[Pdweb] Proposal wrt. guide new users with silk gloves

[Steffen]

On 01/03/2007, at 3.48, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

>
> On Feb 28, 2007, at 5:55 PM, Steffen wrote:
>
>>
>> On 28/02/2007, at 6.23, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>
>>> and have a curated exhibition section.
>>
>> If someone with sufficient privileges will set up a folder for it,  
>> where i/we can add wiki pages i'd give it a push. It could be / 
>> exhibition or /showroom or /gallery or slash-something-else. I'm  
>> not picky. It could also be in /community/projects, but i think  
>> thats hiding it away too much.
>>
>> In that folder, i'd create
>> - a wiki page ./about with some general info about what the  
>> exhibition/showroom/gallery is about.
>> - a wiki page ./organization or something like wise to use for  
>> organizing it. Describing the procedure, what information and meta  
>> information there need be in each "issue"/"volume"/exhibition and  
>> organizing who'll curate when.
>> - a wiki page ./archive with links to the past exhibitions.
>>
>> Then all exhibitions, if i can decide, will have a wiki page each,  
>> named ./vol<number> or ./issue<number>. I think doing it this way  
>> is better then being monthly or bi-monthly, since then it can be  
>> sometimes monthly and some times bi-monthly - or what ever -  
>> without looking silly.
>>
>> Apropos duration. I don't think an exhibition should laster less  
>> then a month. It's not to make it dull, but to give time to  
>> something serious to emerge. Separating it from the casual blog- 
>> sphere. In other words to give the curators time to make something  
>> interesting out of it, to increase quality!
>>
>> The, say,  /exhibition will point to the latest exhibition.
>>
>> It would be good if a coming curator could be able to plan ahead  
>> and start making the wiki page before it goes "on air", hence some  
>> management in that direction would be needed. I don't know if one  
>> can just manually set the ./exhibition thing to point to a given  
>> wiki page, that might be the easiest  way to realize both the  
>> archive, the pointer to the current exhibition and give coming  
>> curators the possibility to plan ahead. This also mean that the  
>> dir-listing that happens in the menu should be turned off for this  
>> folder or at least that future/planed exhibitions should be  
>> invisible.
>
> A curator-to-be could build the wiki pages in their home folder,  
> then they would be moved into the exhibition when the time comes.

That could be a solution, if it's not hard to move stuff about.

Also, today i tried to make a wiki page in my home folder, but it did  
not work. Now it just sits there, and i can't even delete it. I tried  
to make a folder in my home folder, but got much like the same error  
as when one in general tries to make a new wiki page. Hence there are  
some problems as is.

>> When it's set up and ready for action i could send a few PR  
>> emails. For example to Create Digital Music, .microsound-announce,  
>> Pd-announce and what have we. From then it could be organized  
>> though the wiki and this list.
>>
>> What do you all think?
>> How would curate?
>> Can write access to a place like that be given?
>
> I like this proposal a lot as it is now.  I'd say it's a done deal  
> in my book.

I'm very happy about that.

> I would just take this email, maybe edit it a bit, and post it to  
> this list as it's own distinct email with a header that highlights  
> that it's a proposal to be accepted or rejected.  Then we can wait  
> several days, if there are no objections, do it.

Ok. I will do that. But first i think it would be good to line out  
and discuss the details. At first i was thinking that it could have  
been done in a wiki page, but we can do it here instead. I'll collect  
everything to be put in a final proposal for the exhibition part.  
Then the relevant wiki pages and folders could be made by someone  
with write privileges.


> I do have some minor additions:
>
> - curators cannot post their own work
> - people add themselves to curator slots (wiki page or whatever)
> - if curator slots are filled very far in advance, we change the  
> system then

Good points. The first is really about the form of each exhibition. I  
think the form should be as free as possible, such that curators can  
have there own still, even it can seam incoherent to some visitors.  
But still i think a minimum set of details should be in each  
exhibition. Here is a sketch:

- Some kind of header and footer. It could be very simple. The header  
could be just something like "Pd exhibition vol. <number>", and the  
footer could be simple information about the curator.

- Every thing in between is the exhibition.

- There should be no limit to the number of works in each exhibition.  
But my guess is that the range one to three would be fitting. Of  
cause less then one doesn't make sense. The reason i think more then  
three will be less fitting, is that i fear that the it will be less  
deep and less serious with too many pieces of work.  Of cause, if it  
is a exhibition with a theme, like say samplers, it might make sense  
to the curator to give a serious and detailed presentation of the  
theme and then present quite a few works. This is just thoughts.

- For each piece the source should be available either at the  
exhibition site or liked to off site. I don't think it should be a  
must, but it definitely should be opted for!

- Also, proprietary media formats should not be used.

- formal Info on the artist should be supplied. At least a name and  
some sort of contact info or relation should be provided. The later  
could be a website url or organization name or band name or likewise.

- Description/presentation of the artist should be supplied. A roule  
of thump could be, that the less numbers of diffrent artist (per  
exhibition) the more detailed presentation of the artist(s) would be  
fitting.

A few other practical things that would be good to have sorted:

- Can we settle on simply calling it "exhibition" and placing the  
"public" part in ./exhibition/ ?

- Can we make certain wiki pages folders only readable for site  
users? I'm thinking that the organizing bit, the curator plan and the  
guideline for each exhibition, should not be directly public. I don't  
think we should do a lot to prevent people from seeing it, just not  
place it right next to the actual exhibition. So either make that bit  
only visible for site users, or just place it in ./community/projects/ 
exhibition/ instead of in ./exhibition/? The organizing bit need only  
two wiki pages, one for the info/planing stuff and one template wiki.

- To sum up; in the ./exhibition folder there will then be: An  
archive wiki with links to vol-<number> wiki's and an about wiki. The  
root of ./exhibition will still point to the current exhibition, ie.  
the newest.

- But, i'm not sure what to do with files like source- and media  
files. Should they reside just in the ./exhibition folder or in a  
dedicated files folder (./exhibition/files/) or should there be one  
files folder per exhibition? I think the later is too much trouble,  
and the fist might be a mess. So if a files folder can be made  
invisible in the menu, that would be best, i think.


> And just to be clear, there should be one "official" overarching  
> manager/moderator for the exhibition pages to set up the current  
> pages, manage other questions, etc.  I'll do this if no one else  
> wants to, but it sounds like you are on it, Steffen.

Yup. I don't mind doing that. For a start anyways. Maybe in a years  
time or so, someone else wanna take over. We'll see how it goes.

> This sounds very good, it's about time we did this!

Yeah.

Best, Steffen