Fwd: [imc-melbourne-work] CMS

Thu Jun 14 06:05:54 UTC 2007

Hi Takver,

The main sticking point with the dev site was how to handle anonymous
comments. I had written an ugly hack that would roughly take care of
it, but it was a hack, and it was ugly. It was roughly working when I
tried it last year, but due to its ugliness, I have no idea how it
well it would play with future releases of drupal. And with that in
mind, if there is no-one around to maintain the ugly hack, then the
same sort of thing will happen as with other indymedia codebases.

So in short, we could have a working system happening quite quickly,
but it would not be long term maintainable. I would lean towards
stepping back, reassessing what features are necessary and desirable,
then re-appraising what software to use, and what to modify in it, as
the hacks I've done basically re-create the functionality of the
existing site, albeit with a couple of extra features.

I also don't think the issue of IP logging was address on the dev site
- by default drupal logs IPs in a couple of tricky places (tho I think
one of the IMCs has addressed this with a patch).

It would also be worthwhile talking to sydney as they are running drupal.

Cheers,

vik

On 6/14/07, takver <tirin at takver.com> wrote:
> 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
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > imc-melbourne-work mailing list
> > imc-melbourne-work at indymedia.org.au
> > http://lists.indymedia.org.au/mailman/listinfo/imc-melbourne-work
> >
> >
>
> --
> in solidarity
> Takver
>
>