Submission Wizard

[Doug Kaye]

I need some help testing a new feature for SpokenWord.org: the new
Submission Wizard.

In between a lot of traveling, I've spent much of the last month
working on a Submission Wizard. The concept is that you should be able
to submit a URL for almost anything and we'll "figure it out." For
example:

* submit an audio or video media-file URL.
* submit an RSS or Atom feed
* submit an OPML file
* submit a web-page URL and we'll scrape it for RSS/Atom/OPML
* we'll also scrape web pages for title, description and keywords
* submit a YouTube page
* submit a page with an embedded Blip.tv player

Put it to the test at http://www.spokenword.org/submit

Give it some media URLs and RSS/Atom feeds. Try an OPML file. But most
of all, test out the "wizard" functionality. Find a media object
somewhere on the web. Submit the URL of the web page containing that
object. Is it something we should be able to find by scraping? If you
think there's a way to figure out what you're trying to submit, then I
think we should try to make it work. When you find something we can't
scrape, let me know the URL and why you think it should be
discoverable. Just send the URL and your thoughts directly to me.

The goal is to exceed users' expectations when it comes to submitting
content to SpokenWord.org. It should be beyond easy. It should be
remarkably simple.

Thanks again.

...doug

Doug Kaye, Executive Director
The Conversations Network
A 501(c)(3) Non-Profit
do...@rds.com
v: 415.453.1400
twitter: dougkaye
facebook.com/doug.kaye

[Paul Bearne]

Hi Doug

got some time to look at this

this looks good

I was able to add a video site http://swindonviewpoint.com/ without any problem

This is lovely simple tool

some ideas / nit picking

Could the the URL input be added to the menu bar eg click an add link in the menu and a popup with the url and submit button sits under the menu

add some code to check the clipboard to see if the have a URL and fill the imputbux if you have

some links to get you started 

http://www.iterasi.net/openviewer.aspx?sqrlitid=q4pupneymke3biizzgzqxa

http://github.com/chrispatterson/jquery-clipboard/tree/master

http://bradleysepos.com/projects/jquery/clipboard/

http://plugins.jquery.com/project/copy

On the second page 

maybe add some ticks against the checks 

Add a line to confirm that you have found enclosure / media files 

Add a line to tell us what type of media you have found and how many and dates  (could be a details drop down)

Does this spot if the feed is all ready in the DB and then other to add to you Cue etc.  Change mode

Bigger check boxes for the submit feed ans subscribe  per tick the submit feed

Drop down on the add to collection My Queue

change the add newest programme to have "least only" and make this the default, Filter this by the count of the media you have found eg only 5 in the RSS have none, least only and all(5)

On submit conformation page reshow the input box after the conformation to encourage more 

Paul Bearne
http://www.bearne.com

[Doug Kaye]

Hi, Paul. Very helpful. Some comments/questions below.

    ...doug

On Jun 23, 2009, at 2:23 AM, Paul Bearne wrote:

Could the the URL input be added to the menu bar eg click an add link in the menu and a popup with the url and submit button sits under the menu

Yes, once this is part of the public site it will be easy to get to. For now it's hidden.

add some code to check the clipboard to see if the have a URL and fill the imputbux if you have

some links to get you started 

http://www.iterasi.net/openviewer.aspx?sqrlitid=q4pupneymke3biizzgzqxa

http://github.com/chrispatterson/jquery-clipboard/tree/master

http://bradleysepos.com/projects/jquery/clipboard/

http://plugins.jquery.com/project/copy

Good idea. We're using prototype.js not jquery, but the idea is the same.

On the second page 

Well, there are many different second pages, depending on what you enter and what we find there...

maybe add some ticks against the checks 

I don't understand. Which checks?

Add a line to confirm that you have found enclosure / media files 

That should be there. Can you send me a screenshot that shows the page where you don't see this?

Add a line to tell us what type of media you have found and how many and dates  (could be a details drop down)

This is already there, too. What we're not doing in the current version is reading/parsing RSS/Atom files. That will be in the next version.

Does this spot if the feed is all ready in the DB and then other to add to you Cue etc.  Change mode

I may not understand what you're referring to, but we do distinguish between feeds that already exist and those that don't.

Bigger check boxes for the submit feed ans subscribe  per tick the submit feed

"Bigger" check boxes? We're using your browser's default checkboxes.

Drop down on the add to collection My Queue

"Drop down" for what? If you only have one collection, there's no need for a selection. If you have >1, you should already see a selection drop-down.

change the add newest programme to have "least only" and make this the default, Filter this by the count of the media you have found eg only 5 in the RSS have none, least only and all(5)

At the time we offer you this choice, we haven't yet read/parsed the RSS feeds so we can't offer you a choice based on the actual # of programs in the feed. The problem is that if someone submits a very large feed or we find multiple RSS feeds, this can take too long.

On submit conformation page reshow the input box after the conformation to encourage more 

Good idea.

[Bruce Sharpe]

Hi Doug,

Excellent initiative and an inspiring goal.

I wanted to submit a single episode of Radio Lab based on the show page URL:
http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2009/03/09/mischel%E2%80%99s-marshmallows/

The wizard was able to discover the feed but not the episode.

Bruce

[Doug Kaye]

Thanks, Bruce.

I've stopped short of scraping pages for individual media files except in some special cases such as YouTube (coming in the next version). In my random testing there are too many pages with too many media files. And while I could present a list of them, that's not much help without showing titles, etc. And while I could show titles read from ID3 tags, that's not much help for video, and so on and so on.

But I want to hear from anyone with an opinion. Is finding the RSS/Atom feed URL enough? When you're on a page like the one Bruce found, aren't you likely to want to submit the feed, or would you rather submit an individual episode?

    ...doug

[Doug Kaye]

The Submission Wizard is now live on the SpokenWord.org web site and
has replaced the old submission pages. Thanks for everyone's help in
testing and for your suggestions.

I'm sure there will be many bugs and suggestions to come, so please
let me know of any problems.

[Ken Kennedy]

> But I want to hear from anyone with an opinion. Is finding the RSS/Atom feed
> URL enough? When you're on a page like the one Bruce found, aren't you
> likely to want to submit the feed, or would you rather submit an individual
> episode?

One wrinkle with that, Doug, is that you only allow an program to be
in a single feed. So if you auto-discover the feed, it could be
fragmented, and possilbly not even include the program you actually
submitted, depending on whether it's even been submitted before. That
makes things start to get confusing for the submitter, I'd think.

This may not happen alot, I realize...but it's enough of a show
stopper for me that it's the reason I'm not actually trying to use SW
to manage my podcast listening. YMMV.

--
Ken Kennedy
Contact info: http://kenzoid.com/me/contact

[Doug Kaye]

On Jun 25, 2009, at 2:06 PM, Ken Kennedy wrote:

>
>> But I want to hear from anyone with an opinion. Is finding the RSS/
>> Atom feed
>> URL enough? When you're on a page like the one Bruce found, aren't
>> you
>> likely to want to submit the feed, or would you rather submit an
>> individual
>> episode?
>
>
> One wrinkle with that, Doug, is that you only allow an program to be
> in a single feed. So if you auto-discover the feed, it could be
> fragmented, and possilbly not even include the program you actually
> submitted, depending on whether it's even been submitted before. That
> makes things start to get confusing for the submitter, I'd think.
>
> This may not happen alot, I realize...but it's enough of a show
> stopper for me that it's the reason I'm not actually trying to use SW
> to manage my podcast listening. YMMV.

Allowing a program to belong to more than one feed is, unfortunately,
a substantial change to the database schema. The schema change is easy
enough, but I have to find all the places in the code that are
affected, and there are many. It's on the list, though. Waiting for a
few higher-priority things.

...doug

[Ken Kennedy]

Oh, I realize it's a big deal...I wasn't suggesting otherwise. My
point was that if you're one a page and you submit it, it's possible
for the episode from the page to NOT end up being added, if it's been
added as part of another feed. I haven't tried the wizard yet, so I
don't know the UI...but if that does happen, as long as it's clear
that the episode is already in SW (perhaps w/ a link to the page in
SW), that'd work. If that doesn't happen, though, I could see it being
pretty confusing.

[Paul Bearne]

Hi doug 

I am on holiday in Toronto (where we are planing to move to)

so feed back below

Paul Bearne
http://www.bearne.com

On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Doug Kaye <do...@rds.com> wrote:

Hi, Paul. Very helpful. Some comments/questions below.

    ...doug

On Jun 23, 2009, at 2:23 AM, Paul Bearne wrote:

Could the the URL input be added to the menu bar eg click an add link in the menu and a popup with the url and submit button sits under the menu

Yes, once this is part of the public site it will be easy to get to. For now it's hidden.

change the content  / action if not logedin to show that you need to log in first or hold the detail through the login/joining

 

add some code to check the clipboard to see if the have a URL and fill the imputbux if you have

some links to get you started 

http://www.iterasi.net/openviewer.aspx?sqrlitid=q4pupneymke3biizzgzqxa

http://github.com/chrispatterson/jquery-clipboard/tree/master

http://bradleysepos.com/projects/jquery/clipboard/

http://plugins.jquery.com/project/copy

Good idea. We're using prototype.js not jquery, but the idea is the same.

On the second page 

Well, there are many different second pages, depending on what you enter and what we find there...

maybe add some ticks against the checks 

I don't understand. Which checks?

We found a web page at that address.

We found RSS/Atom feed(s) in that page.

these are sort checks I am suggesting that you add some graphics (icons) to help the users (green text might help) 

Add a line to confirm that you have found enclosure / media files 

That should be there. Can you send me a screenshot that shows the page where you don't see this?

Missing in the RSS I used to test got an error when I tried to use the live wizard 

 

Add a line to tell us what type of media you have found and how many and dates  (could be a details drop down)

This is already there, too. What we're not doing in the current version is reading/parsing RSS/Atom files. That will be in the next version.

Does this spot if the feed is all ready in the DB and then other to add to you Cue etc.  Change mode

I may not understand what you're referring to, but we do distinguish between feeds that already exist and those that don't.

OK

 

Bigger check boxes for the submit feed ans subscribe  per tick the submit feed

"Bigger" check boxes? We're using your browser's default checkboxes.

the default box are hard to click overload with a button or clickable graphical image

 

Drop down on the add to collection My Queue

"Drop down" for what? If you only have one collection, there's no need for a selection. If you have >1, you should already see a selection drop-down.

OK 

change the add newest programme to have "least only" and make this the default, Filter this by the count of the media you have found eg only 5 in the RSS have none, least only and all(5)

At the time we offer you this choice, we haven't yet read/parsed the RSS feeds so we can't offer you a choice based on the actual # of programs in the feed. The problem is that if someone submits a very large feed or we find multiple RSS feeds, this can take too long.

 

On submit conformation page reshow the input box after the conformation to encourage more 

Good idea.

run out of time need to go an watch some jazz 

[Thilo Planz]

> I need some help testing a new feature for SpokenWord.org: the new
> Submission Wizard.
>

> Put it to the test at http://www.spokenword.org/submit
>

I tried to submit Stephen Fry's feed:

http://audioboo.fm/users/11/boos.atom

The wizard claims that the feed is already in the database, but I
cannot find it on Spokenword.
I suppose that this is because of the new Google-powered search, which
probably does not pick up all
content.

When a duplicate URL is submitted, can we get a link to that feed's page?
Also, there used to be a fire-hose of submitted programmes and feeds, I believe.
Is that gone?

Thilo

[Doug Kaye]

Hi, Thilo.

FYI, the feed is here: http://www.spokenword.org/feed/5521

The feed was submitted four days ago, and while I'd expect The Google
to have found it by now -- we update the sitemaps every hour -- it
apparently has not.

Adding a link to existing feeds is now in the to-do list.

Thanks.

...doug

Doug Kaye, Executive Director
The Conversations Network
A 501(c)(3) Non-Profit
do...@rds.com
v: 415.453.1400
twitter: dougkaye
facebook.com/doug.kaye