[Zope-PTK] Discussions in PTK

Tres Seaver tseaver@palladion.com
Wed, 16 Feb 2000 16:36:24 -0600


Mike Pelletier wrote:
> 
>     Where do these objects go?  I would like to keep everything owned by a
> Member somewhere within their personal space (which is their Member
> folder).  Whether it's in the folder directly or in some 'Discussions'
> sub-folder, I'm not sure, but this highlights a general Zope problem.
> Once users can start creating discussion items, they are much more likely
> to produce a LOT of objects than they were before.  It is quite difficult
> for a user to manage a large number of objects in Zope.  I am actually
> inclined to hide a user's discussion items in the 'My Stuff' interface.

I don't think this scales -- "replies" need context (which is why I am quoting
the paragraph you wrote, after all) and don't really stand alone.  I think
replies should be stored "with" their discussions;  after all, a member who
wants to "reply" to a discussion with a document or a link can create one, and
then reference it in a reply.

In another sense, replies (and even discussions) don't really "belong" to the
poster, once they are "released" to the community;  they ought to become
more-or-less permanent parts of the community's lore.  I think the model of a
non-expiring NNTP server (Jon Udell's book has excellent examples of integrating
such servers with web and mail) is the right one for most "discussions".  For
those which are "talkbacks" to a member-owned document, the replies really
"belong" to that document.

> 
>     If that's the path we take, I would provide a 'My Discussions'
> interface.  This interface would not only allow users to manage their
> replies, but it would allow them to see at a glance what discussions they
> are engaged in, and which ones have generated new replies.  I don't know
> about anyone else, but I can't stand it when I have to manually hunt for
> threads I'm involved in, and look for new items each time I visit a site.
> 
>     What about non-member posting?  I guess there should be a designated
> location for anonymous items.  Any thoughts?
> 
>     Another problem-- suddenly, my objects are dependant on objects other
> people own!  What if I reply to something, then the owner of that
> something deletes it?  Actually, this is not terrible.  My item is still
> available via the catalog.  It simply becomes the new root of it's own
> sub-discussion.  There may be some other issues here to consider.  This is
> sort of related to the registry/glossary issue.

This is the kind of issue I mean when I say that discussion-entries-as-property
don't work.  "Your" reply loses almost all of its value without the context
provided by the original object.  Honestly, I think that "promoting" the
discussion object out of the origniating member's folder and into a "common"
space makes sense for "pure" discussion items.  It makes sense for the member to
keep a proxy in her local area for threads she initiates or participates in,
though (using the ZCatalog alone for this makes it hard to "kill" a thread;
deleting the proxy makes it easy).


Some-content-is-more-equal-than-others'ly,


Tres.
-- 
=========================================================
Tres Seaver         tseaver@palladion.com    713-523-6582
Palladion Software  http://www.palladion.com