[MG] Home page redesign competition

[Ed Pastore]

Some hopefully constructive criticism...

On Feb 8, 2011, at 10:43 PM, Michael Allan wrote:

> I hope to propose a more serious amendment soon.  For now, I have only
> minor fixups:
>
>  http://u.zelea.com:8080/v/w/D?b=4026&a=4025&aR=2687&bR=2691
>
>  (styles have changed, please hit refresh)
>
> Note that we now have "diff me" links in the UI (Ed log out to see).

In the interests of approachability, instead of "diff me" with  
explanatory text in the <a title>, would you consider having the  
entire text of the title be the link... perhaps with an "expert mode"  
that collapses that long text into just "diff me."

> I'm working to clear a path of entry for new users, maybe something
> like this:
>
>  1. Potential user is attracted by drafting chatter in the list and
>     follows one of the embedded diff links (like above).

Is this a good point of entry? It just shows the diff fragments  
without surrounding context. Shouldn't users be encouraged to start on  
someone's full draft? And/or would it be hard to do a full side-by- 
side, even if most of the content is duplicated?

>     He sees the diff, then he either:
>
>       a) Follows a "diff me" link against one of two drafts (say
>          Ed's), or similarly:
>
>       b) Follows a link to Ed's draft where he sees another "diff me"
>          link, and he follows that one.
>
>  2. He is presented with a login screen and logs in.
>
>  3. He sees a massive diff, which is Ed's entire text.
>
>  4. He presses the patch button, which in this case is labeled
>     "Create a voter draft".  He is warned that he is about to:
>
>       a) Create a draft in the Metagov wiki, a clone of Ed's text.

More explanatory text such as this should be in the original link.  
"Create a voter draft" is not easily understood. How about something  
really simplistic like: "Want to make changes to this proposal? Create  
a new draft based on this one." With the second sentence linked.

>       b) Cast a vote for Ed.

This is where Votorola confuses me. It seems very odd that this user  
should vote for me at the same time he is proposing something  
different. Can you help clarify that? And if so, then that  
clarification text should show up on the page here somewhere as well.

>  5. He presses OK.
>
>     This takes him to the new draft page.
>
>  6. He edits the text and saves it.
>
>  7. He presses the "diff me" link at the top of his draft.
>
>  8. It presents him w/ a diff vs. Ed's, which amounts to the whole of
>     his proposed amendment.  (The bridge will be smart enough to
>     realize that he wants a diff against his candidate and not
>     against himself.)
>
>  9. He copies the diff URL from his address bar, pastes it into the
>     original thread and says, "Hey what do you think of this
>     amendment?"

Steps 7-9 seem very unintuitive, since "diff me" serves the opposite  
purpose earlier (explanatory text aside, it's still confusing).  
Couldn't these three steps be automated? After saving in step 6, it  
could then run the diff against my original and present the user with  
a convenient link to that diff, with the text: "Here is the link to  
the differences between your draft and the one you based it on." or  
other such plain language.

>     We tell him what we think of it.  Maybe some of us click its
>     "diff me", and patch it into our drafts.  Maybe Ed does, too.
>
> What do you think?  4b seems kind of presumptious doesn't it?  You'd
> think that voting wouldn't be needed till the process scaled a little,
> say to 10 or 20 participants.  But the user can't do 7/8 without some
> kind of shiftable pointer to another draft.  It's a need that voting
> easily fulfills.

If I can make sense of the voting for me in the first place, then no,  
I don't think it is presumptuous. Voting is an acknowledgement of  
assent, and unless all participants are in the same physical room at  
the same time, it is very handy to have votes recorded even for tiny  
groups. It may sound easier to just acknowledge them informally, but a  
few weeks later, when you go back to the issue, you may have forgotten  
how people responded in an e-mail you barely skimmed the first time  
around. A recorded vote makes it immediately evident.




Originally posted to the mailing list of the Metagovernment Project:
http://metagovernment.org/mailman/listinfo/start_metagovernment.org