Custom place types

[nicksellen]

I’ve been working on custom place types over at https://github.com/yunity/karrot-backend/pull/1122 - I left it a while, but now on revisiting it, I’m thinking I can simplify what I did already, but maybe needs a bit of thought again about what custom place types are actually for.

My open question is actually about place statuses more than types. Currently places can have one of these statuses:

• just created
• negotiating
• co-operating (active)
• don’t want to co-operate (declined)
• archived

And of those, only co-operating (active) can have activities. This is designed for the model of organising co-operations with stores. But this is too narrow now for all the use-cases of places.

Firstly, the custom place types could be things like:

• supermarket
• distribution centre
• bakery
• meeting place
• public fridge

(each could have a icon, so you can see them on the map, and also filter them by type).

But then the question comes back to the statuses, many of those don’t really make sense for all of those place types (you don’t “co-operate” with a public fridge), but I’m getting a bit stuck thinking what to do without making it too complicated.

A few options:

• leave the statuses as they are, at least for now, just add the place types on top of it
• allow to add custom statuses, that can be used for any place type + enable activities for all non-archived statuses
• … something else?

And another part of this is whether to create a bunch of default place types, like the ones above… or leave the groups to create whatever makes sense to them.

[Michal_Lewandowski]

I think, as in Warsaw it is lot of such points, it is good to add Restaurants(around 1/3 points in Warsaw are restaurants), and bazaars(also lots of points in Warsaw).
Better to keep list closed, will be easier to maintain(for now).

As activities in points IMHO live it as they are for now

[nicksellen]

For activity types, we did a little poll on here to see which types would be useful across the groups, maybe we can do the same here for place types.

I think Bazaar might be more understood as Marketplace in English?

Anybody have others not mentioned to add into the list for voting?

@Michal_Lewandowski

As activities in points IMHO live it as they are for now

I didn’t understand what you meant there? Was it about the idea to be able to configure activities for all the different statuses? (just created, negotiating, etc…) - you can actually write in Polish if you want too, and the little globe icon [1] in each post will translate it Either is fine though.

[1] this is the globe icon →

[Michal_Lewandowski]

I mean in my oponion there is no need for change them, but question were added on our local grupe if there is need for more types

We will see

[bruno]

@nicksellen

allow to add custom statuses, that can be used for any place type + enable activities for all non-archived statuses

I’d go with this one!

@nicksellen

And another part of this is whether to create a bunch of default place types, like the ones above… or leave the groups to create whatever makes sense to them.

I’m just imagining what (especially new) group would do, and I don’t think there would be much thought put into creating the place types at first. Rather, it would feel more natural to create the types as they create new places are created.

[nicksellen]

The changes to the statuses has been much more complex to work on that I thought, so I’m splitting the work up into two parts:

• custom place types (backend: Add place types by nicksellen · Pull Request #1159 · yunity/karrot-backend · GitHub)
• custom place statuses (not sure when)

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get this merged more easily!

There is still the open question of what to create for the initial type… @bruno for your idea, we would still need one type…

• “place” would be one option, although a bit odd to have a “place type” called “place”
• “store” would be another (as it fits the old default), but not very good for non-foodsaving groups
• “default” or “general” could be another, but also not very informative

I agree about making it easy to create new types as people create new places.

[bruno]

Good approach.

I think that when you want to define the place as an actual location, then maybe that’s the name, location. (?)

But I’m not completely sure I understand. Are you thinking something in the lines of custom activities, that you can either choose from a preset list of of activity types or create one entirely new type?

[nicksellen]

I read your message a few times @bruno but can’t make sense from it, can you maybe rephrase/clarify it?

[bruno]

Sure

@bruno

I think that when you want to define the place as an actual location, then maybe that’s the name, location. (?)

That’s referring to your question about what the initial type should be. But maybe I did not understand what you meant by initial type.

@bruno

Are you thinking something in the lines of custom activities, that you can either choose from a preset list of of activity types or create one entirely new type?

As it is right now with the activity types there’s a list of default ones that are given (pickup, meeting, etc.) and you can also create new custom ones. Are you thinking about implementing place types similarly?

[nicksellen]

@bruno

As it is right now with the activity types there’s a list of default ones that are given (pickup, meeting, etc.) and you can also create new custom ones. Are you thinking about implementing place types similarly?

Ah, that was confusing, as that was one of my questions in the opening post, which you answered here:

@bruno

it would feel more natural to create the types as they create new places are created.

@bruno

As it is right now with the activity types there’s a list of default ones that are given (pickup, meeting, etc.) and you can also create new custom ones. Are you thinking about implementing place types similarly?

Well, that’s two parts. Yes to being able to create new custom ones (or it wouldn’t be “custom place types”), and the other part is what we are discussing

@bruno

That’s referring to your question about what the initial type should be. But maybe I did not understand what you meant by initial type.

So, if we let the users/groups create the types as they go, we still need one type (given we already have a lot of places, they can’t not have a type - well, actually maybe that is an option, but it complicates things if the code cannot assume all places have a type).

So, the question is what that one type would be (the initial type), of which I included some suggestions above:

@nicksellen

• “place” would be one option, although a bit odd to have a “place type” called “place”
• “store” would be another (as it fits the old default), but not very good for non-foodsaving groups
• “default” or “general” could be another, but also not very informative

… although not very inspired by those.

Does it make more sense now?

[bruno]

This got very convoluted , but I think I’m following.

I didn’t think about existing groups with many places already created. So for the initial type I’d suggest place with location, even though it does not say much. Or maybe it’s too long?

Then a list of suggestions when creating a new place type would be fine.

[bruno]

Another related question…

Do we/you want to extend the concept of places to places for discussion mostly, as described in How to make Places more suitable for conversations?? And would it be included in this work?

Because when thinking about suggestions for the place types, I think about a place type conversation or discussion or any similar name. And one idea is that the wall would be the first tab to be displayed.

[nicksellen]

@bruno

I didn’t think about existing groups with many places already created. So for the initial type I’d suggest place with location, even though it does not say much. Or maybe it’s too long?

Not all places have a location though, so that would seem confusing.

@bruno

Then a list of suggestions when creating a new place type would be fine.

Ah I see, so we wouldn’t create the place types in advance, but have some translated names… should work. Which place types?

@bruno

Do we/you want to extend the concept of places to places for discussion mostly, as described in How to make Places more suitable for conversations?? And would it be included in this work?

I’m trying to simplify this work so I can get something merged, so I wouldn’t add more topics into this.

[tiltec]

Maybe a place type called “None”? Or “-”?

Though it might be better to find a name that doesn’t imply special behavior, i.e. can be modified the same as other types when a follow-up PR gets merged.

[bruno]

I think that’s a way to go. Another boring name: “Unspecified”

[nicksellen]

Yes, good idea!

Still the question of whether to have a pre-populated (and therefore translatable) list of likely/common names? If so which?

[bruno]

@nicksellen

Ah I see, so we wouldn’t create the place types in advance, but have some translated names… should work. Which place types?

Spontaneously I can think of:

• Store
• Sharing point
• Meeting place
• Event
• Discussion

[bruno]

Nick, you’re too fast!

[nicksellen]

Ok, I put in these now:

‘Unspecified’
‘Store’
‘Sharing Point’
‘Meeting Place’
‘Restaurant’
‘Market’

It would only create a place type ‘Unspecified’ automatically for each group, and set all existing places to be that type.

The other names would just be for appearing in the dropdown when you want to create a new type, so they are translated.

I added Restaurant and Market from the input from @Michal_Lewandowski

I left out ‘Event’ because I think it could be confusing to have an activity type of ‘Event’ as well as a place type of ‘Event’, and ‘Discussion’ because I think we should work more on How to make Places more suitable for conversations? first. So, basically keeping places “officially” as sort of geographical places for now still, until we can think through the features more - but nothing stopping anyone creating custom types that represent that.

How does this all sound?

[bruno]

I think it sounds great!