I really like this iteration! It’s much less confusing than the previous one imo, and adding label to the hard-coded roles is a good solution. Maybe that could work well in the future when we implement custom roles for the group, which could be then suggested when creating the activity. Since this somehow sneaks in custom roles in activities, I wonder what @dave_goodman_jr thinks of it.
Sorry if I’m jumping ahead now, but it actually brings up a question relevant for this feature: Do we have the terminology right? I’d rather change role, as it is now, to permission or trust level (something like that), and change label to role. It makes more sense for me at least…
Yes, one of greatest concerns I have with this is how to make the UI simple enough and intuitive for smaller groups that won’t actually care about this at all. Maybe the toggle is a good way. Should the default be for members then?
I cannot think of a case in which that would be really really useful. You could still go around with what’s given now.
I guess somehow, but not the kind of roles as we’ve discussed them so far (which are within a group, and could be like badges on your profile).
I agree the terminology can maybe be addressed, there are two things here to my mind:
group-level “roles” - which would be part of the trust system, and apply to the user in the context of the whole group (e.g. “I trust x to have editor role”)
activity-level “roles” - which are only about what people need to do for that specific activity (or series) (e.g. “we need 1 driver, and 2 collectors, and can take 1 trial person”) - which might also correspond to group-level “roles”
By adding the “label” field, I opened up the difference between these two, but we need to get really clear on them. If we are not clear, the users have no chance!
Also, how I’ve made it at the moment, you can only use each group-level role once per activity (so, for example you can’t have “cook” slots and “dishwasher” slots which are each restricted to “approved” role, you can only use the “approved” restriction once). That made some sense before I added the “label”, but less sense after…
Yup, members is equivalent to have it works now (anyone can join them).
The original case for this thread (trial pickups) is one case that I think fits that, so that only people withoutapproved role can sign up to a trial slot (and only people withapproved role can sign up to a normal slot). But I also agree it would be usable without the negation case.
So, right now here are my thoughts to progress:
keep the role terminology to the group-level ones
rename the activity-level ones “participant types” (currently “participant roles” in the code…)
keep the “label” field, but think of another name (perhaps “title”? or “name”? something else?)
add in an “advanced” toggle (not sure the best label though)
trust level: seems inaccurate to me, as it implies a linear hierarchy of levels (1, 2, 3, 4…etc), whereas how we’ve discussed it there could be different “badges” for different things/skills
Just to be clear on one thing, since we have only been throwing around some ideas in different places on the topic of roles… One thing I’ve imagined, since we did the governance design process, is that having some “badges” (custom-made defined on the group level) on the avatar and profile of a user could be very useful and informative for many reasons, and that they would not be necessarily connected to any trust system. Here’s some actual use case for them that I’ve seen in my group:
early on there’s been a need to identify and look for individuals with cars in my group for certain pickups
we’ve got people on the board (also important to identify for accountability purposes) and we’ve got people on the welcoming/onboarding team, which making them visible would facilitate some interactions and make clear they’re responsible for applications
we’ve got some other roles (ambassadors, food savers and hosts/distributors) which I’m not sure would be useful to as a badge
I’ve noticed other groups establish clear roles with their own terminology, and that seems to be a common pattern in any more or less organized group, but I’m not sure how and if they would benefit from the kind of badge system I described. It is also clear that these group-level roles often overlap with the activity-level roles, which is why it still makes sense (to me at least) to call both of them roles.
Any kind of custom role as in the examples I gave above would not necessarily be unlocked by any kind of trust system, but rather defined at the group level and self-assigned. If that is an idea worth developing, then I’d rather keep the term badge for the visual representation of a role, like an actual badge.
With the terms permission and trust level I tried to convey the idea of what the software actually does, so more descriptive and less abstract. I don’t think permission is too technical, and I fully agree that level is not the right word. Then maybe, trust permission?
It’s hard to find the right terms if we don’t have the concept very clear! But it’s a lot my fault for bringing in more ideas and speculation.
Thanks @nicksellen and @bruno for pushing this forward! I like the direction in which it goes. Also our group could make use of such roles / badges as we have similar roles to what you, @bruno, described.
I like your thoughts about how to progress, @nicksellen, and add two comments:
I would use “name” instead of “label” for that additional field as the latter sounds quite techy and “title” too formal to me.
Instead of “advanced”, you could use something like “more fine-grained access roles”.
Great! It’s been a long journey, but getting close!
Actually, there are a few further changes now since that one, but much in the same direction:
A few points:
from our call today we thought to entirely remove the name/label/title field, and just rely on having the free text description field. It wouldn’t be a big deal to add it back in later if it seems useful, I’m trying to reach an “acceptable” state now!
I added “newcomer” as an actual role, so this should fit your case well @danveg (newcomer is someone without any other roles, so as soon as they get editor, or approved, they will lose the newcomer role)
still need to add a nice little explanation of what the roles mean
we display the “member” role as “anyone” for clarity
so far I have “Use participant types” for the “advanced” mode, but still not convinced that’s a good name for it… something along the lines of “more fine-grained access roles” could work too…
Adding newcomer goes full circle back to the original proposal. Could you remind us again what is necessary for the newcomer to become a member?
EDIT: I found the description of a newcomer here [Info] Karrot trust system and user levels and it’s basically someone who doesn’t have enough trust to become an editor. I was thinking mostly about the badge (the green stuff under the user’s pic/avatar). Is it always there until the person reaches the trust threshold for becoming an editor?
I just noticed a little grammatical inconsistency. “Limit to anyone” doesn’t really sound correct. Then maybe we could change it to “Allow”, “Who’s allowed”, or “Open to”. Or maybe a better idea?
HI there! After the last karrot calls I’ve been thinking about this topic and admit that I found it quite confusing at times. To get more clarity I followed a more structured approach. One outcome: I actually don’t think this so much about roles
I found it really helpful do define a needs statement. This is what I came up with:
We want to support an on-boading process in the software.
We want a more advanced way to configure activities.
We want to build on excisting ideas and don’t add massive changes on code level.
From my point of view the discussion drifted a bit from these needs since last december with new ones coming in (something about group agreements, idea to display different “group roles” like ambassodor, coordinator). I suggest to separate topics again and stay with the on-boarding feature for this one and start another process for roles/ group agreements (or maybe work on existing thoughts, I don’t have an overview of ideas ).
Having said this, I see this feature pretty much coming to an end. I tried to synthesize the previously mendtioned ideas to one proposal:
There is the possibiliy to customize activities
you can enter an advanced mode
it is possible to define different participant types with a custom description
e.g. one person with cargo bike, 2 persons helping with sorting
the trust system features 3 levels of permission
everyone can read and write messages, private and on walls
newcomer: can join newcomer activities
user: can join non-newcomer activities
editor: can join non-newcomer activities & edit places and the group
the sign-up for activities can be limited based on the level of permission of the user
when not using the advanced mode for activities, anyone (meaning newcomer, user and editor level) can sign up
when using the advanced mode for activities it is possible
to set activity slots where only newcomer can sign up
to set activity slots where non-newcomer can sign up
note: there is no option for ‚editors only’
newcomer can not vote in a conflict resolution process
note: the newcomer level becomes only relevant starting with a group size of 6
Happy to hear if this is helpful! I also took more detailed notes along the way: Karrot newcomer - HedgeDoc which is maybe more a summary of this thread.
Great job organizing the ideas floating around here @nathalie ! It helped me see that this feature, as it’s been developed so far by @nicksellen, doesn’t really need to be explained at all in terms of roles, and it covers already some use cases it’s been designed for.
I think it can be a good basis for developing custom roles for groups in the future, but we’ve been thinking a few steps ahead and that brings some confusion, so better to save some of the things said here to a new feature and thread for discussion.
It seems to me that you have described the latest version developed by Nick, except that you use the word user instead of approved. Any particular thoughts on that? I’m not particularly happy with neither to be honest but cannot come up any better idea myself.
I’m not sure that the trust system with the different levels of permission has been developed like this in this feature so far, but it makes sense to me that it’s based on group size like the trust for editor works now. I think we need to figure out what happens when the group grows in size: should the newcomer “status” be invisible until the group reaches the number of 6? Should the group get some notification or explanation tip when it does become available?
There’s still some work to be done on the UI, like in the example above and for giving trust. On the latter I think Nick’s sketch (below again) is fine, but getting rid of the Trust for role part and just use Trust for…
Is it? That’s good, I tried to align it with what was already done. Although I didn’t really find a describtion of the “whole picture”, that’s why I thought it’s a good idea at this point to synthesize ideas. A more detailed look on the different ideas is in the pad I linked at the end…
Maybe it’s a bit confusing to change the terminology at this point, I also could have just stayed with approved as a working term. In general I would rather go with a descriptive term, don’t really like approved, but not super convinced with user either.
Here I see a difference to what is written in the proposal. In the proposal it would build up on each other, following a consecutive order: newcomer → user → editor, based on the number of karrots. Of course this can be discussed and changed, that’s the whole point of it
Hey, thanks so much for the summarizing @nathalie. I find that really helpful. We often have complex weaving of multiple needs an corresponding technical features that might support them.
I’d first like to correct a few bits of the description:
There is the possibiliy to customize activities
you can enter an advanced mode
it is possible to define different participant types with a custom description
e.g. one person with cargo bike, 2 persons helping with sorting
there are 4 roles
member (everyone) can read and write messages, private and on walls
newcomer: anyone who doesn’t have another role yet
approved if trusted for this role (by an editor)
editor: if trusted for this role, will be able to edit place/group information
note: these are currently called roles, but that could change
note: in future development they would be customizable per-group
the sign-up for activities can be limited based on the roles of the user
when not using the advanced mode for activities, anyone can sign up
when using the advanced mode for activities it is possible
to set activity slots where a specific role is required
to have multiple slot types (aka. participant types)
newcomer can not vote in a conflict resolution process
I keep referring to these things as “roles” just because that’s what they are currently called in the software, and the interface, not because they need to stay that way
the “role” for everyone is called “member”, but displayed as “everyone” to make it clearer, some groups might consider people only become a “member” when they have done some trials… so could be confusing, but “member” builds on existing concept in the software that “all the people in the group are members of that group”
the question of “which roles exist and how do people get them” can be considered independently (from a technical implementation perspective) from the “create different activity slots and limit them by role”
I think it might be good to only add this approved role for groups that specifically want it right now (e.g. Luxembourg, and Gothenburg?), so we can see how it works out, and maybe wait for custom roles to be developed for the rest of the groups… (and we’ve understood a bit more what we’re intending with them in a wider sense)
with custom roles all these words (member, editor, approved, and more) could/should be customizable per-group to use what makes sense in the context of a group
And a specific reply:
That was not intended, the role-system in karrot doesn’t have any concept of this progression (currently, or in my work-in-progress for these changes). I don’t recall discussing having them as a progression before.
Interesting. And I’m glad you found it somewhat helpful what I wrote!
I’m still guessing a bit where in the process we are and now I feel that not only there is an existing proposal, but it’s also mostly decided.
And I don’t think it’s helpful to start citing all the previous posts now where I read about an idea
I didn’t specifically write my opinion, I can add a few thoughts:
I’m generally fine in which direction it is going
maybe it’s useful to add the"applicant" as a role (at least in theory)
still the progression applicant - newcomer - approved - editor seems natural to me, at least in activity heavy groups where basically everyone is asked to do the activity at least once (I think that’s the practice in most foodsharing groups).
But I also see the advantage to be more explicit about it and give trust per ‘role’. Doing that there are different ways of contributing. So it can happen that someone is really good at organising and therefore trusted as an editor, but was never approved for the specific activity-doing part.
still there is this little progression of applicant - newcomer - person with role
on the terminology, I would really like to ‘save’ the term role for this group-roles to avoid future confusion. Or maybe name it karrot-role to indicate it is somehow connected to the software whereas other potential roles/ group-roles (e.g. coordinator, facilitator) are rather social. Than we can add descriptions per role and the duration is ‘as long as person A holds X trust’
How karrot is now I would say you enter already with “approved”. So even if there technically is a newcomer-role, I don’t think it’s an adequat term. That’s the reason why the application process is relevant and that’s the place where the trial pick-ups are done. With this feature this is supposed to happen inside the group. As I see it the treshhold to get in the group is lowered, so I tend to restrict some power for newcomers e.g. the voting in conflict resolution in order to protect the existing group. Or maybe I’m making the wrong assumption, there still will be some kind of process to be accepted to the group, only the activity part is now inside the group (and people are generally good and to be trusted ). I noticed I started to question the definition of ‘member’ and creating a ‘group within the group’ but actually I like the idea that inside the group everyone is equally a member, only there are some rules about activity-doing and editing.
I was describing what is already coded now (but not merged yet - it’s work-in-progress), but we can still decide to rethink it before proceeding, or continue with what has been developed so far.
My preference would be to get what has already been developed merged as soon as possible, and iterate it from there, as it’s a lot easier for people to understand what we’re talking about when it’s something that can be clicked around, rather than text descriptions, voice conversations, envelope drawings, and screen recordings.
It would be a big change to make the applicant a role, as the way we developed the application feature is that they are not actually in the group during that time. Lots of parts of the software decide access based on being a group member (as the database sees it), rather than any roles in the group.
… it could be though if we have this deeper use of roles (or whatever we call them), that it makes sense to change that, but that’s how things stand right now.
I really like this thinking about roles in the context of a group, I would really like to engage in this in a next iteration of the work though. roles is already in use in the current deployment of karrot - although that’s mostly just in the code, it doesn’t appear much in the interface (actually the interface has text like “lost editing permissions”).
This would depend a lot on how a group decides to configure it’s activities, as ultimately we need to accommodate quite a wide range of ways that groups want to organise their onboarding process.
For many groups it kind of makes sense to get a limited access to the group after being accepted (can read and write posts on the wall, join more public/open events, etc) and that is a good place to co-ordinate trial pickups. That’s kind of how the newcomer thing (as it is now) came about, … so at least mark the people that have just joined, as they might need extra help… and to control everything using social processes rather than the technical ones (that we now develop).
I hope my text made enough sense! It’s quite a complex topic, and touches on many areas. I guess my immediate focus is: “how do I get what is already developed, but not merged, into a state where it’s in an acceptable state to merge”
Meta: I think one part is to get to a common language, like generally on this software topic. I’m just thinking how much a call would be a more supportive environment. Making a write-up of my thoughts actually is a bit of effort to me. But your text @nicksellen does make sense!
on this one, I wanted to make clear that I rather meant something like “don’t forget how the applicant plays into the onboarding process” and not “making the applicant part of the group”. How I got it, the latter was quite quickly dismissed in the process.
But anyway, as I see the feature now, it’s not a redesign of the newcomer-role (what I was maybe initially more thinking about), but rather adding a new role (with a second trust giving system) besides ‘editor’, which is ‘approved’, to allow these activity-restrictions. I’m fine going in this directions with those karrot-roles.
Looking at the proposal again:
newcomer can vote in a conflict resolution process → I’m fine with leaving this to the status quo
approved: if trusted for this role (by an editor) → any reason for only editors? I’d propose editor and other approved
to set activity slots where a specific role is required → in my proposal I had this comment that there is no editors-only option and I see no reason to implement this (maybe you can give me one). I would rather like to see it as described, cause only newcomer and approved are ‘activity-oriented’
to set activity slots where only newcomer can sign up
to set activity slots where only approved can sign up
I’d go for always 1 trust needed to be approved
A bit of an outlook: I actually really like what I saw about the group agreements feature and I would rather work on that and afterwards come back to the roles topic, cause how I see it any futher group-roles are basically group agreements.
Hello, it took me some time to catch up. Thanks for all your efforts! It looks really good to me already.
Concerning the discussion about who approves: My concern is that not every member should be able to approve because in our group, for example, we have designated a person who checks whether the new person has fulfilled all criteria before approving them.
What still would be nice:
we could definr the participant types in the group settings so we don’t have to type them always in the textbox. Then there could be a checkbox to select the participate types.
Hi there! As this feature is part of the recent Karrot funding, we give our best to bring it to a good state in the next month. Also once merged, it’s way easier to have more conversation around it - and testing!
I put the notes here of the chat Nick and I had today during our co-working session.
Chat between Nathalie and Nick, 24.08.2022
Two parts:
- build something useful now
- do a design process on the more general roles topic later
Complete participant types for activities feature
fine-grain configuration of activities
as presented before
reimplement on top of new data layer
small open questions
backend changes needed
goal: merged to master
Complete “trust for role” feature
new role ‘approved’
that makes newcomer, approved and editor
everyone is member too, who is in the group
editors can give trust for approved (editors only)
one trust to be approved
it’s somewhere on the profile page
and also indicated on member list
backend implemented
fronted not that much → we need to do that! [Nathalie]
‘where should the button go’
make it more explicited that you trust someone for something
chatting to Daniel maybe?
Writeup process and documentation for roles feature
Structure:
… and here is the write-up I did for the ‘roles feature’ (partcipant types and trust for ‘approved’). Hope it helps 2022_Writeup_Roles-feature.pdf (566,7 KB)
Could you remind us again what is necessary for the newcomer to become a member?
).