Hey, I am a touch confused on this based on the various user groups.
While I agree that too many categories might be a poor path for deployments, I think we need to be flexible.
Categories are currently used for Top keywords, sub-categories and sometimes location, actions and, even, task groups. See the analysis of Corruption mappers. I like to say there is a difference between - what the deployer wants to collect/analysis and what the reporter has 1. time for 2. comprehension of what is being requested = eg. what is the difference between "damage" and "instrastructure damage". Part of this is up to the deployers to teach and define well, but the ways that categories get selected matter.
I think that some groups use "location" within categories to give better drill into the data. IF polygons, layers and even search worked at a decent, usable level, then this would maybe not be a kluge.
Sometimes deployers use categories for workflow for large teams. How will this be addressed?
I am not sure that 'tags' will assist the researchers and reporters. Can you please go into how this will work inside the deployment and for exports?
+1 on Rob's questions which are still outstanding.
Heather
As long as filtering is available for both (and from more than just one section of the public site), this seems to make sense so far. Will the report status options be separated from the categories? Having the status and context categories in the same place for Uchaguzi definitely felt like the biggest-but-functional hack of that deployment.Thanks for sharing this with the larger team,ROn Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 11:45 AM, Seth Hall <seth@...> wrote:
Yes, this makes great sense and seem very streamlined and provides good options.On Thursday, June 27, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Robbie MacKay wrote:
Hi All,I'm in London with the 3.0 team this week trying to figure on the many many details involved.We've just finished up a discussion about how categories will work so I'm writing it up while its fresh. Categories have been a major tool in 2.x but I've always felt they're kind of abused and that often there's a better way to represent the data we capture via categories.Key discussion points: Do categories need a multi level hierarchy? Do categories need to be multiple select?Categories will be single select. But we temper this by adding multiple category types, and possibly giving report types a colour and icon.Categories won't have a hierarchy, since this info is often better handled by a custom field instead.Here's an example to explain.. lets take a subset of the Uchaguzi categories
Polling Station Administration
Ballot Box Irregularities
Polling Station Closed Before Voting Concluded
Missing/Inadequate Voting Materials
Polling Station Logistical Issues
Campaign material in polling station
Positive Event
Civilian Peace Efforts
Everything Fine
Police Peace Efforts
Security Issues
Presence of weapons
Purchase of weapons
Mobilisation towards violence
Threat of violence
Ambush
Voting Issues
Voting Irregularities
Purchasing of Voters Cards
Voters Issued Invalid Ballot Papers
Voter Integrity Irregularities
Irregularities with voter assistance
Voter Register Irregularities
Voter Identification Issues
Urgent
Resolved
- Unresolved
Restructuring this for 3.0, we could would create 4 'Post types' with their own forms:Polling Admin issue, Positive Event, Security issue, Voting Issue.And a tag type of 'Status' with tags resolved and unresolved.The submission flow then becomes.1. Create post2. Select post types (ie. security issue)3. Enter report detailsThis would a custom field for specific issue detail. ie. 'Threat of violence'4. Submit5. Admin approves and tags with 'Resolved' or 'Unresolved'--
Single select categories means we can visualise the different categories on the map, showing different icons for categories. While tag and post types mean in future we can switch which bit of the data we're visualizing.For example if you were mapping earthquake damage you could add tag types for 'Severity' and 'Building type'. Then we might be able to alternate which of these you visualise on a map, ie. heat mapping severity of damage, while also filtering based on type of building.I'm not totally sure how this will all come together, but I think this model of categories gives us a better base and better data to build on later.--Robbie MackaySoftware Developer, External ProjectsUshahidi Incskype: robbie.mackay