Publicity and communicating - crossforum theatre and crossforum ranging

[Michael Allan]

Alex Rollin wrote:
> It's exciting to blur these boundaries and I want to help develop the  
> concept with you.

Definitely!

Thomas may have some reservations and maybe an alternative proposal.
We were skying about it.  But his proposal doesn't appear to involve a
lot of technical effort up front, so we might do both at once.

> Can we write a couple user stories for rangers in the new concept  
> format?

Assume 10,000 active registered users already.  A story for a new user
(U) might run like this:

  1. U visits theatre site for first time.  What he sees is growth
     happening in various poll/issue "forests".  Several large forests
     are growing steadily and showing the most overall activity, but
     U's attention is first drawn to smaller ones in which the
     activity, despite being lower, is especially prominent.

     One of these smaller poll forests (G/p/clic) looks especially
     interesting.  The issue is "climate change" and the apparent
     level of activity (2 ranger crews working) is eye catching.

  2. U drills down into this little forest, and sees that it's
     composed of five tiny seedlings that are all largely dormant
     (some maybe dying), and 2 slightly larger ones, both of which are
     humming with activity.  Each has a ranger crew working in it.

     An indicator pops to life on one of the seedlings (incoming
     message).

  3. U drills into that seedling, and sees the rough outline of its
     shape.  The crew is working on a twig near the top.

  4. U clicks on the twig and sees its detailed structure: one
     candidate (H) and 6 co-voters: 2 drafting rangers (X,Y), 2
     non-ranger drafters (M,N) and 2 non-drafting leaf voters:

       http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/gardening/crossForum3.png

     He sees a tweet-like summary of the latest messages exchanged
     amongst these people.  They're all talking about climate change
     stuff, and apparently there's a disagreement about something.

  5. U clicks on one of the messages and is taken into a mailing list
     thread (Google Group say), where he reads the latest messages in
     more detail.  Apparently ranger X and Y have some disagreement,
     and most of the other posters expressing agreement with X.  But U
     can clearly see that X is wrong, and Y is right!

  6. U joins the list and posts a message of support for Y.

  7. ?

It is now the job of X and Y to get U to vote for H, and to draft a
position of his own.  How they'd do that is still unclear.  All we
know is they'd have to keep the discussion focused on climate issues
(or people like U won't be attracted, at all.)

> It makes sense to me in the big picture and I'd like to understand
> more about how these new options for rangers are interacting with
> votorola through the pollwiki.
> 
> For examlpe, what data do rangers bring bak and enter into the
> pollwiki?

They behave outwardly like normal drafters, except they never want
anyone to vote for them (we'll probably even have to discount such
votes).  They don't interact any differently with the pollwiki, except
they acquire a large number of position drafts (most of which become
inactive) because they range across so many polls.

However, in their role of shepherding new drafters into the toolset,
they'll be especially concerned about ease of entry.  They'll be
working in one of the places where the shoe pinches hardest, so
they'll probably have developers working along with them.

(I wonder how it all might translate to voice media and face-to-face
discussions?  It's the end of my day, I can't think clearly...)

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/