[imc-melbourne-work] CMS

[takver]

Hi Victor

If a meeting is held and Melbourne Indymedia is resuscitated back to
life, I want some idea of what state the development site is in to
report to the meeting. 

Can you give a status report of where the dev site is up to, what has
been implemented, what features you think still needs to be implemented
before going to production, whether you are still interested in working
on the site either by yourself or with others, if other drupal
developers can be found.

I am going to try to come up to speed on drupal - I have good
html,css,javascript skills, but haven't touched php yet.

thanks
Takver 

>  From following the imc-cms and alternatives lists it looking like  
> drupal is going to be one of the main choices for running an IMC. At  
> present I'd say there are 15-20 sites using or moving to drupal, the  
> problem is that there is a real lack of coordination amongst the  
> sites doing this - no one is really putting up their hand and saying  
> "i'm going to make this happen!". Additionally imc-cms and  
> alteratives discussions are still to draw any solid conclusions.
> 
> The problem is linked to the broader organisational disarray in the  
> network. A different CMS won't solve this issue. At the moment drupal  
> is the best option in terms of tech support within the network. Once  
> developers of Mir and Sf-active move to it (or another CMS) things  
> will start rolling more I feel - Jay from phillyimc seems to have  
> lots of energy and might be someone who is able to pull people together.
> 
> So perhaps it is just worth waiting another 6 months again for a  
> proper IMC distro of drupal to emerge, or find a drupal person  
> willing to take up Vik's work. Might be worth asking Kam as Syd imc  
> is still down - he might have some time on his hands.
> 
> Some thoughts.
> And.
> 
> On 18/02/2007, at 10:32 PM, victor rajewski wrote:
> 
> > On 2/18/07, rory <zeroworkethic at riseup.net> wrote:
> >> there seem to be a few questions we need to consider here:
> >>
> >> if vic is too busy to finish the coding can we do it any other way?
> >> if it is just a matter of waiting a while to finish it, can we  
> >> wait, or
> >> do we need to start moving now to remain viable?
> >> how well does scoop fit our needs; is it a viable indymedia platform?
> >> how difficult is the transition to scoop?
> >
> > First up, if there are so many other imc's moving to drupal, have they
> > implemented the features we need - if so, how and why are we not going
> > with those mods; if not, why not and why do we need those features?
> >
> > The transition would probably not be over hard. Drupal would be easier
> > as I've already written scripts to move the data from sf-active to
> > drupal, but that means half the functionality of moving to any other
> > CMS already exists.
> >
> >> its  a question of viability/do-ability/effort/time of drupal v's the
> >> same of scoop. there don't seem to be enough answers to these  
> >> questions
> >> yet.
> >
> > I think the question comes down to what features we need, and what
> > features are available ready-to-go in the CMS's in question. I haven't
> > extensively looked at scoop for some time; the sole reason I'm pushing
> > it right now is that kuro5hin seems to produce high quality news
> > content from a roughly democratic process using this software - and
> > that is the goal we are trying to achieve. In terms of actually using
> > it and what features we need/want for day-to-day running of the site,
> > I don't know how well it would go.
> >
> > On 2/18/07, Nigel W <changeling_au_2004 at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> >> Scoop looks like it could be nice, however I don't think we should  
> >> make any
> >> snap decisions. I looked at some of the Scoop sites linked from
> >> <http://scoop.kuro5hin.org/special/sites> - some of them
> >> are pretty rockin' sites but some seem to be having issues.
> >> <http://www.shouldexist.org/> is down and they're saying "The  
> >> engine we were
> >> using was being attacked by spammers and exploit script kids, and  
> >> the site
> >> was languishing. We've taken the site down until these issues can be
> >> resolved, most likely by migrating to a new engine / architecture."
> >> The Mormans at <http://www.mahonri.org/> are "undergoing  
> >> maintenance" and
> >> <http://www.insid3r.org/> and <http://www.vegdot.org> no longer  
> >> exist.
> >>     I think we should find out if Scoop has anything to do with  
> >> the issues
> >> they've been having before we make any decisions.
> >
> > This is definitely cause for concern. Drupal has a much larger user
> > base than scoop; so these sorts of issues are more likely to be dealt
> > with faster. On the other hand, kuro5hin has quite a large following
> > has had to deal with these issues as well, and has hung around to tell
> > the tale. It may be worth finding out the cause of these problems
> > (forums and such).
> >
> > I'm not advocating snap decisions; quite the opposite. I'm trying to
> > look at the long-term viability of any system so that we don't have to
> > repeat this process in a couple of years.
> >
> > Having said that, I'm not going to be able to play an active role in
> > whatever happens (at least not for the next half a year to be
> > realistic; maybe longer). So I don't want to be a distraction from any
> > actual movement on this issue. I just haven't seen any movement of
> > late.
> >
> > vik
> > _______________________________________________
> > imc-melbourne-work mailing list
> > imc-melbourne-work at indymedia.org.au
> > http://lists.indymedia.org.au/mailman/listinfo/imc-melbourne-work
> 
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> 
> 

-- 
in solidarity
Takver