[Imc-alternatives] tasks for the developing site

[Jay]

Hi,

I went through the domain23.info test site last night and started 
working on a list of things to put on our task list 
(http://www.openplans.org/projects/imc-alternatives/tasks/tasklist/show/691). 
Before I mush them into the list I figured I'd throw them out here to 
see if anyone who has been working on the site has anything to add or 
subtract.  A lot of them are obvious changes that are already in the 
works and a few of them are already on the task list in some form.
(A big cheer to everyone who has been working on the site.  It's 
really starting to come together.)

FRONT PAGE:
(Most of this is stuff to do to get the current page in line with 
Nick's design -- http://www.thunderwhip.com/imc/Home-Page.jpg.)
-- Move login/join/help/about/contact from bottom of right column to 
top navigation bar.
-- Add pages with text for Join/Help/About/Contact [I've posted 
drafts of some of that text to this list]
-- Update mission text [I posted a draft of that too.  I can find it 
somewhere....]
-- Add topic select drop down menu [Should we combine the Topics and 
Tag cloud in some way?  Now that we have a tag cloud we should talk 
through how we're going to do this]
-- Add "ACT" button and description of what to publish.
-- take out options listed under "navigation" on right column
-- put global IMC list on bottom navigation [We haven't quite come up 
with the best place for the global imc list yet.  We've talked about 
putting it on a bottom navigation bar, which has yet to be created]
-- create bottom navigation bar
-- Match Nick's design in terms of layout for features (make photo 
size bigger, take away summaries of all featured articles but the 
main one, leaving just headlines.)
-- of course match font colors and sizes
-- is the logo on the top left the logo we want to use?

ARTICLE PAGES:
(to match http://www.thunderwhip.com/imc/Article-Page.jpg)
-- have sectional newswire running down right side [i.e. if the 
article is a news article it should have the Solution Wire on the 
right column, if it's a networking profile it should have the network 
wire, etc.]
-- have a big landscape-oriented photo at the top of the article 
stretching across the whole column (I think that looks nice and 
clean) with the Related articles box below?
-- Add mission and topic select bar to article pages for visual and 
navigational consistency
-- Fill in text for "more information about formatting options"
-- We should explain what people are doing when they click "report" 
and who it reports to
-- Eventually we should give the option at the bottom of each article 
to move discussion about an article from the comments section to some 
kind of forum board.  Or is there a way we could offer a threaded 
forum-style comments area rather than the traditional chronological 
list?  I think an organized forum approach makes people take their 
comment-writing more seriously, as if they're actually having a 
discussion, rather than the traditional indymedia (and now YouTube) 
comment list that encourages response just to the most recent comment.

NETWORK:
(http://www.thunderwhip.com/imc/Network-Page.jpg)
-- There are still a bunch of questions about how the profiles are 
going to work.  What functions should we offer?  Is this page only a 
place for users to present themselves and their interests to the 
public, or will users also use their profile page as their own 
personal launch page for the site, enabling them to manage the way 
they view content?  Maybe we're talking about two different pages, 
one private for the user him/herself and a different one for public 
viewing.  For example, MySpace shoots you to your own page when you 
login that gives you the opportunity to manage your information 
(approve friend requests etc.) but you also have a public profile 
page that the world can see.  This will be especially important for 
organizations that sign up who will want a place on the site for 
internal communication as well as a way to communicate with the public.
-- In any case, we need to create an interesting profile form for 
inviduals/organizations so they give interesting information.  I can 
put that on my task list.
-- add flexibility for user to manipulate profile page, both 
formatting options (colors and fonts etc.) and ability to add feeds 
and other personal information

NEWS:
(http://www.thunderwhip.com/imc/News-Page.jpg)
-- Create main news page with big feature and blurbs

KNOWLEDGE
In this incarnation of the site we can just provide of a mock-up 
description of what the Knowledge-base will be and how it will work.

CONTENT SUBMISSION FORM
-- I can add my usability suggestions from 
http://www.openplans.org/projects/imc-alternatives/druapl-dev-status 
to the task list
-- Our layout works best with landscape-oriented photos at the top of 
each page.  Could we only allow landscape-oriented photos as the main 
photo for a submission?

ACCOUNTS/ADMIN:
-- I assume we already have various levels of logins.  I can login to 
the site but don't have access to admin functions though 
domain23.info/admin.  We should eventually figure out a transparent 
process for determining who has admin access.
-- In the My Account area we should explain the use of "file browser" 
or not have it as an option
-- Just curious, in my My Unread section I clicked "recents posts 
across the whole site" and saw a zillion of them.  Are we already 
being spammed?  If so, the site seems to be handling the spams pretty 
well because they don't appear anywhere other than that list.

I'm working on a solid explanation of our taxonomy as well as 
explanatory help text for most of the options we offer site visitors, 
such as most of the things on the submission page.

Great work, site builders!!
Jay