Hot-Topics! A monthly broadcast Idea & Discussion

[Hookup]

Hey all,
  I've got this idea about creating a Hot-Topics or Hot-Threads notification to draw attention to some of the great thread discussions that occur on the site all the time.  I'm not looking at implementing anything at this time, but wanted to get feedback and suggestions on what would work and what would not work with regards to getting something like this running.  Maybe the entire idea is bunk, but that's what this thread is for... discussing.

  I will own this idea, unless someone wants it, but at this point you can consider myself as the center-point for making this happen and sustaining it.

  So my basic requirement is to draw attention to threads of interest.  The challenge that I see is two fold, first, how do we identify these so-called "threads of interest" and second, how do we draw-attention to them?

1) Identification of "threads of interest" - I think this is really a 3 part problem.  Identification and Selection & Clarity of Content. 
1.1) Identification - My thought here is that there needs to be an automated mechanism to allow anyone to "nominate" a thread for this category.  In an ideal world this would be a global-button/function that is active when browsing a thread, and all I have to do is "click" the button and it is auto-nominated.  In less-automated ways, users could PM me, or a dedicated account, about the thread, but the harder we make it the less it will get used.

1.2) Selection - Once the threads are nominated, the next step would be to cull the threads into a top-n list.  I would envision that we would have one individual create this short-list, say top 10 threads?  Then have a some input from a small group as to which ones are "top-threads".  This is the most diplomatic way I can think of... but the longest.. .the "easy" way is to have one person simply read and select the threads that they want to see.  I'm a fan of the second way, cause it's faster.

1.3) Clarity of Content - I think that for clarity, the chosen threads need to be summarized into a quick description of what to find in that thread, making it key-word searchable and easy for anyone browsing the list to see what's inside without having to click to find out.  This could be done by the "hot-thread" admin, or by the thread-poster, or by some subject matter expert, but it needs to be done, and the responsibility, i think, should be with the "hot-thread" admin to get it done using whatever means necessary.

2) Draw attention to them - Again, this is a two part problem.  First we want to send out some initial notification to peak everyone's interests and let them know in "real-time" what is happening, and second we want to store this info somewhere so it doesn't get lost over the months and years.

2.1) Initial notification - No ideas on the "how", maybe some broad-cast notification mechanism, not sure.  I would NOT limit this with membership, the more people who see this kind of value from their site, the more they are likely to sign-up as members to support.  (adding a plug-line into the broadcast message for membership is a good idea, i think).  As for the "how often" I think MONTHLY is a good starting point.

2.2) Info Doesn't get Lost - I would like to see a special forum created for "hot-threads" where the notification itself is the thread.. so in 12 months (assuming this was done monthly) we would only have 12 posts in this forum, one for each month.  Inside each post is the initial notification.  I would not LOCK the thread, as I would want people to add to the inital posting their own comments and thoughts about the content...  But I would want that part moderated.  Again, the only "new-thread" in this form would be the notification about each months "hot-threads".

/discuss.

[Hookup]

Haha, first to reply to my own thread!  (looser)

Anyhow, I would ask that when you respond you try to reference the numbers in the original post (OP) so we can stay-on-topic.  for example, if you have comments/suggestions/ideas on how the "section" of threads could be done better then indicate 1.2 Selection somewhere early on in your post... if you think a step is missing, then do something like section 1) need to add a step "approval" between selection and clarity of content... or whatever....

Sorry, you're dealing with a business analyst/process analyst here so deal with my psychosis!!!!       

[dan2x38]

For sure should be it's own forum. Also it be read only. What about articles written by members? Or would that reawlly be for another discussion? Or some how implemented with this idea?

[Hookup]

Good ideas dan.  One worry I have is that I do not want this to become a news-letter feature, we have a news letter for OVAS which currently is not digital... well I guess this and the articles could be a feature in the news letter.. that would work, so long as we can get them on-line...

Hummmm.. more discussion required on that... an electronic news-letter could easily do this feature... hot-threads, articles, other news letter info... I know Trina has been trying to work towards getting the club news letters on-line here... not sure of any of the details...

[groupie02]

Good ideas dan.  One worry I have is that I do not want this to become a news-letter feature, we have a news letter for OVAS which currently is not digital... well I guess this and the articles could be a feature in the news letter.. that would work, so long as we can get them on-line...

Hummmm.. more discussion required on that... an electronic news-letter could easily do this feature... hot-threads, articles, other news letter info... I know Trina has been trying to work towards getting the club news letters on-line here... not sure of any of the details...

Please visit: http://ovas.ca/index.php?page=92

[dan2x38]

Please visit: http://ovas.ca/index.php?page=92

Those are OK but more of an archive. There has not been one for approx. a year. Also maybe have the files in a smaller format 88 MB is a lot especially if someone is on dial-up. Instead of a file as a download it could be a thread in a newsletter forum or something similar read only. That would make it some what faster plus save on paper.

I think Hookup is centreing more on an article or hot topic of the week/month for just the website but it might appear in a newsletter electronic or hard copy... maybe a reference to the articles/topics in the newsletter.

[Hookup]

I think Hookup is centreing more on an article or hot topic of the week/month for just the website but it might appear in a newsletter electronic or hard copy... maybe a reference to the articles/topics in the newsletter.

Yeah, i'm thinking short-and-sweet weekly/monthly flyer size content...  Just something to broadcast out to the world saying "hey, look here, there is some great content you might be missing... come join the fun"... that kind of stuff only... nothing club related, or industry news, just a promo for some of the great content on the site...

[groupie02]

I was just pointing out that we do have the newsletters online. We know that the last ones were too big to be downloaded over dialup. Trina and I were to work on fixing that for future editions.

Keep the ideas coming!
Cheers

[Hookup]

Please visit: http://ovas.ca/index.php?page=92

Um, i'm looking at the 88MB file and cannot for the life of me find out why it is so huge...  I'm gunna see if Trina can show me the original to see if I cannot find a way to compress these down significantly... from what I see these should run in around 1-2mb, max...

A quick glance indicates that the full-font-packs might have been encoded into the files... also photo-sizes may not have been reduced for web-display, they might still be at print quality...  I'll see what Trina and I can come up with...

[dan2x38]

Um, i'm looking at the 88MB file and cannot for the life of me find out why it is so huge...  I'm gunna see if Trina can show me the original to see if I cannot find a way to compress these down significantly... from what I see these should run in around 1-2mb, max...

A quick glance indicates that the full-font-packs might have been encoded into the files... also photo-sizes may not have been reduced for web-display, they might still be at print quality...  I'll see what Trina and I can come up with...

Reducing the photo sizes in colour depth, maybe the type i.e. BMP are killers. Font files are small and not used in PDFs. I have used scanned images reduced to gif/jpeg then streached in Word doc files. Only saving fonts used and they were quite small. As you know there are several ways to trim the fat - not mine the files... 

LMK if you want/need help?

<Editted> I was able to reduce the file to 18 MB in Acrobat. I am sure with the raw file/s and the artwork I could reduce it futher. Oh and the quality is still intact.

<Editted> each page appears to be an image over 4 MB. I extracted one page and changed the format, colour depth, and a tweak. I attached a page with an image it is only 470 KB. At this size the final file would be 88 KB. The qyaullity is still there for web viewing. The newsletter was printed in B/W for the meeting so no issue there. If colour printing the final draft would suffer in clarity somewhat not not that much. I also included an image with the pages original properties.

I hope this helps it is my only intent. Not trying to find fault or point fingers at all! I know a lot of work has gone into the production of the newsletters. I have worked on docs before for publishing.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Hookup]

Thanks Dan, this is excellent info IMO, and knew there was a technical solution.  This will make it MUCH more accessible.

[groupie02]

Dan, if you do convert all of those big files into smaller ones, please send them my way and I will replace the ones posted online. The real solution will be to work with Trina and find out why they end up so big in the first place.

[alongfortheride]

Sorry I have been silent on this thread, I should probably have responded earlier.

As Pierre has mentioned, the previous newsletters where too large to be posted at first as they were created for printing purposes only.
Afterwords when we uploaded them we realized they are too large.

I am not a computer person, and used a program called Print Shop Plus to create these newsletters. The program converts the files to .pdf so that they can be opened fairly easily. I used pictures off of the web-site or off of web-sites where I was given permission to use the articles, I have some of the images in their original forms still on my computer and they were saved in .jpeg form as it was the one that gave the best quality for print.

I have been working on the lasted edition to be available hopefully at the beginning of February, sorry it is a bit behind, last year I was pretty good at being consistent, but life gets in the way sometimes.

Dan, if you are able to shrink the sizes of the newsletters, please feel free. I do not have the web-experience or knowledge to do any of that, only the creative writing and editing experience.

Remember, any members articles are always welcome in the newsletters. Just send me a PM and I can send you my e-mail address to have it included.

[dan2x38]

Pierre/Trina I would be glad to rework the files. I am heading to Mtrl in a couple hrs. won't be back until very late. I will take a futher look at them tomorrow. If I can I will try to stream line something? yesterday I just poked at them quick to see what I could do.

Trina how did you create the original files before using preint Shop Pro i.e. Word, Power Point, etc. Oh by the way I use that program almost exclusively for graphics I love. These files would be much easier to work with then the final product the PDFs. Trina I have published docs on the web and manuals I created on Intranets but by major weakness is grammar, spelling and so on. So I've always had to have someone edit them big time. LMK about the files.

[dan2x38]

I modified the March 2008 PDF that was 88 MB. It is now 5.5 MB. That is a decrease in file size by 95%. If the original artwork had the colour depth reduced before creating the doc. and only embed the characters used for each font used it would be even smaller. I can't upload it here where would you like me to send it. Don't want to bog down someones e-mail either.

[groupie02]

Please send it to .

Thanks Dan
Pierre

[Hookup]

Pierre,
  can you comment to the feasibility of having a "hot-topic" button on the site that automatically flags a thread as a nominated hot topic?  I'm not asking it get it done, just trying to understand if it means completely re-writing the site, or something that is fairly trivial...