[Imc-uk-network] New aggregated UK Site

[theinnercityhippy at riseup.net]

hiya.

Couple of quick points.

Firstly, about the bristol thing, looking at the xml it would seem it is a
weird mashup of bristol and ireland which may be why it isn't working. Is
anyone from bristol on this list could have a look at it (sy)? If not i'll
try and get in touch with an admin from there.

The reason i've gone for drupal over hyper or mir on this is because i
didn't see it as needing any functionality at present over simple
aggregation. Essentially i am trying to design it so it never needs manual
interaction (other than the odd bit of tinkering here and there) so it is
simply a portal to the other sites and not a publishing site in its own
right. Also because it's easy since the code is already there for the most
part :-) that said, there is some great scope here for user (not admin)
interaction in the case of persistent searches, personalised channel
creation for topics of interest and export of these in opml format.

my plan was to have a publish button that, when pressed will take the user
to a map of the uk. The user then clicks on their location or that of the
event and this then takes them to the relevant regional publish page.

On features, i had thought the following- having a tab on the top to a
featurewire, and at the top of the newswire having a collapsible box
containing the most recent regional feature. This gives due prominence to
regional collectives who are actively collaborating on features and
ensures a steady flow in the quiet times between major demos. For massive
national events, it occured to me that these always tend to centre around
one area, so encouraging collaboration on features between different imc's
to be posted to the wire of that region seems sensible. This would then go
up as the most recent feature and we could include ao option to make them
'sticky' with national consensus.

These are of course all ideas that i am floating and so discussion is the
key thing, but i most like the idea of an automated aggregation page over
one that encourages greater human interaction with that than of the local
sites.

Oh by the way, it seemed sensible to me to include our neighbours in eire
in this and aggregate their news as uk and ireland indy. This is easily
done as it is an aggregation site and opens us up to great news of things
like the shell to sea campaign which is cross border. What do others think
about this?

Jimdog

> It's great that somebody has started some work on this although I'm
> not convinced drupal is the way to go rather than something more
> intigrated with indymedia sites around the uk, like either mir or
> preferable, hyperactive. However no progress will be made unless we
> just crack on so I'm pleased that's happening as indymedia is shedding
> users and interest so quickly that only urgent action stands a chance
> on stemming the flow.
>
> Some comments... Are you thinking two columns of feeds, one of
> features and one of newswires - or just pull in features? I think
> (although I hate the quality of many of the posts in the open wire) it
> will be essential to include the newswire posts. Obviously there will
> be no moderation so it means that included indymedia sites will have
> to be taking responsibility for resonable and speedy admin.
>
> There will be no way to avoid duplicate features covering the same
> issue/event from different regions without introducing some editorial
> control and admin hierachy like we have now and I think that should be
> avoided at all costs with the aggregation site. I wonder how we would
> deal with the need for national features - or wouldn't we?
>
> ben
>
>
>
> 2009/10/16 Jim Dog <theinnercityhippy at riseup.net>:
>> Ooops, told you I was tired.
>>
>> The address is:
>>
>> http://uktest.northern-indymedia.org
>>
>> Though I have just now updated our DNS record so the other URL should be
>> available soon :-)
>>
>> Let me know what you think and especially those that would like to get
>> involved. Lets get some discussion going!
>>
>> JimDog
>>
>> Jim Dog wrote:
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>> I've started work on the new UK aggregated front page which is based on
>>> Drupal and an installation profile called "Managing News". It's still
>>> at
>>> a very early stage but if anyone wants to see where it's up to so far
>>> (after a very bleary eyed night working on it), check it out:
>>>
>>> http://newuk.northern-indymedia.org/
>>>
>>> Naturally, I'd like to get others involved in the development as soon
>>> as
>>> possible if they wish. There's a good mix of geeky and non-geeky things
>>> that can be done so maybe a good first step would be to get some
>>> feedback and see what wants doing from there.
>>>
>>> As it is so far, there are a couple of things which need sorting out as
>>> a priority.
>>>
>>> * Bristols site doesn't seem to generate a useable rss or atom feed. Is
>>> this just me being thick or is it something that can be sorted out
>>> easily?
>>>
>>> * There is currently no publish button or features. This is on the way
>>>
>>> * There is a really cool map feature which will pinpoint where each
>>> posting comes from based on tags but I'm still figuring out how it
>>> works.
>>>
>>> * I haven't put in any styling or static content or anything as yet as
>>> I
>>> thought this would be good for the more non-techie peeps to take on if
>>> they want to.
>>>
>>> On a geeky side, I need to sort out the following so others can get
>>> involved, so the sooner we can work these out the better:
>>>
>>> * Somewhere to host a git repo for the code (would escapegoat, aktivix
>>> or psand be willing to do this?
>>>
>>> * Some space on a server somewhere that everyone who wants to be
>>> involved can access, to host the demo version for working on. It's up
>>> on
>>> our production server at the mo which isn't ideal.
>>>
>>> There's some real potential in this front page I reckon and some really
>>> useful features in terms of media syndication (many thanks to ekes for
>>> steering me towards it).
>>>
>>> If people get a chance could they take a peek, see what they think and
>>> get some feedback going on this list?
>>>
>>> Solidarity
>>>
>>> JimDog
>> __
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>>
>