Website

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We'll need a website that will serve as a PR hub, and we can also have cool member features, like web space and shells. Here are some initial thoughts:

  • Calendar
  • Member profiles, skills/interests
  • Ongoing projects
  • Message board, mailing list archives
  • Photo gallery (or link to flickr group)
  • Twitter (retweets member tweets, #roc-hack hashtags etc.
  • Link to youtube, embedded youtubes
  • Member blogs
  • Anything else?

Meetup, as good of a recruitment tool as it is, costs a fair amount of money to maintain, and isn't very featureful.

I'm a bit of a web nut but I suck at design, so I'd love to work with someone on getting this going who knows anything about design. (wooby)

I'd like to work on the server setup if we are going to self-host it (once we get a space). I also wouldn't mind working a bit on the site itself. ---- BW 18:23, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Contents

To-do

We currently have a Wordpress installation up and running, along with mediawiki. Wordpress is themed and logoed and fairly ready to go. Some things we'll need to do are

Short Term

  • finish fixing the styles for the twitter widget
  • find a good flickr widget and style appropriately
  • delete the photos page if the flickr widget is sufficient
  • design and install a favicon
  • use same design for the wiki icon (for now)
  • tweak wordpress header for a bit more color and visual interest
  • maybe do the same to the blurb box below the header
    • should blurb only be on the front page?
  • beautify wiki urls
  • remove temp index page
  • calendar stuff
    • see if wordpress calendar works well.
    • if not, see if goocal can be styled to fit the site
    • one concern is we don't want to be doing double/triple/quadruple entry of events - whatever we use should be able to easily export to ICS or other standard format

Web Ideas

user:sneha

I had a concept i had for the Rochester Hackerspace that I would like to share.

  • It would be good to have a website that is project based, that encourages collaboration
  • The idea is each member will have a project page dedicated to them.
    • If you click on a members name you would be able to see all projects that the person has lead, all projects that the person had collaborated on and also projects that the person wants to do but simply doesn't have time for.
    • People looking at the site could browse/search by project.
      • Each project should give you basic info about how the progress made on the project, the person who is leading the project as well as people collaborating on the project.
      • People should be able to find projects that are still in the idea phase, and if the idea inspires them then they should be able to work on it.
    • Each project should have a message board where members can share ideas and give input on each project. This would help keep all Hackers aware of all projects in progress.

user:antitree

My thoughts on main website:

  • secure wordpress install
  • static information put as pages in wordpress (bylaws, about interlock)
  • use of plugins to bring in a calendar, flickr, youtube, twitter, etc.
  • main page is a blog with general updates, event notifications, project shout outs that can be updated by most members
  • subfolders or subhosts for webspace can be made available for group projects (robots.interlock.org)
  • Examples: http://hacklab.to, http://thinkhaus.org, http://hive13.org, http://www.nycresistor.com

My thoughts on project management options

  • ning.com allows you to create your own social network
  • network can have a blog
  • members can have their own blogs
  • you can integrate with flickr, youtube, hulu, etc.
  • you can create groups (projects) for certain people
  • members show which projects they are a part of
  • the group pages are standalone but still part of the rest of the sytstem
  • upload pictures via phone, etc
  • control privacy of individual members and of groups
  • organize events
  • RSS feeds for the network and for individual groups
  • Sends out broadcast messages to everyone
  • $4.95/mo if we want our own domain name
  • 10gb of storage for free. upgradeable
  • Can customize all images in the design of the site, colors, etc. even css if you needed
  • hook up with google analytics
  • costs $24.95/mo to get rid of ads on the page.
  • themed google ads on most pages
  • not good for keeping random notes but great to share an entire network of ideas in a standard format
  • OVERALL:
    • privacy control
    • features for integrating other things
    • ability to maintain individuality while keeping people together
    • good for sharing projects but not great for sharing project notes and raw data
    • shows how active the hackerspace is
    • Not good at sharing static information (bylaws, NFP status, about interlock)
    • some good features require money

user:berticus

I think antitree's thoughts on the main website are spot-on. Look at NYC Resistor. A simple Wordpress install with general announcements on the front page, a few static pages for "about" stuff and the like, and navigation links to other apps like wikis and a class scheduling app and stuff like that. We could also use a plugin to provide a calendar and ical feed for classes and meetings. I'm not really jazzed about ning, but if it fits other people's brains then that's great. We can link to it from the main site just like the wiki and whatever other hangers-on we end up needing. This seems like a pretty straightforward way to have a "normal" public face, yet satisfy the different needs of different people with specialized sites and applications.

Summary: as long as we have a public wiki and a decent looking blog for some periodic announcements, I'm happy.

user:Ben Woodruff

I agree with Berticus for the most part. I like the idea of using Wordpress as a CMS front-end for the "website" and using plugins to pull in content from other services we use (flickr, twitter, irc logs, etc etc). We would also have links to the full blown external websites (things such as the wiki, project management system, etc). Wordpress is easy to install and manage and can integrate with LDAP for authentication. It's also fairly easy to write plugins for it (using PHP - or by using PHP to call other systems such as ruby).

WP + LDAP: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-ldap-login/

Possible Web Frameworks

I have a LOT of experience with Django and Plone, and they would both do what we need... plus they're Python, so there's the l33t factor that you don't get with Wordpress... if there's interest, I can show people how we might build a complete web app in an hour or less (or your pizza's free) --Fvox13 05:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

We use activeCollab at work for project management... it's a bit... work-y, but it might help with keeping track of projects. (and we don't have to use all of the businessy features) --Fvox13 14:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

We can probably also just look at pairing together various systems, with a custom frontend, so we have something that works well for us specifically

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