wegetit

An implementation of WeGetIt from Karl Schroeder's short story Degrees of Freedom

deploying

The current setup is designed to use gunicorn as its server. You can run it from bash with the command

$ gunicorn -w 4 -b $ADDRESS:$PORT "wegetit:main($DBFILE)"

You must specify a path for $DBFILE, as this is where the program will store the database. Putting it in somewhere like /tmp/wegetit/db.json or /var/wegetit/db.json is usually a good idea.

terminology

For lack of better terms, "definitions" describes the term-definition-paraphrase portions of WeGetIt, while "conversations" describes the broad collection of definitions.

possible terminology improvement

"conversation" might be a bit ambiguous so perhaps "topic" is better?

"term/definition" might lead people to feel ownership over a term, so it might better to use something like "perspective" or "interpretation"?

page/flow - single-page version

• The Page
  • Overview/description of WeGetIt
  • List of convos
    • • for new convo
    • Entry
      • UUID anchor
      • Title
      • Description
      • List of definitions
        • • for new definition
        • Entry
          • UUID anchor
          • Term + UUID indicating which initial definition of the term
          • Initial definition
          • List of Paraphrases
            • • for new paraphrase
            • Entry
              • UUID anchor
              • Yes/No judgment
              • Paraphrase

Endpoints / API

• GET / Returns: HTML rendering of the main page

• POST /threads

  Parameters:

  • title : String
  • description : String

  Returns:

  • Redirect to the mainpage with an anchor to #ThreadID for a newly created thread

• POST /threads/:thread_id/perspectives

  Parameters:

  • term : String
  • initial_interpretation : String

  Returns:

  • Redirect to the mainpage with an anchor to #PerspectiveID for the newly created perspective

• POST /threads/:thread_id/perspectives/:perspective_id/paraphrases

  Parameters:

  • paraphrase : String

  Returns:

  • Redirects to the mainpage with an anchor to #ParaphraseID for the newly created paraphrase

pages/flows - minimal version

• Main Page
  • Overview/description of WeGetIt
  • List of conversations
• Create Convo
  • Title + Description
• View Convo
  • Title + Description
  • List of definitions in this conversation --click--> view definition
• View Definition
  • Term
  • Initial definition
  • Add your own paraphrase
  • Other paraphrases + good/bad judgment

pages/flows - fuller version?

• Main Page
  • Overview/description of WeGetIt
  • List of conversations you've created
  • List of conversations you've joined
• My Conversations Page
  • Convo ID + Description --click--> Manager for this convo
  • Create New Convo button
• Manage Convo
  • Overview of what the conversation is about
  • List of definitions in this conversation --click--> view definition
• View Definition
  • Term
  • Initial definition
  • Paraphrases + good/bad judgment

considerations

• ease of setup - no signup required
• privacy/anonymity
• ability to return to conversations/connect up multiple convos?
• how to have more feedback beyond just "we get it!", without it devolving into arguments?
  • idea: maybe let the definer highlight some parts of the definition and explicitly mark those as not what they mean?