[IMC-US-tech] code and site design (was: Site Design)

[sheri at speakeasy.org]

i am not a techie but i'm certainly interested in technology and how it can be designed to do what we most need.  i think a viable search system and categorization of content are key.  i know that there are elements of drupal that are really missing in indymedia codebases (or codebases used by indymedia sites).  the website www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org for example uses drupal (so does howard dean i guess)and the taxonomy on the from occupied palestine site is incredible.  it makes cross-referencing and locating stories really easy.

this is one of indymedia's weaknesses in my humble opniion. we have an incredible archive, but who would know where the best content is...how to access it and make it relevant to the user.  so the user can customize their perimeters of interest and then find what they are interested in.  i'm not sure how metatags work but i understand how they can work.  i know that coders from active2 (a still alive and viable project from what i hear) that this piece was essential in their building it from scratch.  right now, with the way the newswire works, it's like walking into a library with no organization or structure other than a linear one based on time.  so the first book to the last, that's how you can find things...it's crazy.  i often find that the search mechanism doesn't work.

also, another technical issue that is also ideological of course is how to handle the open newswire.  i know that people want to have a "closed" newswire (which i understand sf active allows easily) so that the content can be more handpicked and of course the center column will operate as an editorialized forum.  but i still think we need an open newswire.  and perhaps we could experiment with what imc la and others are looking at - some kind of moderated newswire or where people have to log in/register - or like slashdot and kuro5hin work....so we build a trust matrix as well.

i would hope that the website would be a place for really great consolidation of content from sites in the u.s., but also a place for experimentation with a new kind of website.  if we can learn the best practices from other imcs in the network, i think that would be great.  and evolve it.

i hope we're thinking about some of these things and looking at our options and thinking long term.

in seattle, we've had long discussions on the editorial working group list about switching codebases and there are pros and cons to dada mir and sf-active.  i can share some of that information if people are interested.

love
sheri

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ski at indymedia.org [mailto:ski at indymedia.org]
> Sent: Thursday, October 2, 2003 04:09 PM
> To: sheri at speakeasy.org
> Cc: imc-us-tech at ucimc.org
> Subject: Re:  [IMC-US-tech] Re: [IMC-US] Site Design
> 
> > what do you mean by it hits the database reallyhard?
> 
> I mean that the way dada uses the database can slow down the site if it
> has heavy traffic. I think there are ways around this (high-bandwidth
> imc's like dc and barcelona use dada), but they might be tricky.
> 
> Peace
> Brian Szymanski
> ski at indymedia.org
> bks10 at cornell.edu
> 
>