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wizardwatson
01-26-2011, 02:02 PM
Key word here is 'want'. Need a design. Don't like designing, designing is hard. Coding is easy in comparison, imo. Before designing, which is hard, comes the website idea, which is all tied up with design and is probably equally hard.

They say necessity is the mother of invention so what type of web-based software/site do you think that the liberty movement needs?

It's a hard question, but I know a lot of people have ideas on these threads as I've seen many and discussed ideas with others. I've also witnessed most of these ideas fade away or get abandoned.

My general ideas for a site center around some sort of "plan/project" management and a way to get all users involved in the process. Similar to the ideas of gunnyfreedom but more generic as his ideas seem primarily focused on local political district organizing. It would be nice if we had a functional site like that the pulled in all 'activists' and not just liberty activists. The second part of the idea is to have a "touch base" kind of site where people publish/change their "availability" to the movement and various "teams" similar to the www.groundcrew.us model (worth checking out if you're a coder or interested in truly web-based organizing).

To coders: Are there any of you interested in helping with design ideas and process models of how the site would work?

I'd like to hear people's ideas, and if you're interested enough to post, I'd gladly give you my take on whatever ideas you have. I'll even post related thread ideas to your idea if it applies. I've got some subscribed to via RPF.

My main purpose for posting this thread is to get some brainstorming done in the area of designing some web-based tools for the liberty movement. Forget coding, html, pictures, videos, infrastructure, etc. they aren't as important as design. If the design, and I mean the core functionality can be explained cogently then it can be coded and all the backend stuff is secondary.

erowe1
01-26-2011, 02:19 PM
Where's the option for FORTRAN?

Inkblots
01-26-2011, 02:21 PM
Where's the option for FORTRAN?

Ugh. F90 is at least tolerable, but I still think it can't hold a candle to C.

wizardwatson
01-26-2011, 02:24 PM
Where's the option for FORTRAN?

Well, its mainly a poll about web development experience. I don't know of any web developers that use FORTRAN on the back end. But the thread isn't just for web developers either. I would love for non-coders to contribute about "the kind of site they'd like to see". I just feel we've got great potential and plenty of talent but we haven't been able to have a consensus (or even someone calling for a consensus) on what some good design ideas are.

specsaregood
01-26-2011, 02:27 PM
"web developer by trade" sounds so....limited and lame.

wizardwatson
01-26-2011, 02:32 PM
"web developer by trade" sounds so....limited and lame.

Payin' the bills with my mad programmin' skillz

specsaregood
01-26-2011, 02:37 PM
//

fisharmor
01-26-2011, 02:39 PM
Very little web programming here.
I can do the coding but choose not to.
My talents are requirements analysis and debugging.

Regarding the former...
No matter what SDLC model you're using, step 1 is generally always "define the problem".
What is the problem you're trying to solve?
How is it not solved by this site, dailypaul, mises.org, LRC, etc, etc, etc?

teacherone
01-26-2011, 02:39 PM
something like a liberty twitter would be cool.

could do it by county or state-- collect all liberty activities into one feed to promote activism.

wizardwatson
01-26-2011, 03:09 PM
Very little web programming here.
I can do the coding but choose not to.
My talents are requirements analysis and debugging.

Regarding the former...
No matter what SDLC model you're using, step 1 is generally always "define the problem".
What is the problem you're trying to solve?
How is it not solved by this site, dailypaul, mises.org, LRC, etc, etc, etc?

Definitely we should start at the "planning" phase.

The problem as I see it is that:

1. Activists need a place to "touch base". Would be awesome if people could update their availability via some simple online mechanism (read my below response to teacherone). A place where you can fill out very targeted surveys that allow you to know who's online at any given time, who's available for what purpose.

2. This one I'm not 100% on. A place to upload, discuss, vote on, plans and projects that would work in tangent with point 1 above.

Both these ideas require a lot of definition in terms of "how do we define a plan", "what are good 'availability' metrics, etc. I don't think CFL, or the other sites you mention do either of these things really. RPF, Dailypaul, are mainly news threads, Mises is an intellectualists playground. Check out www.groundcrew.us if you want to see an example of a solution to point 1. Point 2 would be more along the lines of a votable/sortable wiki though not as advanced from the wiki side anyway. GunnyFreedom had some good ideas in one of his threads.

wizardwatson
01-26-2011, 03:19 PM
something like a liberty twitter would be cool.

could do it by county or state-- collect all liberty activities into one feed to promote activism.

Are you saying to create a feed that "follows" all liberty activists twitter accounts? Or to make something twitter like?

I had an idea (kind of a solution looking for a problem since I don't exactly know how it would fit in), about how to do the main communication with activists. Instead of updating twitter, we could use email (Google App Engine would be perfect for this - that's what I'm currently using). Everyone has email on their phones nearly. You have one "system" email address everyone "sends" to and receives from. We could use some kind of "code abbreviations for reporting your current availability within the email. Like "@home:offline" or something even simpler. People could get updates via email about a plan that relates to their area for instance and could email a short message like "@planid ni" for not interested for instance.

We could then have a "feed" of actual activity rather than simply feeds of news items. All done through email. the site would be there too, but for quick updates you could email the server, and the server could send you status reports for things that are relevant to you.