[Fsa-guatemala] Communication between Rooms

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

On Fri 2008-09-19 18:37:14 -0400, Jamie McClelland wrote:

> I think conveying a visual sense of the other rooms would an an
> *enormous* dimension to the project - almost making it a different
> experience. I think of this is pretty high priority. Even if we
> can't pull off another projector - having a link on the scribe page
> so view other rooms would be great.

OK, i don't think i intuitively share your prioritization, but i'm
happy to try to figure out how this could work. 

I'm pretty wary of adding still more features to the Scribe UI, which
is sounding overwhelming already.  I forget who has done Scribe work
at these Workshops so far -- i've only done it once, in a simple L=1,
one-Room Workshop.  I found it difficult to balance the requests of my
Group, my own interaction with the Group, my attention to the Board,
and my attention to the Web UI.  Just figuring out how to call up the
history of a changing Right, and how to communicate that back to the
Group was difficult, given the chaos of the process.  We've proposed
*tons* more features for the Scribe UI over the last week.  Yikes!

Some ideas about how to get remote images to a central server:

 * The presenter in each room sets up a webcam.  Images are sent every
   few seconds (up to some fraction of available upstream bandwidth)
   to the central server.  Downside: this just shows the same view.
   Same folks will always be in front of the camera.  Upside: set up
   once, forget about it.  Presenters can attend to more pressing
   matters.

 * The presenter has a digital camera, and takes pictures around the
   room.  There is an automatic upload process that pushes pictures to
   the central server once the camera is connected.  Downside:
   Presenter is occupied taking photos and shuttling them off the
   camera.  Setting up auto-upload process seems non-trivial for
   Caracas group at least.  Upside: more-interesting, varied photos.

 * Groups are equipped with digital cameras as well as the Scribe's
   laptop.  Scribe UI includes the ability to upload photos from the
   digital cameras.  Uploaded photos are tagged with the Group's
   handle.  Downside: more tech to wrangle, more Scribe UI.  Upside:
   distributed, Groups are responsible for their own representation.

Some ideas about how to display remote images (assuming we only have
one projector per Room):

 * The Board could alternate between displaying Rights and displaying
   uploaded images, giving brief glimpses.

 * A section of the Board could be sliced out (right-hand column?),
   and photos displayed in that slice.  As new photos come in (maybe
   non-local photos only?), they could scroll into view at the bottom
   of that section.  Older photos would scroll off the top.

 * de-saturated images could be placed in the background of the Rights
   board, rotating as new images arrive.  Rights must be clearly
   visible over the background images.

 * Scribe UI could show little non-local photos along the side (same
   scrolling behavior as described above).

 * Board- or Scribe-UI-displayed images (however presented) could be
   textually labelled with the name of the Room (and the name of the
   Group, if that info is available)

What do people think?  What's important here?  What seems like a
reasonable direction to go?

   --dkg
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