[MG] Home page redesign competition

[Thomas von der Elbe]

And here even more to the wishlist:

On Thu, 10 Feb 2011 2:01, Ed Pastore wrote:
> 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."

+1, that would be perfect.

>
>> 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?

Would the same be possible like above, i.e. have both possibilities? 
Show full text comparison or collapse to diffs only? That would be best 
I guess.

>
>>     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.

+1

>
>>       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.

Generally speaking: I think at first glance it looks counter-intuitive 
to be allowed to have an own position and at the same time vote for 
another position. But on the other hand, if I (as your voter) suggest 
improvements to your position, I already have a (maybe just slightly) 
different position than yours.

But I guess your point is about: why should I automatically vote for 
someone, from whom I happened to first copy text? And I agree, this 
should be far less automatic. Since we are so few voters atm it doesn't 
seem to make any sense, but I can imagine, if there are thousands, the 
question "Do you want to also cast a vote for Ed?" makes sense, since 
this will be the most probable case.

>
>>  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.

I dont know, if I would want an automatic diff, after I finished my 
position. But to solve the problem: How if we would have a "diff vs. 
candidate" besides every "diff me"?

Thomas



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