Difference between revisions of "PortlandTech/Suggestions"

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PortlandTech

PortlandTech Suggestions, Comments, Problems and Thoughts

Please place ideas, questions, problems and thoughts on how to improve the PortlandTech wiki at AboutUs here.

Calendar

The changes to this look great, and it loads quicker. -- Joe Cohen | Leave me a message 21:23, 20 December 2007 (PST)

Miscellaneous Calendar Ideas

Some random ideas. (I haven't implemented any because either (a) I don't know how well they fit your vision for PortlandTech, or (b) I don't have time.

1. Create an AboutUs article for the PDX Tech Calendar project and appropriate PortlandTech entry(ies). If this project really gets implemented, you find a way to import/link/frame its contents to the PortlandTech calendar.
2. Here are some calendars I check in the course of my work. It would be useful to automatically/manually monitor these and add events to PortlandTech. (I'm sure someone is already doing some of this.)
   1. AeA Oregon Regional Council Events (The primary source for these events.)
   2. Oen.org Events (Primary source)
   3. Software Association of Oregon Calendar of Events (primary source)
   4. OTBC.org Calendar (primary source)
   5. Oen.org Community Events of Interest to OEN Members (A useful secondary source that manually aggregates events from some other calendars)

-- Joe Cohen | Leave me a message 08:39, 10 January 2008 (PST)

• Joe, thanks for the suggestions! Here are might immediate thoughts:
  • We had a nice discussion with Audrey (organizer for the PDX Tech Calendar project) last night (she came to the WikiWednesday event AboutUs hosted) about her project and ours. There is still a bunch to be thought out and discussed for the PDX Tech Calendar project but we at AboutUs and the PortlandTech Portal are definitely involved in that discussion and excited by the prospects.
  • On that note, I just created a groups.google.com/group/pdx-tech-calendar page on AboutUs with info. Naturally, they're part of the PortlandTech sphere.
  • The calendars you mentioned are great! We'll make sure they are on the various Portland calendars we're watching/subscribing to as we continue to aggregate various Portland-tech related calendars by hand. (In fact, I just started a External Calendars list on our PortlandTech Upcoming Calendar so we can start collecting a list of the various resources we're using, and inviting others to add their insights as well.)

Best, TakKendrick | talk 15:39, 10 January 2008 (PST)

Great Job (moved from Category:PortlandTech talk)

1. Great job! I hope viewers appreciate -- among other things -- the custom work on pages of individuals and companies included in the Portal, and the work in creating the calendar/event content and displaying it in useful forms. Keep up the good work.
2. As people may leave suggestions here, think about combining this page with PortlandTech/Suggestions

-- Joe Cohen | Leave me a message 09:59, 26 January 2008 (PST)

• Joe, thanks for the comments. Actually, my preference is to keep the discussion on PortlandTech centralized, I move your comments from Category:PortlandTech talk and have that page pointing here. Let me know if that doesn't make sense. -- TakKendrick | talk 11:26, 26 January 2008 (PST)
• Tak: Perfect -- Joe Cohen | Leave me a message 11:29, 26 January 2008 (PST)

PortlandTech

Tagging instructions on PortlandTech/Groups/Organizations

The tagging instructions ("How to add yourself here") on PortlandTech/Groups/Organizations say to add the tag {{PortlandTechUserGroup}}. -- Joe Cohen | Leave me a message 18:05, 26 January 2008 (PST)

• Fixed! Thanks for the note. I'm still hoping we can unveil a better way of adding pages to the PortlandTech sphere soon. Meanwhile I'd like to to elucidate the instructions so they make more sense to people who're new to the wiki. I say because it's been on my list for over a month now, but it's beginning to bubble closer and closer to the top. Feel free to poke, prod or cajole me to get this done. -- TakKendrick | talk 12:46, 28 January 2008 (PST)
• Tak: By "adding pages to the PortlandTech sphere" do you mean: (1) listing a domain page in one of the PortlandTech pages, or (2) adding a new page to the portal, e.g., "Medical & Biotech"? -- Joe Cohen | Leave me a message 15:18, 28 January 2008 (PST)
  • Well, the tool we're trying to get worked on would do the former. Adding depth to the portal is a much larger process, beyond just making a "Medical and Biotech" page, there's modification of some 10 templates, not to mention tagging pages appropriately so that they show up on the list and map. At some point, I think a tool can help with this (but I suspect that's far off), more likely though since adding sections to the portal take such effort, I think these things should be discussed on this page, if there's enough interest, we can make it happen. Keep in mind though implementation for each would take a couple of hours for the structural parts, and then going through and tagging the appropriate pages. In mymind, if a section has say, less than 15-25 articles, it's probably not enough to do the work involved; likewise, more than 50 and we should really do it. -- TakKendrick | talk 13:56, 29 January 2008 (PST)
    • Honestly, I'd prefer flushing out the sections we already have as an initial task, it's impossible to believe we only have 18 Blogs or 8 Forums. -- TakKendrick | talk 14:03, 29 January 2008 (PST)
    • Blogs, forums, and some user groups are often not domains. How do you suggest handling them? Should a subdomain page be created for each one? If not, how do they get added to the portal? -- Joe Cohen | Leave me a message 14:19, 29 January 2008 (PST)
      • I think subdomains should be created for them as needed, yes. That's why the Create Subdomain and the Subdomain Creation Tool was recently built, to make it easier to facilitate subdomains. -- TakKendrick | talk 14:27, 29 January 2008 (PST)
    • Here are some ideas for filling out some pages. I don't have time to do them all, so maybe you can chop them into bite-size pieces and find staff/volunteers.
      1. Review the first part of the list of calendars to aggregate at http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-tech-calendar/web/tech-calendars-to-aggregate and make sure that each organization with a calendar is represented in the Portal. I will undertake to review the list only for user groups that are not PortlandTech/Groups/User_Groups.
      2. Review the PlanetPDX subscription list for Portland technology blogs that are missing from PortlandTech/Media/Blogs. (Remember that not everything on the subscription list is a Portland blog, or a technology blog.
      3. Much more difficult: Look at all the domains and subdomains in the Portal to see if the associated company, group, or individual has a blog. At present, this is a lot of individual labor. Maybe someone can formulate a Google search that would be a first cut at identifiying these. In the long run it would neat and great if the Bot could try to find these, and create a Blog section on the domain page. (Maybe the domain page template should include a blog section, and in can be filled manually now, and in the future automatically.
      4. I don't know where to for forums generally. http://www.oregonlive.com/forums/ has a bunch of forums, but only one is technology. Maybe the same recipe as for blogs.
      5. Out of the box idea. The content on the Portal pages is static. If it were dynamic, people might visit repeatedly. So how about something along the lines of dynamically aggregating headlines (from blogs, press releases, etc.) from the individuals and organizations listed on that page? (Or you could aggregate content a la PlanetPDX.)? -- Joe Cohen | Leave me a message 15:10, 29 January 2008 (PST)