(While there was some discussion in the general suggestions from alpha testers post, it has gotten buried in the middle and becomes difficult to follow if new stuff is added, so I'm moving the discussion here)
A couple of other suggestions: Add a check box to "hide guides in draft state" to the guides page that is checked by default (or other gui element of your choice). This will keep partially started guides from cluttering the section.
I think that the guide sections will definately need the labels/categories discussed before as it scales. If you get even 100 active members it will pretty quickly be hard to find stuff.
Can guides be made hierarchical? I'm thinking where I have a guide which is fix broken stuff which is very general, but more specific guides would fit under it (Such as fix broken electronics, mend your clothes, fix broken furniture etc). This would help with the organization and let more specific solutions to general problems live together.
It might also be possible to have a separate "guide group" element that contains many different guides that are related. If done this way a single guide could belong to more than one group. I think this might help show the connections between the various guides better.
I also think that users should be strongly encouraged to only submit guides that they are working on fixes for or have made a fix for. This will encourage more of a "I'm fixing this and so can you" atmosphere than a "someone else should fix this" one. I think this is more of the purpose of the site (get off your butt and fix stuff, don't sit in your armchair and imagine what other people should be doing).
I like your idea of being able to hide draft guides. As far as allowing people to post guides they haven't completed yet, you're right about the goal of the site being to get people to do things, and so the intention is to have people submit guides for things they've done, which is why guides are so hard to find currently. I think there is something to be said for people coming up with ideas that they aren't capable of doing and having this website could find the person who is capable of it, but that's secondary to actually doing things yourself. Something to consider as far as how to implement these different goals.
With regards to your question about hierarchy, this should be doable currently (I think) by making guides children of other guides (I think it's the Make Similar Guide button, but I'm not 100% sure). I know its something we're planning. Reply to comment
Maybe it might make sense to have a separate set of guide suggestions. But I think it the separation will be key.
As to the hierarchy, I see the guides based off this guide section. But I cannot make a guide based off my own guide. (The make a similar guide button is not available) Reply to comment
Ok, I can make a "hierarchical" guide based on someone one I did not make.
I don't think that make similar guide necessarily implies hierarchy, and people may use that link because they think it prefills default values.
It would also be nice to change what something is based off of. In case you create a guide that is really based off of another. Or you decide your guide really shouldn't be based off of another guide. (Maybe a remove based on option and a make this guide based on option) Or maybe use a drop down menu similar to what is used to make a fix based off of a guide (with default to new guide). Reply to comment
Another suggestion on guides. It would be nice to be able to mark a change as minor so it doesn't trigger feeds. That way if you fix a typo it doesn't clutter the feeds. Reply to comment
I wonder if it would make sense to have the subcategories that are on the big picture six link pages (so for using energy: Passive Design, Low Cost Solutions, Smarter Stuff, Materials) be selectable once you select which of the links it fits with. So if you select making energy, it would give you choices from that section. Then when you look at fixes on the from one of the sub pages under big picture it would narrow down the fixes that it showed you. But if you clicked fixes while just under the overview it would show all the fixes/guides for that link.
This should be optional (might be general enough to cover the whole category), but should also have an option doesn't fit subcategories or something like that.
Examples: Reusing grocery bags would be under using energy: materials Going veggie would be under basic needs: eat less meat etc.
This may also help shape what subcategories are missing/ could use updating. (If no fixes are in one category, it shows a need of focus their to either revise the category or focus more energy on that part of our lives. If a bunch of fixes don't fit into any subcategory, it probably means that a new subcategory needs to be made or one of the categories widened). Reply to comment
Hierarchy - to me, this is where good tags come in. (Note, that we'd need searching by tags, which is also coming)
Certainly we can implement categories and hierarchy, but I'm not sure it makes more sense than tags. For instance, all of the above you listed would show up with a 'fix' tag, along with fixing a stove, radio, etc from other users.
Guide group is a cool idea that we hadn't thought of. We could use tags to self-organize these, but I'm not sure how a summary would work.
Your last thoughts - completely and totally agree. One thing that's been interesting for Jeff and I to see is how people are using the site. The number of people that have written "hey, someone should do this" guides without actually doing anything themselves is suprising, and tells us that we're doing something wrong.
We have some revisions to the start guide and start fix pages that we hope will help that issue. Reply to comment
Yeah, I don't see similar guides working as a hierarchy - it's mostly to give credit back to the original writer.
That way, if you write a great guide on doing something, and someone comes along and copies it, makes one page, and gets a million people to do it, your guide still shows up as having a million people's impacts (if that makes sense)
We don't (currently) allow based-on to change, because of the credit problem. Forcing a the parent guide to be shown discourages blatant copying, and encourages minor changes to be submitted back to the guide author (via the comments that also, are coming soon :) ) Reply to comment
I've thought about this too, and it's mostly a matter of getting the interface simple and easy to use.
This may be something that we add once I start putting and ajax-y goodness across the site. If you don't mind, please file a bug report and mark it as an enhancement. Reply to comment
Part of the problem may be the way the site was seeded. When I first logged on, most of the guides were the shell guides by Jeff (to show what could be done). I think seeing these may cause people to assume this is what they should be doing. Now that there are more actual guides on the site you might want to consider removing some of those. I think the incomplete guides probably cause more harm than good. (Implementing the draft flags may also be a fix to this). First, it gives the example as acceptable to submit a large number of shells is what you should do (after all that's what the admins are doing). Second, it makes people less likely to write a guide in these areas.
It might also be useful to have a section of featured guides (these could be marked by admins) as examples of what the guides should be. If it is obvious "this is what a guide should be", people will by and large follow that to fit in with the site. Reply to comment
Agree, and think the draft flag will fix this issue (and all of jeff's empty guides will be flagged as drafts). Featured flag is a good idea too, especially in cases where it allows us to focus attention into areas that are being neglected. Reply to comment
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A couple of other suggestions:
Add a check box to "hide guides in draft state" to the guides page that is checked by default (or other gui element of your choice). This will keep partially started guides from cluttering the section.
I think that the guide sections will definately need the labels/categories discussed before as it scales. If you get even 100 active members it will pretty quickly be hard to find stuff.
Can guides be made hierarchical? I'm thinking where I have a guide which is fix broken stuff which is very general, but more specific guides would fit under it (Such as fix broken electronics, mend your clothes, fix broken furniture etc). This would help with the organization and let more specific solutions to general problems live together.
It might also be possible to have a separate "guide group" element that contains many different guides that are related. If done this way a single guide could belong to more than one group. I think this might help show the connections between the various guides better.
I also think that users should be strongly encouraged to only submit guides that they are working on fixes for or have made a fix for. This will encourage more of a "I'm fixing this and so can you" atmosphere than a "someone else should fix this" one. I think this is more of the purpose of the site (get off your butt and fix stuff, don't sit in your armchair and imagine what other people should be doing).
Reply to comment
With regards to your question about hierarchy, this should be doable currently (I think) by making guides children of other guides (I think it's the Make Similar Guide button, but I'm not 100% sure). I know its something we're planning. Reply to comment
As to the hierarchy, I see the guides based off this guide section. But I cannot make a guide based off my own guide. (The make a similar guide button is not available) Reply to comment
I don't think that make similar guide necessarily implies hierarchy, and people may use that link because they think it prefills default values.
It would also be nice to change what something is based off of. In case you create a guide that is really based off of another. Or you decide your guide really shouldn't be based off of another guide. (Maybe a remove based on option and a make this guide based on option) Or maybe use a drop down menu similar to what is used to make a fix based off of a guide (with default to new guide). Reply to comment
This should be optional (might be general enough to cover the whole category), but should also have an option doesn't fit subcategories or something like that.
Examples:
Reusing grocery bags would be under using energy: materials
Going veggie would be under basic needs: eat less meat
etc.
This may also help shape what subcategories are missing/ could use updating. (If no fixes are in one category, it shows a need of focus their to either revise the category or focus more energy on that part of our lives. If a bunch of fixes don't fit into any subcategory, it probably means that a new subcategory needs to be made or one of the categories widened). Reply to comment
Certainly we can implement categories and hierarchy, but I'm not sure it makes more sense than tags. For instance, all of the above you listed would show up with a 'fix' tag, along with fixing a stove, radio, etc from other users.
Guide group is a cool idea that we hadn't thought of. We could use tags to self-organize these, but I'm not sure how a summary would work.
Your last thoughts - completely and totally agree. One thing that's been interesting for Jeff and I to see is how people are using the site. The number of people that have written "hey, someone should do this" guides without actually doing anything themselves is suprising, and tells us that we're doing something wrong.
We have some revisions to the start guide and start fix pages that we hope will help that issue. Reply to comment
Exist for site users yet, no.
(The back end is coded, but not the front-end yet) Reply to comment
That way, if you write a great guide on doing something, and someone comes along and copies it, makes one page, and gets a million people to do it, your guide still shows up as having a million people's impacts (if that makes sense)
We don't (currently) allow based-on to change, because of the credit problem. Forcing a the parent guide to be shown discourages blatant copying, and encourages minor changes to be submitted back to the guide author (via the comments that also, are coming soon :) ) Reply to comment
This may be something that we add once I start putting and ajax-y goodness across the site. If you don't mind, please file a bug report and mark it as an enhancement. Reply to comment
It might also be useful to have a section of featured guides (these could be marked by admins) as examples of what the guides should be. If it is obvious "this is what a guide should be", people will by and large follow that to fit in with the site. Reply to comment
If you don't have an account, you'll need one. We recognize that this is a pain, but we do it to keep spambots from flooding the site. If this really bothers, you, please let us know. We're listening!