Coming up this Saturday ... Jim Gleason's Little People - Part 2

From WWR

Editor's note: This interview took place on March 28, 2006. Programming for the website progresses at Jimbob's pace. To see the status of the programming visit his status page or the Version 4 page.

Note: I am going to make a quick stab at answers to start with. I will return as time permits and provide more details. Be aware that some answers are 'tongue-in-cheek'. I hope I don't offend anyone. Jimbob 13:17, 28 March 2006 (AKST)

If you do say something 'tongue-in-cheek' and worry about it being misinterpreted, why not mark it with an emoticon or something - after all, that is what emoticons were originally developed for. It occurs to me that this page could become a continuous question-and-answer forum if you were to grant permission for the rest of us to add questions to the end. IMHO this is a very innovative use of the wiki concept and I look forward to participating more fully when the new community structure begins to gell. zben 05:25, 29 March 2006 (AKST)

Interview with Jimbob on March 28, 2006

The present website works just fine, why are you making a new one?

Short A.

• For the long-term future viability of WWR.
  1. The old website requires a lot of daily maintenance on my part. It was not designed to be a collabrative effort. Only I can maintain the databases etc. All change or new features require my time to program them. I need help as my time becomes more and more stretched with ripping new CDs, doing house concerts, starting to produce video, moving to the new Wheat Hole etc.
  2. The old website, for all its charm, uses an extremely non-standard interface. Although we're all used to it because we've learned it, for a newbie it requires learning a whole new 'language'. That language is often non-intuitive. The only person who can change that 'language' is me and I have to do it by re-writing actual code which is time intensive and still does not result in an interface that everyone likes.
  3. The old website is full of bugs, both major and minor. Many of those bugs are in areas I have no personal interest in or do not have the resources to debug; i.e. the site doesn't render well on a hand-held device, on a Mac, using Safari, etc.
  4. The old website can be massively inefficient with resources because I didn't know what I was doing when I wrote it. (Remember, until I started WWR I didn't know PHP / mySQL / Apache (AMP) so I learned as I went.) If 5 people all are doing a search on the music database at the same time, the server slows noticably.
  5. The old website is difficult to navigate because there are so many pages that do not fall under a common 'umbrella'. It is not searchable which compounds the problem.
  6. Personally, for me, the old website is stale. There are a lot of cool things I'd like to be able to do but can't find a place to impliment on the old website.

Is this the interest of the moment, or is there more to this?

Short A.

• Nope, this is a long-term committment not just the fascination de jour.

Yeah, I think once you stepped into it, there's no going back -- kinda like stepping into dog-doo. If it doesn't work out, you can always just scrape the shit off your shoes and go back. Or can you? --J-Walk 18:15, 28 March 2006 (AKST)

Why did you choose this wiki format?

Short A.

• Because it relieves me from the responsibility for much of WWR and gives it to the community who rightfully should be in charge.
  1. The wiki software has already done a lot of the 'details' programming that I hate to do. For example, logging on and maintaining your 'Personality', processsing the edit screen, etc. is done by the wiki code. I dislike coding boring tasks like that which is why my interfaces suck and frequently have bugs. I much prefer adding snazzy features that have to do with controlling the stream, ranking music, etc. The wiki software lets me do what I have fun doing instead of worrying about maintaining stupid cookies.
  2. The wiki format is, if not already, going to become a standard on the web IMNSHO. In 3 years, using a wiki will be as natural to most web user as using a blog is today. By adopting a standard interface and look-n-feel, WWR is better positioned to attract new members and to be taken seriously by the web as a whole.
  3. Because I personally enjoy writing innovative code that has never been done before. Making a wiki handle a live chat and manage a live webstream dynamically is, simply put, a kick-ass use of the wiki format. I would like someone in wikidom to come over, take a look, and say "Wow - now that is cool!"

Absolutely. Everything I know about wikis I've learned in the past two weeks. I'm pretty sure that no one has ever done this sort of thing. I think a Wired article is appropriate. --J-Walk 18:19, 28 March 2006 (AKST)

4. As new releases of the wiki software become available, we'll be able to take advantage of them and their new features. It's as though WWR now has a crack team of programmers working for us round the clock developing new and useful features (like being able to page up and down in entries).

5. When I spent a few hours surfing Wikipedia and realized that they have thousands of contributors and have proven beyond any doubt that web collaboration can work to produce stunningly wonderful results, I immediately envisioned the same sort of community collaborative effort for WWR. Within hours of my installing the wiki software, Sparkit and J-Walk were already making significant and extremely useful contributions that required no time or input from me. I was quickly convinced that the wiki concept was a way to allow more community involvement while at the same time relieving me of oversight and maintenance responsibilities.

What do you think will be appealing to users in Version 4?

Short A.

• The ability to contribute, customize and become part a useful part of a friendly web community.
  1. A lot of new, faster and more intuitive features related to the webcast are being added. In a few months, I think most people will look back on the old system as quaint. For example, check out the chat. See how easy it is to rank a song? Just click on the star rating you want to give it. Boom. It's done. Want to request more music from an artist? Click on their link, pick the track you want to hear, click it, type in your optional request dedication, and boom - it's done. And that's just the webcast stuff. Look at all the great listener contributed pages that have already started, including the recipes sections, Wheat Futures, etc. Bottom line: this new site is downright fun. I'm not a huge fan of surfing in general, yet I've found myself spending hours just hitting "Random Page" on this site and reading what Wheatheads have written.
  2. Once I get the code structure figured out, the ability to build your own custom screens (or have someone else do it or just use someone else's) will mean that listeners can finally see just what they want and nothing more.

Suggestion - Let's call it MyWWR! smile --J-Walk 19:00, 28 March 2006 (AKST)

Will listeners be able to use the old pages? Will the old pages go away?

Short and long A.

• No, listeners will not be able to use the old pages. Yes, they will go away.
  1. For technical reasons, it's extremely undesirable for me to run parallel systems both in terms of code and database maintenance but also in terms of useability i.e. "Will the real WWR website please stand up?" This new software is a way for us to simplify and put everything under one roof and that's exactly what we're going to do.

In the new chat there are no EJs, users can't query the 8-ball or change fonts and colors, will all those things be in the new chat when you are done?

Short A.

• Yes and no. Some features from the old system will be included in the new one. Others will not. It depends on the feature, how useful it is, how difficult it is to program and maintain, and whether the feature fits schematically with the current system.
  1. The EJs will have their own chat page and will rarely interrupt other chat rooms. If you want to see what they're up to, or just have a conversation with them, you'll be able to do it on their own chat page.
  2. Fonts and colors? Not sure yet. Yes and no. It'll be a choice. Same with chat avatars. At this point, I just needed to 'prototype' the chat (i.e. create one that did the basic function and worked) and not worry about all the bells and whistles. Just like on the old system, features will be added (and deleted) on an on-going basis.
  3. Will the 8-ball return? It is certain.
  4. Wheatberries? In some form or another. I am not sure yet, but finally we have the chance to re-work the entire wheatberry concept and make them something worthwhile and fun. I think. Maybe. I'll have to sit in the outhouse for several hours before I get a brainstorm. Or else you can suggest something on the Feature Requests page.

Will users be able to rate tracks, and request songs and shows?

Short and long A.

• Yes.

Do users have to write pages on the new site?

Short A.

• No, absolutely not.
  1. The beauty of this new site is that you can choose your own level of participation. On the old site, there were only 2 basic levels of participation; 1) chat 2) requests. On this site you have those plus a whole new huge world of possibilities. You can create pages on whatever your heart desires. Finally you can express yourself creatively and personally to the WWR community if you so choose. Or, you can never write a single page yet still have lots of fun seeing what other people have done.
  2. It's natural for an 'us vs. them' i.e contributors vs. non-contributors attitude to develop just as it as on Wikipedia and probably hundreds of other sites that use wiki software. My hope and prediction is that contributors will be happy to have volunteered their time and talent and won't lord their many hours of hard work over those who decide not to contribute. We're a small enough community that I think everyone understands their level of participation is completely a personal choice. If you enjoy contributing, do it. If you're doing it in order to get recognition or control other users on the system, it probably won't work here.

Lots of the pages have very little on them and the site seems quite disorganized. Is someone going to fix that?

Short A.

• Yeah, you are!
  1. Several people have been working hard to organize the site. Because it's brand new and we don't know exactly what will be put here or where it should go, changes are occuring constantly. In addition, we're all thousands of miles away from each other, not having telephone conferences (thank goodness) or working from a single system design. This is bound to create an organic, seemingly unorganized 'mess' at the beginning. Rest assured that some incredibly logical minds are looking at the overall categorization of the system and ease-of-use, deciding it could be done better, and then doing it without having to wait for 'management approval'.
  2. Pages that have little content on them are an invitation for you to contribute. If you know something about the subject or are just tired of seeing a stub page (one that is basically empty) then jump right in and add something to the page. Before you know it, you'll be feeling just grand about your contibution to the community. I promise it'll feel a hell of a lot better than getting a tote bag.

What can listeners do to help?

Short A.

• Check out the "How you can help" page
  1. You know what I do whenever I get a new piece of software or start surfing a new site? I click links. I look at all the menu options. I get a broad overview of what the program/website is supposed to do and where I can find the common options I'll want to use. I don't actually read anything, I just click the links to see what's under them. I think one of the most helpful things everyone can do is start clicking the links even if, maybe especially if, you don't understand what they're for. You're not going to hurt anything. After you've done that, you'll have a much better idea of what stuff is and where it's at, even if you have no idea what it is. That will help us because now when you have a question we can just say "go to preferences" or "go to the talk page" and you'll be able to do that.
  2. Several people are putting in massive amounts of volunteer time and expertise on the new site. If you don't like something, consider changing it yourself, or contacting them and discussing how you could help them change it instead of just saying "I hate this". It's really demoralizing for volunteers to have their work criticized by someone who isn't even interested in learning the new system. The bottom line is, if you don't like something then change it. You now have the power.

Is this scalable? Will it still work when WWR has 300 listeners all querying the database at once?

Short A.

• Who knows?
  1. I'm watching CPU utilization and generally it appears to be excellent (although I must admit I'm surprised after looking at the wiki code). I tend to keep a pretty close watch on overall CPU usage and know when it's reached a level that I have to optimize my database code etc. So far, so good.
  2. As I'm learning how to hook into the system software, I've had to turn off page caching. I noticed page refreshes took a bit longer but once I figure out more of the finer points of the internal workings of the system, I should be able to re-enable page caching.
  3. See Wikipedia for all further concerns about scalability. All you have to do is throw enough servers together and this software will let you create the largest encyclopedia in the world with thousands of concurrent users.

In sofware development terms, where would you say you are at right now? Pre-alpha? Alpha? Beta? Pre-release?

Short A.

• Pre-beta Alpha Theta Delta Gamma go team go!
  1. It changes day to day and hour to hour. One of the things I most enjoy about my work on WWR is that it's not a job. I can mostly do what I want, when I want and when I feel like it. So, if I get an idea I want to tackle, I'll often just start working on it. (Example: right now I'd like to have the EJs be able to post photos from the upcoming Diane Zeiger and Brooks Williams house concert. I'm chomping at the bit to write that now although there are some other things which probably should take priority.)
  2. At first I thought I thought most everyone would migrate over here voluntarily (and because it's so much fun) and that the old site would be such a wasteland that I could easily shut it off without anyone caring. I was way wrong about that. So, what's going to happen is that those of us creating this site will continue to do so. You can watch us if you want (we'd love your help, your input and your company!) When most of the critical functionality from the old site is available here, I'll 'call a meeting' with those who have been using this site and ask them if they think it's ready to become the main site. If they say yes, if most of the bad bugs are gone, and if I have exhausted my "high priority" list of to do items, we will make an announcement that the old site will close in X days.
  3. My current feeling is that we're 2 weeks 6 days 12 hours a few weeks from that announcement.

You must have a huge list of things to migrate/fix/add. How are you prioritizing these tasks?

Short and long A.

• See my sandbox

When will all this be done?

Short and long A.

• Hopefully, never. It's just like a house or a kid. You're never done improving it, changing it, adapting it to new conditions and ... loving it.

Where can listeners ask more questions?

Short A.

• I'm going to get Sparkit answer for me.
  1. One of the most wonderful things about the new site is that I never know where it's going or who decided to fix something up just because they love doing it. I'll be the first to admit that I don't where everything is on this site or where the current page is to ask questions. But I'm pretty sure it's The Mill. I could be wrong though, or there may be a nifty list of where to ask certain kinds of questions. So (and oh how I loooooooovvvvveeeeeee being able to start saying this for the first time in the history of WWR and know it's not just blowing you off and that you'll actually get an answer) ask someone else! smile And how cool that 'someone else' can answer right here on this page!

Sparkit's A.

The Chat is still the best place to ask questions. At first, few chatters will not know where to find answers, but it won't be long before folks find their way around. Search (in the navigation panel on the left) is another way to find things. And, yes, The Mill is open for questions and answers — any kind of question. Several users are monitoring The Mill and will answer the questions that they can.

The cover page has a great starter index of topics. A FAQ is started, to which all are welcome to contribute.