The Great Tree

[Durin Mephit]

I'll have to take a peek later. Running out to breakfast now

Here are some awkward little icons, just an idea I had in my head, I'm sure Tweek could do something better.


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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

[Durin Mephit]

I'm tinkering around with mysql on the server so I can start doing data entry on some night. Right now I created a test table of this form:

table entries
id int;
tag varchar(100);
title varchar(120);
parents varchar(20);
url varchar(120);
language varchar(50);

What's the best way to add "alias" keywords for sites (keywords that aren't ever seen by users except, in the future, when we add some sort of admin function to edit an entry through the web)?
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

[dcos]

[Erik]

I don't quite understand you about those alias tags... Do you mean a tag that refers to another tag? Or a placeholder tag?

About the database: Perhaps it's easier if I export my database so that you can import it. Then you have the same database structure, and also some example entries. Would you like that?

[Durin Mephit]

Erik,

Example of aliases:

"tgt" is the primary keyword for The Great Tree.
"greattree", "great tree", "thegreattree" and "the great tree" will also direct a user to The Great Tree, and if a user searches for one of these items, the Great Tree entry should be matched. But these keywords don't appear in the directory or search results.

As for exporting the table, sure, that may be the simplest way. I'll just have to figure out how to import.

Also, I have another thing that needs to be coded into the script... it should be easy, but your 100 line script is going to get a little longer It's easier to explain in chat.
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

[Durin Mephit]

Rel.to is starting to shape up nicely. As I look at a populated database, I'm starting to rethink a few details of the design.

My thoughts are:
* If a user clicks on a 'related link', maybe rel.to should perform a search on that item rather than treat it as a direct link.
* Maybe we shouldn't always show the lighter-colored 2nd level links, but should just list those as Related Links. I'll have to look where 3rd level links are appearing and see what the implications of that would be. There are situations where I want 2nd level links, and situations where I don't. Something to play with someday.
* If an entry has multiple parents, maybe we should list the parents that aren't the "current parent" on that page also as Related Links.

Those are just some ideas to try to make the system look and operate more cleanly. But I'm not a design guy. I'll ask Tweek to poke around Erik's testing site, and I'd like to encourage others to do the same and post your thoughts.

Please comment on the organization of the data, as well as the style. As I set up the database, I have been rethinking some of my original approach, breaking each of the 7 top categories into subcategories. Sites such as DJC, UO, and DPWR are getting wedged into "Communities" or "Organizations" as appropriate, while the various content they provide (Archives, Libraries, Codexes) are being placed into the Help and/or News categories as I've deemed appropriate thus far. What do you think of this approach?

http://rel.to/proto
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

[Durin Mephit]

Hope you have Spanish and Polish flag icons ready...
es and pl are now in the list.

I think a way to simplify adding aliases would be useful. Something like a line with just a tag, and a new flag field that tells which entry it should alias against. All other fields would be ignored/empty. Alternatively, we could add a field for additional keywords, and searching would match against that field as well. What do you think of either idea? Or maybe you have another solution?
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

[Erik]

Yes, I already had the first solution in my mind when you spoke about aliases. That would be the most convenient solution I think.

I'd already uploaded a Spanish flag, and I'll now upload a Polish one. Do we really have a Polish fansite?? Never knew that!

[Tweek]

UO's Dan'ni is polish.
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Grey Skies | Beneath

[Durin Mephit]

Categorize this under Hmmm, I thought that might happen.

"alcugs" is a "floating" link - it doesn't have a parent, but I didn't mean for it to be reachable by navigating through the pages of the site. I wanted to see what would happen if I added something like that to the directory. Now I know - it floats to the top.
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

[Durin Mephit]

I'm looking forward to a more final design for the website. I am wondering if it would be good to add a bit of Guild of Messengers branding to the website. What do other people think?

I'm only providing small database updates to Erik now; I have another update I'll send him soon, but that part is more or less done, for now.
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

[BladeLakem]

[Moiety Jean]

Sure!
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~Moiety Jean

KI#44727
"There is a certain beautiful danger when a group of geeks get together to entertain themselves." ~Orin Drake

[Erik]

Not sure about it... Perhaps it's better only to use that icon at the official GoME, but then again, the 'official' GoME hasn't done nearly enough to earn the exclusive rights to the icon. I know many people, including Marten, are a member of the GoME, who are doing a lot, but I'm mainly talking about the GoME website here, which one would expect to be representative of the Guild's efforts. So it may even be better to use the icon at Relto as well. It may improve the image people have of the Guild.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to releasing it...

[Durin Mephit]

I am asking the Guild of Messengers if they'd like to stand behind it. I think I obviously need their buy-in.

I knew Blade would say "yes" because he's the person that first suggested it.

Some in the community want to see the GoMe pull together more and appear less as a set of disparate efforts. While I don't think the affiliates are going to suddenly become nameless minions of the GoMe system.... they are each invested in their own identites... but I think Rel.to could set an example to share the GoMe brand across the contributing affiliates.
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768