The Pressible Team has been asked why Pressible doesn’t allow for more Page-creation options. For example, the following issues have been raised by a Pressible User (who is an author and also a site administrator):

• Information in Posts get buried beneath other Posts
• A Post doesn’t feel like a “landing page”
• A Page could be visible on the header, then deactivated so it was hidden.

Analysis:

The author is looking for a special way to put content on the web.

Our Answer

Questions like this one often come from Users who are familiar with WordPress in another context, without the constraints imposed by Pressible’s design… And they are tough questions that touch on the core tenants of the Pressible project. Pressible sacrifices some of the flexibility of the broader WordPress-universe-of-code to offer Users a site-within-a-network system. As a result, each site is built on a generic template. So, is the sacrifice worth it? Let’s take a look.

Quickly, here’s how Posts and Pages compare in Pressible:

• If you make a Page, it automatically creates a “top link” (and there is no way to disable this).
• Pages include a “Featured Posts” sidebar.
• Posts appear on the homepage in a linear order, receding into the past (and represented by excerpts).
• Posts include a “Related Posts” and “Tags” sidebar, with additional social tools and metadata about the date created and author.

Analysis:

Posts are designed to be the lingua franca of Pressible, and Pressible discourages the creation of Pages. The rationale for this is twofold: 1) Pressible is meant to be a web-friendly publishing system, not a website-authoring system, and 2) we think this makes content better. So, let’s return to the example…

The Page Scenario: If the User makes a Page (in a hypothetical system that allows for it to be displayed or not displayed on the homepage), they publish all kinds of interesting information. And it’s useful for a while. And the User could “feature” it in the site’s navigation (hypothetically). If someone finds the Page years later, they’ll be lucky if it’s dated in some way. And it may be unclear who authored it.

The Post Scenario: If the User makes a Post (in the Pressible system that currently exists), it will appear on the “top of the stack” (on the homepage). When there are new Posts, it will start its descent into the Post Pages (where it appears as an excerpt). But it can be categorized as “Featured,” and it will appear on the Homepage sidebar, as well as its Topic’s sidebar(s), and Tag and Topic Page sidebars. With luck, the Post was also tagged, and this means it may appear across the Pressible Network in relevant places. The Post also carries metadata – when it was first posted and who authored it. Years from now, this may prove interesting to future readers, as it gives the information more context than Pages often make available.

Some key ideas:

• Pressible makes Posted content available in several unique ways. Author, Tag, and Topic Pages highlight posted content across a site. Posts are excerpted in search results and Reposts. Related Posts are featured on Posts across the Pressible Network.
• Posting creates a narrative. A Pressible site is not a “blog” per se, but content with a context. By explicitly tying most content in the Pressible Network to authors and dates, we think we’re creating a stronger network of content.
• Just like Pages, Posts have permanent URLs. Read this post for an idea of how to organize them in a Pressible-friendly way.
• RSS! ’nuff said.

So, while the current system is disappointing to some Pressible Users, we feel there are ways to use Pressible to achieve the desired goals. In designing it this way, we think we’ve made the Pressible Network more intuitive and easy to navigate, not less so – and better designed for the emerging “social web.” But, as with all design choices, time will tell if this choice was a good one or not…

Thanks for using Pressible! Keep the questions coming.

I am currently working on a WordPress plugin codenamed Rec Tags Redux. It’s top-secret official name will be unveiled at release. The purpose of this plugin is ultimately to modify the “Post Tags” box in the “New Post” page so that it recommends tags for your post based on a) the actual content of the post and b) the existing tags in your WordPress database (if they appear in your post).

In the long run, this may encourage people to use tags more often (and more correctly) since many Pressible users are unfortunately oblivious or apathetic towards the whole tagging system. On the other hand, users may hate getting recommendations so much that they might vengefully attempt SQL injections to destroy our servers. We’ll probably get something in between.

DONE:

So far, I have the bare bones of the plugin working:

• Word frequency counter to determine the most common words in the post
• Retrieval of tags from database and checking for a match in post content.

TO DO:

This is the big section:

• Greatly improve word frequency counter so it effectively becomes a “phrase frequency” counter, able to find and count phrases that are arbitrarily long. This is important because many tags are in fact phrases and not single words. For example, we probably want to count the frequency of the phrase “Social Media” more than the frequencies of the words “Social” and “Media”.
• Add trimming and explosion to database tags (Now that sounds ridiculous… trimming and explosion). Trimming is essentially removing unnecessary white space, plurals, and slight variations on words (for example, we want an instance of the word “download” in the post to register as a hit when being matched to a “downloads” tag). Explosion separates a phrase into its constituent words, therefore it’s an effective reversal of the “phrase frequency” counter functionality. This is important because if we have a tag “Adobe Photoshop,” we want that to match an instance of “Photoshop” in the post. For more information about this, consult the images below.
• Add the functionality of associating a given tag with the post being written/edited (so far RTR just “recommends” in plain text).
• Actually attain the lofty goals described above.

Reference Images:

explosion

trimming

Final Note

This plugin is based on CyberNet’s Recommended Tags plugin which is currently out of date and incompatible with WordPress 3.0. This revision aims to fix its predecessor and surpass its greatness.

Peace,

jimmy

Would it be possible to add the following WordPress plugin to pressible?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-latex

As Pressible grows we anticipate requests for WordPress plugins to increase. This post will illustrate some of the steps we take to evaluate if a plugin makes sense and is worth supporting network wide.

First we asked ourselves what is WP LaTeX and what can it do?

This plugin integrates the LaTeX markup and formatting system into WordPress using a WordPress shortcode.  to present content. From the LaTeX Wikipedia page:

LaTeX is based on the idea that authors should be able to focus on the content of what they are writing without being distracted by its visual presentation. In preparing a LaTeX document, the author specifies the logical structure using familiar concepts such as chapter, section, table, figure, etc., and lets the LaTeX system worry about the presentation of these structures.

Already this seems like a tool that would make sense to integrate for our academic Pressible users.

The second thing we asked ourselves was who makes the plugin, is it up to date, and does it seem supported?

This was not a difficult question to answer. Eric and I were both previously familiar with the WP LaTeX plugin. We heard Matt Mullenweg , founder of WordPress, praise the plugin at WordCamp NYC last fall. He also acknowledged that Automattic, the company behind WordPress, has taken up co-development and support of the plugin. Having such a strong development setup behind it makes it an easier choice for integrating this into Pressible.

Finally we asked ourselves, does this plugin fit into our philosophy of Pressible and online publishing?

I would have to say the answer is yes. We feel that Pressible is a platform for publishing any content, that the future of publishing relies on a variety of tools and media. Allowing users to publish images and equations with LaTeX seems like a natural addition to the role Pressible can play in a user’s online publishing.

With that said we are adding LaTeX to our development plan and it should premiere on Pressible very soon. We look forward to see how specific users integrate it into their publishing efforts.

• Twitter integration. Pressible will tweet for you when you publish a new post.
• Header makeover. Each Pressible site now allows for uploading a header image. Currently a default mask determines how the image is displayed, but look for additional options in the near future.
• Pressible.org makeover. The root site now features notable posts from across the network.
• “Contact.” A new link on Pressible sites allows users to contact the site administrator. This is the easiest way to add new authors to a site.

And don’t forget recent developments such as Reposting and Media-enabled Excerpts. Taken together, we think this feature set justifies its “1.0″ moniker (though, in truth, we’re already fixing a few bugs). So, you ask, what can users expect? For the next few months, you can expect a relatively stable feature-set as we look forward to learning how Pressible is being used by its current 153 users (authoring 81 sites).

Oh, and one additional feature we’ll probably push sometime this month is the Data Dashboard (that we mentioned here) – a public-facing summary of site activity that authors and visitors can use to better understand a site and its content.

Lastly, THANKS to Pressible’s current users for supporting the project, and giving us great feedback to help us make it even better.

Three prongs of the case study:

1. Student oriented – production of MS as a means of teaching video production
2. Teacher oriented – MS as a media literacy teaching tool
3. Anyone oriented – MS as a model for creating viral video

Gus’s site is a great repository of information about the production of the show; explanations of media literacy theories, terminology, and pop-culture references; pedagogical examples of instruction through the Media Show. Gus is also hoping to get some episodes of The Media Show into Critter, the EdLab‘s video-based teaching tool.

Gus has some great thoughts about the future of The Media Show, and not just the question of future episodes. The Media Show was the Lab’s first experiment with YouTube and using it as a means of reaching out to a greater audience. By engaging educators, experts in several fields, and deploying the case study to teachers who might use it as part of a media literacy curriculum.

kthx, Dr. Andrews! U r da bestest.

We haven’t finished building Pressible – there are many more aspects of this publishing network that we’ve imagined – but we do want to begin a serious effort of learning from users’ experiences. That’s what we’ll be up to this summer. Stay tuned!

From the library news item here:

Pressible is a free, online publishing service supported by EdLab at Teachers College, Columbia University. On Tuesday, June 1st, library staff will host an all-day event at the library to introduce patrons to this new service.

With Pressible, you can create personal or multi-author sites. Sites can be used for a range of purposes, including personal blogging, group blogging, and other kinds of outreach. Pressible organizes content automatically, so you can focus on your ideas.

Every site is part of the Pressible network – a constellation of sites with a focus on education. Pressible helps you circulate and repost content from within the network, increasing your site traffic. And as the network grows, so does your site’s web presence.

How do you start? All you need is a Teachers College or Columbia University email address. Go to pressible.org, enter a domain name and title, and click “Create Site.” In-person support is available at the Gottesman Libraries.

June 1st Activities:

• 10am: Doors open. Library staff will help you join Pressible, or help you better understand the options available. Second floor publishing exhibitions showcase current academic publishing by the TC community.
• 12-1:30pm: Seminar Lunch. Gus Andrews will present on using Pressible to publish a teaching case study on her media literacy project, The Media Show.
• 2-4pm: Discussions at the Publishing Bar. Topics: How to Use Pressible (2pm), Putting Your Ideas Online (2:30pm), Publishing from a Publisher’s Perspective (3pm), Producing and Publishing Video (3:30pm)
• 4-6pm: Learn more! Pressible early adopters tell their stories; Q&A with the Pressible Development Team
• Live music throughout the day!

Where: Second Floor Collaboration Space / Publishing Bar
When: 10am – 6pm

Commencing live-posting of the event in the threaded comments below!

As the rest of the team and I have begun to talk to people about Pressible, it is clear that we all have our own methods and strategies when it comes to explaining what we’re building and why we think it’s radically different (and just plain rad). Different approaches to different people is an obvious strategic inevitability, but it goes even further than that. Accurately sensing your audience’s needs–what they need to hear about Pressible or any Service X–is the only way that your outreach will have any sustained impact after you’ve stopped talking.

After months in the Lab, thinking and planning and prepping for Outreach efforts to begin full force, this recent reminder of the humanness of service is an important call to action (at least for me). Etymologically speaking, I have no idea when or why people starting using the term “outreach,” but I imagine it has something to do with the handshake that begins a long-lasting working relationship. Every handshake is different, as is every need. To read needs and to offer a hand–that is the kind of service I hope to help Pressible provide.