[imc-scotland-discussion] flaws with Drupal

[Ulla]

Hi Harry, (hi Tom)

I agree with you that DADA was not sustainable anymore. I do agree with you 
that Tom has put a lot of the work  into migrating the site. 

However, I do think that some of the current implementation could be fatal to 
the Scotland indymedia project, and looking over the list of sites which 
moved to Drupal 
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/ImcDrupalDev
and are now not active anymore or have very low activity, for me it is though 
arguably partly the utilisation of the software. ( Very shocking is 
Melbourne Indymedia's inactivity for me as they were particularly strong in 
Woomera 2002.)


As Drupal has not been developed to be used for indymedia, but more as one 
person's own CMS website, it misses for example vital fields in the publish 
form, such as author, organisation, addresses, email addresses, URL for 
related article and another for organisation and copyright/creative commons 
information. 
Also the possibility for  file uploading is limited to Blogging needs,

Have looked around other Drupal sites and pretty much all of them seem to have 
a minimalised publish form, interestingly adaptions have been made but it 
seems every other IMC has dealt differently with it - Austria IMC has added 
author and email fields, whereas Columbus IMC has added URL fields, St.Louis 
the copyright information options and Boston has still its DADA publish form 
and not migrated yet, which is interesting as comparison:
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/index.php?function=publish

Looking at other websites, what seems also good is:
- The Image Gallery of IMC Napoli:
http://napoli.indymedia.org/image

- The Archive of IMC Roma:
http://roma.indymedia.org/archive

- The site map of Imc Liguria:
http://liguria.indymedia.org/sitemap

- The topic list of St.Louis.
- The rss-feeds of Blogs/ frontpage inclusion of  e.g. in Columbus imc, etc.


Anyways, what is annoying is that at the moment it sems no audio nor video 
files can be added to Imc scotland and that participation does not seem to be 
encouraged.

To sum up:

Problems with Indymedia Scotland on Drupal at the moment:

A) Participation does not seem to be encouraged

	1.) Publish form
- is not inviting enough. 
- there are no fields/boxes for author, email address, website address/URL, 	   
   organisation, no creative commons/ copyright/public domain choice or
   information, difficulties to upload several pictures/files at once, no URL 
- box for article related story
- there is no separate box for summary and body – encourages people not to 
post content/elaborate on reporting
- no mission statement nor editorial guidelines nor POU reference 
- spam filter?/CAPTCHA?
- no audio files nor video files accepted?!!!
- (also in conjunction editorial interface: no easy backdating of articles – 
making archiving and carrying over of old 2001-2003 content more difficult)
- images can not be placed where wanted by author, as well as thumbnail choice 
and location limited

2.)Comments
- comment box/field should be directly under article, not 2 clicks away
- comments should be fully displayed directly under article, not three clicks 
away
- add a comment: no field/box for author name, article and other comments not 
- viewable whilst making comment of your own – difficult to refer to other 
comments or text or respond, difficulty of enabling discussions
- comment not fully viewable even if clicked on “view comment” -several clicks 
away. too


B) Moderation/Editorial

1.) Newswire:
- local/elsewhere
- no topic filter/navigation
  (–housing/globalisation/environment/repression/protest activity...)
- no media filter/navigation (– pics/audio/video/text/print)
- no location filter/navigation (– local/elsewhere or 
Edinburgh/Glasgow/Faslane/Talamh/Aberdeen/Stirling/...)
- no plain media contributions (?)
- no easy accessible archive


and so on, haven't had time yet to evaluate other parts of website apart from 
its greyness.

As on Mike's take that 
">>Indymedia Scotland is in a stronger and more
> > positive situation than for a long time" ,
 it depends on the evaluation criteria   - if the collective is concerned and 
the amount of Indymedia Scotland members putting in regular and reliable 
committment, than that is true, 
if it would mean hits/read per article than we are in the worst position now 
than ever - the strongest we were as a subsection on indy uk where we usually 
had many more hits per day per newswire article. (even before rss feeds 
became popular.)
And more  when we had the millions hits per day in november 2003 on Indy UK
during anti-Bush demonstrations/FTAA/Bolivia presidential crisis and the 
three millions hits per day during the G8 2005. 

Furthermore the broadness of contributed content has declined.

Bye for now
Ulla


On Tuesday 06 May 2008 00:09, Harry Halpin wrote:
> +1 on new site.
>
> It's still got some rough corners but Tom is clearly putting time and
> energy into working it out.
>
> I'm just going to add my two cents: the main problem is that since the
> dada codebase is more or less unmaintained, keeping the site with dada
> was going to lead the site to be old-fashioned and hacked more and more
> often. By moving to drupal, the site is sticking with a well-developed
> code-base that has frequent updates.
>
> So, while the user interface probably will need some more tweaking to
> get right as Ulla points out, I think the effort and the move by Tom is
> well worth it.
>
> Sorry I don't have time to participate. In homestretch of Ph.D.!
>
>        thanks,
>              harry
>
> Mike92 at riseup.net wrote:
> > Personally I feel that Indymedia Scotland is in a stronger and more
> > positive situation than for a long time.  The new site I feel is already
> > a significant step-forward, and will only get better as it develops.  I
> > think Tom should be thanked for all the hard work he has put into it.
> >
> > The regular monthly publication of the news-sheet is a big step forward,
> > and is something which could have aan even bigger impact if we can sort
> > out the fiinance to greatly increase the print-run, and organise more
> > distro, especially beyond edinburgh.  Again I think all the efforts by
> > Tom and Jon in putting the news-sheet together should be appreciated.
> >
> > I am completely at a loss to understand why Ulla is uttering dire
> > predictions of doom.  We all appreciate the hard work you have put in
> > over the years Ulla, but I think your outburst reflects very badly on
> > you.
> >
> > I know very little about the technical side, but to my layperson's eye
> > the new site seems more interesting and attractive than before, sure the
> > banner could be improved, but I am sure everyone recognises it is a work
> > in progress.
> >
> > Questions such as how to display comments, and how much prominence to
> > give them, are open to debate of course.  Indymedia Scotland holds
> > regular monthly meetings, and if people have any suggestions that have
> > not been resolved on the e mail list, then the meeting is the place to
> > come to , in order to discuss them.
> >
> > It would be much more positive Ulla, if you came along to the meetings
> > and discussed things, rather than threatening to split Indymedia.  The
> > meetings are the last tuesday of every month at 7.30pm at ACE, 17 West
> > Montgomery Place, the next one is scheduled for tues 27th May.   I
> > appreciate the sentiments expressed in James' message about the positive
> > need for face-to-face discussion, though whether folk want to take up the
> > offer of a special meeting in the Forest or not I dont know, given that
> > we are already meeting monthly in ACE, which also has computers on
> > line.....
> >
> > Whatever the case about that, it would certainly be a good idea to
> > publicise the meetings more, to try and get better attendances.   Perhaps
> > it would be a good idea to take up James's suggestion and make a positive
> > effort to invite regular contributors to the next meeting, which could
> > especially focus on the new site?
> >
> > in solidarity Mike (Edinburgh)
> >
> > ps I think we should keep the current links to other groups and campaigns
> > - they are important I think - but also make a point of having an agenda
> > item at the next meeting to discuss which additional groups should be
> > linked to.
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "James" <james at doubtlesshouse.org.uk>
> > To: <imc-scotland-discussion at lists.indymedia.org>
> > Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 10:47 AM
> > Subject: Re: [imc-scotland-discussion] Changes to the site/ Indymedia
> > Scotland dieing a slow death
> >
> >> Ulla, Tom, (Others)
> >>
> >> There's obviously a need to get as many people as possible to meet up
> >> and go over this issue in person. Clearly noone wants the sites to
> >> split.
> >>
> >> It can be easy to get tempers inflamed over Email, where someone's tone
> >> of voice and intentions are unclear. Meeting in person would help this.
> >>
> >> Also, it would be good to get some regular contributors and users of the
> >> site to come along and offer their views. Usability on the web is a
> >> notoriously tricky subject, and what one person wants from a site varies
> >> a lot from what another person wants. Having as many view-points as
> >> possible would be a good thing.
> >>
> >> A meeting could help us go over the issues, get feedback from users on
> >> the site and help us recognise that despite our differences on site
> >> features in the end we all just want the same thing - a working site.
> >>
> >> I can book the meeting room in The Forest, where we would not be
> >> disturbed and there are 4 good computers on the internet for us to use.
> >> What time would suit everyone?
> >>
> >> James
> >>
> >> Anarcho Babe wrote:
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> It is my strong belief that if the site stays as it is now you will
> >>> loose half
> >>> of the readership by the end of the summer, and most likely up to 2/3
> >>> by the
> >>> end of next May - basically narrowing it down to the hardcore
> >>> anarchists who
> >>> will also visit the site less regularly - maybe once a week/forthnight
> >>> instead of every day or so.
> >>>
> >>> I do think that drastic measures are needed right now in order to avoid
> >>> that
> >>> the Indymedia Scotland project is killed off by how the new system is
> >>> used.
> >>>
> >>> Editorialwise the site is a disasterzone at the moment,  apart from its
> >>> grey
> >>> boring colour scheme, it is very hostile to user contributions such as
> >>> posting and viewing comments, posting and viewing other press, turnover
> >>> of
> >>> features/middle column too slow, archive not accessible enough, lack of
> >>> image
> >>> gallery, not updated quickly enough and the publish form is even worse
> >>> than
> >>> the one we had 8 years ago under Active!
> >>>
> >>> As any suggestion made in a polite way is ignored, it seems only
> >>> logical to
> >>> try different means.
> >>>
> >>> At the moment I am intending to standby watching whilst you destroy the
> >>> project over the next three months, then I will start a little counter
> >>> project in autumn after my dissertation to try to keep the social
> >>> movements
> >>> in Scotland together, and am then going to pick up the pieces of the
> >>> site next summer when you all deserted it and given up on it.
> >>>
> >>> Alternatively we could also split right now and I could do a counter
> >>> indymedia
> >>> site - however, given that you then won't recognise that it was your
> >>> actions
> >>> which destroy the project I prefer seeing it die a natural death
> >>> without you
> >>> having the excuse to say that the competition killed it off.
> >>>
> >>> Yours Ulla
> >>>
> >>> On Sunday 04 May 2008 01:46, Tom Morton wrote:
> >>>> Ulla,
> >>>>
> >>>> You might notice that I reverted some changes you made to the site. I
> >>>> should explain why i did this:
> >>>>
> >>>> - You placed syndicated content from other IMCs above basic components
> >>>> of our own site. For example, why did you put the anarchoTV feed above
> >>>> the 'publish' button and above the IMC scotland newswire? Why move the
> >>>> 'sections' menu down?
> >>>>
> >>>> - You moved the menu right to the bottom of the site making navigation
> >>>> slow and annoying.
> >>>>
> >>>> - You cluttered the site with loads of syndicated content
> >>>>
> >>>> We need to discuss next meeting what feeds we should take from other
> >>>> sites, and what  links to other sites we have. I'd like a return to
> >>>> normal process where changes to the site are discussed at meetings. In
> >>>> the mean time, since I have a mandate to set up the new site I'll
> >>>> revert bad changes made.
> >>>>
> >>>> Also, playing with different themes on the live site is bad. The test
> >>>> site at scotland.imcscotland.org is for that kind of experimentation.
> >>>
>