[PP-main] working towards peer press 1.0

[lists at itsg.net.au]

hi everyone.

i've now placed a network diagram i did online at:

http://www.geocities.com/peerpress_au/pp-network.png

for your perusal. below is an explanation of it,
and following that are some questions and possible
answers i have put together.

enjoy!

---

legend:
circles, small - end users
circles, medium - affiliate sites
circles, large - pp network servers

explanation:

* section A
  here we see content authors submitting their stories/editorials/
  pictures/etc to their favourite weblog (site1.org).
  this content is then evaluated in the usual fashion by the
  sites administrators, and they choose to submit one of the stories
  (with the permission of fred smith, the stories author) to the
  pp network.

* section B
  in this section we see 4 affiliate sites submitting what they
  believe to be quality content to their local (geographically)
  pp network server.

* section C
  the local server then updates all the other pp network servers
  with the content that has been submitted.

* section D
  4 affiliate sites on the other side of the world poll their local
  pp server for new content (for which they have pre-selected categories
  through the pp network web interface)

* section E
  the polled stories are put into the "incoming" spool of the weblogs,
  just as if someone had submitted a story. the site admin then decide
  whether or not they want to run the story.

---

* if a link for binary content becomes invalid, who should be responsible
for updating it? how do they actually go about changing it in the system?

* with the above in mind, should all pp network content authors have a
username and password? this would enable them to maintain their own
details, including links to their binary content.

* how do sites sign up to be affiliate sites? what information do they
receive when they do so?

* each "content" item to the pp network should have some sort of subject
identifier to make it easy for affiliate sites to decide what content
they want to receive. classifications are a big project in themselves.
who is responsible in the pp network for creating/maintaining these?

* how is the content submitted by affiliate sites going to be "moderated"?
is damaging their own reputation enough for them to not submit stupid
things (probably not)? in the process i described above the content is 
moderated by the affiliates on the way out and on the way in. should the
pp network do any sort of moderation in the middle? if so, how? 

* i think it would be a good idea if authors had to submit content through
an affiliate site for inclusion in the pp network. their work may then
be paid for, editted (if need be for errors etc), and then posted to pp
network by the affiliate site. how to stop sites posting stories
and claiming they were written by someone when they weren't? (username
and password for authors returns. maybe a hash system where the author
of the work submits an intent to publish through the pp network web
interface, and receives a key for that piece of content. they then give
their username and one-time-usable content key to the affiliate site when
they submit their content. the author receives an automated message from
the pp network when their content is about to be distributed to the
whole network. the author logs in to the pp web interface, confirms
it is in fact their work (ie the affiliate site isn't publishing
different content under their details) and confirms to publish.
the work is then distributed to the other sites.)


hope this is useful,


- avi