that give you a bit of time to edit your post in case you mess it up and don't realize until after... setting up login admin system (the proper version) might take more effort, so maybe a v2 addition? Already having this is WAY ahead of the first go-round.

Paul

[Todd Kenefsky]

I think one admin account is fine as well. Dawn is pretty much in
charge of the presentations and will be the one handling this.

As for editing I just discussed this with Dawn and her thought was
editing functionality isn't necessary. If people want to make changes
they can just re-submit.

You mentioned something about logging in with a password. I'm not
familiar...is that what people did in the days before OpenID? :-)

[Igal Koshevoy]

The presentation proposal system is ready for public use. I've applied
all the must-have changes requested. It's available at
http://ignite-proposals.pragmaticraft.com/

When you're ready to announce it to the public, please be sure to delete
the test entries first.

Notable changes:
- Changed admin password and mailed new one out to Josh, Todd, Dawn and
Raven.
- Hid login link because only moderators need it, to login go to to
http://ignite-proposals.pragmaticraft.com/login
- Added links to top-right corner. These links and the graphic provide
links back to the main site
- Added blocks of text to the proposals listing (/proposals) and the new
proposal form (/proposals/new)
- Added simple CMS to manage snippets of text. You can change the text
blocks for the listing and form by logging in as admin, clicking the
"manage snippets" link in the top-left navigation, and edit the
appropriate entry. You can also enter HTML into these snippets if you
need to make links or add formatting. If we need snippets in other
places, I can add them easily.

Is there anything else that needs to be done?

-igal

[Josh Bancroft]

You rock, Igal! Thanks! :-)

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 19, 2007, at 10:35 AM, Igal Koshevoy <ig...@pragmaticraft.com>
wrote:

>

[Dawn Foster]

Just wanted to clarify that i was in charge of presentations for the last ignite :-)

I'd be happy to do it again if needed, but I would also be happy to let someone else take a turn.  Ultimately, this is Josh's decision, since he's leading the efforts on Ignite 2.

Josh, if you have another volunteer who wants to manage the presentations, I would be happy to sit down and share what I learned. If not, I can do it again for this Ignite.

Dawn

--
Visit my blog at http://fastwonderblog.com

[Josh Bancroft]

Anyone volunteer to herd presentation submissions? Its pretty simple. Just get people to fill out the form that Igal made (which will be featured prominently on the site soon).

Sent from my iPhone

[Aaron B. Hockley]

I can coordinate the submissions process and coordinate pre-show
communications with presenters. I don't have the hardware to drive
the presentations at the event.

-Aaron

--
http://www.aaronhockley.com

[Todd Kenefsky]

Aaron, the only thing that's needed at the event itself is a working
laptop computer. The Bagdad has the projectors, amps, mic etc.

[Dawn Foster]

Actually, the job of presentation master is quite a bit more complicated.  You need to
* gather all of the submissions (using Igal's form)
* work with a committee to select the best 14 presentations
* get all 14 presentations from the 14 presenters several days in advance.
* load all 14 presentations onto your laptop
* merge them into 2-4 very large slide decks
* set them up to auto advance every 15 seconds
* at the event, you will need to hang out at your computer to make sure all goes as planned.
* during the intro, breaks, & after, you will need to display a slide with all of the sponsor logos on your laptop.

Dawn

On Dec 19, 2007 2:56 PM, Josh Bancroft < jaban...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Aaron B. Hockley]

I don't currently have a reliable laptop (and may not have one in
February) so I'll have to pass...

-Aaron

[AdamD]

I'm interested, and have a laptop. Perhaps Aaron and I can tag-team
the responsibilities?

On Dec 19, 3:18 pm, "Aaron B. Hockley" <ahock...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't currently have a reliable laptop (and may not have one in
> February) so I'll have to pass...
>
> -Aaron
>

> On Dec 19, 2007 3:05 PM, Dawn Foster <geekygirld...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Actually, the job of presentation master is quite a bit more complicated.
> > You need to
> > * gather all of the submissions (using Igal's form)
> > * work with a committee to select the best 14 presentations
> > * get all 14 presentations from the 14 presenters several days in advance.
> > * load all 14 presentations onto your laptop
> > * merge them into 2-4 very large slide decks
> > * set them up to auto advance every 15 seconds
> > * at the event, you will need to hang out at your computer to make sure all
> > goes as planned.
> > * during the intro, breaks, & after, you will need to display a slide with
> > all of the sponsor logos on your laptop.
>
> > Dawn
>

> > On Dec 19, 2007 2:56 PM, Josh Bancroft < jabancr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Anyone volunteer to herd presentation submissions? Its pretty simple. Just
> > get people to fill out the form that Igal made (which will be featured
> > prominently on the site soon).
>
> > > Sent from my iPhone
>

> > > On Dec 19, 2007, at 11:46 AM, "Dawn Foster" <geekygirld...@gmail.com>

> > wrote:
>
> > > Just wanted to clarify that i was in charge of presentations for the last
> > ignite :-)
>
> > > I'd be happy to do it again if needed, but I would also be happy to let
> > someone else take a turn. Ultimately, this is Josh's decision, since he's
> > leading the efforts on Ignite 2.
>
> > > Josh, if you have another volunteer who wants to manage the presentations,
> > I would be happy to sit down and share what I learned. If not, I can do it
> > again for this Ignite.
>
> > > Dawn
>

> > > > > On Dec 15, 2007 5:19 PM, Igal Koshevoy < i...@pragmaticraft.com>

[Aaron B. Hockley]

That works for me. I have run other events that involve coordinating volunteer presenters so I'm sure we could split things up.

-Aaron
-----Original Message-----
From: AdamD <duva...@gmail.com>

Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:26:04
To:Ignite Portland <ignitep...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: [IgnitePortland] Re: Presentation proposal system

[Dawn Foster]

Adam / Aaron,

Thanks for volunteering to drive the presentation piece!  I'm happy to share what I did last time and happy to help out with any questions.

Dawn

[Aaron B. Hockley]

Sounds good. Dawn/Adam I'll drop you a note off-list.

-Aaron

--
http://www.aaronhockley.com

[Todd Kenefsky]

Adam,

Can you open .odp files from your laptop? I need to post accepted file
formats to the Igniteportland site. thx.

On Dec 19, 7:05 pm, "Aaron B. Hockley" <ahock...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sounds good. Dawn/Adam I'll drop you a note off-list.
>
> -Aaron
>

> On Dec 19, 2007 6:11 PM, Dawn Foster <d...@dawnfoster.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Adam / Aaron,
>
> > Thanks for volunteering to drive the presentation piece! I'm happy to share
> > what I did last time and happy to help out with any questions.
>
> > Dawn
>

[Igal Koshevoy]

Todd Kenefsky wrote:
> Can you open .odp files from your laptop? I need to post accepted file
> formats to the Igniteportland site. thx.
>

Or if you can't open these files, take a few minutes to install
OpenOffice. It's an excellent open source office suite that's free to
download, quick to install, and works on just about any OS. You can get
it at http://www.openoffice.org/

-igal