[Imc-drupal-dev] Knight Foundation Grant for Drupal IMC

[Sofia JarrinT]

Thank you, Robbt. This is all awesome. I'll make sure to update the Wikki.

And just fyi that St. Louis Imc is also in...




________________________________
From: robbt <robbt at cbusimc.org>
To: Sofia JarrinT <sofiajt at yahoo.com>
Cc: imc-drupal-dev at lists.indymedia.org; Benjamin Melancon <ben at agaricdesign.com>; chyn at ojctech.com
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 2:31:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Imc-drupal-dev] Knight Foundation Grant for Drupal IMC

You can count Columbus Indymedia as interested, we have been using 
Drupal since we launched and I think I proposed something akin to this 
idea after sitting through the informational session about the Knight 
Drupal initiative at last DrupalCon. We are aligned with a few 501c3's 
as well if that becomes important at any point in the process.

My only input at this point, would be a few ideas.
One we should develop this so that it would be functional for other 
networks beyond Indymedia. So other small independent but networked news 
organizations could utilize the code.

The focus should be on easy to set-up tools to aggregate and 
interconnect diverse news organizations, utilizing RSS and drupal 
modules such as feed API. There are also some tools to connect sites but 
I think this would be the easiest. We have been meaning to develop this 
for our CbusIMC site beyond the simple use of aggregation we already have.

As far as fund dispersment goes, that is tricky. Let me think of what 
comes to mind. A few ideas, we would definitely need a single person or 
team bottom-lining the install profile aspect, collecting best practices 
and then developing the instant install recipe. The modular 
implementation of anything that needs code improvement or whatever could 
be handled by a bounty or individual contract type basis and paid as 
needed. Documentation is also a huge benefit of drupal and something in 
need of improvement. Beyond that I think getting some money set aside to 
pay for developers to help test out the process on helping set-up some 
IMC's (specifically those like Tenesee IMC that have gone down due to 
lack of technical. Also hosting should be addressed in there as well.

Another consideration is the proposals being put out by IMC-CMS's team 
about a concept of a totally decentralized IMC network where all content 
is mirrored through out the network and other decentralization 
principles to help against server seizure/censorship/anonymity etc. I'll 
try to set aside some time to review what's already on there, just 
wanted to say this is great and I'm glad people are working on it, even 
if it doesn't get funded we should try to go forward with something like 
this.

Robbt

Sofia JarrinT wrote:
> Hi there!
>
> In the past couple of days, we've created a loose coalition of 
> Indymedia people to apply for a Knight Foundation grant 
> (http://www.newschallenge.org/) to build an Indymedia Drupal prototype 
> for ALL Indymedias (which I guess will include an Indymedia install 
> profile)...  The deadline is November 1st.
>
> The idea developed originally from Belgium and Boston Imc and since 
> then has snowballed to include UK Imc, Indybay, and possibly, Urbana 
> Champaign and Bolivia Imc. Please let us know who else we need to 
> invite... 
>
> The goals so far on how exactly to use the money or manage it, if we 
> get it, are a bit up in the air. We originally thought that we could 
> pay IMC Drupal developers so that they could spare the time to make 
> this possible. Why get paid now? I guess it's a feeling of urgency 
> that if we don't, this will take too long to get done, and Imcs 
> continue to close down because of tech difficulties. Techs lack the 
> time and the money should hopefully give them the space to allocate 
> that time.
>
> Another idea is to allocate $ to local Indymedias through the global 
> fund, so they in turn could "hire" an Imc Drupal tech to help them 
> implement the site...
>
> I've just uploaded our First Draft to the Drupal wikki here... And 
> will be uploading suggested changes very very soon:
>
> http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/ImcDrupalDev
>
> We also need to work on a proposed Budget and Timeline.
>
> Worries, concerns, uncomfortable ikkyness, excitement, ideas?
>
> peace,
> Sofia
> Boston Imc
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Imc-drupal-dev mailing list
> Info: https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/ImcDrupalDev
> Imc-drupal-dev at lists.indymedia.org
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-drupal-dev
>  


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-drupal-dev/attachments/20081024/54d477b5/attachment.htm