FOSS4G'13

The working site for the conference committee of FOSS4G 2013

Pledge page

Posted by Barry Rowlingson on April 27, 2013

Had a brainwave that we could use SurveyMonkey for collecting pledges. However, without a premium account, its hard to get your survey results out of the site.
Other options include some kind of WordPress survey plugin, or another online survey site. Pervidet looks quite good, lets you download results for free. I set up a bit of a demo, have a go, pledge something:

http://www.pervidet.com/survey/start/geospacedman/91/

i think the plan would be to only run this live during the conference, or announce it on the Monday maybe, then I'd have some job to download and let us do some filtering to remove anything abusive/libellous to other GIS companies before we publish it, or just publish summary stats, or whatever.

If anyone has experience of doing this via WP plugins... let us know!

Comments

Steven Feldman on April 27, 2013:

Pervidet looks spot on for simple surveys and perfect for this use case. I have filled in and it's easy to do.

AGI has a survey monkey account that we can use if there is a need but this is so simple that the pervidet would seem to be enough.

The only alternative that I can think of is simply setting up a page on the blog and opening up comments allowing people to post their pledges as comments. Benefit is simplicity and free format, downside is much more difficult to extract in a way that sums stats and enables us to track going forward.

My vote would be to pervidet it

Barry Rowlingson on April 28, 2013:

Google Forms is another option. There's no "Date" picker but we can have a month dropdown starting with October and ending with FOSS4G 2014. The responses go straight into a spreadsheet so I think we can add another column of 'cleared for publication' that we could all modify. I also think I can script pulling the data out of google drive (if not, then a simple save as CSV and process step can work).

Rollo Home on April 30, 2013:

Barry, this is a great idea (what ever the implementation). I'd have thought Google Form was the way, but whatever is easiest.

Barry Rowlingson on May 17, 2013:

Pledge system demo is here: http://2013.foss4g.org/pledge5254/index.html

That list of pledges is not the finished article which will be more interesting - I plan to have pledges fade in and out, move around etc etc.

 However the make-a-pledge page is working as intended:

http://2013.foss4g.org/pledge5254/pledge.html

so please add some pledges. They go into a google forms spreadsheet for vetting and wont appear on the site until someone sticks 'y' in the right column. I plan to run an hourly job to check for new submissions and notify. Another regular job will get the latest spreadsheet from google docs and update the index page. All the scripts to do this have been written, I just need to hook them in as regular tasks.

I'd like to go live on this at maybe the 1 or 2 month point before the conference date.

Steven Feldman on May 18, 2013:

Submit hung from ipad running chrome

Steven Feldman on May 18, 2013:

This will be great

I get why we have the review stage but will that be a burden during the conference?

Barry Rowlingson on May 18, 2013:

Hmm chrome doesn't seem to like the javascript validation code that checks compulsory fields are present etc. Will check. I think the system was taking your pledge but not redirecting to the response page. Its in there four times... Spose I should also test with IE...

WIth the pledges going into a google docs spreadsheet it is at least a burden we can share amongst a group of trusted and capable people. People may submit really frivolous, libellous, or completely non-geo related pledges and we need to filter those out. Short of having some kind of email authentication so that submitters take some responsibility I can't think of another way. And that's a tricky thing.

Editors will only need to put 'y' in the 'Publish' column of new entries for publication. Everything else will be automatic.

Steven Feldman on May 18, 2013:

The spreadsheet approach is easy to share load and keeps things clean and simple

Barry Rowlingson on May 18, 2013:

Okay, pledge system should now work in Chrome and tested in IE8. I'm cutting edge, me.

Steven Feldman on May 18, 2013:

Yup that's working

Nice one
:)

Barry Rowlingson on July 7, 2013:

Now that we have a working django service on the web site I figured the pledge system could be implemented as a django app with various benefits. So last night I did 95% of that.
So: no more google forms mucking about; a simple captcha on the entry form ("what is A+B?"); a 'like' system for people to vote up so we can have a hall of fame or award or somesuch; email notification of new pledges (so I can accept them).
My current idea with the main page is to show a small number of pledges (5,10,15?) and a refresh gets another set of random pledges to keep the interest up. There's some IP and cookie-based protection against multiple likes but we're not electing a government here.
Unfortunately I have to go on holiday next weekend so I can't wrap it up and deploy it for a bit, I'm aiming for launch at T-1 month or T-50 days.
Suggestions for the pledge system welcome.

Steven Feldman on July 8, 2013:

Holidays are not "unfortunate" once you get out of the front door. Have a great one :)

Barry Rowlingson on July 9, 2013:

The pledge page is open for business:

http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/pledge/

currently a grand total of one pledge on it, so reloading doesn't do much. It is set to show ten pledge cards on a page and then show another random sample on reload.

Everyone on the ctte should add at least one pledge - make it funny, serious, silly, honest, forthright, whatever.

I get an email for every submission so I can then go and accept/reject/edit. If anyone else wants on that notification email list I can add them.

That is now live and open - so don't share the URL for a while, let's just check it all works and put a few on there.

Click the hearts to 'like' pledges.

Enjoy!

Barry

Steven Feldman on July 10, 2013:

That is awesomely awesome! 

I pledged something but I can't see it on the page now, was it user error or is there a lag before pledges appear?

Tried a second pledge, same check sum appeared. Submitted and also not appeared

The liking is working

Barry Rowlingson on July 10, 2013:

PLedges dont appear until someone accepts them on the admin system (to prevent anonymous abuse). You should also get a message on the page after submission - maybe I need to make it more apparent.

Hmm yes they look acceptable... Added!

Steven Feldman on July 10, 2013:

Definitely need to make that apparent on the submission page and/or on the pledge page that you return to after submitting.

This is going to be so so much fun :)

Barry Rowlingson on July 10, 2013:

Okay, now you get a blue message box after submission. I'll highlight the message as well. later.

Jo Cook on July 10, 2013:

That's fabulous! I love it!

Steven Feldman on July 10, 2013:


Last thought - would be to explain on the submission page why we want the email address e.g. to follow up on their pledge, to possibly win an award from the LOC etc
"I officially say a massive thank you to Barry for this wonderful pledge page"
So that is my first pledge completed :)
 

Barry Rowlingson on July 19, 2013:

Reminder for the team to get their pledges in. The sooner you do it, the more time you'll have to collect points... and what do points make?

http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/pledge/

I'll add a 'make your pledge' link towards the top of the page, and modify the text a bit for release to emphasis that points make prizes.

Release plan is: Monday - email UK local chapter and tell them the URL - telling them that if they keep it to themselves they'll have time to rack up some points. Of course if someone leaks it on twitter well, never mind, lets see if OSGeo:UK can keep a secret  (or who reads the public mail archives).

Week after that I'll email the OSGeo-discuss list and tweet about it and link it on the web site.

Steven Feldman on July 19, 2013:

Why not move the News item (which is pretty empty) from the top level to the About menu and then use the space in the top menu for Pledge or Legacy?

Steven Feldman on July 19, 2013:

Not sure I understand the point of points? Does that matter? I guess not

Barry Rowlingson on July 19, 2013:

We'll use the 'likes' count on the pledges to maybe award a 'most liked' pledge, or produce a table of pledges ordered by likes after the conference...

Rollo currently winning.

Barry Rowlingson on July 21, 2013:

Has anyone tried the pledge page on Internet Explorer? Its broken for me on IE8, with all the pledges on the main page appearing cluttered all over each other, because the javascript that does the floaty layout is breaking.

I can't use anything newer than IE8 at home because I'm stuck with XP...

The IE Tab in Chrome fails differently, listing all the pledges in one column and not doing the floaty layout thing. I cant debug this because I can't get the developer tools for an IE Tab window....

Franz-Josef Behr on July 22, 2013:

In IE 10 it looks quite fine, as well as in Opera 15.

Barry Rowlingson on July 22, 2013:

Doesn't look right in IE9 on Windows Server 2008 - the layout doesn't work and the fonts don't load. Here's how it should look.

I think I'll announce this on the UK list with a plea for a volunteer to fix the IE issues or otherwise help with web stuff!

Jo Cook on July 22, 2013:

What would "help on web stuff" involve? Not so sure I want to open up the server to all and sundry unless absolutely necessary...

Barry Rowlingson on July 22, 2013:

Agreed, but all the django code is on github, and anyone could set that up and run a similar server to help debug, and anyone saying "if you do margin-left: -100px you fix a problem with IE9" would be welcome.

Abi Page on July 22, 2013:

I have at least 1 web developer on the volunteer list, would that be any help?

PS looks fine on IE 10 here in the office as per your image Barry

Rollo Home on July 22, 2013:

Abi - worth asking for t-shirt sizes of volunteers? Will help with the printing order.

Abi Page on July 23, 2013:

Yes, thanks I have that on the list to check and also dietary requirements for those who haven't booked on the full package.
Is there some online reference to the sizes from the company we are using - what is small / medium etc? Or is this just standard....

Jo Cook on July 23, 2013:

I think we're going to use firelabel, but there are different sizes for each make of t-shirt that they provide. I think people will just have to take a risk...

Rollo Home on July 23, 2013:

Jo is right - apparently the print design is going to be best worked if we use the same size t-shirt (a mens cut and womens cut). The suggestion from Firelabel is that we work to M for all.

Abi Page on July 23, 2013:

Erm, so everyone is going to have the same size t-shirt? I think I am misunderstanding...?

Jo Cook on July 23, 2013:

If we are doing that (not sure from the email from Firelabel exactly why that would be best) then there's no advantage in going with Firelabel and we could look at alternative quotes if we wanted to. If we are sticking with a single size for men and a single one for women then would M be best for you men, or would L be a better bet? (Think big burly Americans). I would strongly vote for pushing for a spread of different sizes to be honest.

Abi Page on July 23, 2013:

We need a selection of sizes if we want to be inclusive

Mark Iliffe on July 23, 2013:

Honestly, I and a lot of others, won't be fitting into anything less than an XL. Anything else would be obscene.

Rollo Home on July 24, 2013:

the image forming in my mind.....
I'm digging deeper on this issue with Firelabel

Rollo Home on July 24, 2013:

It seems it partly due to the design that Barry has created (see image right at bottom of this discussion: https://basecamp.com/1920286/projects/762306-foss4g-13/messages/3202474-communications).

The print size per screen set up cannot be changed, therefore the maximum print size is dictated by the smallest sized garment within your print run.

With regards to the design, if we print it to look like the visual proof it will only look this way onto the small garments. As the garment size increases the print size will remain the same resulting in the print appearing smaller and out of position on the larger garments.

The possible options are:
1) To use new screen set ups per size. This will guarantee the maximum print sizes available per size but will incur a set up cost of £22+vat per screen. (which I think would take us to about £4.80/shirt - based on 800).

2) To use separate screen set ups for the ladies and men's garments. With this option the print will need to be more centred than your original mock up and will appear smaller on the larger sized garments. This will be the more cost effective option.

Comments? Barry - anything you think we can do with the design to minimise this impact?

Barry Rowlingson on July 24, 2013:

Hmm I dunno, I do quite like the almost wraparound feel of the circular elements (although I know it won't be seamless) so I'd like to see screens scaled per shirt size, but I don't really have an understanding of how big an XL shirt is compared to an S.

Are we going beyond XL? Could we compromise and do one screen for S and M, and one for L and XL?

And who threadjacked the pledge-page thread? :)

Rollo Home on July 24, 2013:

Opps. While I'm here attached is the panel size info for the different t-shirt sizes.....
I think that for the cost we should go for quality over cutting costs (we'd be saving £50 with your proposal - assuming we don't have women specific cuts as well. Is that a fair assumption to make? Jo?).

Jo Cook on July 25, 2013:

I'm strongly in favour of having some women's sizes too- in all honesty I won't want a t-shirt unless it's a women's cut, I'm sick of having a drawer full of un-flattering small men's cut conference t-shirts! However, I think you could probably get away with one size for women- say Medium.

Barry Rowlingson on July 25, 2013:

Can we get an estimate of the gender ratio from the names of attendees? Tricky, due to foreign names, but I wonder if there's an app for that.. or a python module... or an R package...

Jo, I guess the old fashion photographer's trick of using a clothes peg round the back to pinch in a t-shirt on a model gets a bit uncomfortable after a day. +1 for a medium woman's size, other shaped women can try the men's sizes. Will we have a fitting room?

Jo Cook on July 25, 2013:

I've got no desire to walk around with clothes pegs holding my clothes in place, at least not until I'm old and senile!

How about a survey for people to choose t-shirt sizes? Would that work, or add to our administrative burden?

Rollo Home on July 25, 2013:

Please find attached a cost for t-shirts based on:
  • Black: 800 (XL 20%, L 30%, M 30%, S 20%) (think these are sensible proportions?)
  • Bottle: 15 (for LoC: specific sizes to be provided)
  • Brick Red: 50 (for volunteers: specific sizes to be provided)

http://www.firelabel.co.uk/t-shirts/mens/crew-neck-t-shirts/61036-fruit-of-the-loom-value-t-shirt.html

There are no 'women' cut shirts in this order. If we added a single size (M?) then it would add £100. Currently it's working out at £4.20/shirt (ex VAT).

Barry, please find attached the dimensions of the printing for this shirt. That with the print area spec I've posted above should give you an impression of the 'gap' at the edge of the shirt. Any thoughts? Firelabel seem to think it will work well.

I'd be inclined to add a women's cut shirt such as http://www.firelabel.co.uk/t-shirts/womens/crew-neck-t-shirts/61372-fruit-of-the-loom-lady-fit-value-t-shirt.html
How many?

  • Finally, how many t-shirts overall? Is 800 too many?
  • I see that I need to increase the LoC number to at least 20.
  • Volunteers?

Abi Page on July 25, 2013:

If that is the T shirt you are going with, I can use the sizes on that page as a guide &  put out a request to volunteers for their info. Let me know whether to include the women's cut too (I would vote we do).
We have 30-ish registered just now so that should give us an idea. When is the order deadline for the shirts to get them in time?

Rollo Home on July 25, 2013:

They need 10 working days for printing + delivery. So to give ourselves time let's say need a confirmed order by Monday 26th August. Not far away now!

Barry Rowlingson on July 26, 2013:

The design is in SVG format from Inkscape - its on Dropbox if anyone wants access. I suppose the company will want a PDF or something?

Rollo Home on July 26, 2013:

Barry, the SVG is what is needed. Which DB location? This is the only one address I have: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fkbkj0vmj1wgtdy/jggs660j6L

Barry Rowlingson on July 27, 2013:

No, they're elsewhere.

What's the deal with colours? Do we get 3 colours for front and 3 (possibly different) colours for the back? I may have to make some changes, the style for the non-black t-shirts currently needs white, two greens and black at least. Working on it. (when I should be washing the car...)

Barry Rowlingson on July 27, 2013:

I've rendered the fonts to text, used only the white plus the two greens from the OSGeo logo, and done a few tweaks. These shirts should be the same three print colours for front and back.

Rollo Home on July 29, 2013:

Thanks Barry.

Rollo Home on July 29, 2013:

Barry: They will require the artwork
for each design in a 300dpi jpeg, pdf, psd or eps. With the original
artwork for each design excluding the t-shirt background. Graphics will then
use this artwork along with the mock up to produce your detailed visual proof
and prepare the designs for printing.

Barry Rowlingson on July 29, 2013:

Where 'each design' means two, one for front and one for back? Or do they want them scaled for each shirt size too?

Is our best bet to supply a vector PDF which they will scale?

Will do tonight.

Rollo Home on July 29, 2013:

It's one design for front and back - they can scale.
SVG? Or vector PDF - or both.....or we supply some/anything and see what they say!

Barry Rowlingson on July 29, 2013:

Okay front and back pdfs herewith. Note they look wrong because the PDF has a white background, but there is white ink on there...

Abi Page on July 31, 2013:

Barry, can you send me high res images of the t shirts in the various colours for the programme book please? I took a png you had put up and sent it to Barry H, but the resolution wasn't good enough.

Thanks, Abi

Barry Rowlingson on July 31, 2013:

Teaching all day today. Tonight our tomorrow/

Rollo Home on July 31, 2013:

Sorry Barry - another t-shirt design question:
Apparently the PDF (front.pdf, back.pdf) are fine for the printing, however:
1. the front file is not opening properly in Illustrator(?)
2. the front has four colours in it. This has put our current cost per shirt to: £4.45 (865 shirts/exc VAT).

Barry Rowlingson on July 31, 2013:

here's a new front with three colours, one has a red background under it so the shirt people can hopefully see where the white ink really is.
Also, exported as PDF 1.4 to see if that improves illustrator compatibility...

@Abi, could BarryH deal with PDFs? Then I don't ave to worry about pixels and resolution? Can prob do tomorrow.

Abi Page on August 1, 2013:

Barry, he could use EPS or Illustrator etc that is the format the maps were in , I can check re PDF.

Barry Rowlingson on August 1, 2013:

Shirt front/backs in three diff b/g colours in EPS format on white background...

Rollo Home on August 2, 2013:

thanks Barry. We need a 'like' button in here.

Abi Page on August 2, 2013:

Cheers Barry, Barry H says they look really good on the page.

Barry Rowlingson on August 2, 2013:

Howabout we use the maptember shirt profits to donate to the (non-geo) open-source projects we've used?
Wordpress, plugins, django... it might get spread a bit thin though.

Steven Feldman on August 2, 2013:

Good idea

Do you think it will encourage delegates to buy the t-shirts or do you think they won't care where the money is gong and will just want the awesome limited edition t-shirt?

Barry Rowlingson on August 2, 2013:

I think it will narrow the debate about where to send the money. Also, our proposal didn't say we'd be giving some of OSGeo's profits to projects, and this is extra cash generated outside of our proposal that we can do what we like with...

Jo Cook on August 3, 2013:

Not sure if this was covered in the bit of Friday's meeting that I missed, but I think it would be nice if we could donate the t-shirt revenue to OSM, MapAction etc rather than non-geo projects.

Rollo Home on August 3, 2013:

Ideally a 'real' charity - so it would MapAction for me. OSM can of course use their t-shirt income for their own purposes which would be fair enough...

Jo Cook on August 5, 2013:

Steven and I talked about giving people the choice of (say) 3 charities, then people could choose which one they wanted- and we would split the revenue accordingly. Or we could just give to MapAction and be done with it.

Rollo Home on August 5, 2013:

We could make this complicated? Or keep it simple?
It's beginning to feel like Switzerland around here with the continual return to the Community (which hardly seems to justify the effort in 'outreach' with a satisfactory response). Sorry....a jaded Monday morning.

Jo Cook on August 5, 2013:

Agreed- let's keep it simple and just donate to MapAction then. No apols necessary- I think we all feel the same way at this point!

Barry Rowlingson on August 5, 2013:

Is that how the swiss came up with the idea of triangular chocolate?

+1 MapAction, seems an obvious choice anyway.

Complications: I think you're supposed to contact charities before organising collections etc, and do we have to worry about GiftAid for UK tax payers and whatever equivalents in other countries?

Antony Scott on August 5, 2013:

You can consider MapAction contacted. Gets my vote...

If we get people to fill in a Gift Aid form, we can give to MA to sort out. I will organise this.

Barend Köbben on August 5, 2013:

+1 for MapAction

Barend

Mark Iliffe on August 5, 2013:

+1 to MapAction! 

Steven Feldman on August 5, 2013:

+1 to MapAction

Is that done and dusted then?

We as FOSS4G committee can make the decision to make donations out of the conference surplus to the non geo open source projects that we have made use of and I would propose (and +1) a budget of up to £1000 for that.

Rollo Home on August 6, 2013:

If that's how the Swiss came up with Toblerone, then it's got to be worth considering....so just to contradict my earlier negative comment (obviously Monday blues) and further to Steve's comment above, he made an interesting suggestion about using a system similar to Waitrose charity bins....people could put their £10 note into a particular bucket or some such process. I quite liked that idea.