[Imc-alternatives] category pages and easy article sharing

[Jay]

Hi alternatives,

Below are two thoughts about the site, one about making sure to have 
distinct category/topic pages, the other about encouraging people to 
share Alternatives IMC articles through other sites, I sent to Josh a 
couple days ago but forgot to put up to this list.  They're things we 
talked about before but I wanted to make sure everyone sees them so 
we can hone them together as the site is developing.

See you at the IRC check ins on #imc-alternatives today.  I think 
they're at 2pm and 8pm U.S. Eastern time
Jay

***

>Hi Josh,
>
>While I'm thinking about the site, one thing that would be cool to 
>have in place, though I have no idea how easy this is to setup in 
>drupal, would be for the newswire and features articles to be able 
>to appear automatically on distinct category pages without editors 
>having to move them around.
>
>What I'm picturing is that when someone submits a newswire article 
>and chooses a topic for that article (or two or three...) the 
>article would appear both on the main page SolutionsWire and on the 
>newswire on that category page.  So, if the article is categorized 
>as "social justice & security" it would show up on the front page 
>but also on a Social Justice and Secuirty newswire on the Social 
>Justice and Security page, which would have only the articles that 
>were submitted in the Social Justice and Security category.  Ditto 
>with features....if someone posts a feature on the main page that is 
>categoriezed as SJ & S, it would appear automatically as a feature 
>on the SJ & S page.
>
>Essentially I'm talking about solidifying different views of the 
>same information, just making it easy for people to go to the SJ & S 
>page and see all features and newswire articles categorized that 
>way.  So, maybe it's not hugely difficult, since it all draws on the 
>central database...?  Ultimately people would be able to see related 
>knowledge base articles and profiles of people who organize around 
>Social Justice and Security issues on that page too.
>
>Thinking aloud,
>Jay

>Josh,
>
>A last quick thought about SolutionWire articles.
>
>I think we should give people the chance to 
>Digg/Buzz/Facebook/Myspace/Del.icio.us/syndicate/share every article 
>to their heart's content.  I've heard of some controversy about 
>other imc sites putting those kinds of options in their sites 
>because they're mainly for-profit companies, but I'd have to hear 
>some pretty compelling arguments to convince me against the benefits 
>of making article sharing in every way as easy as possible.
>
>I'm looking at Slate.com right now offers all those options on every 
>article in a pretty straightforward way, as well as ways to print 
>and e-mail the article.  If we're going to have the Alternatives 
>site be part of the real world, I think those are features we need 
>to prioritize making available from the get go.
>
>Okay, enough from me.
>Jay