[Zope-CMF] Collective Organization Aspect

[Kent Polk]

Collective Organization Aspect as Distinct Object
http://cmf.zope.org/Members/klm/OrganizationObjects/view

I have a few half-baked ideas...

> Organization objects would keep track of associations for collections of
> content items, including things like:

The following four items are almost a constant desire for any
Zope-based project I have worked on. (The remainder mostly also,
but not as high a perceived value)

> - Interlinking info - forward and backlinks, (and maybe change
>   records, for forwarding of outdated references)
>
> - Lineage/thread - contains/is-contained-by, replies/in-reply-to,
>   sibling
>
> - Path - next/previous, audit, and other sequences through other
>   organizations
>
> - Dependency - "depends-on" / "dependents"

The ease with which information can be 'discovered' is in large
part determined by the interrogation framework that is available.
I continue to hold the position that standard search list results
provide a fairly miserable interrogation framework. It simply isn't
a natural way for people to discover information. Humans discover
information by relationships (frameworks); computers by comparisons
(searches).  The above items provide discovery frameworks that
search results lists don't.

There are a number of different partial solutions available:

- Heirarchical item location. - Fixed relationship. difficult to
  change.

  Wikis approach this by assigning parentage. Good start because
  the parentage isn't fixed, but a bit stilted and doesn't provide
  for additional relational frameworks on entry (just backtracking).

  Several attempts have been made to assign parentage according to
  search/catalog criteria, but I haven't seen a general-purpose
  example of this. Something like a heirarchical Topic would seem
  to be a natural, if one could determine a way to assign and
  catalog the appropriate metadata.

  Current CMF Topics invert the precedence here, narrowing the
  search criteria instead of expanding it. (I haven't seen a way
  to provide it). Some sort of heirarchy-building search object,
  very much like CMF Topics, is likely the mechanism to use here.
  However, I don't see a clear way to build descending heirarchical
  relationships using the current metadata. Thoughts? (I think CMF
  Topics are very close to doing this, if not there, but I just
  can't see how to do it).

  Need to be able to change the sort heirarchy while inside the
  framework.  This would essentially be like changing the sort
  criteria in a list of items... (Remember Tabula's tree views?)

- Interlinking info. In short, something like WikiNames. Works
  pretty good.

  Backlinks... In this environment, one can backlink according to
  the framework, but what if you could choose another framework in
  mid-stream? Personally, I think it would be pretty crucial to do
  so (changing the sort criteria in a list of items).

What if, instead of implementing a CMF ZWiki, the different,
successful components of a ZWiki were made available to all CMF
items?  A WikiNames catalogger portal_types Action? A new framework
metadata type for CMFTopic?  Seems to me that they would need to
work in conjunction with each other to be able to restrict Wikinames
to the current framework though...

Thoughts?