Community Editions discussion (was "Could TH feature this registering process?")

[twMat]

Hi @simonbaird

This is so far a very hypothetical question, but it would be good to hear your thoughts on it. It is hypothetical because I don't know if @Jermolene is positive to it as it also involves tiddlywiki.com:

I'm fiddling with ideas around this concept; first post and how it could look on tw.com. Briefly, the goal is to attract new users to TW by directly showing tw.com visitors different TW applications/editions. (Jeremy did express liking of the overall idea.)

My idea now is to present the user with two buttons on tw.com: One for direct downloading of a local copy of such a starter edition and the second button -- and this is my question to you -- could there be a button/link to Tiddlyhost that...

...directly navigates to a page on Tiddlyhost to create a new wiki with their clicked on "starter edition" as a template?

If the user is not registered, which possibly would be the most common case, I guess they'd come to the registering page first but the name of the edition has to somehow be kept in memory so that they, after registering, is led directly to their new template wiki based on their selected edition.

...and if the user is already registered, and logged in, then he/she instead comes directly to that template.

...and if the user is already registered but not logged in, then... well, you get it.

Thoughts on this?

Further: Ideally, the user would somehow see their selected template wiki as they register (or an image of it), to not lose excitement when they realize that they first need to register (you and I know the registration is super smooth, but they reasonably assume it is as annoying as most other sites ("...add your phone number, untick if you don't want newsletter, add backup-email, we will send you really great offers*, .... etc)

One idea would be a static background image of the template. Another would be a ....darn, whats-it-called... when you see a small form in the middle of the screen and behind it, in the background, there is the actual site but faded out. The name escapes me.

[simonbaird]

I read through the forum thread. My first immediate thought is let's do #323 and see how that looks.

[twMat]

Yes, that makes ssense. Thank you :-) I'm closing this until it becomes relevant again (if that ever happens)

[simonbaird]

@twMat FYI, I've just pushed an update that adds a download button next to the clone button, see https://tiddlyhost.com/hub?t=1 . Let me know what you think so far.

Ps, I see there's a lot of discussion on that forum thread. I'll aim to catch up on that discussion before I add my two cents.

[simonbaird]

Some general thoughts from my perspective:

• In reality there aren't many reliable and well maintained TiddlyWiki "editions". It is frustrating, since we can all imagine a world where that isn't true, where we could pick from "wine collection", "recipe book", "lesson planner", "task manager", "travel diary", "book author", etc, etc, editions of TiddlyWiki, and expect them to be good quality, maintained and supported. That's not to say we shouldn't pursue this idea, but we should acknowledge the truth.
• I think reducing the effort required for plugin and edition maintainers to build and test their plugin and editions would be a nice way to reduce the barrier for those who might want to maintain a plugin or edition.
• What that means to me is CI/CD - in other words, hands-off automation for building, testing, and distributing. None of that is super hard, but it is probably a barrier of entry for some people who created a nice customized TiddlyWiki they'd like to share with the community.
• Making this easier for prospective edition maintainers would be a useful goal. To expand on that, I think the TiddlyWiki community should have a clear, well understood, and well documented way for people to maintain and distribute plugins and editions. That should include a solid build/test/distribute CI/CD method I mentioned above, likely based on GitHub since that's the most ubiquitous and easy to access.

[simonbaird]

Some ideas for the "Explore" page on Tiddlyhost:

• I'd like to split the "Show templates only" into a separate page, then add another page that is just for curated templates. At that point we'd have "Explore" which is looking at content in general, "Templates", which is the current "show templates only" page, and "Curated Templates" which I think is kind of like the community edition page you've been imagining.
• Deciding what to put on the community edition page is TBD, but let's say we draft a list of criteria based on what we (the community) think a community edition should have, e.g. it should be high quality and maintained to some extent. The more popular templates in the Templates page would be a good starting point probably.
• There could be an informal nomination process, perhaps via the TiddlyWiki forum, to suggest editions to be included there, and I guess there should be a regular review so we can drop editions that we think are no longer worthy of being listed.

What do you think of this? Feedback/suggestion are welcome.

[simonbaird]

I'll reopen this issue to indicate the discussion is ongoing.

[twMat]

Great thoughts @simonbaird

First just; Jeremy has not been very active on the forum lately and I have to conclude that anything involving tiddlywiki.com for this idea is simply not to be counted on. His only words on the proposal so far is:

The specific suggestion is reasonable, but as others have noted there might be better ways to achieve a similar result, such as a download wizard that allows plugins to be pre-installed.

But "wizards" completely misses the point (as I try to explain here).

Anyway...

[...] a download button next to the clone button, see https://tiddlyhost.com/hub?t=1 . Let me know what you think so far.

Spontaneously: "Great!" - but there are a some "aspects" in the background:

• I've always assumed that people go to TH with more or less the only intention to set up online wikis. Maybe I'm wrong; you know this better of course - do people come to TH to download stuff (that is not their own wiki already)? Or is that exactly the thing you want to change now with download buttons?
• ...because if it is - wonderful! - then, yes, a direct download button there makes sense IF the user has enough information to want to click it.

And I note that you have indeed created a separate Templates section. That is super!

I'd like to split the "Show templates only" into a separate page, then add another page that is just for curated templates. At that point we'd have "Explore" which is looking at content in general, "Templates", which is the current "show templates only" page, and "Curated Templates" which I think is kind of like the community edition page you've been imagining.

Wonderful. And I would think that tiddlywiki.com will at least be willing to inform users about this. It is frustrating (and surprising) that the community has no real equivalent to an "app store" for plugins and themes but this may partly compensate for that.

IMO one important improvement the listing of such templates would be to emphasize their "use" rather than their name. The name is often cryptic - "mptw" is a prime example. Even if there is a description, it woudl be desirable if, somehow, there was some label along the lines of "wine collection" etc that we've mentioned. Maybe the tags could be used for this, I'm not sure. The point is that the visitors need to "understand" very quickly or they are likely to skip over it. (I'm, of course, just guessing here.)

Would it be possible to click the icon for a demo of the template, e.g in a modal? Or, maybe simpler, a bigger screenshot. Better yet, a few screenshots that the designer has provided.

One way to... perhaps not CI/CD... but at least to have a selfimproving system would be user ratings. Templates that don't live up to expectations are naturally deprioritized. A less optimal aspect of this is if the rating is expected to take place outside of where the user has the impulse to rate the template. The optimal place/time is of course as he is using it. We've touched on it previously; some "area" (plugin?) in all tiddlyhosted wikis that concerns the wiki itself. So for this case it would feature a rating button. Such an "thing" could perhaps also let users add tags about the template! Such ratings and tags should be very informative on the "Templates" page for visitors.

I'd like to split the "Show templates only" into a separate page, then add another page that is just for curated templates. At that point we'd have "Explore" which is looking at content in general, "Templates", which is the current "show templates only" page, and "Curated Templates" which I think is kind of like the community edition page you've been imagining.

YES! But regarding;

Deciding what to put on the community edition page is TBD, but let's say we draft a list of criteria based on what we (the community) think a community edition should have, e.g. it should be high quality and maintained to some extent.

I just want to caution for setting high requirements because it likely kills contributions that could otherwise be valuable. I also see practical problems; a "well maintained" template about "AI integration" will probably have totally different needs compared to a template about a "generic shopping list". Who/how is "up-to-date" to be controlled? The practical solution is to let the user base do the curation, via the ratings etc. In addition to a visible "last revision date" and automatable things.

...

Exciting developments.

:-)

[simonbaird]

[...] a download button next to the clone button, see https://tiddlyhost.com/hub?t=1 . Let me know what you think so far.

Spontaneously: "Great!" - but there are a some "aspects" in the background:

• I've always assumed that people go to TH with more or less the only intention to set up online wikis. Maybe I'm wrong; you know this better of course - do people come to TH to download stuff (that is not their own wiki already)? Or is that exactly the thing you want to change now with download buttons?

We're making this up as we go here, but yes, the idea is that the https://tiddlyhost.com/templates?t=1 page could become a place to go look for interesting "editions" to download, as well as a place to clone and create on Tiddlyhost.

• ...because if it is - wonderful! - then, yes, a direct download button there makes sense IF the user has enough information to want to click it.

And I note that you have indeed created a separate Templates section. That is super!

Yeah, I've been tweaking the structure, currently it's "Browse" and "Templates", not sure if that will be it in the long term.

I would think that tiddlywiki.com will at least be willing to inform users about this. It is frustrating (and surprising) that the community has no real equivalent to an "app store" for plugins and themes but this may partly compensate for that.

Well currently we're specifically focused on "editions" rather than plugins and themes, but of course plugin or theme maintainer can, and do probably, use an edition as a way to share their creations.

The idea of Tiddlyhost providing a specific interface for users to find plugins or themes is an interesting possibility, but at this stage I'm not actively pursuing that. (Maybe a convention could emerge, e.g. a "foo-plugin.tiddlyhost.com" with tag "tiddlywiki-plugin" as a place to demo, document and distribute the foo plugin.)

IMO one important improvement the listing of such templates would be to emphasize their "use" rather than their name. The name is often cryptic - "mptw" is a prime example. Even if there is a description, it woudl be desirable if, somehow, there was some label along the lines of "wine collection" etc that we've mentioned. Maybe the tags could be used for this, I'm not sure. The point is that the visitors need to "understand" very quickly or they are likely to skip over it. (I'm, of course, just guessing here.)

These are good suggestions probably, but I see that as up to the edition owner, i.e. whoever owns the specific TiddlyWiki. I don't think Tiddlyhost is going to do anything special to enforce a good description or prescribed set of tags.

Would it be possible to click the icon for a demo of the template, e.g in a modal? Or, maybe simpler, a bigger screenshot. Better yet, a few screenshots that the designer has provided.

Bigger screenshots we could do. Multiple screenshots, once again, it's up to the site owner to consider how they want to demo their edition or plugin.

Using myself as an example, in https://mptw5x.tiddlyhost.com/ there's an MPTW5 tiddler that explains the features of the MPTW5 edition. Sure it's not an interactive, step by step, introduction, but you could imagine an edition author creating one of those if they wanted to.

One way to... perhaps not CI/CD... but at least to have a selfimproving system would be user ratings. Templates that don't live up to expectations are naturally deprioritized. A less optimal aspect of this is if the rating is expected to take place outside of where the user has the impulse to rate the template. The optimal place/time is of course as he is using it. We've touched on it previously; some "area" (plugin?) in all tiddlyhosted wikis that concerns the wiki itself. So for this case it would feature a rating button. Such an "thing" could perhaps also let users add tags about the template! Such ratings and tags should be very informative on the "Templates" page for visitors.

The up-voting/liking sites idea has been around a while, I think you suggested it way back in #25, see also #59! I marked it as "someday", but perhaps it can be picked up soon. Not sure about user-suggested tags. In reality do you think users, (other than say yourself and few other regulars), would do that?

Deciding what to put on the community edition page is TBD, but let's say we draft a list of criteria based on what we (the community) think a community edition should have, e.g. it should be high quality and maintained to some extent.

I just want to caution for setting high requirements because it likely kills contributions that could otherwise be valuable. I also see practical problems; a "well maintained" template about "AI integration" will probably have totally different needs compared to a template about a "generic shopping list". Who/how is "up-to-date" to be controlled? The practical solution is to let the user base do the curation, via the ratings etc. In addition to a visible "last revision date" and automatable things.

Well it can be informal to begin with. We can fall back to "whatever @simonbaird decides is good enough to make the cut".

[simonbaird]

Here's my (new, revised) current plan:

• Adopt the term "Featured" as a way to describe this idea that we have some sites that are curated or recommended by experts in the community.
  • Urls could be /browse/featured and /templates/featured where /templates/featured is the "community editions" we've been talking about, and /browse/featured is just a list of interesting or notable sites.
• Setting the "featured" flag for a site will be done by me initially, but I'll take suggestions from the community. And maybe later the ability to add or remove the "featured" flag can be delegated to other trusted community members.
  • (I'll add an option to site settings so people can opt out if they specifically don't want their site to appear in the featured list.)