Re: [Demexp-dev] New test Drupal site open.

[David MENTRE]

Hello Augustin,

Augustin <address@hidden> writes:

> Not everything works, and many details still need to be sorted out, but the 
> essential is already functional.

After creating my Drupal account, I've been unable to enter my demexp
parameters, the demexp parameters[1] being empty.

> Discussion about technical choices and bugs will carry on in this list.

Ok, so let's start. ;-)

Here are some remarks as they come in my mind, we'll sort them.

 1. I'm interested in seeing Drupal source code; ;-)

 2. The demexp server and Drupal logins should be unified: the same
    login name and password should be used for both the Drupal login on
    the web site and the vote on demexp server;

 3. Account creation should be reworked. In my mind (to be discussed),
    we would have two different workflows for the demo and official
    servers.

    * for the demo server, one could create a demexp account through the
      Drupal interface, that would create an account on the demexp
      server (for vote) and one could vote immediately,

    * for the official server, one could enter account creation on the
      demexp web interface but that would trigger an email to demexp
      admins that would create the account manually (or at least
      validate account creation).

 4. Account creation form should be modified. I think it is manfdatory
    to have following fields:

    * 1st name:
    * 2nd name:
    * 3rd name:
    * :    :
    * Last name/Family name:

    * email address:

    * Display name (aka an alias to be displayed on the web site/demexp
      server):

    * Language code: [fr_FR, en, eo, ...]

    The demexp login could be computed from 1st, 2n, ..., last names. We
    would have to take care of people having the same name, how to
    disambiguate them (several proposals for this on the demexp demo
    server, see question 34[2]).


 5. The timezone field in current login is not very clear to me in
    current Drupal interface. Is it GMT+n with or without summertime
    shifting?

 6. The Tags link[3] is quite nice. It is probably not scalable for a
    very big amount of tags but for a reasonable amount it is quite
    usable. However (there is always a however ;-), it would nice to be
    able to change the metric criterion, for example through a drop down
    menu: number of questions with that tag (current setting if I'm
    correct), most recently edited questions with that tag, most voted
    questions with that tag, etc.

 7. At mid term, it would be necessary to have a way to navigate into a
    tag hirarchy, but we already discussed of that;

 8. The Questions link[4] is basic but works. At mid term, being able to
    search into question fields would be nice (but maybe we could count
    on Google/Yahoo/... for that ;-);

 9. Forums attached to each question is very nice. However, after
    various discussions on demexp-fr and elsewhere, it appears that it
    would be sometimes necessary to a Forum without a question attached
    to it, and maybe create a new question and attach it to one or more
    Forum discussions. I have no clear idea on how to make all of that
    work, but my main idea is that the democratic debate (on or more
    Forum) would sometimes (but not always) trigger one or more vote
    (demexp question), without a bijection between the two;

 10. I *personally* hate web forums. Do you know if there exists a
     Drupal module that makes a link between Drupal Forums and Usenet
     for example?

 11. How is internationalization handled in Drupal? At long term, we
     will have both questions and responses translated and we will need
     to take care of that;

 12. The items on the left side ("Sujet actifs" and "Commentaires
     récents") should be tailored to distinguish between Forums and
     demexp Questions. For example, we could have the list of the most
     recent Questions and the list of most recent Forums;

 13. In the link listing all Forums[5], it would be nice to sort the
     list by different criteria (forum name, number of subjects, number
     of messages, most recent forum, etc.). In fact, all the
     capabilities you already have for Drupal's forums;

 14. I would personally use Drupal only for the web interface to demexp
     server, and probably use other technologies for information on the
     democratic experience project, logins, etc. So I would remove all
     general information on the Drupal web site.

 15. What is the meaning of the "Languages" item on the left side? Is it
     the leanguage of the interface, of the displayed forum,
     questions,...?

 16. Drupal links lack sometime some semantics, as they are most of the
     time of the form /node/nnn/.... Would it be possible to improve
     that?

 17. At first connection on the Drupal site, the main page should
     probably display some "hot topic" items, like most active tag or
     question. 


That's all for now. :-)

Overall, very nice work, Augustin. I don't expect that you code all of
the above items alone. I'll probably try to help you on the Drupal side,
albeit at Young Padawan Level(tm). ;-)


Best wishes,
d.


Footnotes: 
[1]  http://demexp.ouvaton.org/user/13/edit/demexp

[2]  http://demexp.ouvaton.org/node/37

[3]  http://demexp.ouvaton.org/demexp_tags

[4]  http://demexp.ouvaton.org/demexp_questions

[5]  http://demexp.ouvaton.org/forum/539

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