Propose new functionalities for Decidim software
#DecidimRoadmap Designing Decidim together
Lately I’ve been working with the participatory texts module and so I’ve found some improvements that we could make to the modul.
1) To add an option to download the final text once it has been amended and modified.
This should be done from the back office. The file must maintain paragraphs and separations, regardless of the sections into which the text is divided.
2) When importing a text, the draft or edition section is confusing.
One way to improve this is to not make it mandatory to add a title in every section in which the text is divided.
On the public view of the text, a title won’t be displayed if there’s no title; at this time a default number is displayed as title if there's no text.
3) Disable the possibility of amending when “accepted”
If the option to provide “response” (accept, reject) is enabled, and the admin “accepts” one section of the text (after the amendment process), it should no longer be possible to amend that part of the text as it is considered to be finished.
4) Remove the obligation to amend the title.
When someone wants to add an amendment or when the admin wants to edit the text from the back office, It’s always have to change the title, even if you don’t want to.
I think that these changes can improve a lot the use of the participatory texts module. What do you think?
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5 comments
I totally agree with you, I think that Participatory Text is a tool with a lot of potential but it has a lot of things to improve. I would add that:
Review the flow of voting on amendments. Enabling the possibility to vote for, against and abstain from each amendment. As well as to think about the voting possibilities when there are several amendments that refer to the same part of the text and that are contradictory between them, what should be the process? From my experience: The two amendments are confronted and the one that wins is confronted with the base text.
Create amendment typologies. Normally in this type of procedure a distinction is made between amendments of form, content or totality.
Another problem is when someone wants to add a new article to a text. There is no possibility to make an amendment that adds a new article to the text.
On point 3, I would say that it is fine for the admin to review the text of the amendment that will finally be incorporated into the text, but the author of the amendment should be able to accept those changes.
Conversation with Romy Grasgruber-Kerl
Hi, thanks for opening a discussion concerning the participatory text-feature. We are an NGO from Austria that got some funding from an Austrian foundation to implement Decidim here and improve the participatory-text feature. We are working together with RoR-Developers - @arusa Until end of June 2021 we'll consult stakeholders in Austria and internationally (here ;)) concerning their needs for participatory texts. Perhaps we can work together and coordinate our efforts to improve this feature? Compared to budgets-module or proposals the text-work seems not that well elaborated yet, but yes - it has huge potential. Your analysis/suggestions are very interesting though and similar to my experience when setting up our first text-process. In opposition to improving the feature that is integrated in the existing proposals-component we also considered to rethink it completely/extract it from there and try to find creative solutions to provide a new solution that can be integrated in Decidim separately. Which existing participatory-texting tools would you consider as best practices and suitable for orientation concerning functionality/user-experience etc.? We know some german platforms, but perhaps you know better ones. We didn't decide yet how to proceed concerning the development, but we would like to stay in touch and exchange ideas, coordinate efforts etc.
Always thought Pubpub was the best software for participatory text editing : https://www.pubpub.org
Thanks, that definitely helps!
@Ariadna_VA we are a addressing your input in our project to improve the participatory texts-module.
@1: For export of results we plan to provide an option to export the original text with comments, amendments in text-format (.doc), in order to make it easier to visualize the whole process and inputs. Details are still being elaborated, our idea is that we make the process transparent and provide a file that helps to continue working with the inputs. Main goal is not to export a "final text", but rather a file with all the inputs as basis for further discussion.
@2: text import: we plan to integrate an additional editor field in the admin interface with an explanation on how to format the text. Admins can decide by clicking a checkbox, whether they want the original import via document-upload or the new option via editor. Editor makes text-import much easier.
@4 We will provide (also via checkbox) the possibility to hide the title in the frontend-view. When working on frontend-improvements we saw that the title is often confusing when working on a flowing text.
Concerning the option of integrating "new paragraphs" (actually new proposals) into the text as also suggested by @Nil_Homedes we are still considering the consequences. But probably such suggestions need to be made as comments. @arusa
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