9.1 Proposal: Clarifying the zoom levels

[Eben Eliason]

We've never fully implemented the zoom levels, and since we're going
to have to pay some attention to that area in order to provide
scalability in the short term, we should ensure that their design
offers long term scalability as well.  For the purpose of this
discussion, I'd like to restrict focus to the Groups and Neighborhood
views.  Finally, note that I want to clarify the direction for 9.1;
aspects of the design may not be implemented in the same timeframe.

Current Approach:

Groups: People and activities around me or on my collaboration server
who are my friends, or members of a group I'm in.  A filter in the
toolbar allows me to select which group I want to see specifically, or
I may see all at once. A mechanism for creating and naming new groups
is provided.
Neighborhood: People and activities around me or on my collaboration
server.  Though I can see everyone, I still have a groups filter here
as well.

Alternative #1:

Groups: People and activities around me or on my collaboration server
who are my friends, or members of a group I'm in.  A filter in the
toolbar allows me to select which group I want to see; I must always
look at a specific group. A mechanism for creating and naming new
groups is provided.
Neighborhood: People and activities around me or on a specific
collaboration server.  Here I can see everyone on the server (though
scalability may only show me a subset by default).  A filter in the
toolbar allows me to select which neighborhood (server) I want to see;
I must always look at a specific neighborhood.  By default "My school"
or "My Neighborhood" is seen, though I can select "School in Peru" if
I want to.  A mechanism is provided for "registering" and nick-naming
new collaboration servers.

Notable differences:  In the alternative model, the Groups view is a
subset of the Neighborhood which I'm currently viewing.  Therefore, if
I'm looking at "School in Peru", I'll find a different set of Groups
there.  This could be confusing.  On the other hand, this model gives
us a way to branch out further and switch collaboration servers in a
way friendlier than the control panel. Also, the alternative provides
a useful differentiator between Neighborhood and Groups, whereas the
current approach makes them nearly identical, except that the largest
set of people I can see if Groups is "everyone in a group I'm in"
instead of "everyone in my neighborhood."