I think that Tiddlyspace should congratulate itself on achieving 6000 users with really no marketing at all.
What next? First, selfishly, *don't do anything that will break the stuff that is already there* - the AMBIT project now have over 30 mental health teams from all over the UK and possibly teams from beyond the UK (we certainly get plenty of hits from all over the world) trained in, and using and adapting their own local versions of the http://ambit.tiddlyspace.com space (see http://tiddlymanuals.tiddlyspace.com for more details) and that adds up to a lot of workers who really like what this does... and to an extent rely on it to guide their practice and document their own innovation... Second, *get clearer about a few core things that you think people can do with TiddlySpace* - what distinguishes it from other places in the web? Third* ask non-programmers what they think/want/like.*.. - What got me interested (as a non-techie) in tiddlywiki first was the ease with which I found I could write a fairly complex website that used links and tags to organise pages of information; it was the "*non-linear*" style of writing that fired me up. - Then I liked the sense that it could function as a *self-contained document*, that had "edges" - ie that its wiki-ness was not a kind of "come and graffiti on my wall" free-for-all, but there could be some ownership of the document as a whole. - Then, with the advent of tiddlySpace, it was the* inclusion* idea that seemed intrinsically beautiful, this is what allows my tiddlymanuals to have multiple layers of ownership, so that locally-derived improvements/developments in local versions (that include our AMBIT core) can gradually be "drawn down" into the core to be shared more widely. This allows some hierarchical editorial control, but without crushing the opportunity to make multiple zany newer versions of/improvements on our "first shot" at writing a "way of working with seriously complex vulnerable youth" - it is very close to what Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger speak of as a "Community of Practice" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice) I am using TS in quite a specific way, but it seems to me that other bodies of work could be presented and developed in similar ways (and they probably are - I don't spend enough time looking at the ways other people are using TS)... *Conference?:* This leads me to suggest that one way forward would be to think about that old fashioned idea of getting people together to share how they are using TS... I am not so interested in the technical development (though am in awe of you who do it!) but I would like to hear narratives of* how other people are using their spaces *and the various things that * this-being-TS* (rather than some other blogging space) allows them to do this. I suppose I would suggest a small *conference* - get some people together who can talk about how they are using TS - why they are using TS and not something else out there. I find keeping up with the Google discussion groups quite hard (I really don't have a lot of spare time on my hands and the volume of conversation is daunting) so listening to edited highlights of people explaining their work would be a lot easier. Invite You tube videos (one of my poor attempts is here: http://ambit.tiddlyspace.com/#%5B%5BVideo%20tour%20of%20the%20AMBIT%20manual%5D%5D) *Featured Spaces: *I have looked at the "featured Spaces" (http://featured.tiddlyspace.com/#%5B%5BRecently%20Featured%5D%5D) but often get a bit lost in their CONTENT, without working out quite how they are using the FUNCTIONALITY of TS to make their spaces do what they want them to do. Its is helpful to have someone explain the WHY and the HOW of what they are doing with their site. I think you could look hard at the Featured Spaces space, and revamp it: - a short questionnaire to people who want their spaces featured - the "admission fee" for being featured is that you have to flesh out user-friendly explanations - - Better still, video explanations that would show not just the content, but also explain the generalisability of of how you are using TS... - Then you'd need to group/tag all the featured spaces in ways that would help interested enquirers home in on* different functional applications*, so they could zoom in on stuff that is doing stuff similar to what they want to do... - at the moment is is an overwhelming list and primarily focused on the amazingly rich array of CONTENT in spaces, rather than on how the developers of these spaces are using TS. Result is that I don't know where to start (too long to start at the beginning of the list!) If I was going to make a suggestion to bring in non-techie users who want to use TS to do something unrelated to the development of TS, it would all be stuff about the interface - things that scare users off are almost always anything that looks like coding: - Rich text editors in Tiddlers - Incredibly easy embedding of pictures/videos/soundclouds/iFrames that doesn't need any coding at all - More themes for specific functions that are off the shelf, but which include instructions for how to make modifications - In general (an old chestnut I know) I suggest finding a budget to pay someone to write some really good user-friendly documentation (I have tried to write my own for the Tiddlymanuals - http://ambit.tiddlyspace.com/#%5B%5BUsing%20the%20Manual%5D%5D) I am trying to interest my kids in learning basic TW level coding and have helped them make a website for their band (http://fromthewoods.tiddlyspace.com) and it is interesting (and I suspect instructive) how much these kinds of things (anything that looks like indecipherable code) trigger a kind of fearful freeze of their ordinarily perfectly bright minds... I am working to help them overcome this (!) but if TS is to gain wider usership you probably need to grapple with that. Incredible resource, incredible work from all of you who understand the under-the-hood workings, incredibly grateful for the creativity and hard graft that has got us this far. Thank you. Dickon On Monday, 22 October 2012 14:43:39 UTC+1, Chris Dent wrote: > > > In the past couple of days TiddlySpace (on http://tiddlyspace.com/) > reached its 6000th user so now seems like an opportune time to request > some feedback from the various communities that use it and those that > have thought about it but don't yet. > > I'm writing different versions of this message to different groups. > This, the first, is to the tiddlywiki group, I'll also write to the > TiddlyWeb and TiddlySpace groups[1] if time allows. > > I'm writing here first because of those 6000 users, most of them are > using TiddlySpace as a place to host their content in TiddlyWikis. > > For those who don't know TiddlySpace combines TiddlyWeb[2] and > TiddlyWiki to provide a flexible, multi-user and multi-domain hosting > service for tiddlers with system-wide search, public and private > storage, atom feeds, binary tiddlers and a slew of tools to make it > easy to create, curate and share your content. > > Over the past year most of the development on TiddlySpace has been > focused in a few main areas: > > * Stabilizing and optimizing the service for speed and concurrency. > * Enabling what are being called apps: Web applications on > TiddlySpace, using tiddlers, outside of TiddlyWiki. > * Enabling "real-time" information flows with tiddler information > flowing over websockets. > > As is the case with most open source projects these priorities come > about as a result of who is doing the work and who is being the > squeaky wheel. > > This message is a request for people to squeak and speak up about > what they want or need from TiddlySpace. Doing so will help to form > priorities and ensure that TiddlySpace serves all the people who use > it or want to use it. Any comments or propositions are encouraged > and desired. > > If you don't have something narrative to contribute, then commenting > on any of the following (+1 or -1) propositions would also be useful, > along with any editorial remarks (such as how to accomplish the > proposition): > > * Make the default TiddlyWiki presented by TiddlySpace be more like > empty.html with the option to easily add functionality. Or... > > * Make the default TiddlyWiki be flexible and powerful with > TiddlySpace functionality with the option to easily be more like > empty.html. > > * Provide more blessed themes and verticals and make them easier to > find. > > * Accelerate progress on including TiddlyWiki5 in TiddlySpace. > > * Intergrate TiddlySpace-wide search into TiddlyWiki. > > * Enable a type of lazy loading by default in online TiddlyWikis while > ensuring that downloaded Tiddlywikis still operate effectively. > > * Allow login and registration with github/facebook/google. > > * Improve the documentation (if you +1 this one you are obliged to > editorialize on how). > > * Expose greater admin functionality for manipulating bags and recipes. > > * Make it easier to use tiddlers in apps outside of TiddlySpace. > > * Change the frontpage of tiddlyspace.com so it is more inviting. > > This is just a short list to get things started. I hope that people > will add their own. After there has been some discussion I'll > summarize the results and make a roadmap. > > Thank you for your participation and help. > > [1] http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlyweb > http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlyspace > > [2] http://tiddlyweb.com/ > > -- > Chris Dent http://burningchrome.com/ > [...] > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/tiddlywiki/-/xeXDiAyU4vAJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki?hl=en.
