Farm-PEP Content - Revisited

We have revised our initial ideas of how content should be managed in Farm-PEP, following extensive consultations with farmers and stakeholders.

We propose simply having four types of content - People profiles, Partner (organisation) profiles, 'Pages' & 'Topics'.

Anyone can join PEP and have a personal profile

Partner organisations can have a profile page (payment for this ultimately drives revenues to pay for the maintenance & development of PEP)

Anyone can create Pages. A page might be a project, a product or service, an initiative tool or website, or an idea, or an opinion, or an experience, or a piece of news, or a resource such as a report, video or podcast, or it could be an event. Whatever the Page is about, it has a common format:

• Owner (or a group of owners)
• Publication date
• If the Page has content that will be linked by other pages (eg a project, event, resource) it can be given a unique Page Tag, which also forms its URL.
• If the Page is a direct output from another Page (eg news from a project) the owning Page's Tag is used so this Page shows on the owning Page.
• Status - is this an active project, completed project, product, service, idea, news, blog, event etc
• Dates - if relevant (eg start & end date of project, event date)
• Funding - state who funded the content on this Page, if relevant
• Partners - tag the organisations involved
• Body - free text to describe content, including ability to add images etc
• Websites - link to relevant external website or source, if relevant
• Resources - ability to upload pdfs etc (and add videos etc?)
• Tag relevant Pages - link to other pages that are relevant to the content
  • The Page view previews pages that are linked out and those that link to this Page 
• Topics - Tag Topics that are relevant to the content on this page
• Discuss - comments section where anyone can discuss the content of the Page
• Like or Rate - users can like or rate the value of the Page
• Follow - users can follow the Page, and be notified of any updates if they wish
• Flag or Report - users can report the Page to Moderators if they feel PEP rules have been broken (ie if anything offensive or illegal, or if breaches advertising rules etc)
• Share - easy to share Page on twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc
• Reactions - Counts the number of views, likes, follows and shares for the Page (& rating)

Only authorised 'Stewards' will be able to create Pages for Topics. The Topics represent all the issues across agriculture that farmers and users are interested in. There will be a structure and hierarchy to Topicss that will need careful consideration, ideally with a full ontology and ability to cut across themes. We will set out key Topics at the outset, but users will be able to create new Topic tags where necessary, with Stewards managing there place in the hierarchy and correcting and merging any synonyms.  Given the almost limitless number of topics possible it will not be possible to have fully developed Topic pages for all Topics from the outset - we will need to consider mechanism for users to prioritise the Topics that should be developed.

Each Topic's Page will start with a summary statement of the state of knowledge of the theme - this will be written by Stewards with input from specialists where appropriate. The level of detail may vary between Topics, and will be developed over time, with users being able to suggest edits and additions. The Topic page will have

• A summary distillation of current knowledge of the Topic
• Bulletpoint 'Knowledge Nuggets' where applicable
• Authors of the distilled summary
• Discussion Section for users to share experiences, comment, make suggestions or ask questions
• Like, Rate, Follow, Share, Flag or Report the Topic Page content
• Previews of Trusted Resources giving useful & authoritative information about the Theme
• Previews of Sub-Themes
• Previews of Top associated Topics - ranked by user reactions
• Previews of Top Pages associated with the Topic - ranked by user reactions
• Top People associated with the Topic - ranked by user reactions
• Top Partners associated with the Topic - ranked by user reactions

The Landing Page for PEP would be a Preview of Topics at their highest level (perhaps Arable, Livestock, Environment, Soils, Agtech, Policy ...), with the ability to 'surf' Topics and their sub-themes or Search and Filter.

A preview of each Topic would have:

• The Top-rated sub-topics
• Top-rated Pages
• Top-rated People
• Top-rated Partners

We have now developed a new set of wire frames to flesh out these concepts - see here.  Next steps are to create the development website open to interested co-designers, and hosting a survey to get feedback on some of these ideas.

As ever, we'd welcome feedback on above, either by email or by logging in and commenting below.

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