##psCmm Proposal (pronounced: posComm)
###Introduction News is often biased, false, misleading or has malicious intent. psCmm aims to create a positive community which collaborates to remove bias, provide facts, limit opinions, opposes fear mongering.
psCmm is a smartphone based website/application which consists of a collaborative community that moderates the news to it’s raw fact, removing the negative elements that populous media uses to either confuse or misdirect people. It strongly combines both social and mobile computing to solve an enormous global issue.
As the name psCmm suggests, the community should be either positive or neutral. This does not mean the news needs to be positive or neutral. Quite often news can be depressing or heartbreaking and this content will still be provided however it will be shared in a factual way.
###How does psCmm achieve this? Users can create or modify news. Posts can also be created by bots getting news from external sites and these go into an "awaiting verification" pool however most of the content will be created by the users (if a user has already made a post about the topic, it can be marked as a duplicate). A user has a score associated to them reflecting their contribution and reliability. If a user is reliable, they can modify posts without needing to wait for approval. If a user is unreliable, they can suggest changes but they require approval by a reliable member or can be voted on by the community to get the change made as "fact".
News posts can be marked as any combination of the following categories: truth, opinion, clickbait, fact, false, out of context, fear mongering, I was there (verified via GPS location with the app running the the background), and I have proof. The user can provide evidence to prove that a post is misleading, false, fear mongering, etc. and if people agree, the original post will be updated showing the evidence.
The comments by users are not allowed to be negative or bringing others down. Every comment can be reported/voted. To stop this system being abused, if a user reports someone else negatively when they weren’t being negative, they will lose reliability and their weighting will be lowered for future votes. This is all maintained by the community and the more reliable people are, the higher their weighting and influence.
###What makes this unique/different from existing solutions? The reason this is unique is that the users have full control over displaying only the facts and removing sensationalist media from the picture. It uses systems similar to popular platforms like StackOverflow, Reddit, and traditional news outlets however it takes it one step further by taking the media agenda out of the picture and combines all the positive features of these platforms.
Stack Overflow is a community where individuals can submit code which they are unable to get fully functioning and other members post solutions or ways to resolve this. Stack Overflow has a proven track record with a reliability system of allowing reliable members to modify content. This reliability system will be analysed, adapated and applied to our application in a unique way. It also has a system where users can see how they compare with others in terms of contribution and points. Both of these systems have been implemented to a very high standard and our application will benefit from this.
Reddit is a website which allows users to post content and receive comments, karma (points), upvotes and downvotes. There are many "sub-reddits" which can range anywhere from food to politics. It has a strong community but lacks direction or specific purpose. Our application improves on Reddit by discouraging negative comments and allows modifications to the original post by reliable members (Reddit does not allow others to edit the original post) and the most up-to-date (most correct) version of the news is always visible instead of clickbait or false reports. psCmm is purely about factual news and irrelevant topics will fail to surface.
###Target Audience psCmm aims to target those that already read news online via smartphones or through a computer web browser. This will include the users of online news web pages and news applications such as Huffington Post, CNN and Buzzfeed as well as those who use social media in order to obtain news. This targeted demographic will be the combination of those who are interested in news with those who use modern mobile technology. As this is a wide demographic, the vast majority of the target audience will be aged between 20 and 50 and will be gender neutral.
##The Team
###Individual Roles
| Name | Roles |
|---|---|
| Matthew Lord | Team Leader/Manager |
| Design, Front-end, Back-end | |
| Sah Kilic | Ensure meetings are organised and run to schedule. |
| Content, Primary Prototyping, Front-end | |
| Scott Gillam | Design, Back-end, User testing |
| Cameron McGavin | Back-end, Content, Secondary Prototyping, User testing |
###Meetings General meetings will be conducted regularly to assess team members’ progress, issues, ideas and concerns. These meetings have weekly time slots that all team members are required to attend, if the majority of the team has agreed prior that it is necessary. These times are: Wednesday 4-6pm and Friday 10am - 12pm. These times can be changed according to members’ availability, but 48 hours notice is required to be given.
###Meeting Guidelines
- Meetings should have a clear purpose and agenda
- Team members should give reasonable notice to the team when organising a meeting
- Meetings shouldn’t be organised if the objective can be efficiently achieved via other communication/collaboration channels
##Team Rules ###Communication & Collaboration The main communication and collaboration channel will be through the use of Slack. This will ensure members’ can efficiently share, discuss and modify relevant work, as well as organise meetings. Google Docs will be used for file sharing and production. Messenger/SMS will be utilised for quick and on-the-go communication. GitHub with ZenHub will be used for task management. E-mail will be used for formal communication. Phone calls will be utilised in the event of an emergency. Git will be use for version and code management.
| Communication/Collaboration Method | Use Case |
|---|---|
| Skype/Facebook Call | For auditory communication |
| Slack | Main communication and collaboration |
| GitHub | Version Control/Code Management |
| Messenger/SMS | Quick communication |
| GitHub with ZenHub | Task Management |
| Formal communication | |
| Phone Calls | Emergencies |
Members agree to respond to communications in a timely manner.
###Workload Distribution and Responsibility
- All members agree to contribute to the workload equally
- All members agree to undertake and complete project tasks assigned to them in a timely manner
- Where members cannot complete the task in the required time, they will notify the rest of the team as soon as possible to reallocate the task or ask for assistance
- All members agree to complete the tasks to the best of their ability, and to ask for assistance when unable to do so.
###Rule Breaches In the first instance, the offending member will be told and team members will discuss the breach via one of the communication channels. The member will have the opportunity to respond in his/her defence, and a solution will be proposed by the team, and documented once a resolution is agreed upon.
If no action is taken on the part of the offending member to rectify the issue/s, a team meeting will be called. If all team members are not present, the missing team members will weigh in on the discussion through communication technologies mentioned previously. At least 3 team members must be present, excluding the offending member(s). The allegations will be presented and a proposed solution will be shared with all team members. A copy will be emailed to the course coordinator for help with external intervention.
If the offending member makes no attempt to rectify the issues following two attempts to address the issue directly, a peer assessment will be requested, in which the offending member will receive a reduced grade for the project. If a peer assessment is not possible due to course restrictions, the offending member will be officially reported to the course coordinator and higher authorities.
Solutions must be decided by via group discussion, including the offending member. If a consensus cannot be reached we will alert the teaching staff for further assistance.
##Project Plan ###Deliverables
| Deliverable Week | What will be delivered? |
|---|---|
| Week 8 Standup | Solid understanding of direction of concept with interactive electronic prototype, User-tests for the electronic prototype ready to be used. |
| Week 10 Standup | Refined concept based on user feedback with new design directions. New electronic prototypes with new user tests. Work started on the website/app implementation |
| Week 12 Standup / Final Deliverable | Well refined website implementation with interactive prototypes for possible future changes and direction. |
###How will we achieve this?
| Task | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Research | Matt, Sah, Scott, Cam | Matt, Cam | ||||
| Mockups of site/application | Matt | Matt | Matt | |||
| Electronic & paper prototyping | Sah, Scott | Sah, Scott | Sah,Matt | Scott, Cam | Sah | Sah |
| Content creation / documentation | Scott, Sah | Scott, Sah | Scott, Sah | |||
| User testing | Scott, Cam | Scott, Cam | Scott, Cam | |||
| Database/back end design | Cam, Matt | Cam | ||||
| Site/app implementation | Matt | Matt, Scott | Matt, Scott | Matt, Scott | ||
| Database implementation | Cam | Cam, Matt | Cam, Matt |
By following the table above, we will ensure at least 2 people are working on each component to ensure if one member is unable to achieve the goal, the second can take over. This other benefit is to help generate ideas on concepts by working closely with each other. Technical Requirements This project will require the use of a UQ server with phpMyAdmin capabilities, MySQL and PHP and linking back to the Git repository.
##Tags ###Social/Mobile: #collaborative #community #mobile #smartphone #application
###Journalism/News: #misleading #bias