2011-March-08

Dr. Peter Troxler 15:19 HI Anu, Luke ... seems we'll be waiting for Sherry to be available -- everybody else seems unavailable right now

Luke Scharf 15:19 Sounds good

15:20 I just popped in to the wrong conference on the polycom -- good fun there.

Dr. Peter Troxler 15:20 ah ... the one with Neil and UK/Ireland?

Anu 15:19 works for me.

Luke Scharf 15:20 I saw Neil and Sherry, but didn't stick around.

Dr. Peter Troxler 15:21 yeah, must be that one then ... serious business, haha

Anu 15:21 can we listen in on the polycom

Luke Scharf 15:21 So, here's what I've been working on:

http://www.fablab.is/w/index.php/Best_Practices_for_Fab_Lab_Websites

I haven't had time to really flesh it out, but I'm getting some stuff written.

I'm also changing "global fab lab network" to "fab lab community"

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Anu 15:23 me: mostly busy with the documentator, brief section in our newsletter. And RSS/XML experiments week and a half ago.

Luke Scharf 15:23 I noticed that pictures have started showing up in the aggregated content! Wohoo!

Anu 15:23 (newsletter, scroll down for the checkin / check out section. http://protospace.nl/protospace-nieuwsbrief-maart-2011)

Luke Scharf 15:23 I haven't installed the pingback / traceback modules yet.

Very nice!

Anu 15:24 oh, I didn't have time to get tracking as the feed format experiments felt more urgent

Luke Scharf 15:25 I think my next expermint will be with Facebook authentication. Authentication on http://cucfablab.org is more about knowing who to call, than controlling who can create content -- we have our review workflow for that.

Anu 15:27 Facebook connect? http://drupal.org/project/fbconnect

Luke Scharf 15:27 I really want to get a ShopBot here in Champaign-Urbana so that I can make those nice curves

Nice plywood curves are on the documentor station.

I've been thinking about using the Social Authentication Module: http://drupal.org/node/713470

It looks to be a little bit more generic.

Anu 15:28 ah yes, those. as we eat our own dog food, the documentation for the documentator will be available soon. the hardware + drupal setup v1.0.

Dr. Peter Troxler 15:29 I did link the luzern wordpress site to facebook so our posts go there as links/posts ... there's a WP plugin to handle this

Anu 15:30 I came across Gigya at some point, haven't tried much yet thou. but on the agenda. http://drupal.org/project/gigya

hm, should probably create facebook connections between fablabs who are there

Luke Scharf 15:32 It wouldn't hurt anything.

We have a Facebook page.

Anu 15:32 (as part of the whole community building agenda, when you land up on one of the network sites you would find others too). Mental note: to write on best practices

Luke Scharf 15:32 It's not as wildly popular as we'd like, though.

Anu 15:33 we have a very new one, so not part of the ecosystem here yet.

Luke Scharf 15:33 I've written a little bit about the RSS Graffiti application we're using to echo web content, but what I wrote isn't exactly a wholistic approach.

Anything you can add would be excellent!

I have a blank spot called "Integrating Fab Lab Websites with Facebook", which probably should be renamed.

As always, when I write something, the organization evolves.

An awful lot of what I was planning to say in those other pages ended up in the general page: http://www.fablab.is/w/index.php/General_Technologies,_Protocols,_and_Practices_for_Fab_Lab_Websites

And it's only been coming together in the last couple of days.

Anu 15:35 well, the more you write the more writing there is to do

Luke Scharf 15:36 Indeed!

Anu 15:39 reminds me, should push out the docs for documentator 1.0 before I move on to developing additional pieces, just for the record and review if anyone else wants to o something with it

Luke Scharf 15:54 I've seen that Drupal has some sort of multi-language features, but I've never looked in to it. Do either of you all know what it really does?

Anu 15:55 the interfaces of modules are translatable (.po files, if you happen to have encounter them)

i18n for multilingual content

Dr. Peter Troxler 15:56 when I was experimenting for the Swiss site, I had i18n running

Luke Scharf 16:02 Cool. I've been trying to think about language more with respect to this community, since it's spanning several continents. But, as an American (even one living in a college town), I don't have much experience with the issue, since business is conducted in English for thousands of kilometers in eevry direction... Still, I'm trying to wrap my head around it.

I'd been wondering if Drupal had slots for versions of the story in multiple languages, or could use a plugin that would use one the automatic translation services (with all of the usual caveat).

Anu 16:03 that's probably far more prevalent issue for Europe for sure.

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:04 the pain really is to have to translate the content

Luke Scharf 16:04 But it could become a bigger issue as African and South American labs begin to participate.

Anu 16:04 http://drupal.org/documentation/modules/translation

Luke Scharf 16:05 Yeah -- I can only imagine, but really does seem like a big pain in the ass. And pains in the ass prevent people from posting content. I'd much rather have content that I can't read than to have no content at all.

I can often pick enough proper nouns out of a technical writeup in another language to get something out of reading it.

So, maybe this is a known issue that we would choose not to solve? Just get everyone posting content and see what happens?

Anu 16:06 http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=drupal+automatic+translate&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

I would start with "more content = good" principle as well.

but keep in mind the possible pitfalls of course.

Luke Scharf 16:10 Having an "Automatic Translation" button could be valuable. Maybe I'll try it on the CUC Fab Lab website and see if some the bilingual folks who are part of our community here can vouch for its sanity. I guess one benefit the more formal technical language is that an automatic translation tool might have an easier time with it.

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:11 there's sherry in the email ...

Anu 16:11 yes, i asked if she'd like to pop in this chat now briefly

I for one would be curious to see (even badly translated) fabmoments from Africa or India

Dr. Peter Troxler added Sherry Lassiter to this conversation

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:13 do we have a plan what next steps could be?

(I'll have a go at writing up the luzern HowTo/RSS install)

(which is WP)

and share my thinking I did with Anu

Luke Scharf 16:15 My list is as follows:

1. Continue writing up my thoughts on Web best-practices: http://www.fablab.is/w/index.php/Best_Practices_for_Fab_Lab_Websites -- and I'd love it if everyone could read what I'm written and sanity check it.

2. Try Facebook authentication on http://cucfablab.org

3. Install Pingback and/or Trackback module

4. Try to add a "Translate" button to http://cucfablab.org

Anu 16:16 I will document (Drupal) experiments with XML so far, and try to formalize "fabML" for starters. Can explore plugins or templates for creating XML from Wordpress.

Luke Scharf 16:16 (Also, everyone is more than welcome to edit the section of the wiki I've set up.)

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:17 we also should start thinking, in terms of fabML what concepts we'd need in addition to what's normally in a RSS feed and how we'd define these

Anu 16:17 document the documentator (Drupal pieces from me, hardware from our student Evert)

16:18 in case it got lost: -I will document the Documentator making of - Drupal pieces from me, hardware to be solicited from our student Evert. With relevant parts to the best practices

Luke Scharf 16:19 I'm quite interested in fabML. But it seems to me that there is a benefit to sticking with standard RSS (or being compatible with it), since it's widely used and very easy to set up.

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:19 I guess we could use some good housekeeping on the wiki, say some central place where we collect the links to the various bits and keep track of our conversations

Anu 16:20 peter, yes indeed - I think what's important would be to start with definining what are the minimal documentation needs, overall (just to have it formalized). And build from that.

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:21 @Luke ... there is e.g. a extension to standard RSS which I used at the luzern site ... it is defined here http://video.search.yahoo.com/mrss

Anu 16:22 "meta"-functionality needed for searching easily becomes quite hacky with RSS, already with "just one field", and in regards of Drupal configuration even RSS with any customization whatsoever requires you to make new template. so in that sense XML is not really a big stretch.

but RSS "as is", to at least be able to share "this fabmoment comes from lab X" is a valuable starting point (and might be something people would be happy with as is)

XML and formalizing things is likely to become way more important when non-www documentation becomes a reality.

hm, hope i'm making sense here? Voice would be easier for discussion

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:29 JUST BRIEFLY SOME HOUSKEEPING -- can you add the links to your documentation here: http://www.fablab.is/w/index.php/Community_Platform_Development

... and there is lots of discussions once we *really* start to dig into fabML

Luke Scharf 16:30 Will do!

Somone has already added it -- sweet!

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:31 so shall we close the meeting and reconvene in a week's time, same time?

Anu 16:36 works for me, any week is in general okay (might be good to check if that is the case for others who have been around)

Luke Scharf 16:36 Sounds good to me.

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:38 OK. I'll reconfirm with Lass

Luke Scharf 16:38 I wouldn't mind postponing the meeting an hour, since the meeting occurrs an hour before I normally get to work. But I also understand that it's already late in the day for those in the European continent, so I'm happy to come to work early if that makes it easier for everyone else.

(I'm in the US's Central Daylight Time, so this meeting is at 8am for me.)

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:39 I C ... could we try 8:30 ... I'll have to be in another meeting at 16:30 my time (9:30 central)

Luke Scharf 16:39 8am is probably fine.

Er, 8am is good.

Anu 16:40 hour later in general works for me, it's only 4pm cet time. but this is fine too.

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:41 OK -- let's stick to 8am central/1500 CET for next week and take it from there

Luke Scharf 16:41 Sounds like a plan!

Dr. Peter Troxler 16:41 thx