 | otto on We have decided not to continu… |
| otto on Can’t we keep the blog a… |
 | uskeny on Can’t we keep the blog a… |
 | mareikeonearthorg on Can’t we keep the blog a… |
| Otto on Can’t we keep the blog a… |
 | Sam Daams on We have decided not to continu… |
 | rafaelmichalczuk on Hi everybody, Earth.org may no… |
| rafaelmichalczuk on Hi everybody, Earth.org may no… |
 | edockelton on We have decided not to continu… |
 | shifas on It’s getting quiet here.… |
Full Length Blog Posts Recent activity
Thorsten Ott
rafaelmichalczuk
david
teresa
utvara
kellyst
barry2div
otto
julian
Mathias
djcacaphone
catfraser
mareikeonearthorg
st9v9
varun
italianinsights
Cristiano
Thomas
Babumohanan
danwtmoon
imogen
websavvymom
Gayathiri
valentinyeo
zhernovoi
Rob
oliviagw
dmurauskaite
frinny
Anne
evamiamueller
edockelton
arugambay
dmitriy
earthorgcollect
albagila
I’m just working on the steps for Ambassadors and I have made the experience, that when I click “contribute” or “share recomendation” it is closing all my open windows, when I’m using Windows Explorer. For Mozilla it works. I think it is a problem for the tech team. Don’t know if you have experienced it too?
Every second or third time I try to add a new place/ article in the German version (Paris part), I encounter the following error:
Error – 404 Page not Found
We are sorry! But this page does not exist on http://www.earth.org.
Our Suggestions
You can simply try to start from the Earth.org home page OR Check:
Spelling mistakes in the url
Using UPPER CASE CHARACTERS in URL
You may also visit our popular pages
What is Earth.org, the open travel guide
Earth.org help center
Become a member of Earth.org
Become a volunteer for Earth.org
Can anybody help? Thx
What do you have in the Address bar when this happens?
I doesn’t change actually. I wanted to add something on cinemas (Kinos), so it’s
http://de.earth.org/edit/Paris/kinos
The correct URL would be http://de.earth.org/bearbeiten/Paris/kinos .. I have fixed the code that took you there. Let me know if it shows up again.
ok, thanks, David!
Entered a ticket for it http://trac.earth.org/ticket/2291 (http://de.earth.org/edit/Paris/wirtschaft is my link, which did not work)
Thanks for that, I’ll update the ticket accordingly.
This is definitely one for the Travel Guide Writers Comments – Will send you an invitation for that one too, as it is especially for all those kinds of bugs.
stuck in some translations. THIS GOES OUT TO ALL GERMAN SPEAKING TEAM MEMBERS 
Aktuell übersetzen wir:
1. Articles — Artikel
2. Locations — Locations (DE und EN gleich!)
3. Places — Orte
siehe: http://de.earth.org/search?marker_id=&q=Linz
Ist das okay für euch? Mein Gedanke: ist der Unterschied zwischen Punkt 2 und 3 in der deutschen Version stark genug? Ein Hotel wird z.Z. in “Orte” kategorisiert – sollten wir das in “Plätze” umbenennen? Obwohl “Plätze” etwas einschränkt – ein Restaurant ist ja genaugenommen kein “Platz” – außerdem mag ich das Wort “Platz” nicht so besonders.
Andere Option: wir übersetzen “Locations” anders – z.B. mit Orte.
Es ist auch etwas verwirrend, da zum Beispiel in “my world” –> “my places” – hier werden LÄNDER aufgezählt – also genau genommen sollte diese Kategorie “My Locations” heißen, da im travel guide die “places” ja eigentlich für Restaurants und Hotels stehen. Oder lieg ich da falsch?
bitte um kurzes Feedback.
Ehm, also ich finde locations und Orte schwierig zu unterscheiden…. Orte sind fuer Dich also Restaurants und Kinos und Locations zB das Viertel/ die Stadt?
Richtig!
“Orte” sind Objekte (Hotel, Restaurant, …)
“Locations” sind Städte, Regionen, Länder
Wie findest du die Bezeichnung “Plätze” – als Übersetzung für “places” (restaurants, …)?
Wir könnten auch “Locations” übersetzen – in Orte?!
Ich bade gerade in der Buchstabensuppe… und versuche passende Begriffe zu finden, die allgemein verständlich sind…
Koennte man statt Plaetze vielleicht irgendwas mit “Ecken” nehmen? nette Ecken oder etwas dieser Art? Was sagst Du zu dem Wort Oertlichkeit?
stimmt, Ecken könnte passen, obwohl’s schon eher jovial ist. also “Jugendsprache”; weißt du was mein erster Gedanke bei “Örtlichkeit” war?? stilles Örtchen… wär ja eine coole category im travel guide – öffentliche WCs…
Ja, das gute alte Problem… echt schwer zu lösen.
So wie ich das Wort location im Deutschen benutze geht es hier hps. um Objekte… eine coole location ist nun mal ehr eine Bar oder ein Club als sonst was. Und Wikipeida gibt mir hier Recht:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location
Daher würde ich “Locations” nicht für Städte/Ortschaften verwenden. Ich finde, dass das Wort “Ort” besser hierzu passt, aber das nutzen wir ja jetzt genau anders herum… mein Vorschlag ist daher für 2. (auch wenn es kein sehr tolles Wort ist) “Reiseziel” zu verwenden (Wäre dann z.B. “Meine Reiseziele”), das kann dann auch eine Region oder Insel sein… und für 3. im Deutschen “Locations” zu verwenden…
Richtig happy bin ich damit nicht, aber zurzeit ist es noch verwirrender. Mann ist das kompliziert 
“kopfzerbrech”
also dein Vorschlag:
2. Locations — Reiseziele
3. Places — Locations
–> find ich etwas problematisch, wenn wir “Locations” für 2 verschiedene Kategorien in EN und DE verwenden.. das verwirrt total, oder?
–> “Reiseziele” finde ich prinzipiell okay!
Fuer Location gebe ich Mathias recht, klingt auch besser als Ecken…
Reiseziele klingt hochtrabend… mir faellt aber gerade nichts anderes ein.
working on the friggin f£$%^ UCPPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE with slobodan. its driving us NUTS!!!!!
but we love edo so we keep going!
…may the force be with you!
and live long and prosper
Animo
I’ve heard beer is a good remedy for such activities
ahhh teh darks side… i feel tempted…. must. not. give. in.
Ah of course: beer! I knew something was missing from my desk. Thank for reminding me Dan
@usabilty @valentin
I’ve just added an organisation in “How you can help” – and I think we need to change some information fields, for example “opening times” and “Price range” are not really related to NGOs.
I’d suggest to create a box where you can add information on “What is this organisation doing?” and “How can you support this organisation”.
sorry t i have literary no idea what you are talking about here . can you post a link?
haha okay: http://www.earth.org/travel-guide/Hinterstoder/social-area/addobject
boxes number 9 and 10 are “Opening hours” and “price range” – well you don’t need that information when it comes to NGOs and other organisations in “How you can help”; this is meant for restaurants and hotels…
Either we delete that boxes here or we request some other information (see suggestions above)
I think we looked at this once, and put it on hold because we were thinking of looking at http://www.wiserearth.org or http://www.idealist.org for integrating their stuff. There should be a concept lying around with details on improving this category.
@Thomas: The updates on the first page of earth.org always refer to someone in the masculine form, even when it’s a girl: Example: “He edited…”. Is that a known bug?
…yes, that’s a known problem and will be worked on soon! We will switch to a neutral form like ” edited… in …”
Ok
“/name/ edited /article/ in /location/!” (cony brackets get filtered and I alway forget)
your email is thomas at earth dot org ?
nope, b/c of an accumulation of Thomases on Earth.org I became augustin
i’ve tried to add a new city to the travel guide, but honestly i’m lost in the process. i’ve added my experience to alfreda’s usability board.
Hi Steve, as far as I understand this has become a admin-option only. So adding cities is no longer a possibility within the normal interface.
But the fact that you could also not find a message that says something like: “Your city not here, let us know!” means that we need to fix something. @valentin @alfreda you guys can pick this up right?
That means that at the moment I’ve to ask someone to add a new city, right?
Yup: just send an email to mathias(at)earth(dot)org
Done;) Thx
Hi Mareike, good that you asked… this way we discovered some issue in adding a new location in our admin menu… I’ll let you know via email when there are news (most probably tomorrow)… Best
Thanks for your help, guys!
thanks Rob for the clarification. yes i guess such message should be displayed otherwise we just get blocked. I need to have “Jimbaran” under Bali, Indonesia.
Concerning the message to the user for sure we need some.
It could be a form where a user can type the name of the city, region and country in which it is in. The resulting e-mail request could come to me. I can add a city from the Admin.
The same goes for wrong locations be there cities, regions or islands.
this page is absolutely useless: http://www.earth.org/maps/Gorinchem note to self -> needs to improve fast
just finished a talk with slobodan!
so excited about upcoming stuff:
improvement of ucp is imminent – i think slobodan has made an breakthrough there on usability! awesome. maybe he can show next week.
facebook connect – emran working hard on finishing up. testing coming soon.
logged in homepage concept is talked through: think STREAMS. more activity streams. more preparation for integrating interconnectivity with other platforms and personalization!!!
Niiiiiiice! Thanks for the update Valentin
°°°(Like it)
About 36 hours ago our new site design went live on Earth.org with tons of usability improvements. Besides positive feedback from the team and friends, we’re also seeing the results already showing up in our Google Analytics overview. Just to give you an idea of the big step we took forward I’ll share some metrics with you:
- Pageviews are up by 93%
- Time on site is up by 43%
- Pages per visit are up 48%
- Bounce rate is down by 11%
These are some really impressive numbers which give us a fantastic view on the effects of the improvements. We have clearly chosen a right path and these numbers are great motivation to keep improving!
Thanks again to everyone who worked so hard to get this done!
Great stats!!
thanks for following up on this Rob. have always ‘meant’ to do it, didn’t get around to yet. i’ll make it a point to get into Analytics periodically as well. but pls let me know if you need help deciphering any numbers..
Congratulations, to ALL of you! I’ve just checked the new design, and it is very impressive! I wish you can get a lot closer to your dream with this much better structured UI!
@tech and @usability, maybe we could make a „more…“ button on the recent activity? For showing last 20-30 updates on an extra page. I don’t know why, but i’m feeling like something is missing in the activity stream without this.
For example, if someone makes a massive update, it’s hard to follow his updates as the stream is changing to fast. Or we could make a limit — only one update per city in the stream at the same time.
good call. can you write a ticket about it?
the concept of these updates is gonna be massively expanded though anyway. this i our gateway onto twitter. it’ll all come in a couple of weeks/month.
Aha, i see. Ok, then i’ll write a ticket with the min. priority and wait for the future updates!
There are feeds if you’d like to follow everything
http://www.earth.org/feed/location
http://www.earth.org/feed/article
What is more people will likely be interested in following specific article/continent or place. Feeds can easily be used to this hence narrowing down changes. Obviously if you wanna follow whole earth you’re up for huge list..scrolling out fast.
Feeds are limited to 20 entries currently.
The Earth.org blog is so much more than a blog. It is the where we all talk to the other people in our ‘office,’ and it doesn’t need to be serious posts only. The only rule is that it needs to be POSITIVE! There is enough bad news in the world, so the blog is where we share our daily activities, offer constructive ideas and give eachother plenty of encouragement.
It is great to post every day on the blog – we all work together and it is good to know what the other teams are doing, as well as getting to know the names and faces.
Don’t be shy – all voices and faces are welcome here.
How to start blogging?
You can sign up to the blog here: http://blog.earth.org/ and clicking on the ‘Register Here’ link on the right-hand side of the page. This will take you to a WordPress signup page.
Choose your username and enter it in the top box (try to keep it simple, like your first name, so that other EDO team members will recognise you). In the second box, enter your email address and a link will be sent to you to activate your blog account. Once you have signed up, it is time to post your first EDO blog! Go to http://blog.earth.org and click ‘Sign in’ on the right of the page. Sign in to the WordPress page and you will be taken to a dashboard that looks like this….
You can either write a post from here, or do it the easy way… Click on ‘Visit Site’ (in the top left corner of the page, next to ‘Earth.Org – meet the team’) and you will be taken to the blog, with a big friendly space for you to post a note…..
Now you are part of the blog. Tag your posts, so that others can follow up your contributions.
Adjust your blog profile and upload a nice picture of you.
For the picture create an account at Gravatar and associate image to your email. After some time it will auto pop on the blog:
GRAVATAR – your picture for the blog
What is a Gravatar? It is a profile and picture that is stored in one place. A Gravatar is associated with all WordPress sites, which means that any time you post something on a WordPress site (like the EDO blog) your picture will automatically come up. That saves you having to create a new profile every time you join a WordPress site.
To create a Gravatar, go to http://en.gravatar.com/
When you click ‘Get Your Gravatar Today’ you will be asked for an email address. Type in your email and a link will be sent to you that you need to click to register with Gravatar.
Once you have clicked this link, you can click on ‘My Account’ on the top left of the page, and add the picture that you think best represents you.
@imogen – thanks a lot for the description, you have done a great work! We are actually working on guidelines for travel guide writers and Ambassadors. But I thought this part is of general interest, now we can link to it and things should be clear. For more transparency, more visibility and better usability at Earth.org
Hi Imogen and Rafael, thanks!
As you can see, I added 2 tags to your post! If someone considers writing a longer blog post (like this one above) – please don’t forget to tag it with..
1. “blog post” – so that it appears on the right side bar in “Full length blog posts”
2. any other tag related to your topic (PR, Earth.org Ambassadors, Earth.org volunteers, tech, usability, …)
THANKS!!
Hi Teresa, of course – I had edited the post so fast that I have forgotten about the tags. Going to add them…
Thanks Rafael, I added a new picture
This is really good.
Thanks Rafael and Imogen.
If you have time I would ask you a second episode on the use of the side bar, the dashboard and plugins.
THANKS!
Rafael, my hero! You made it pretty and readable, many thanks! …. @Cristiano, will do, thanks for the ideas
thanks Imogen, you have done the most work.
i was just looking for this info ~ THNKS!
Rafael this is great! As you can see I still need a picture… Thanx !
i see that it worked…. great to be able to help
we need a avatar pic for anonymous. Don’t use the old one. Get in touch with tristan pls. and get him to make you a new one
and pls rename the headlines to Travel Guide Highlights and Recent Activity in the Travel Guide
oh sorry this whole message is for dm @dmitriy
oh and have a look at the search field. it’s vertical height is smaller than the button on my system. can you pls increase the height so that it’s at least same as the buttons height.
also make the space for the highlights WIDER so that the line below the image is gone. there is too much space between the 2 columns any way in my op.
done
you rock @dmitriy what about the avatar pic?
default avatar pic added. image found in google image search
btw: if I come from deeper in the travel guide (e.g. http://www.test.earth.org/edit/Potsdam/history) and go to the interactive map (http://www.test.earth.org/maps/Potsdam) — I don’t see a possibility to go back to where I come from without using the browser back button…
@alfreda @valentin @teresa Here’s a great post on the importance of error messages!
http://carsonified.com/blog/design/ux/10-tips-on-writing-hero-worthy-error-messages/
Quote: “Error messaging is customer support”
cheers
This is a good article and applies to Customer/Users Support in general. Thanks Rob!
I wrote a document a couple of weeks ago on this argument and I think it can be of interest for all of you that are in touch with the user community.
https://docs.google.com/a/earth.org/Doc?docid=0AbiFdyOzaAAuZHZwOHc3el8xMmY3eno2enRj&hl=it
alfreda / slobodan / steve : http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=28227
how to get ux testing into agile development cycle. sounds a lot like our challenges after the redesign
here some more http://www.thinkingandmaking.com/view/agile-ux-un
oh and a brief reminder on agile modelling…. haha i love this:
Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount
of work not done–is essential.
here are the full principles: http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
had meeting with slobodan over homepage. really pushing hard to finalize it for the launch. we need unfortunatley to stop doing design iterations. i am aware not everybody will be satisfied… but launch is more important to me.
we will most likely have some kind of activity stream plus (maybe semi-) automatic rotation of the highlights coming directly from the might edo db
i have created a stream in flickr for screenshots with improvement instructions: http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthdotorg/tags/improvements/
using the slideshow function it easiest scrolling through these: http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthdotorg/tags/improvements/show/
cool! I think Shankar can add his improvements to this photostream too.
yeah that would be awesome. if you subscribe to the comments rss feed your always up to date on that stuff.
Great stuff Valentin! I [heart] improvements
cheers rob!
a lot of the problems we have were already solved by others. have a look at these 2 websites. these are ui patterns… solutions for common problems in the user interface:
http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/
here for instance for error messags on user forms:
http://ui-patterns.com/pattern/InputFeedback
@dmitiry… if you find stuff missing feel free to improvise with the help of these websites. just let us know. the trouble is the lack of time and amount of features that need to go through usability right now. would be good if you guys can help out where you feel confident!
ok
everyone who is actively invovled in the redesign should subscribe to the flickr RSS on http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthdotorg/ if you have the login details to this account you should also subscribe to the recent activity stream on http://www.flickr.com/activity/ to see if anyboyd commented on screens.
thanks
david, 
Rafael, and 
Imogen, 
Mathias are discussing. 
valentin, 
danwtmoon and 3 others are discussing. 
Thomas, and 
Cristiano, 
kalmanp, 
Alfreda, and 
Julian, 
valentin are discussing. 
Eva and 4 others are discussing. 
dmitriy, 
otto 12:59 pm on November 29, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply
ohoh – I suggest you enter a trac ticket!
david 9:43 pm on November 29, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I had a brief look into this and I did see a problem with Internet Explorer, but not the same problem you are describing. However, I fixed it in the test server. Can you try in http://test.earth.org ?
Rafael 5:18 am on November 30, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks David, I have tried on the test-server: now it is working, you have fixed the problem!
David 4:35 pm on November 30, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Its live now