Brainstorming for SoC (features and enhancements for code.publiclab.org)

[Rishabh570]

Hi all, as we know that code.publiclab.org is about welcoming newcomers and looking at our growing community involvements...I think we should think about how we can make even it more welcoming and have a much deeper look at our growing community.

I've opened this issue as a discussion thread where we can list what feature/enhancements would help us achieve the mission of this project (i.e., code.publiclab.org)...suggestions are welcome! 😃

Ideas

Below are some ideas,

• Add filters option for recent contributors. We would be able to get the recent contributors list according to different parameters that we provide. For example, it can be according to

  • The highest/lowest number of commits,
  • The time span (week or month) etc.

  ( We can think of other (custom) parameters also... 🤔 )

• Showing the contributors (not recent ones) list according to the recency of their involvement (high to low)...I think we don't need any other custom filtering on this list as it just shows all of PL's members...

• Making the user aware of any unexpected error that occurs in the back-end. This involves letting users know (through some alert/notification pop-up) the unexpected errors. For example,

  • If the API quota runs out, we can show user a notification telling him/her that they should check back after some X minutes (we can add fallback support also, explained in next suggestion)...

  • If something wrong/unexpected happens on our end (like, any errors in the code), we can show the user some appropriate notification in that case also...It can be like,

    • Hey, something unexpected happened, report this to our team by clicking here

and, that would send an email or something to us, which will basically work as an alarm that users are facing something unexpected and code should be checked!...

• Add fallback support to the site. This means if somehow we're not able to show user any data (maybe in the case of unexpected 403s), we can fallback to the previous copy of the data...This way, we can make data model robust and reliable.

• Make our data fetching mechanism smart. Currently, we fetch a fresh copy of the data every hour from the Github API, what would be cool is if we make the code aware of the remaining quota at that moment. This would enable us to make a whole new call to the API once we have enough quota available.

• Adding tests to the site.

Currently under Progress

These are the ideas that are currently in development,

• Shifting to MVC architecture.

This list is just my suggestions, please discuss anything you feel code.publiclab.org should have...

[lakshyabatman]

Yes, talking about this project. I've mentioned in #127 , about the changing the UI for the recent contributors to make it look more compact as well as more expressive, As also mentioned by @jywarren , we can use some compact cards which shows name as well as avatar of the contributor.

[Rishabh570]

@lakshyabatman That's a great idea! I'm gonna make a checklist for keeping track of these :)

[lakshyabatman]

Although we can focus on making it more mobile friendly! So everyone can have better experience while using this project.

[Rishabh570]

Yes, sure!

[grvsachdeva]

Actually, instead of having name on the card, we can show zoomed image and name on hovering over a image.

[jywarren]

Oh this is such a great list. I love the fallback and notification items. Great brainstorming here! Maybe @sashadev-sky has some ideas too after working on community collation a bit?

[jywarren]

This is so important! I think community toolbox is one of the reasons our community continues to grow so quickly (in addition of course to all the amazing support and welcoming you all have been doing!)

Ok one more idea- some way to filter the issues themselves to show what are stuck, or haven't been updated... Helping newcomers find unclaimed ones maybe!

Also who has /created/ an fto recently, maybe?

[jywarren]

Should we add supportive tasks to the page as well?

[Rishabh570]

@gauravano Just like these Github Profile Pop-ups? Yeah, that would look good!

[Rishabh570]

@jywarren Hmm...issues with no recent activity would also help in finding out where people are stuck. But I wonder how we should decide if people are stuck or not...can we do this by looking at the last comment datestamp and the issue status (open or not)?

Oh, I forgot about showing fto authors list...I'll include it also :)

Sorry, but what are supportive tasks? fto-candidates?

[lakshyabatman]

@Rishabh570 @gauravano , As I have mentioned in #127 , it is static though but hover effects can be added or I can work on Githhub Profile pop up if you like.

[sashadev-sky]

Hi, I am glad to see this issue is open I think it's important too.

I think all of the enhancement ideas above have merit! Making additional data easily available and filterable will enhance every contributor's experience, not just new users. But that is where they get conflicted - a user that wants to learn how to get involved and a frequent collaborator want different tool sets. Once a user knows the workflow, they will not want to see this page anymore https://code.publiclab.org/. So perhaps this would be on a different page in the toolbox?

[Rupeshiya]

@Rishabh570 We can add pagination to make loading of page more faster as well as in the cotributor section .
Also we can make it progressive web app to make it more engagable .

[Rishabh570]

Thanks everyone for discussing great ideas...!!!

So, I'm currently looking for possibilities of suggested ideas, if Github API helps us we would be able to incorporate these desired features like listing fto authors, issues inactivity etc...otherwise we'll have to look for workarounds.

[lohitha02]

Instead of just showing the name and avatar of the user on the compact card we can even show a graph based upon the recent contributions that he has made. What do you'll think about it?

[lohitha02]

Also maybe we can have a leader board for all the new contributors based upon their contributions which will definitely boost up their confidence and also it will keep them motivated for securing the top position and keep working hard for achieving it. What do you think about this @jywarren ?

[sashadev-sky]

@lohitha02 I like that idea but my main issue with that is we only have access to commit frequency from the Github API so we can't reward people for other types of contributions. As @Rishabh570 mentioned we might need a work around. Not sure if creating this workaround is even plausible

[Rishabh570]

The idea of leaderboard is good!
We can compare on the basis of the number of commits & issues opened but other factors are being neglected...like engagement with the community, helping others in their PRs, actively participating in the check-ins and the likes.

We can mention (on the website) about the factors taken into account while generating the leaderboard though 🤔

Lets wait for some feedback! 👍

[lohitha02]

@Rishabh570 yes that would be great!!

[lohitha02]

Also I think it'll be good if we have all the names of the contributors followed by their profile rather than just having all names at one place and all their profiles at another. I would like to get in some suggestions about this.

[Rishabh570]

@lohitha02 Yeah, so the reason behind showing the stacked list of names is to make the job of copy-pasting easier in case we need to mention all of them somewhere (like in check-ins).

But we can provide a button for showing different views though 🤔

[SidharthBansal]

@Rishabh570 it will be great if you can open up a planning issue and link your work there for evaluations etc.
Thanks

[Rishabh570]

You mean an issue which contains my project's milestones and the related work (PRs)!? Thanks @SidharthBansal