Reorganizing homepage for Ike

[Andy Carvin]

Just wanted to start a thread on what features people would like to see occupying real estate on our homepage for Ike. I plan to give the forum less prominence and move up features like the blog, map, etc. Are there any other widgets we should create for it? Any thoughts on the best ways of using the blog?

[Andy Carvin]

Ange was working on something but I haven't been able to find him in a week, not sure what Damon can provide in that regard.

Blogs2c.com said:

That's the idea! Top down.

A few more "Use Cases" and we'll have the solution -:)

Might need to add a spam trap to the SMS-to-RSS gateway if autoposting.

--Brian

Ben Tremblay said: I'm thinking "hierarchy of knowledge" here, working down from the most global to the most specific / local.

[Ben Tremblay]

Blogs2c.com said:

That's the idea! Top down.
A few more "Use Cases" and we'll have the solution -:)

From my time doing net control with ham radio the two poles of the continuum are something like a) "How are things?" *sigh* and b) "My mom's house is 2 blocks from St. Paul's school. Is that area flooded?" ... with general information on shelter locations / evacuation routes falling somewhere in between.

Might need to add a spam trap to the SMS-to-RSS gateway if autoposting.

If there's no validation of origin then there's also the problem of posting unconfirmed reports / information / instructions. In that case it isn't more reliable than Twitter, though the presentation might make it seem more credible.

[Andy Carvin]

that's why I don't want to advertise this for reporting emergency reports. It's just for quick observations from people. Not that different than the other auto-aggregation we're doing...

Ben Tremblay said:

Blogs2c.com said:

That's the idea! Top down.
A few more "Use Cases" and we'll have the solution -:)

From my time doing net control with ham radio the two poles of the continuum are something like a) "How are things?" *sigh* and b) "My mom's house is 2 blocks from St. Paul's school. Is that area flooded?" ... with general information on shelter locations / evacuation routes falling somewhere in between.

Might need to add a spam trap to the SMS-to-RSS gateway if autoposting.

If there's no validation of origin then there's also the problem of posting unconfirmed reports / information / instructions. In that case it isn't more reliable than Twitter, though the presentation might make it seem more credible.

[Ben Tremblay]

*X-posted from "Search Widget"*
Blogs2c.com said:

Does Ning have a way to make secondary pages that you could link to the main page?

Andy Carvin said:

unfortunately, no. Trying to figure out some options to work around this.

How about, in stead of a child page, whatever would be there could be published as a blog post?
Could be created by individuals and vetted for inclusion on homepage, or could be a separate account ... lots of flexibility.
Point being that it would stand alone.

[Andy Carvin]

Possibly. Damon's working on it now, so we'll see what he comes up with.

Ben Tremblay said:

*X-posted from "Search Widget"*

Blogs2c.com said:

Does Ning have a way to make secondary pages that you could link to the main page?

Andy Carvin said:

unfortunately, no. Trying to figure out some options to work around this.

How about, in stead of a child page, whatever would be there could be published as a blog post? Could you created by individuals and vetted for inclusion on homepage, or could be a separate account ... lots of flexibility.
Point being that it would stand alone.

[Earl McGehee]

Glad to have you back in the saddle Andy. The home page is much improved.

For what it's worth here are page view stats from the Wiki for the last 24 hr on the top 4 pages: Main page=1451 views, Shelters=80 views, Interactive Maps=51 views, Who's doing what=19 views. These are probably mostly from us working on the pages.

Hope the better placement on the home page improves these numbers. Else should we all focus more on the home page and just link to some other site like the WikiPedia Hurricanes portal?

Do you have stats for the Ning page?

Is there something I could help with on the Ning site that might be more useful than updating the maps pages - they are mostly on auto pilot for now.

[Ruth Blakeslee]

俄阿日
Hi Earl, I'm sure all or most 80 hits on shelter page were me working in there yesterday.

Earl McGehee said:

Glad to have you back in the saddle Andy. The home page is much improved.

For what it's worth here are page view stats from the Wiki for the last 24 hr on the top 4 pages: Main page=1451 views, Shelters=80 views, Interactive Maps=51 views, Who's doing what=19 views. These are probably mostly from us working on the pages.

Hope the better placement on the home page improves these numbers. Else should we all focus more on the home page and just link to some other site like the WikiPedia Hurricanes portal?

Do you have stats for the Ning page?

Is there something I could help with on the Ning site that might be more useful than updating the maps pages - they are mostly on auto pilot for now.

[Earl McGehee]

And many of the map pages hits are me. Plus John is active checking all the pages.

By comparison Wikipedia's Hurricane Ike page got over 22,000 hits in the last 24 hours.

I think there is a need for a portal to actively pull together and organize all the different storm data available, but maybe we should be spending more time organizing links to other sites than reentering data from the other sites. This topic deserves more thought and conversation after Ike cools off.

Ruth Blakeslee said:

俄阿日
Hi Earl, I'm sure all or most 80 hits on shelter page were me working in there yesterday.

Earl McGehee said:

Glad to have you back in the saddle Andy. The home page is much improved.

For what it's worth here are page view stats from the Wiki for the last 24 hr on the top 4 pages: Main page=1451 views, Shelters=80 views, Interactive Maps=51 views, Who's doing what=19 views. These are probably mostly from us working on the pages.

Hope the better placement on the home page improves these numbers. Else should we all focus more on the home page and just link to some other site like the WikiPedia Hurricanes portal?

Do you have stats for the Ning page?

Is there something I could help with on the Ning site that might be more useful than updating the maps pages - they are mostly on auto pilot for now.

[Blogs2c.com]

Team members,

The Homepage looks great!

However, there is something on the home page that is causing Safari on the iPhone to freeze up and exit. Not sure what widget it is, but I think we should fix this.

I'll see if I can track it down.

--Brian

[Andy Carvin]

thanks for looking into it.. -ac

Blogs2c.com said:

Team members,

The Homepage looks great!

However, there is something on the home page that is causing Safari on the iPhone to freeze up and exit. Not sure what widget it is, but I think we should fix this.

I'll see if I can track it down.

--Brian

[Ben Tremblay]

Earl McGehee said:

I think there is a need for a portal to actively pull together and organize all the different storm data available, but maybe we should be spending more time organizing links to other sites than reentering data from the other sites. This topic deserves more thought and conversation after Ike cools off.

I agree whole heartedly. For me a "trampoline" function is prime; most obvious and quickest to set up. Also in most cases the data is credible. That can be thought of as aggregation of "all things Ike".
My "Mapping Ike" blog post has mutated so it presents a concise sub-set of available data ... a start at synthesis. Doing that on more specific topics ... imagine creating an authoritative page on shelters, say ... that's daunting. Collecting / collating sources, sites, and resources seems a valid and doable task. More than that I think requires some up-front design.

[Andy Carvin]

Isn't that what we're already doing with the wiki, though?

Ben Tremblay said:

Earl McGehee said:

I think there is a need for a portal to actively pull together and organize all the different storm data available, but maybe we should be spending more time organizing links to other sites than reentering data from the other sites. This topic deserves more thought and conversation after Ike cools off.

I agree whole heartedly. For me a "trampoline" function is prime; most obvious and quickest to set up. Also in most cases the data is credible. That can be thought of as aggregation of "all things Ike".
My "Mapping Ike" blog post has mutated so it presents a concise sub-set of available data ... a start at synthesis. Doing that on more specific topics ... imagine creating an authoritative page on shelters, say ... that's daunting. Collecting / collating sources, sites, and resources seems a valid and doable task. More than that I think requires some up-front design.