Looks like a good starting point. For the moment, I'd first suggest incorporating some form of sub-topic list for the 'Body/Content' section which might have a different set for each general category. By this I mean that the selector for note/question/event/etc would each prompt an appropriate set of sub-sections in the body to be covered. A research note would require a different set than an announcement of an event. I acknowledge the existing Note format includes a few suggested questions to answer, but at least in the case of research, that list is insufficient and authors appear to need more guidance. Other types of submissions can have parallel missing material.

Thanks for the input, Dave.

I had another idea -- we've talked about asking for things after someone presses publish (like, for example, tagging) to reduce the upfront requirements and present a simpler form.

Some of these could go at the head or foot of the note itself, once published. Like "now, invite others to reproduce your work -- be sure youve provided a materials list and instructions" or "add this to a series of recent research" or "mark this as an open challenge" or whatever.

Yes, procedurally (for the form) reminders are generally easy. However, I'd suggest (or remind ;-) ) that such action items would mandate that each have some web functionality to back it up. For instance, 'add to series of research' would 1) still require the submit process and 2) there would have to be some form of 'note series linking' in existence.

Help with tagging is fine, but it is frequently either ignored or abused rather badly by some so I'd suggest 1) the tagging process needs to be redesigned and 2) if tagging is to be used at all, existing note tags need to be cleaned up. I realize this is a bit drastic, but maybe #2 could be initially automated a bit -- do an automated search of all existing notes and compare words used in the body of the note to words in the tags and remove all but the top 5 matching tags. For notes with no tags, the same process could add 3 tags based on the same word predominance within the body text.

I think being able to explicitly save and return to drafts, invite others to collaborate are my priority features here. What do you think about saving a "shared" draft such that more than one person can work on drafting/editing a note? Right now multiple authors can be tagged but only one can edit. Can the invitation to share a draft include an invitation to edit?

The Stepwise editing that gives a 'template' for a post is helpful now, I like that it will be expanded to have event/question framings too.

We have two distinct ideas of "draft" which I want to try to reconcile -- one is to simply publish a post normally, but it'd be marked "draft" (kind of like a preprint preview on arXiv or something):

• it'd show up in the normal feed (we could offer option to filter)
• it might specifically list input requested

Another is one which is not published, or not visible to anyone except those allowed by original author.

• it might be more complex since we might have to include notifications, tighter access restrictions

In either case, we could make the final publication date distinct from the draft publication date. I like the model of A better, but curious it'd meet the needs of the B scenario too, or if they're really quite distinct?

In any case, we can add multiple author access using the with:coauthor tag.

Re: edit history, the faster way to complete it would be to store drafts in the browser localStorage, but this would mean you could not begin editing on a phone, then pick up on a laptop (a use case I'd really like, for adding images from my phone, but authoring on my laptop). So I have to consider whether a server-side edit history is possible (and worthwhile) in our timeframe. Another solution to this would be to have a "recent images" selector so it doesn't matter if you're editing the same draft, you can upload from your phone no matter what, and see images uploaded from any source when placing them.

At the Open Hour today, we brainstormed allowing users to flag a post with "the information in this post has been superceded by a newer research note" and submit a link to the newer note.

In this way historical info can be preserved, new users can find up to date procedures, and new users and other editors can help in the co-creation of organization :D

Jeff, I'd like to suggest that 'notes' have generally taken the form of either 1) "completed" sets of information or 2) focused topics of "open-ended" inquiry. One might find another basic form as well; however, all could likely be served by the same basic tools.

In #1, the work has largely been completed so the submission is mostly a process of careful documentation; the 'draft' is the pre-publish stage and the final doc requires review.. In #2, the work starts by publishing the 'draft' which forms the kernel of an in determinant project and is never classified as reviewed. A type #2 document might, but is not required to, end in a separate type #1 document being submitted. Type #2 remains a 'draft'; just one which has evolved. Either type could be singular or collaborative but #1's tend to be singular and #2's tend to be collaborative.

The above is describing the structure of each 'root' PLab 'field of interest'; which should be pre-defined because there's a small, finite number of them -- eg. Mapping, IR, Water, Air, Spectrometry, Oil, etc. This strongly suggests that while one PLab page might show all submitted notes (it's just one cross-sectional view of all notes - latest first for easy review), that is only a programatic view of the site which contains separate categories for each area of interest. Selecting a root topic therefore filters out most of the obviously un-related material which simplifies topic search. Yes, a programatic view option of search could provide related material.

Hi, all - I'll probably post another set of sketches on this soon, but a few followup ideas:

Research note sequences

I've mentioned this before, but the idea would be that you could mark your post as a certain portion of the research, and the published note page would prompt you to (and/or others) to continue the sequence of posts with the "next step" which could be determined from the step you marked this one with.

Connect to other work

A small search form to search for and link to other work this relates to, to better interlink posts.

Charts

A way to input some data in fences (like code) but that would form a graph, maybe like this:

Very early prototype code here, for playing with a more interactive mockup: https://publiclab.github.io/PublicLab.Editor/examples/