[seek] SEEK Website Questionnaire

[Pete Olsen]

Hello Everyone,

   I have been asked me to come up with a questionnaire to help make
some decisions about the SEEK website.

We are most interested in which features people are interested in and
how they should be implemented. All comments are greatly appreciated.

Thank You,
Pete Olsen
polsen at lternet.edu


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Seek Website Questionnaire
Please respond to the questions below, feel free to add any extra
comments you like.

1. What features should the SEEK website offer? Please rank the
following in order of importance. Rank each as follows: 1- very
important, 2- moderately important, 3- not important.

__ Article/essay/topic submissions (a mechanism for submitting content
to the site).
__ Comments (a system for making public comments regarding most types of
content).
__ Web logs (an area administered by a single person
__ Forums (an area for threaded discussion, see Slashdot Ex).
__ Calendars (a visual calendar for a group or an individual).
__ Real time editing (wiki, instantaneous editing of public areas by any
individual).
__ Polls and surveys.
__ Email notification of new content.
__ Image galleries.
__ Posting / sharing of images or other media types.

(Working examples of many of these features are provided at the end of
this email.)

2. What programming languages or technologies would you suggest for use
on the site? (check or write in the languages you prefer)

__ No Opinion 	__ perl	__python __forrest	__java
__ php		__ zope __ASP	 other:__________________


3. How should content be moderated or edited before it is posted? The
current website uses a single moderator through whom all contributions
must pass. Some sites allow moderation and approval of postings by other
users, depending on their assigned privileges. The fewer moderators and
editors there are the longer it takes to make changes and update the
site. What maximum level of freedom should the website have? Keep in
mind some areas will have no freedom. (check your preference)

__ Completely self moderating.
__ Moderation/editing by other users, favors quick response and peer
review.
__ A small group of selected editors and moderators, slower responses.
__ A single moderator.

3a. The level of moderation could vary depending on the type of posting.
These might consist of: individual comments, small news type postings,
larger stories, book/paper reviews, and professional papers. Each of
these would need to be subjected to some type of editorial process. Rank
the categories below on a scale of 1(most restrictive) to 4(least
restrictive)

__ Individual Comments 	__ News postings
__ Stories.		__ Opinion
__ Reviews. 		__ Professional papers.

Comments:


4. One of the most important concepts of the site is the separation of
content from presentation. This is generally accomplished by changing
all content to an XML format. Submission of work in other formats could
significantly slow down the addition of new content. Would you be
willing to learn a relatively simple markup language in order to submit
your own content?

__ I won’t submit work if I have to format it in an unfamiliar way.
__ Only for new content, I don’t want to reformat work I already
created to post it.
__ Depends on how complex the format is.
__ No problem.


5. Other comments:


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Example Sites:
http://www.slashdot.org - Example of topical submissions and commenting.
http://slashdot.org/books - Example book reviews.
http://forums.devshed.com - Example of forums.
http://www.defectiveyeti.com - Example of a personal web log
http://www.fotolog.net - Example image gallery/pictorial blog

Possible Technology Candidates:
http://www.postnuke.org
http://phpnuke.org
http://xml.apache.org/forrest/
http://plone.org
http://moveabletype.org
http://www.blogger.com
http://tikiwiki.sourceforge.net
http://www.zope.org
http://drupal.org/