5 Apr
2006
5 Apr
'06
1:36 p.m.
On Wed, 29 Mar 2006, M.B.Gaved wrote:
A. Your Open Guide
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1. How would you describe the Open Guide you work on to somebody who
wanted to find out about it?
It's a way to find out information on places, shops, pubs etc in the
Cotswolds, which you are welcome to contribute to if you find something
missing.
2. Who is the anticipated audience for your Open
Guide? Who are your
users right now?
Anticipated - anyone who lives in the cotswolds, or is planning to visit
it, who knows something about the web
Current - everyone in the office, and a surprising number of others. I
should really set up some stats crunching! There have been ~20k page hits
since we started.
3. What do you see as the purpose of the open guides?
(feel free to get
philosophical!) e.g. how is it different from other wikis/city guides?
It provides un-biased information that people want, rather than whatever
people happen to want to pay for. There are a few other guides covering
the Cotswolds, but they tend to just focus on a few places, and are aimed
at vistors rather than residents.
4. Are there rules and regulations users must follow?
How about your
admin team (e.g. how do you make decisions)?
The admin team is mostly myself, with the help of a few other people who I
work with. We tend to decide things via offline disucssions, and for now
that works. If we do grow, this will need to change!
Rules wise, we have some guides on the site, and we do tweak entries if
required.
B. Your role in the Open Guide
------------------------------
1. How did you come to be involved in the Open Guide?- can you tell us
what you do?
I used the Oxford guide for a bit (and still do). After chatting with a
few people, it was decided that the Oxford guide probably shouldn't be
stretched out to cover the Cotswolds, so I set up a new guide to cover it.
Now, I maintain the cotswolds guide, contribute stuff to the oxford one,
and also contribute some code.
2. What was your goal when your Open Guide (or your
involvement in it)
started? What are the current goals?
To have useful information for myself (and ideally also others) on the
areas where I live and work.
My current goals are to grow the coverage, and improvate the code.
3. How long do you see yourself being involved in your
Guide?
Until I stop working in the Cotswolds.
4. Have people used the Guide in any ways you
didn't expect? (and has
'vandalism' been a problem?)
Thankfully, we haven't had any vandalism yet. I don't know of any
interesting uses yet, but we do tend to crop up in the first 1-3 google
results on places we've reviewed. We've even been known to get that high
just with an entry in the "planned reviews" page!
C. Publicity and outreach
-------------------------
1. Do you publicise your Guide? How?
We don't really. We've been known to tell people in passing. We're just
letting people find it for know
D. Future of the Guide
----------------------
1. How successful do you think the project is? Which goals have been
met? Which remain elusive?
It's helped us find nice pubs, but that's about it. We need a bit more
content, and then hopefully some more users.
(We're kick-starting the guide by visiting a different pub every
fortnight, and then adding an entry for it)
2. How long do you see the project going on for?
As long as there is interest
3. If someone told you they were planning to start an
Open Guide, what
advice would you give them?
Come up with a plan for seeding it with content. Have a plan for how to
visit a range of places to write up (a pub lunch club works well). Make
sure people who promise you reviews really write them!
Nick