Working Group: Awesome Foundation Website - Revision history

Dough: added line break

2016-03-08T22:40:55Z

added line break

Dough: Fixed formatting of sublist

2016-03-08T22:40:21Z

Fixed formatting of sublist

Dough: Fixed formatting of giant wall o'text

2016-03-08T22:39:06Z

Fixed formatting of giant wall o'text

Dough: Convert quote into sublist

2016-03-08T22:32:01Z

Convert quote into sublist

Dough: Initial dump of notes

2016-03-08T22:30:20Z

Initial dump of notes

New page

== Website Background ==
The website - [http://awesomefoundation.org/ awesomefoundation.org] - tool for the management of Awesome Foundation projects
* Website is paid for by IHAS (Institute for Higher Awesome Studies), originally a Wordpress blog. Now built as Rails app running on Heroku with a PostgreSQL backend
* Been stripping away things from the site, now focusing on the core of project management (stripped out blog, global blog, these were things that nobody used)
* Every chapter gets its own page, that page highlights the projects that chapter has funded
* Inbound collection side will collect and organize applications
* Trustees log in, review applications, choose the winner, winner then reported on site
* Allows chapters to have email forwarding (something@awesomefoundation.org)

Things chapters do that the site does not do:
* Register/host their own domain name
* Have their own branding or functionality
* Some chapters have rolled their own application flow, not many but a few
* Maintain their own blog
* The main awesomefoundation.org will get your RSS feed

Other web infrastructure: the Wiki
* Closed to account creation because of spammers
* Email [wiki@awesomefoundation.org to create an account
* Is this the right tool for the job? Propose one if you can think of one
* Has a lot of logos, collateral, t-shirt designs

We can go a couple of different ways:
* Talk about new features, collect requirements and scope them later for GitHub issues
* Broader question about what the website does, are there functions that exist but nobody uses, or were there but pulled out

== Discussion Questions: ==
Is Jesse content to continue guiding the design of the web team? Yes, site is paid for by IHAS, optimized to be cheap to run, code is open source

How can people contribute?
* Contributing to the web site: do the work and submit a pull request that describes the change to be reviewed, optimized, checked for internationalization, that sort of thing. Stuff like Rails security updates are usually done without going through the process
* There is a staging environment to test pull requests
* Process went through recently with a new piece of functionality allows deans to hide specific applications from the list, can be overridden if need be (will be open to other trustees later, after deans try it out first)
* So far 39 applications have been hidden, so it’s working
* Sidebar: why hide vs delete? Delete removes the application completely, so deleting them erases the institutional memory of a chapter)
* Sidebar sidebar: general philosophy is that features that are added should
* Not hinder the way that chapters currently do things
* Add new features that are as broadly applicable as possible (there are as many processes as there are chapters, would like to be as agnostic as possible)
* There are probably things that are dean-only that should be opened a little more

== Discussion based on outstanding feature requests ==
Ideas for website in Cale’s discussion for the $2 million press release project:
Last month at a glance
Easier finding/viewing past funded projects from the public-facing side either by chapter or across chapters
Identify winners in “finalist view”
Modify standard questions (or add new ones)
Alphabetically sort countries
Project updates
Is there a way to which information about the chapter that people applied to, because right now the application doesn’t tell you anything
Finding past-funded projects
Would be great to be able to sort/filter, see all projects
On the list of tasks - issue #197
If we had a prioritized list of things for something like a hackathon
Finalist view change
In finalist view, find a way to identify the winner in the list (something like a star or background change)
Would like to have ability to configure month or month/date view on the chapter list
Idea to name features and tweaks based on the person/chapter who originated it

Modifying standard questions
Compiled a list of 14 questions that other chapters have, some of them are in common. Some people also combine questions into a single question because they only get three custom question:
How did you hear about us?
What makes your project unique?
What makes [CITY/AREA] more awesome?
How will you measure success?
What inspired you to come up with this project?
How much covers salaries/stipends?
Will the public be able to participate in this?
What is your movie quote?
Would you like to join our mailing list?
Can we publicize your project even if it doesn’t win?
What is the estimated number of people served by your project?
Whom would you recommend to apply and what’s their contact information?
Tell us about your audience?
What is the shortest, clearest way to describe your project?
What is the drop-dead date on your project (when will the funds no longer be useful)?
These questions have always been problematic, should have been more flexible from the get-go. Main question is how flexible should the questions be?
The three foundational questions are from the original Boston chapter
Two ways to go about it:
Seed a new chapter with the three main questions and allow them to go nuts with the extra questions -- but how do we migrate the data? Also to handle internationalization for the questions--we already have a problem with the extra questions being in a single language
Add multiple additional questions and allow that to be configured on a chapter-by-chapter basis (not a big change but would allow
Question about whether the questions should all be hard-coded but internationalization would be helpful
If we did have everything configurable, would it be a nightmare for some chapters if they just asked all the questions
Sidebar about the NABC method--if you ask the right questions, would you you get the right answers? This question is a bit out-of-scope of our little meeting
Some discussion about picking a region: small discussion about where people can and can’t apply--Ottawa, Chicago, Boston, New York, and others have all funded projects based elsewhere geographically
Alphabetically sorting questions
Already in the system
Project Updates
Looking at a project it’s basically what the project wrote originally
Under the funded description, sets a date that the project has been funded, then you can type in a description for the funded project (Dean function that none of us have ever heard of)
Philosophy moving forward will be to allow all the trustees to do thing, the permissions system seems to be make things more difficult than they need to be

Going forward
If there are features that are frustrating or would like to discuss: post to the global list but be gentle because this is all a volunteer effort

@@ Line 84: / Line 84: @@
 * The three foundational questions are from the original Boston chapter
 * Two ways to go about it:
-** Seed a new chapter with the three main questions and allow them to go nuts with the extra questions -- but how do we migrate the data? ** Also to handle internationalization for the questions--we already have a problem with the extra questions being in a single language
+** Seed a new chapter with the three main questions and allow them to go nuts with the extra questions -- but how do we migrate the data?
 Going forward:

@@ Line 84: / Line 84: @@
 * The three foundational questions are from the original Boston chapter
 * Two ways to go about it:
-## Seed a new chapter with the three main questions and allow them to go nuts with the extra questions -- but how do we migrate the data? ## Also to handle internationalization for the questions--we already have a problem with the extra questions being in a single language
+** Seed a new chapter with the three main questions and allow them to go nuts with the extra questions -- but how do we migrate the data? ** Also to handle internationalization for the questions--we already have a problem with the extra questions being in a single language
 Going forward:

@@ Line 42: / Line 42: @@
 == Discussion based on outstanding feature requests ==
 Ideas for website in Cale’s discussion for the $2 million press release project:
-Last month at a glance
+# Last month at a glance
-Easier finding/viewing past funded projects from the public-facing side either by chapter or across chapters
+# Easier finding/viewing past funded projects from the public-facing side either by chapter or across chapters
-Identify winners in “finalist view”
+# Identify winners in “finalist view”
-Modify standard questions (or add new ones)
+# Modify standard questions (or add new ones)
-Alphabetically sort countries
+# Alphabetically sort countries
-Project updates
+# Project updates
-Is there a way to which information about the chapter that people applied to, because right now the application doesn’t tell you anything
+# Is there a way to which information about the chapter that people applied to, because right now the application doesn’t tell you anything about where you're applying
 Finding past-funded projects
-Would be great to be able to sort/filter, see all projects
+=== Updating application with information about chapter ===
-On the list of tasks - issue #197
+Discussion on how it might work, what the text should be, could be a configurable option
 If we had a prioritized list of things for something like a hackathon
-Finalist view change
+=== Finding past-funded projects ===
-In finalist view, find a way to identify the winner in the list (something like a star or background change)
+* Would be great to be able to sort/filter, see all projects
-Would like to have ability to configure month or month/date view on the chapter list
+* On the list of tasks - issue #197
-Idea to name features and tweaks based on the person/chapter who originated it
+* If we had a prioritized list of things for something like a hackathon
 These questions have always been problematic, should have been more flexible from the get-go. Main question is how flexible should the questions be?
-The three foundational questions are from the original Boston chapter
+* The three foundational questions are from the original Boston chapter
-Two ways to go about it:
+* Two ways to go about it:
-Seed a new chapter with the three main questions and allow them to go nuts with the extra questions -- but how do we migrate the data? Also to handle internationalization for the questions--we already have a problem with the extra questions being in a single language
+## Seed a new chapter with the three main questions and allow them to go nuts with the extra questions -- but how do we migrate the data? ## Also to handle internationalization for the questions--we already have a problem with the extra questions being in a single language
 Add multiple additional questions and allow that to be configured on a chapter-by-chapter basis (not a big change but would allow
-Question about whether the questions should all be hard-coded but internationalization would be helpful
+Going forward:
-If we did have everything configurable, would it be a nightmare for some chapters if they just asked all the questions
+* Add multiple additional questions and allow that to be configured on a chapter-by-chapter basis (not a big change but would allow
-Sidebar about the NABC method--if you ask the right questions, would you you get the right answers? This question is a bit out-of-scope of our little meeting
+* Question about whether the questions should all be hard-coded but internationalization would be helpful
-Some discussion about picking a region: small discussion about where people can and can’t apply--Ottawa, Chicago, Boston, New York, and others have all funded projects based elsewhere geographically
+* If we did have everything configurable, would it be a nightmare for some chapters if they just asked all the questions
-Alphabetically sorting questions
+* Sidebar about the NABC method--if you ask the right questions, would you you get the right answers? This question is a bit out-of-scope of our little meeting
-Already in the system
+* Some discussion about picking a region: small discussion about where people can and can’t apply--Ottawa, Chicago, Boston, New York, and others have all funded projects based elsewhere geographically
 Project Updates
 Looking at a project it’s basically what the project wrote originally
-Under the funded description, sets a date that the project has been funded, then you can type in a description for the funded project (Dean function that none of us have ever heard of)
+* Under the funded description, sets a date that the project has been funded, then you can type in a description for the funded project (Dean function that none of us have ever heard of)
-Philosophy moving forward will be to allow all the trustees to do thing, the permissions system seems to be make things more difficult than they need to be
+* Philosophy moving forward will be to allow all the trustees to do thing, the permissions system seems to be make things more difficult than they need to be
-Going forward
+== Final thoughts ==
 If there are features that are frustrating or would like to discuss: post to the global list but be gentle because this is all a volunteer effort

@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 * Sidebar: why hide vs delete? Delete removes the application completely, so deleting them erases the institutional memory of a chapter)
 * Sidebar sidebar: general philosophy is that features that are added should
- * Not hinder the way that chapters currently do things
+** Not hinder the way that chapters currently do things
- * Add new features that are as broadly applicable as possible (there are as many processes as there are chapters, would like to be as agnostic as possible)
+** Add new features that are as broadly applicable as possible (there are as many processes as there are chapters, would like to be as agnostic as possible)
 * There are probably things that are dean-only that should be opened a little more