Things Unknown Yet
Hugh's description of roles:
- book coordinator vs. meta-coordinator
- uploading system: "which is a little bit complicated, but involves a basic check that files have something in them, a volume normalization step, meta data quality control, and catalog page generation." Is any of this automated? Is there an API if it is? Do we want to integrate this into the catalog if not?
Should we include basic type info in the catalog? (children's, humor, ...)
- a way for a team leader to add a new book to the system (*) - a unique URL for each book which the team leader can post in the forum (we'll still want to use the forum to discuss the book!) - a way to see what chapters are available - a way to sign up to do a chapter - a way for the team leader to 'orphan' a chapter (remove a volunteer who can't follow through) (*) - a way to mark a chapter as completed and give a URL EITHER - to the archive.org files (in an ideal world this would be linked into the automatic uploader we hope to produce) - OR to a file that the team leader can pick up in order to upload to archive.org - a way to autogenerate the catalog page(s) from the database - later, some sort of search facility
Obviously we wouldn't need all of this in the first cut
(*) probably restricted access; we can handle this with .htaccess / .htpasswd
We have python (2.3.4), mysql (12.22) and ruby (1.8.2) on the server (thanks, nyip.net!), and a 'spare' database instance that we asked for in order to do exactly this sort of thing.
Do we have Perl at all? What release?
one thing to note on the chapter sign-up etc, I think librivox is working so well right now because of the interaction on the forum. we need to be careful not to put too many tech blocks between interaction of volunteers -- even if that means the process is less efficient. meaning, I wonder if the best thing is to have the catalog (as kristen says, more important now) working smoothly - listing all the important info, status of books, meta data, tagging? ranking? rss-feeds for "hugh's librivox favourites?" ... etc... but to leave chap sign-up & volunteer managemtn in the hands of team leaders in the forum. that way the volunteers are committing to a person, rather than an interface & initial contact and follow-up will be more personal. - Hugh [HUGELY IMPORTANT! - JM]
Volunteer use case: Volunteer looks at 'chapters needing readers' page Volunteer selects a chapter (or book) that they would like to read The link takes them to the forum Volunteer signs up in the forum Team leader sees that they have volunteered and enters the details into the database via a 'book leader' page
Stephan's book management layout mockups http://www.moebius.mynetcologne.de/librivox/librivox_bookmanagment_1.gif http://www.moebius.mynetcologne.de/librivox/librivox_bookmanagment_2.gif http://www.moebius.mynetcologne.de/librivox/librivox_bookmanagment_3.gif http://www.moebius.mynetcologne.de/librivox/librivox_bookmanagment_4.gif
