Wiki Community/April 2010 Wiki Meeting/Talk

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Discussion

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Zip codes on Addresses:

Jack mentioned that zip codes should be included on addresses for GPS programming purposes. Dawn suggested an automation to translate zip code->town name for display, perhaps adding the appropriate wiki link as well.

• Zip Code to Town is a difficult/impractical automation task as there is no direct mapping from zip code to town or vice versa. I learned a lot on the subject when I spent a lot of time on the Zip Codes page and its corresponding Zip Codes/Talk - as well as information on Webster and Fairport which are notorious for their zip code issues. The Rochester zip codes cover parts or all of several towns. There are a number of area towns with NO ZIP CODE, such as Brighton, Gates, Chili and Perinton.

  All of these problems caused me to start using the technique of the two argument Address Macro. The macro allows you to put the actual geocoding address in the first argument and the display data in the second argument. By leaving out the geocoding town and placing it wiki linked after the macro (post-fixed), we get a more useful output. I understand that some folks want zip codes for GPS needs, so I am now including them in the post-fixed data.

  For example, the original page for the Perinton Town Hall contained the address of Fairport, which is a small Village within the Town of Perinton.

I changed it to the new Perinton Town Hall which provides the correct town (wiki linked), the address with mapping, and the GPS-sers Zip code.

The Zip Codes page has some good resource links for those wanting to understand the problem a little better.

—BradMandell

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Quick comments:

Jack suggested a mechanism where comments/feedback could be left by non-logged-in users, perhaps to report out-of-date information or suggest additional features. Handling this inform ation will require some thought.

• On Buffalo Wiki I implemented a RAW Data page that has it's security settings to allow non-logged in users to add comments on the page. In fact, Jack used the capability himself.
  

• On BufWiki I also changed the Tabs for Logged In users vs Non-logged in users and have a Home Page for logged in users and the usual Front Page for non-logged in users - which has a link to RAW Data.

  I would suggest that on RocWiki (I couldn't figure out how to change it on WikiSpot) instead of

Comments:


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on the non-logged in page, it could contain something like

'''Comments: 

  Note: You must be logged in to add comments or provide data via our ["RAW Data"] page.''' 




—BradMandell

Comments

Meeting Minutes Feedback

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2010-04-12 18:19:49   It seems from PeteB's post on my page regarding footnotes in headers that two Admins, their wives, and one other user can meet, discuss a topic with no published agenda or notice and then set the standards for RocWiki Editors without any discussion on RocWiki or the Google Group and without publishing the standard anywhere except posting on the Offending Editor's user page.

"Brad—we also agreed at the meeting that Hours Updates should stay on the Hours Line and not use a Footnote." — PeteB

Where is the Soup Nazi when you need him (:>)

By the way, I disagree heartily with the decision - THEY ARE HEADER LABELS - adding a bunch of parenthetical information into a Header Label would cause you to fail User Interface Design 101. Look at any decent tabular data spread and you will find footnotes - that is the purpose of footnotes and on RocWiki they are actually LINKED so you can click on the number and go to the footnote (WOW).

—BradMandell

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2010-04-12 23:16:08   BradMandell: you knew of the meeting; you were invited; you chose not to attend. Please do not whine any more about any decision made at this meeting.

Among those "their wives" is the person whose wages pay for RocWiki's very existence. She, obviously, values RocWiki more than you do as she was able to make time to participate in the running of this valuable community resource. Your insulting comment is unfair and hurtful and a public apology is in order. —DawnTucker

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2010-04-13 07:28:44   @ DawnTucker - I apologize if you were offended by the usage of "their wives", but that is the way you described yourself on your user page and Pete's wife was referred to as spouse. I am a great believer in wives and husbands and did not mean that in any derogatory way. I was not aware that your wages were paying for RocWiki - thanks.

As to who cares more or is "whining" - give me a break. I have 9861 edits, many extended articles and text, 1120 pages created, and 789 photos/graphics uploaded, mostly my personal photos or graphics I created for RocWiki. The issues I raise and the intensity I bring to it are specifically because I care about RocWiki and my personal investment in it.

As to the meeting, I am a Stage IV Melanoma terminal cancer patient with limited time to allocate and I had a conflicting engagement.

—BradMandell

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2010-04-15 15:10:51   I am going to briefly chime in here. Brad—Thank you for the apology but throwing the numbers of your contributions in our faces really is unnecessary. Your contributions are well documented and are appreciated as has been stated before. In the email thread "Schedule for Meeting" there was no post that you couldn't make it. Your illness is acknowledged by all and while majority generally rules in scheduling, we would've looked at rescheduling if you had suggested alternate dates. You said nothing. You could've also submitted info to myself or to Ryan by email to be considered (which I believe you did before?) at the meeting. Even without an agenda (which Ryan & I are totally at fault for), I always have ideas to bring to the table. If you can take such time to edit pages, I really see no reason you couldn't have sent us some documentation for ideas/thoughts to have been looked at.

The point is—we made every effort to include people (Facebook/Gmail/Front Page)—you simply chose not to be involved in any manner with this meeting. —PeteB

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2010-04-15 15:26:52   As to "throwing the numbers of your contributions in our faces really is unnecessary" - that was in response to "She, obviously, values RocWiki more than you do as she was able to make time to participate in the running of this valuable community resource." and "the person whose wages pay for RocWiki's very existence"

As to the invitation - I did respond to the Facebook Invite with a NO. I did not suggest an alternate time as I just don't have the time or the patience for scheduled RocWiki meetings. I do my RocWiki time while resting in my chair between other tasks. I do not recall that there is any policy set forth on RocWiki that if you can't go to meetings, then your opinion does not count or will not be fairly considered.

As to documentation of requirements, you will see a lot of my suggestions and opinions fairly clearly and robustly documented in a number of RocWiki spots. Many of them have been summarily dismissed or just plain ignored. I do appreciate the positive response and system changes made by RocWiki to some of my concerns and suggestions.

Further, it is difficult to document something if you don't know it is to be the subject of discussion (No Hours Table Headers on the non-Agenda).

The one item that I had made some effort to clarify and which was stated as the subject of the meeting was the matter of Senior Editors, which was apparently tabled to address the more urgent table header hours matter.

—BradMandell