[Under consideration] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

Abstract:

http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...munity_events/

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

I am trying to add the following solution but Brainstorm is misbehaving again:

EDIT: solution #1 finally saved.

EDIT 2: expanded solution description based on possible misunderstanding.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

Lots of effort was expended on a midgard calendar module a few years ago; given such community events are often larger things, I'd've thought the council blog (syndicated to planet) and appropriate posts on maemo-community and tmo were sufficient?

How do you know there's not going to be sufficient participation tomorrow? ;-)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

I don't, and that's not the sole premise of the proposal.

Primarily this came about because most of the professional events I attend provide a link that will send an iCalendar object to your cell phone or email client. I can set alerts for that item based on need. I just think it would be nice to have that capability for maemo.org events. Why not?

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

No, but my point was that you're trying to find a solution to a problem which might not be a problem; for something (a community focal point in time) which has - to date - been rare.

So, there are two solutions:

1. Someone creates an iCal file and puts it somewhere for people already interested to add it to their calendars.
2. The "Maemo community calendar" gets dusted off and used http://maemo.org/community/calendar/ to try and provide a single point for Maemo-related points in space-time.

The problems with both (1) and (2) are that it's still only visible to people looking there. So it wouldn't necessarily "increase member awareness of and participation in community events" unless the calendar (or a subset of upcoming events) were prominently displayed in a location which large number of people go to. Maybe the sidebar in a few places?

However, it'd be up to the sprint process to decide if more investment in a little used midgard module was worth the focus and time spent by the Nemein guys + the development costs on the other places on *.maemo.org where it should be integrated.

There'd then have to be a push to populate it with the right kind of events and keep it updated.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

Jaffa I understand your points, but some things you may not be considering...

- I have so far only listed one solution for the idea. I may come up with more, or others are always free to do so

- just as absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, lack of use of a feature does not necessarily mean it isn't useful. Of course there are likely several layers to the calendar issue. I think it should be explored.

- I don't predicate Brainstorm proposals on what's done today or come before, but things I believe we should be thinking about. One of these is events... and I believe it's time for maemo.org to get more engaged with them.

- A master calendar is useful in many ways but it doesn't stop there. If we had iCal objects, they could be included in Talk posts, emails, feeds, whatever

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

Eh? I'm suggesting concrete solutions to your problem one of them which realises your solution #1; I'm afraid I don't understand your response.

Part of brainstorming is exploring the limits of the problemspace. For example, if you had downloadable iCal objects which are included in different places (rather than URLs) you can't handle changes in the original event very well.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

Then we're on equal footing, because it seems I didn't understand your challenge then.

I'm starting to suspect you and I speak very different dialects (but thanks for the suggestions!).

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

Seems http://maemo.org/news/events/rss.xml uses FeedCreator module in Midgard, to construct xcal. Maybe it can export to *.ics instead. Then one can subscribe to it.

Otherwise, one can convert ics/ical to xml. Example using xslt. Example using php.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

Well I couldn't get those 2 working, not with xsltproc or xalan...

Another option is this one: http://www.blogtender.com/2007/05/di...-feed-in-ical/ together with libphp-magpierss and then http://127.0.0.1/rss-ics.php?url=htt...events/rss.xml this created the following ics:
I succesfully imported in OSX iCal but have not verified further. In Evolution I couldn't import it. Haven't checked why. But I see some things which I want to have different.

[EDIT]Another one here http://www.kigkonsult.se/rsscalCreator/index.php haven't tried it though[/EDIT]

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

Okay, this one is becoming urgent. I'm willing to do whatever I can to make it happen.

The maemo calendar page at http://maemo.org/community/calendar/ has been inactive for some time. The calendar it references at http://maemo.org/community/calendar/omc/ shows nothing.

To get back on track, I'm looking for the following:

- grid style calendar page
- support for iCal
- option to save events as either iCal object or simple link back to original event listing on calendar. Must be able to save to desktop or mobile device organizer

I will send out another email to the appropriate lists/individuals to get this moving. Note that I can't do much in the way of coding here but I will gladly manage the thing once it's up.

FYI, original Brainstorm topic: http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...munity_events/

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

Hmmm I never see the calendar. Never did on other fora, either. I don't get that far down the page. ;)

While I can see that a good calendar would be extremely useful, I'm not sure it's the tool you want for increasing member awareness and participation in community events.

I'm not sure whether it's ever implemented on maemo.org, but vBulletin has an announcement feature, which will sticky an announcement thread in every forum. While that's clearly not something you'd want to over-use, it could be handy for a few days before an event where you want the whole community to engage.

For example, an announcement about the upcoming Bug-fest could give details of how to get to the venue (some people have never used IRC, or not used it for years and could use basic instructions), and warm invitation saying it's for everyone. Andre's thread in the community forum thread is an excellent example of how to tell people 'this is for you and you don't need to be technically expert'. If that post were an 'announce' on say, Sunday (so it doesn't clutter the forum for a whole week) people who never venture outside of one or two fora will see it, whereas they may well miss it if it remains just in the community forum.

I'll add 'use the vBulletin announcement feature' as a possible solution if I can work out how.

Edit: I have tried to post my solution, but it is stuck in 'loading'. I can't decide whether I've done somethign wrong, brainstorm is ludicrously sluggish or it just doesn't like me. Is Brainstorm constipated for saving today?

(You guys are soooo going to regret giving me the confidence to do things in brainstorm and wiki!)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

Don't get me wrong-- I would like a calendar AND announcement feature, both linked together actually.

Thanks for the reminder... I will add solution 2 if yours didn't save... :D

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

I think it did. I'm all in favour of a good, working calendar. I just think that using the announcements feature would be a better solution to this particular problem. The calendar actually provides a different set of advantages. :)

Linked together would be even better!!

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

The thing with announcements is that each gets superseded by the next one. With the calendar they are always visible. But both together = the ultimate solution. ;)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

I'm always up for ultimate solutions. As long as they don't involve big red buttons or genocide. :)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

I like your solution, Kathy, but I would add: announcements should show up for a few days when they are created, and then a few days before the event. They should link back to a calendar object.

Right now new members or existing members not signed in can see an announcement for signup just below the page header. Surely that space can be used for other announcements that signed-in members can see...

And this Brainstorm needs votes!

http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...munity_events/

Re: [Under consideration] Improve member awareness of and participation in community events
 

For the time being I'm going to start using the Talk calendar at http://talk.maemo.org/calendar.php?c=1

But it sure would be nice to have something more capable...