Re: Up to date

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

On Mon, 14 Feb 2000, James Purchase wrote:

> Folks,
> 
> I've been getting feedback from the AGA MC, slowly but surely.....
> suggestions and minor modifications, a word here and a word there....
> nothing too major. I'm incorporating them into the Preliminary material as
> they come in, and that material has been changing every few days.

On the AGA Management Committee side, we're hearing back from people
slowly, all of whom are thumbs up.  Comments have have basically been
"well written proposal.  I support it."  There's much of the same problems
on any volunteer organization getting people to get it in gear.  I think
that once a vote is called there will be a swift and positive response.

> I'm kind of surprised (not really!) and more than a little disappointed
> (REALLY!) that so few people seem to be taking the time and/or making an
> effort to read the material I have posted to the Preliminary web-site
> (http://www.interlog.com/~jpurch/webs/content/Default.htm) and commenting
> upon it. It feels like I'm working in a vacuum here folks! Feedback helps!

I expect I'll start making comments here and there, but for the most part
I'm happy with what I've seen and I think it's good enough to go now.

> Neil Frank requested some clarification of one part of the Proposal - the
> description of how judges "place" each entry within a Class and who decides
> the winners. When I wrote this section of the Proposal, I knew that the
> judge's section of the web-site would have a facility to allow them to enter
> and adjust their scores but I wasn't sure as to how Erik would manage to do
> it, so I kept the description of it intentionally vague and "general". This
> is going to have to be re-written and firmed up - to stress the fact that it
> is the rank which is important, not the actual numerical score each entry
> receives.

This will change real soon.  My wife is on a Wards rotation for the next
three weeks, so I expect I'll be working on this weekends and evenings.
FOr the last three weeks I've been up to my armpits in club stuff (and
nasal congestion too if that counts).  George Booth mailed his slides, and
I was able to scan them in midweek.  This morning I started sketching
layout down; The website construction is front on my roster right now.

I also took some time to learn more about database back-ending which will
make the site easier to manage.  I'm setting everything up so that people
will, for instance, be able to fill out their entry form online, e-mail
the photos, and snail-mail the checks, and everything will be easy to tie
together on the website with minimal hassle.  Working out similar details
for the judging, but assuming I will be basing it on the numerical scheme
we all agreed on earlier (oh crap, I hope we all agreed on a number?  ...
[click, drag, click...] OK, whew! so on the Content website, it does list
all the major categories.  My plan is to have a form for each of the four
categories, add up points by all judges.  Winners are by highest score.
Was still planning on showing the average scores for everybody along with
ranking, but I can easily change this.)

> Erik - regarding the preliminary content as a whole, I know that you can't
> or don't intend to use the code generated by Front Page but I tried
> stripping out all of the HTML which FP inserts and end up with a group of
> documents which don't make much logical sense - i.e. there is no grouping.
> The way it looks on each page is how I think it SHOULD logically flow on the
> final site, whether that logical flow is accomplished through css or regular
> HTML is beyond me.

Sigh.  One more time.  What I said was that I was going to CONVERT the
documents and that one could no longer use frontpage *once I was
finished*. I was, and still am, OK with starting with a site the way you
envisioned it through whatever means necessary (i.e. the mockup site,
frontpage tags and all), as long as it was understood that once converted,
later changes would have to be made by a text editor.  

In fact, I'd prefer that you just gave me the original version because it
gives me more hints about how you think it should look.

It's OK.  I'll figure it out.  As long as all the content is there, that
works for me.  

> I have looked at the sample pictures from George that you have posted and I

[rest delete]

I must have miscommunicated in my original message. The site I posted them
to is a personal Photo Album Site that I designed for use by myself,
friends, family and colleagues for whenever we have some new photos to
show someone.  My message was basically to let you know what I had the
photos and, hey, if you wanted to take a quick peek at them, here's what
they were.  This should not be confused with the contest site. Because of
the goals of the Photo Album site, I designed it with minimal
identification, and minimal real estate clutter that takes away space from
the pictures.  So yeah, it's not going to tell you where you are.  And
it's going to have the full size picture in its pre-cropped mode, because
it's just an automatically-generated preview.

What this site DOES have in common with parts of the Plant Contest
site-to-be, is that it's completely dynamic.  Every page on it is
generated by a single program based on the parameters passed to the URL.
It has the ability to log people in and out (which we'll need for the
judges).  It has the ability to store and modify comments by photo or set
of photos (which is similar to what we'll need for the judges, though the
judges will also leave scores).  It can generate rescaled images on the
fly, also nice for judges.  It has the ability to operate in different
modes based on who is logged in, something we'll need to distinguish
judges from viewers.  It also has the ability to track "where you are"
while leaving comments, so that you don't need to keep hitting the Back
button after you've filled something out.

I know it must be frustrating for you to be seeing things created in a
manner which is different from how you envision it.  But if I am to create
this site, please let me at least try to come up with something resembling
the whole picture before you begin to tear it apart.  I can tell from this
message that you are chomping at the bit.  I thought something was wrong
when you didn't reply to a message sent 4 days ago, even with a "cool".  

You will have to be patient with me on this one.  I will let everybody
know when I have something ready, and THEN you can tear it apart.

  - Erik



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