I've been working on the concept for a little while now, and the software side is mostly there. Myself along with a few others have been working on a site called
Progress For Texas, a community based website for progressives, liberals, Democrats, Greens, and just overall good people from Texas.
We have quite a few features that can't even be found on dailykos, and some things that are familiar enough that people from here depend on that you should be able to jump right in.
For a list of features as well as what we are looking for help with, read the extended copy of this.
What We Have
The site is similar to a combination of dailykos and meetup. That may sound strange but once you check it out, you'll figure it out. Below, in no particular order, is a list of some of the features we have or will have in the near future:
- Blogs (like the Diaries here.)
- Events (a calendar and RSVP system to organize things similar to meetup.)
- Articles (front page stories.)
- Blogger integration (experimental, but you should be able to post to the site from the Blogger interface.)
- RSS integration (if you have a personal website and want to have new items on it posted to your blog over on PFT, we can set that up with your provided XML/RSS/Atom feed. I am looking into adding dailykos diaries support as well.)
- Private messages (contact other members of the site privately without needing to post your email and get spam as well as risk your privacy.)
- Polls
- Buddy Lists (track new content from people that you like, and provide the ability to find new "buddies" by seeing who others have listed.)
- Wiki Support (link words in your articles and blogs to their wikipedia and dkosopedia entries.)
Ok, there's more, and we intend to add more, but that should give you a good idea of the main features. Despite all the differences, it should be easy to adjust to anyone that uses sites like Dailykos.
What We Want From You
We used a slightly modified version of CivicSpace (which in turn is a modified version of Drupal) for the software. There are a few changes to the software left to be made, however, it is mostly ready and we're wanting to see if we can get some of you that are interested in Texas politics to check it out and help us with testing.
Create an account, create blogs, events, articles, polls, comments, buddy lists, private messages, and all sorts of other things. We want you to use the system and let us know what can be improved upon, what new features you would like, and what things you doubt you would use that we can get rid of.
What's Left For Us
As I said before, the site is still under construction to a degree. There are a few features and improvements that are still being worked on. Nothing major, but some things that would be nice. Here are the main ones:
- Mapping Support. I originally had set up a mapquest link to be able to find the locations on events by just clicking on the link. However, after playing around with Google maps, I think I know which I would prefer to use. So, this is priority number one for me. Basically all I want is to have an inline div on the events page that shows where the map is. In the future I plan to also allow maps to be displayed so you can search for events by proximity to where you are located.
- The look and feel of the site. At the same time, another person will be working on the GUI. The theme used is a default one that CivicSpace ships with, but with a few minor tweaks to it. It's good, but it can be improved.
- Event attendees. After I finish the mapping integration, I need to figure out the best way to allow everyone to have some sort of access to find out how many people are attending an event. This could be done fairly easily by just providing a number next to the event with a count of attendees (because we do allow people to register to attend via RSVP), but I might try to do something more elegant and allow the event coordinator to list out the names if he/she chooses to, or to not list them at all publicly (which is already the case.)
- Better integration. We are not out to replace every site on the internet related to politics. In fact, part of our philosophy is to find better ways to integrate with everyone else and provide our users an easy way to go from one to another and to have one source for being able to say what you want to multiple audiences. As a result, we're big fans of using feeds and XML for various things. Not only are we set up to be able to consume XML from other sites for various purposes, but we are working on providing full XML feeds to everything we can. Some sites do not provide XML data to the public, so we are looking at other ways of getting that data as well. I know how to do a web scrape via a few different pieces of software as well as formatting it and inserting it onto the site, but it is a process that requires manual maintenance and would be a pain to set up. Other things like email mailing lists that we may want to work with could also be done. In fact, we already have the ability to let people submit blogs and stories via email, but I haven't looked into it well enough yet to know if it's a security risk though.
- Graphics. We can add the ability to upload photos, show graphics in stories, and include a photo on your profile. The question is not the technology, but rather whether or not we have enough storage space on the server, how easy it will be to delete offensive photos, and whether or not I want someone to see my ugly mug.
There are other, minor things, such as adding smiley face support. Yes, it's lame, but it's fun.
Thank You
All in all, what we really need is help from the user community to figure out what needs to be done. If this new community is to amount to anything, it requires users. It's not a personal blog for one person like many others out there are. It is meant to be a community site. The goal that those of us who have set up for it is to be able to participate with other Texans and just blend in with everyone else. None of us wants to be "The Bloggar!!!11" like Markos, Atrios, or any other os out there. My own personal interest is mainly in just having a decent Texas-themed web community with all the features that I want. I don't participate a ton around here, and will only do so a little more there. We would like to see some decent writers and people who want to organize events go there and set up shop. I didn't work on this site to provide myself with a blog. I've already got a personal website. However, you can make it your blog if you'd like, and you can use it as a soapbox for your own interests, and as your own organization.
This is our gift to you. If you want it, enjoy it. If not, that's fine too.