Am wondering the last time that site was updated. Those fuel prices are anything but recent. I guess the biggest question in having any user-generated-content based system is motivation esp when they have to pay to use it. What would make you as a user continue updating the system? I understand that initially people would be motivated to update but once you have found that favourite petrol station that you frequent what would motivate you later on to update the system to reflect new prices in other petrol stations? Am thinking maybe in later (way later) stages of the project, once the petrol stations start being wary of the effects of having such a system in place, we could work with them and have a random/most active updater get a voucher worth KshX at the end of every month?? @Frank I dont think you need to specify "cheapest" because thats pretty much what anyone will be looking for :) What we can do is have basic info that the user has to provide when querying (e.g. fuel type and road/st) and extra info as tags: estate, some well known building e.g. junction, westgate etc etc. The street name can be optional seeing as many people dont really know street names :) Having update capabilities only available to a few admins beats the purpose of user generated content. They can vet the info but not be the only ones able to update. Limit the results to about 3 or 5 petrol stations and append the syntax for updating to the end of every price query. -Billy 2010/8/6 Frankline Chitwa <frank.chitwa@gmail.com>
Getting Info ======= I may want the cheapest prices so 1. I need to specify the fuel type and an estate e.g cdb, westlands, south B south C, industrial area, e.t.c. I may post something like "cheapest diesel cbd" and get "Total: whatever rd. 70; Shell whatever2 rd 73"
Updating Info ========= Updating info can be done in 2 ways: 1. Only a few admins 2. Any interested person.
if only admins update info, then all petrol stations can be coded then an SMS of the form "update 1000001 petrol 80 diesel 75". Where 1000001 is a certain petrol station.
If anybody can update this info, then we can do it in 2 ways: 2.1 Do it in a multistep refining proces for reaching a certain petrol station. 2.2 We list the format for updating info on the site and hope everybody will read it before posting. The system cannot handle any random input. Or we can go tech and do word filtering(Too much work for unknown gain)
One problem: If anybody can update info, then rivals can hike others prices.
Hmm, one solution is to let each petrol station manager update their price. Then give the manager a code so they insert their code plus the price for their petrol station.
Problems am seeing: 1. If a manager moves, then he may corrupt info 2. A manager may underprice to attract people to the petrol station.
e.t.c
On 8/6/10, Dennis Kioko <dmbuvi@gmail.com> wrote:
maybe you can link up with the guy to improve the project or re-use some of his code and research work?
-- www.golavish.com - The travel and leisure www.raccuddasys.com - code Development issues _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------ Skunkworks Server donations spreadsheet
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AopdHkqSqKL-dHlQVTMxU1VBdU1BSWJxdy1f... ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke