[imc-cms] Indymedia.org CMS Developers Survey - please read!

[tom]

Hi,

As requested by Ryan (from the imc-cms working group) I am posting a 
completed questionnaire to this list. Please accept my apologies if this 
reaches you in error.

If you do not have time to read the survey the following summary may 
help, however we like people to be interested in our work, so you can 
read my answers for more explanation:

*Summary*
We are also a "work in progress". AROUNDMe, our solution for you to 
bring people together around shared goals, activities and interests to 
form a shared knowledge network is in alpha development and should not 
be installed on production servers. We are putting a huge effort into 
development, however we are still approximately three months off 
releasing a production version. AROUNDMe is a for people wishing to form 
a network around action, activity and collaboration. It is not a CMS and 
as such I cannot recommend it for your purposes. You may at a later date 
consider a publishing system and a community, hence I have completed the 
questionnaire below for you.

kind regards,

tom


ryan wrote:
> ---------- (survey begins) ----------
>
> INDYMEDIA CMS DEVELOPERS SURVEY
> Please fill in as many questions as you can. When you are completed,
> you should email your responses to imc-cms at lists.indymedia.org
>  
> 1) Survey Part 1 - Personal Details
>    a) Your name?
>   
tom

>    b) Your geographic location?
>   

stockholm, sweden
>    c) How long have you worked with AROUNDMe and what work do you do
>       with the project?
>   
3 years ( I am the founder of the project and maintainer of the software)

>    d) Do you work on any other CMS projects?
>   
no

> 2) Survey Part 2 - CMS Basics
>    a) What programming language is AROUNDMe written in?
>   

PHP
>    b) What is the backend database used by AROUNDMe?
>   

We use a database abstraction layer which supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, 
Interbase, Firebird, Informix, Oracle, MS SQL 7, Foxpro, Access, ADO, 
Sybase, FrontBase, DB2, SAP DB, SQLite and generic ODBC database software.
>    c) Are there other servers required (application server, Tomcat,
>       etc)?
>   
no

>    d) How do you describe the overall software design of AROUNDMe?
>   
A solution for you to bring people together around shared goals, 
activities and interests to form a shared knowledge network.

>    e) Can you give details about real-world scaleability
>       considerations for AROUNDMe?
>   
Not today, however we aim to test it on 100,000 members with 1% signed 
on, however we focus on smaller communities of around 10,000 members as 
this creates a more personalized network.

> 3) Survey Part 3 - CMS Functionality
>    a) A core feature of our software is the ability for anonymous
>       users to post media to appear on the site. Is this easily
>       added to a site using AROUNDMe?
>   
No. Whilst I appreciate who you have asked that, we actually encourage 
people to share knowledge and experience from a true portrait of 
themselves (this is a vivid differentiation between publishing system 
and community in that we build your reputation by associating the 
communities respect for you with your identity, whilst a CMS should 
allow an anonymous person to retain their anonymity).


>    b) Can you describe the site search functionality available?
>   
The product overview page should guide you through this -> 
http://www.barnraiser.org/software.php

>    c) How is RSS/XML/RDF support included?
>   
A RSS feed is supplied from blogs, but that is all at present.

>    d) We would like to have one server per site which allows many
>       instances of actual websites, each with different admin logins
>       and different websites altogether. Is this easy to set up with
>       AROUNDMe?
>   
Again AROUNDMe is not really built like that. Typically these is a 
community around the subject X and one around the subject of Y. Each can 
live together on the same server.

>    e) Can you describe the multimedia support in the software? We
>       allow users to upload and manipulate online all types of media -
>       mpeg, mp3, ogg, jpg, pdf, etc. 
>   
MIME type uploading is fully configurable.

>    f) Internationalization is very important to us. Many of our sites
>       support 2-3 or more languages. Can you describe how this is
>       accomplished in AROUNDMe?
>   
Multiple language packs can be installed on a single instance of 
AROUNDMe. The visitor registers, picks the interface language they want, 
selects from language options which languages they can read, then 
AROUNDMe presents content in those languages only to the member.

>    g) What types of anti-abuse or anti-spam measures are in the code?
>   
Anti-span = registered users only
Anti-abuse = non, we have a trust/respect mechanism that allows for poor 
content to be filtered out.

>    h) Is there a calendar included in the codebase? 
>   
One of our modules is an events (calendar scheduling modules)

>    i) How do you describe how a user would edit a given piece of content
>       on the website, or briefly describe the model used in this part
>       of the functionality?
>   
A simple edit button is provided to the author(s).

>    j) How do you describe any type of user moderation system that
>       is built into AROUNDMe?
>   
Minimalist:) In a community you publish what you want, but you stand by 
it, so if the community judges it to be substandard you loose reputation.

>  
>    k) What types of integration is there with P2P networks?
>   
None

>    l) Another important feature for us is networking between the
>       websites. If we want users from one website to have rights on
>       another website in the network, how could we do this?
>   
Again, we do not have this approach - this is reserved for CMS's

>    m) We are concerned with the ability to easily rsync pages from a
>       website to other servers and setup a type of mirroring scheme.
>       How would this be accomplished with AROUNDMe?
>   
We provide nothing for this.

> 4) Survery Part 4 - Miscellaneous
>    a) What do you believe are the top selling points for AROUNDMe?
>   
We are the only free software network collaboration platform available 
today. Many people want to work together to achieve things and share 
knowledge - we would like to think of ourselves as providing a purpose 
build platform for that.


>    b) From what you know about the Indymedia network, how well do you 
>       think IMC would mesh with the development community for the CMS?
>   
It would not and should not (see summary).

>    c) What are the top 3 areas you believe the development team for
>       the CMS needs to be improved?
>   
not applicable (it's not a cms)

>    d) Where do you see AROUNDMe in five years?
>   
a peer to peer network where you own your own content, network and identity.

> Thank you for your time and consideration. Please return this survey
> to imc-cms at lists.indymedia.org
>
>   
I wish all of you at indymedia success with your work and thank you for 
considering AROUNDMe in this survey.

Kind regards,

tom



-- 
Tom Calthrop
Founder, Barnraiser.

dedicated to giving people the tools they need to share 
knowledge and advance society through social software.

http://www.barnraiser.org/