[ckan-discuss] Groups -> themes?

Tue Dec 10 02:37:10 UTC 2013

I'm interested that Mark's secondary but noted "more contentious" suggestion of renaming Organisations to Publishers hasn't attracted much (any?) comment.

For me Groups is not so much an issue, as is the use of the term Organisation.  Groups might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it does reflect in a general sense what it is designed to do - enable grouping of somehow related datasets.  Organisations however is another kettle of fish.  For us as an individual Science Organisation setting up CKAN as an institutional repository from which to publish our data, Organisation is non-functional - we are one organisation.  Our uploading of datasets and authorisation model would be at a finer level (we've not decided on the best way yet) such as Science Team, Project, Researcher, Research Portfolio, Discipline... - lots of potential ways to cut the cake (but Organisation is not one of them (and Publisher is better but would not be ideal either)).

This issue stems from the beauty of CKAN in that it is able to be applied at scales from say an individual/individual team up to pan organisation National Data Catalogues (or even to a global level).  The result of this is that I don't think you will find a single term (for either Groups or Organisations) that satisfies every use case, which leads to a natural desire for the terms to be customisable in their outward presentation.

Mark noted that a drawback of customisation is that it would not get translated into the other languages.  I personally wouldn't see that as an insurmountable barrier, and would see the benefit of the increased flexibility in being able to configure the label used for these key terms as far outweighing the language issue.  A drop down with some popular choices (that have associated translations) would be a start, but if a custom term was used then the sysadmin could either populate translation terms, or at worst the translated sites default to using the translation for the generic terms Organisation or Group as they do now.

The fact that we are having this conversation, and that a number of CKAN instances have made modifications to change the terms used on their site suggests that it is an issue many people want a better solution to. I think it would be a shame if the end result was we agreed new generic words for Group and Organisation, and that in 12 months we're having this same conversation because those words are (still) not satisfying needs of the range of CKAN users.

So I'm +1 for ability to customise the labels of the Organisation (and secondary priority to Groups).

Aaron

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Groups -> themes? (Sean Hammond)
   2. Re: Groups -> themes? (Sean Hammond)
   3. Re: datastore_search_sql (Adri? Mercader)
   4. Re: Groups -> themes? (Ian Ward)
   5. Re: Groups -> themes? (Mark Wainwright)
   6. Re: datastore_search_sql (Adri? Mercader)
   7. Re: Groups -> themes? (Sean Hammond)
   8. Re: Groups -> themes? (Mark Wainwright)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 17:26:12 +0100
From: Sean Hammond <sean.hammond at okfn.org>
To: ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [ckan-discuss] Groups -> themes?
Message-ID: <52A5EF24.2080906 at okfn.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Here's what each is for, as far as I understand (I agree - it would probably be useful to have something like this in the user guide):

 > 1. organizations: maximum one per datasets, affects permissions for
> editing and viewing

Are about auth, for controlling who can view, edit, create and publish datasets. (I agree that Publishers might have been a better name for this.)

> 2. dataset type: exactly one per dataset, can't be changed after
> creation, affects dataset schema, has separate search page

Are for when you want to have different types of datasets that have different schemas. (This is a technical topic, belongs more in the Writing extensions docs than in the user guide.)

> 3. groups: anyone on the instance can create, not typically harvested
> with datasets, can store extra information in the group, may have
> multiple group types (similar to tag vocabulary fields)

Are for when you want to group datasets together under a theme e.g.
climate data etc. You don't want just anyone to be able to add datasets to your carefully curated climate group, so only users who are members of the group are allowed to add datasets to or remove them from the group.

Unlike with organizations, being a member of a group doesn't give you permission to create or edit the datasets in the groups, groups are about collecting existing datasets together into groups, they're not about publishing datasets.

> 4. tag vocabularies: must be able to edit dataset to change, limited
> selections, cannot store extra information in the tag, associated with
> a particular dataset field (may have multiple vocabularies, similar to
> group types)

These are just for when you want to add a custom field to the dataset schema, e.g. "Genre", and you want that field to be a drop-down list with a fixed number of possible values. There's an API for adding and removing from the list of possible values. Again this is a technical topic that belongs more in the extension writing docs than in the user guide.

> 5. free-form tags: must be able to edit dataset to change, any
> suitable text, cannot store extra information in the tag, one set of
> tags per dataset

Completely free-form tagging

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 17:31:34 +0100
From: Sean Hammond <sean.hammond at okfn.org>
To: ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [ckan-discuss] Groups -> themes?
Message-ID: <52A5F066.40108 at okfn.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

> I guess that this same thread if a fine example of why I'm -1 in
> principle for changing it. 5 people agree that "Groups" is not great,
> but they all have chosen different replacements, all perfectly valid,
> with slight nuances and adapted to their specific sites. Will changing
> "Groups" for "Themes", "Collections" or "Categories" make everyone
> happy? I doubt it, and we will end up with all code, api, docs, etc
> different from the frontend, as we have now with packages/datasets.
> Big renames are always a pain.

I'm with Adria on this. I was against using groups and organizations as the names, but now that we have them, I say we call a moratorium on renaming features in CKAN until after we've purged the word "package"
from all code and docs!

P.S. I don't think resource is a very good name either!

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2013 16:44:52 +0000
From: Adri? Mercader <adria.mercader at okfn.org>
To: Francesco Salvadore <f.salvadore at cineca.it>
Cc: CKAN discuss <ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org>, CKAN Development
        Discussions <ckan-dev at lists.okfn.org>
Subject: Re: [ckan-discuss] datastore_search_sql
Message-ID:
        <CAGJR8iLudqovvOVDS8JmkCjsdC=9SXZQu5VTZZEXoQvO1kqDWg at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi,

This has now been merged into master and the new 2.1.2 branch [1]

Francesco, not sure why you needed to remove the decorator. You will need it if you want non-logged in users to be able to query the datastore.

Adri?

[1] https://github.com/okfn/ckan/tree/release-v2.1.2

On 9 December 2013 13:00, Francesco Salvadore <f.salvadore at cineca.it> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I just had to delete the decorator in logic/auth.py:
> @p.toolkit.auth_allow_anonymous_access
>
> and it seems to work properly in CKAN 2.1, I hope I did it correctly,
>
> thanks a lot for the great support!
> Francesco
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Henrik Aagaard S?rensen" <BU1G at tmf.kk.dk>
> To: "David Raznick" <david.raznick at okfn.org>
> Cc: "Francesco Salvadore" <f.salvadore at cineca.it>, "CKAN Development
> Discussions" <ckan-dev at lists.okfn.org>, "CKAN discuss"
> <ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org>, "joel natividad"
> <joel.natividad at ontodia.com>
> Sent: Monday, December 9, 2013 12:12:11 PM
> Subject: SV: [ckan-discuss] datastore_search_sql
>
> It does seem to fix the issue at our installation :)
> _______________________________________________
> ckan-discuss mailing list
> ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/ckan-discuss
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/ckan-discuss

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2013 12:30:26 -0500
From: Ian Ward <ian at excess.org>
To: Sean Hammond <sean.hammond at okfn.org>
Cc: "ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org" <ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
Subject: Re: [ckan-discuss] Groups -> themes?
Message-ID:
        <CAA3rUNeLdg6y4rWpP7cvVq7x_PbJNmTb1noMBUe2tTwUUmMBtA at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 11:31 AM, Sean Hammond <sean.hammond at okfn.org> wrote:
> I'm with Adria on this. I was against using groups and organizations
> as the names, but now that we have them, I say we call a moratorium on
> renaming features in CKAN until after we've purged the word "package"
> from all code and docs!

Or we just never change them, and document "package" as the internal name for datasets.

Ian

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2013 17:39:55 +0000
From: Mark Wainwright <mark.wainwright at okfn.org>
To: Sean Hammond <sean.hammond at okfn.org>
Cc: ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [ckan-discuss] Groups -> themes?
Message-ID:
        <CAJhtavY03BxazJbNhpOrchP1WSp1YooS2oymRCmmqcG134n=yw at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

> I'm with Adria on this. I was against using groups and organizations
> as the names, but now that we have them, I say we call a moratorium on
> renaming features in CKAN until after we've purged the word "package"
> from all code and docs!

Hmm, I don't know that such behind-the-scenes purging is as important as a good UI, but anyway, surely 'after we've purged the word "package"' is the *worst* possible time to go tinkering with other terms in the UI - since it's then too late to purge them from the code and docs at the same time.

Mark

--
Business development and user engagement manager The Open Knowledge Foundation Empowering through Open Knowledge http://okfn.org/  |  @okfn  |  http://ckan.org  |  @CKANproject

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2013 17:47:43 +0000
From: Adri? Mercader <adria.mercader at okfn.org>
To: Francesco Salvadore <f.salvadore at cineca.it>
Cc: CKAN discuss <ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org>, CKAN Development
        Discussions <ckan-dev at lists.okfn.org>
Subject: Re: [ckan-discuss] datastore_search_sql
Message-ID:
        <CAGJR8iKjea+f2wFc4MXXqW_SjytQ-fZbaQy--e+TvjSnLwrZ4w at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Sorry Francesco,
you are absolutely right, p.toolkit.auth_allow_anonymous_access is not
available on 2.1.x
I'll push a fix ASAP

Adri?

On 9 December 2013 16:44, Adri? Mercader <adria.mercader at okfn.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This has now been merged into master and the new 2.1.2 branch [1]
>
> Francesco, not sure why you needed to remove the decorator. You will
> need it if you want non-logged in users to be able to query the
> datastore.
>
> Adri?
>
>
> [1] https://github.com/okfn/ckan/tree/release-v2.1.2
>
> On 9 December 2013 13:00, Francesco Salvadore <f.salvadore at cineca.it> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I just had to delete the decorator in logic/auth.py:
>> @p.toolkit.auth_allow_anonymous_access
>>
>> and it seems to work properly in CKAN 2.1,
>> I hope I did it correctly,
>>
>> thanks a lot for the great support!
>> Francesco
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Henrik Aagaard S?rensen" <BU1G at tmf.kk.dk>
>> To: "David Raznick" <david.raznick at okfn.org>
>> Cc: "Francesco Salvadore" <f.salvadore at cineca.it>, "CKAN Development Discussions" <ckan-dev at lists.okfn.org>, "CKAN discuss" <ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org>, "joel natividad" <joel.natividad at ontodia.com>
>> Sent: Monday, December 9, 2013 12:12:11 PM
>> Subject: SV: [ckan-discuss] datastore_search_sql
>>
>> It does seem to fix the issue at our installation :)
>> _______________________________________________
>> ckan-discuss mailing list
>> ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/ckan-discuss
>> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/ckan-discuss

------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 20:42:12 +0100
From: Sean Hammond <sean.hammond at okfn.org>
To: ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [ckan-discuss] Groups -> themes?
Message-ID: <52A61D14.3060409 at okfn.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

On 09.12.2013 18:39, Mark Wainwright wrote:
>> I'm with Adria on this. I was against using groups and organizations as
>> the names, but now that we have them, I say we call a moratorium on
>> renaming features in CKAN until after we've purged the word "package"
>> from all code and docs!
>
> Hmm, I don't know that such behind-the-scenes purging is as important
> as a good UI, but anyway, surely 'after we've purged the word
> "package"' is the *worst* possible time to go tinkering with other
> terms in the UI - since it's then too late to purge them from the code
> and docs at the same time.

It's really hard to purge a word like group or package from CKAN
completely (the word group appears in the ckan code tens of thousands of
times). It'd be a really big change that would take ages and be really
disruptive to other work on the code. Changing multiple words at the
same time would be even worse.

So what you'd probably end up with is what we have with package/dataset:
the word package may not appear in the web UI anymore, but as soon as
the user hits the command-line interface, config file, API, writing
extensions or themes, or working on the source code, they come across it.

I think it's quite messy to have this with one major feature, having it
with two or three would be really messy. Imagine having to always
remember (and explain to new CKAN developers) that datasets are also
called packages, themes are also called groups, and publishers are also
called organizations.

I agree they names are bad but the cost of changing them now is high.

------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2013 21:38:40 +0000
From: Mark Wainwright <mark.wainwright at okfn.org>
To: ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [ckan-discuss] Groups -> themes?
Message-ID:
        <CAJhtavY7ybzFz=tcUdkZ7yEpdGF66eTCRV1r7XjroyUgOf85EQ at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

> I think it's quite messy to have this with one major feature, having it
> with two or three would be really messy. Imagine having to always
> remember (and explain to new CKAN developers) that datasets are also
> called packages, themes are also called groups, and publishers are also
> called organizations.

On the other hand, developers are few compared with users who only
ever see the UI. I agree your argument has weight, but against it is
the point about translations. At the moment the opaque words 'Groups'
and 'Organisations' are faithfully but uselessly translated into 50
odd languages. The advantage of using a good word is that any instance
that keeps it is accessible in a large number of languages.

One possibility, which I referred to semi-facetiously above but is
perhaps not so silly, is to allow a few fixed possibilities as config
options, depending how you're using CKAN: [Group | Theme | Category]
and [Organization | Publisher | Department].

Mark

--
Business development and user engagement manager
The Open Knowledge Foundation
Empowering through Open Knowledge
http://okfn.org/  |  @okfn  |  http://ckan.org  |  @CKANproject

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