Dedicated JoCo Cruise Crazy Shadow Cruise website
I had talked to Home Office about having one of these before - they liked the idea, and were always planning to get it going, but it never happened (which I totally understand because of all the other things they have going on) and other monkeys on the cruise liked the idea, so I'm setting out a skeleton and then hoping for people to take it over and make it far better than I ever could.
http://shadowcruise.sapphiremind.com
Anyone who wants to have admin privileges will. If you want ftp access so you can play with the code and make it better, or redesign the visuals, you will be able to have access. Access to phpmyadmin will be more complicated, but doable. If you want a forum or a group, you got it. It's about getting all those awesome ideas we come up with out and sharing and hanging with like-minded people, without completely taking over joco's site (and the people who don't cruise with us) and without losing posts and stuff as easily as happens on the facebook page. It would be some place that is completely just ours to do with what we please.
If it proves to be useful to people and we want to keep it going, I'll buy a domain name for it instead of subdomaining it.
http://shadowcruise.sapphiremind.com
Anyone who wants to have admin privileges will. If you want ftp access so you can play with the code and make it better, or redesign the visuals, you will be able to have access. Access to phpmyadmin will be more complicated, but doable. If you want a forum or a group, you got it. It's about getting all those awesome ideas we come up with out and sharing and hanging with like-minded people, without completely taking over joco's site (and the people who don't cruise with us) and without losing posts and stuff as easily as happens on the facebook page. It would be some place that is completely just ours to do with what we please.
If it proves to be useful to people and we want to keep it going, I'll buy a domain name for it instead of subdomaining it.
Comments
In seriousness, though, I have a few questions. I don't bring these up to discourage this endeavor, honestly; if we can come up with good answers, I think it'll make this better.
Most basically, my sense of the problem we're trying to solve is mainly that what we've got now's too fragmented -- there's info in these forums, in the Facebook groups, on the wiki, and maybe other places I don't even know about. (It might have fringe benefits, like reducing the crowding out of non-cruise JoCo talk around here, but that's incidental.) Is that an accurate statement of your goal here? Have I left something out?
It might be worth understanding, then, why our existing solutions aren't enough.
- I've been on Facebook Temperance for a few years, but maybe you guys could fill me in on what's missing from the Facebook groups. My sense is that it's not a great place to archive information, but my last contact with Facebook was many redesigns ago.
- I do know some general problems with fora -- as welcoming as we try to be here, they can be a little intimidating to join, and with this many people, threads get really long, so it's hard to know if you're asking a question that's been answered already. (Plus, the search function in this forum software is terrible, we all know.)
- Wiki similarly has a bit of a barrier to entry. Also, so far, it's better as a repository of information than really a good place to communicate and collaborate -- it's hard to have a conversation in a wiki.
(I think I'm cribbing some of this from a conversation I had with @julievil on the boat.)How will this new CMS be better than these? What specific flaws in the current systems will be handled in a better way here? For instance, if overlong threads are a drawback to this forum, how will we fix that in the new system?
I understand the Platonic goal of one website to rule all Cruise stuff, but in order to get there, we need to do a lot of groundwork to make sure people know about it and choose to post there instead of / in addition to in the social networks they already use today. My sense is that it'll take a lot of effort and buy-in before this is comparable in utility to the groups we've already got. What do you think?
And (sorry if this question seems pointed, it's not meant to be) is it more useful to spend that effort on creating something from scratch, as opposed to improving the flawed networks we've got? I realize we can't really "fix" Facebook exactly, but we can make these forums (and the wiki) better. (I do want to discuss how we could improve these forums, but that's a subject for a different thread.)
Fundamentally, in trying to unify fragmented cruisetalk, how do we avoid fragmenting it further? If I'm someone who wants to talk about the cruise, then if we can actually get all cruisetalk moved to the new site, then my life's easier, sure. Until we get there, though, if I've got a fourth place I've got to check now, and I've got to worry about making sure I crosspost my stuff to yet another place, then my life hasn't actually gotten easier. Do we need to kill cruisetalk in the forums/wiki/Facebook for this to be effective? (Basically, this.)
Again, I'm not trying to dismiss this idea! I'm hopeful that whatever does result from these questions will help make this more useful.
Thanks for taking the initiative to set up the site, @sapphiremind! It was great to meet you on the giant boat thing. (Completely off-topically, but while I've got you -- if you want an instrumental version of the Elements Song, you can always go to the source material.)
@Bry
"How will this new CMS be better than these? What specific flaws in the
current systems will be handled in a better way here? For instance, if
overlong threads are a drawback to this forum, how will we fix that in
the new system?"
Great first questions. Forums-wise, there is not enough diversity here to be able to keep track of new things. It's actually ok to repeat topics, and with a better search function and a more subdivided forum, you can find things easier. Instead of being "JoCo Cruise stuff here" It would be "Special dining/fixed seating" "Games" "concerts" "book clubs" "knitters" "new monkeys" "Child free" "parents" "minions" etc. it would encourage people to interact in their subgroup throughout the year, which will help people get to "know" each other better before even setting foot on the ship.
Additionally, there has been pushback before from non-cruisers about the overload of stuff on this page that is cruise-related. I got reprimanded for too much stuff on the wiki - that was enough to kill my enthusiasm for a while.
"I understand the Platonic goal of one website to rule all Cruise stuff,
but in order to get there, we need to do a lot of groundwork to make
sure people know about it and choose to post there instead of / in
addition to in the social networks they already use today. My sense is
that it'll take a lot of effort and buy-in before this is comparable in
utility to the groups we've already got. What do you think?"
I completely agree. Last spring I first brought it up to the home office about doing something like this, and they said "soon". 6 months ago I again offered to help - was told "soon". and then the last few months before the cruise are so hectic that no one can do anything new. I think it is a case of the home office has so much on their plate, and this might just be asking too much of them, and if they aren't able to do it, then we should. Ideally, we would have home office buy in eventually, when there was a real site to speak of, and then in this forum it would be directing people to the CMS - same on the wiki and FB group. I think the wiki could and perhaps should be absorbed into the new site (the wiki about the cruise that is, the rest of joco stuff should stay here.) But we would need buy-in, and I think that's not impossible.
There's a huge group that is cruising, and while the FB page I think should still be there for socializing and sharing, it's not easy to plan things on there. And here, there's just too much cruise stuff to fit into one tiny section of the forum.
There was no a capella group this year. colleenky usually arranges the music, but I bet there are tons of other monkeys who could do it too, and might have been interested if they had realized there was no one else to do it. There are a lot of the shadow cruise events (like speed meeting) that people know they want to do next year, and now they can have a dedicated forum and wiki section just for their purposes of developing their idea. Especially since we'll be on the same ship, we will know what the timing of things will be (not the official performance, but we can make educated guesses) and figure out how we can schedule ourselves to make best use of our time and space, without waiting until the end, or relying on the home office to do it all for us. Doing something like this, we could actually potentially print out a guide to shadow cruise events for new monkeys (returning monkeys too
Oh, and if you would like to be the Lord of the Forums on the new site, you can do that too - I am totally serious in that I don't care who does it, just that it gets done. I want it to be there, and asking other people to do the work up front hasn't worked yet - so, let's get it done another way.
@rhaje
I think that could work well within an article system - you have your main article, with people who are able to edit it/curate it, and then in the comments, there's discussion about that particular issue/article. If there wants to be more discussion, it can migrate to the forums.
I think you guys are trying to reinvent the wheel too much, when you already have a ton of stuff on your plate and people who are willing, nay dying to help you but aren't being allowed. But the CMS needs to come out far before the cruise.
Just host the CMS on a subdomain of jccc.com and let people make their own accounts, cruisers or not. Yeah, it would be great to have it all integrated, but that may not be possible, and I know the CMSs that are based on wordpress are not nearly as hearty as some of the others like drupal, joomla or tikiwiki. They don't have as many features nor are they able to be modded as easily.
But I totally understand you guys have tons of stuff on your plate already in trying to organize this. Let us help, not just on the ship, but off it too. Give us the tools and ability to make your life easier. Let us interact more and get to know each other more. I would love for my daughter to be able to chat with the other girls she met on the cruise, but she is too young for facebook and there's no good way for a bunch of preteenagers to chat here. But they could have a forum to themselves to talk and be silly. We could even limit what they see through permissions and user groups.
There is so much potential and awesome in this community and I would love to see it actually come together outside of the boat too.
We could have a section for official announcements from THO, no comments allowed on those, those are just articles that allow people to see them, and they'd be prominently featured.
Ideally, in my perfect world, on the jococruisecrazy.com site, there would be a link to a CMS - again, don't care if it is someone else's or mine (or I'm willing to give up control of mine to someone else), because that's where new people are going for their info.
I guess to stretch it a little, I could see having different threads for gauging enthusiasm, brainstorming, actual planning/organization, and post-mortem -- but those are also generally relevant at different chronological points, so there wouldn't be more than one or two active threads at a time.
Thoughts from event-runners? This seems like a good idea in general, but it's still not clear to me that this wouldn't be possible by improving the forums or something, or having threads specifically to discuss scheduling. In my mind, this is equivalent to "everyone update CruiseMonkey ahead of time and someone handles the data entry/creating a (physical?) guide". Is there more to this I'm missing? Heh, appreciate the offer, but let me re-insinuate myself into this forum's good graces first
Let me wrap up by reiterating: I can see the benefits, honestly I can, but everyone still needs to convince me that this is worth what I believe would be an immense amount of effort, as opposed to pouring that effort into improving what we've got.
I'd really like to hear from others, though.
We would need home office buy in, but even without them, we have a general idea of the space
And time available. It won't be exact, no. But part of it could be an open system of knowing what events are being requested to be scheduled, so people can be aware and help rearrange if there are conflicts. We know the Jamaica room and the st. Thomas room will be there 24/7 essentially. But if you know there is a huge number of people vying for those spaces, you might decide to only go for two sessions of rock band, or to hold JSJ upstairs at night or conversely, if you see there are lots of empty times for those rooms, you might decide to increase the availability of those games.
I think @bry that this page could be redone to handle all that, but the amount of change is so drastic, I am not sure the HO is interested in doing that, when these forums are fine for basic forums for a performer website.
It's one of those things that you can come up with the idea on Facebook in discussion, maybe get some of the basic brainstorming, but the actual planning gets done on the forums. If the home office starts handing out a site (and links it on the jccc.com site) there will be an easier time to get buy in because it is what is being advertised.
I find the forum here incredibly difficult to navigate. There's too much mashed in here to be dedicated to this one part of JoCo. A user base of 800+ I think definitely merits some dedicated location. This site and forums are about the performer Jonathan Coulton, while ajccc site would be for all the aspects and performers on the cruise.
I forget home office's tag, if someone else could get them tagged.
pulling in ideas from other places - it could be a locale for ambassador training/information, pre-sea monkey chit-chat so people don't feel so disconnected. Helper Monkey shifts can be designated there. If you want, it can match the style of the existing home page, or not.
You guys work extremely hard at the HO. You are essentially 5ish people trying to run a pretty decent sized fan-con, more or less, which is insane. And I think I saw a lot more comments this year about you guys seeming stressed, which sucks because we want you to enjoy it too. But you also have lots of people willing to help, if they feel they have the support from you. Giving us a place to dedicate solely to the cruise will help with that, whether you build it yourself, or allow someone else to build it and you decide who admins it, or you allow it to be self-governed.
We have to have buy in from you because without it, people still won't be going to the right places and still won't know what's happening. It would need to be linked on the jococruisecrazy.com website, and plugged with home office emails (and advertised in the fb group and in here). But the longer it takes to get running, the more fragmented things will get because people will make work arounds and other sites to try and find. Have a site, we don't care if it is linked to our cruise accts (personally, I would probably prefer not, for security reasons, ymmv) or not. I don't care if I make it or a better coder makes it, whether I make it and hand off all admin passwords to someone else or not, whether you want any help running it or not, whether it is its own domain, subhosted off mine or yours. But please give it a try and give us buy in. I've not done much of anything to the site at this point because if we don't have buy in, it is pointless and is just one more site to have to keep track of, which defeats the purpose.
I humbly beg, please! Let us take some work off your shoulders.
I do like the options of having it integrated, though I would be slightly more concerned about security then (ie I have different sets of passwords/logins based on the needed strength. Forums, I use a fairly insecure password because the worst that can happen is they can post as me, but can't do anything else with it. It makes logging in easier from non-home or the phone because it doesn't meet the crazy stupid secure requirements.) If it is going to be attached to booking and such, would definitely be more concerned because of more possibilities for maliciousness, from the outside obviously, but also potentially from the inside, if tiffs develop and people get childish. I would hope it would never happen, but it's always a possibility. This was just my own viewpoints on the security aspect.
I think multisite is a good idea. While I have a personal preference for other systems for varying reasons - none of which are compelling enough to fight for them - if you are most comfortable with wordpress, that's good enough for me (and I would think most people).
I think the basic wordpress wiki would be fine. Most wikis are fairly standard, and if we're going multisite, the few bells and whistles you can get with some are replicated with other plugins.
As far as forum software, I'm going to research that a little bit more. buddypress definitely looks promising, especially with the facebook integration plugin. The other two I have heard good things about are wpSymposium, and bbpress. Wpsymposium provides more of the 'whole shebang' CMS feel, but I am still researching its limitations. Rob Zombie's page apparently uses that, which makes me giggle for some reason (as I am cruising through sites that use these softwares.)
There are also separate plugins like cmAnswers that could essentially help build a separate cruise FAQ. That might make it easier too for people to find specific info, without having to dig through forum posts (which is not ideal)
More to come, time to go running!
With the multisite, it would be easy to go back and forth between these foruma
Sorry @SapphireMind, I've been meaning to say that I agree with you, but it's taken me a long time to collect my thoughts! Now that things are really moving I had better stop dithering. (:
I think it's important to know what our goals are before we start creating a new thing (that's what I've been ruminating on so long.) My personal goals for a Sea Monkey Hub are as follows:
Looking through them and the different setups people have, I agree, buddypress does seem like a good solution. One caveat I've read a lot though about buddypress is the difficulty in theme wrangling, just as an fyi. I also agree that after going through it all, wp-symposium has too many features for our needs. It is always possible that after running one system for a year or more, we may want different options or more, but buddypress is a good place to start.
The facebook integration use wouldn't be mandatory, but for people who don't want yet another acct, it's a quck and easy way to log in.
I'm still researching the different QA things; if you require a login, that might help with abuse potential, but ideally, in my perfect internet world, the faq would be pretty straightforward questions. i.e. "Q. Does Twitarr use outside internet? A. No, it is an intranet only onboard. Wiki on twitarr (link), twitarr development forum (link)" etc. Hopefully it would work that way. If we found it wasn't, we could always switch to a different kind of FAQ plugin. Or set aside an area on the wiki for it. It doesn't work well for convos. As a night owl, I have spent a fair amount of time on YahooAnswers for shits and giggles. It is filled with insanity, but also has some great info. I help kids with their spanish homework (though I refuse the ones who want you to do the whole thing) That site has millions of users, most of whom aren't "invested" in the group, like we would be. But the upside is that it allows for crowdsourced answers and keeps the forums clear of those cut and dry questions. Having a way for admins maybe to star questions, or maybe cull them from the qa section into a more static faq. If that is done in the wiki though, you would not necessarily want to make it generally editable. That might be better as a blog post?
Uh, if I didn't mention it before and it wasn't completely obvious, I'm happy to help
Other than that, I've more experience working with phpbb integration, but I am open to adapt to whatever.