Community Prototype

Happy March everybody,

It’s March and I’m glad that spring is coming. The smell of the earth waking up in the spring is a wonder. There are already some buds on a few of the trees outside the office window. Renewal.

I’m glad for Peter Jackson today. I think his work deserved every award it got last night, but I’m glad he got Best Director – what an amazing job coordinating all of those thousands of people and all the work they did, and making it into a multi-year multi-film piece of art. Some of the cast members have talked about the possibility of a film of The Hobbit, but I don’t know – it’s an entirely different kind of tale, and would be a different kind of film. I wonder if any of them have thought about working with any of the stories from The Silmarillion – there are so many stories there that could be expanded upon. Probably best to just leave it as is, no sense messing with a good thing.

I have about thirty pens on my desk, but only one of them works.

We went to the ocean yesterday, for a walk in the sun by the water. It was beautiful and relaxing – I wonder if the sound of surf is that way for everybody, and if it is, I wonder if there is a genetic reason for it. DiaryMistress found some sea glass for our growing collection – we’re always looking for more blue or green pieces. She said that as long as guys on fishing boats keep drinking beer, we’ll always be able to find some – but it would be nice if they’d start making beer bottles in colors other than brown.

Before I say anything else about this, let me stress that this is a prototype, or what we in geekland call a beta. I’m working on a feature for Open Diary called “OD Communities”. We used to have pages on the site that would let you see latest entries and reader’s choice selections from different age groups, or from each of the continents. This new idea is kind of an extension of that.

I haven’t put this on any of the menus yet, but if you click the link at the end of this entry, you will go to the Communities page. At present, this page lists communities by age group, and also for five countries where we have a lot of members: Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, and the UK. If you then click on the name to go to the community page, you will see the usual OD front page – but it has been filtered to show only entries from the community you selected. Other features that work in the community are: search (returns only diaries in the community), random (will only randomly go to these diaries), latest entries, index pages, and reader’s choice. All of these pages will only display entries from the selected community, as long a community is selected.

If you are browsing a community, you will see a community box in the left side menu of all your pages. This tells you what community you are set to, and has links back to the community page and to turn communities off.

This is important: you will continue to only see the community diaries until you click the regular OD link in the community box. Once you click that link, you will be returned to OD as it normally appears. If you go to search for a diary that is outside the community, it will not turn up if you have a community turned on.

The communities on this list are ones that you are automatically a member of if you belong to one of these countries or age groups. My idea for the future is to also convert the Diary Circles to this format, so you can choose from those for other communities to be a member of – like you could be a member of the Poetry community, or the Fitness community and browse their diaries and entries in the same way. When you saved an entry in the future, you would be able to choose if you wanted to post it to one of the communities that you are a member of. I’d also like to work out different color schemes or more customized home pages, to make each community more distinct.

You may be asking, “if this is so unfinished, why are you posting it now?” Good question. I’ve worked on this on and off for the last couple months, and I love the idea – but I’m not happy with the execution. Maybe it’s because it’s Monday and I’m uninspired – but I don’t like the mechanics of it, I don’t how the links work, I don’t even like what the links are called (who’s going to understand “regular OD”). So this entry is sort of a plea for a little inspiration – do you think it is a good idea? What would you do to improve it? I’ve been thinking so much about this, I could use a little extra input.

OD Communities

Addendum: (because there’s always an addendum) – some people noted that they were concerned the idea of communities might divide OD. Please understand that these communities are a place to visit, not the place you live on OD. Everybody would still be part of the larger OD, and “regular OD” would still carry everybody’s entries and diaries like always. The communities are just an add-on, to give people another way to find diarists they’re interested in.

Thanks,

The DiaryMaster

How did you make the dialog box on the side of your entry? I have been trying to do that, but I can’t seem to figure out how to make it work… Just curious!

Because you are working so hard on something that matters not to me, but obviously matters to a lot of folks, I have a suggestion from over a year ago. If ever possible, please put a search window at the start page that would allow a diarist to put in a word and find all diaries that contained that specific word. 8)

Can you work on an option that lets you remove yourself from somebodies favorites list please? Someone has added me + I can’t request them to remove me as they have no entries to note on. I suspect they were just using the account to read my diary which is rather devious of them. They can’t view my diary as I’m now fav’s only but I don’t want them having my URL and user id.thanks,

Yay! A fantastic idea. There is certainly a place for teen diarys but not in MY world and I love the thought of being able to get around them. I hope this can be made to work. Thank you….

I am not sure if anyone has been complaining about this, but for the past week or two my diary keeps logging me off. I was in the middle of editing an entry and it kicked me off. Can you please tell me why every 10 mins or so I have to log into my diary again.

you need to go to Lake michigan for sea glass in other colors… we have bottles and bottles of blues and greens and an occasional purple. I like your format, is it okay to leave notes about your non technical entries? as for communities… If od is the world, then each community could be a village in it. You can follow that logic perhaps.

You have built what i feel is already one of the best “diary sites out there. However I fear that communities will divide OD into factions, and they will be completely alienated from each other. The fact that I get random notes from people of all walks of life is a source of inspiration. However I also believe in democracy, and if the people want it, the people should have it. Just my 2c Tom

Recently, another member of the FOD community took one of my poems and put it on their diary as their own, they even changed the dates to make it appear as theirs, i contacted the staff and reported a rule violation, i also got other people to help me, as many of them had their own poems taken,but nothing has been done. The name of the culprits diary is TroixDaddy. I would like action to be taken

It’s certainly a good idea.

May I suggest a parenting comminity?

Maybe instead of having links on the left when you’re in a community you could use a dropdown box to return to regular OD or go to another community. Also, you could just call “regular OD” “All Inclusive OD” or “All Diarists Community,” something like that.

are you going to possibly implement an option to have private notes as an option on each entry? also what about faves only entry options? sometimes i write but people dont use the readers pw or i dont want to give them access to all my private entries. I think people mentioned this to you before but i dont know if its possible.

I would love for them to do the hobbit. The only thing now is the hokey cartoon version – which I loved as a child.

Aloha~ I have a question. You know your “Open Diary” Logo thingy in the left hand corner ^up there^ on the diaries? Yeah well can you put your own image in there instead of that one? And if so can I have to code? Note me back, thanks.

*giggles* itd be funny if there were “community” wars. people can be so silly sometimes. isabel

the do make beer bottles in different colors. most fishermen only drink bud… so hence the lack in colors. isabel

speaking of all things oscar-like…johnny depp was robbed!! :p

I LOVE it! This is a wonderful way to avoid teenagers while viewing OD. I don’t see it ‘dividing’ OD, it’s just a nice tool (what ever it may be called- I don’t know computer lingo). Hmmm… as for renaming “regular OD” to something else, the only thing I could come up with was “primary OD”. 🙁 Wow- that’s a tough one to solve 🙂

P.S.- I like the little “OD Community” box on the left; it’s very clean and tidy.

How about “OD Worldwide” instead of “regular OD”? Hey it’s nice to read your comments about Peter Jackson. I’m a New Zealander and of course he’s a total superstar here. At one stage two years ago LOTR was one of our country’s biggest employers which is crazy, but kinda cool. I also think he did incredibly well, and has been a wonderful ambassador for our country. Keep up the great OD work 🙂

dear diarymaster, i think it’s a great idea for you to add a personal reflection column… we get to see a different side of you. not that technical serious persona. 🙂 take care!

Just a comment. When I go to change my notes setting to “All Notes” it never works. If you go to my diary it says you must be a member of OD, but when I go to my settings page the little dot is on “All Notes”. This is happening with my other friends who recently made diaries as well. Any idea as to why? Just wondering, and thought you might like to know. 🙂

Just wondering do you have a diary that you put normal entrys in. I mean it would be kinda pointless to not use your own site…right??

🙂 I have a collection of seaglass, too…I even found a pink piece. I like it when the edges are still slightly fresh, so you can see where they’ve been broken and they haven’t been completely worn away, but worn enough so they won’t cut you. I agree on you with The Hobbit…it wouldn’t have the diversity of actors either, since most of the characters are dwarves. I still prefer

the cartoon version. 😀 Sorry, I know you probably wanted notes on how to improve the community idea, but I was taken by the actual “you” entry. 🙂

Instead of “regular OD,” how about “OD Global” or “Universal OD?” Also, any chance of expanding this later to include U.S. regions or individual states?

I like the OD Communities, but one thing I think would be even better if/when OD Communities is up and running full throttle would be to allow OD Interests to be communities as well, so if someone likes for example “Martha Stewart”…all entries we would see would be from those who only like Martha Stewart…and this could be accessed via our profile (for all), right beside our intrests list.

I like the concept — how about changing the “read diaries” button text, when in “community” mode, to the word Community, followed by the specific community you’re browsing (“Community: 30’s” or whatever) and including a link at the bottom of that column to switch back to regular OD (“all of OD” perhaps?) — and when in regular OD mode, have that bottom link be to the communities/selection page?