Re: RFC: anize.org

[Ciaran <cj@x21.org>]

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On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, Douglas F. Elznic wrote:
> [: hacktivism :]
>
> Hello,
>  I have been a activist for a  while and have been involved in computers
> for a very long time. I am in the process of setting up a slash like
> server for online activvism. I was interested in seeing if anyone else
> has any interest in seeing something like this being made. I have looked
> around and there seem to be little peices of what i would like to create
> but nothing that captures it all. Any comments suggestions volunteers?

Hmmm - 'slash like' - I take it you mean slashdot - news for nerds. Would this
be more of a 'news for active nerds', or what? I am working on a prototype model
of a generic news portal / article posting / binary uploading system loosely
derived from the Indymedia concept (although with 100% original code). It is
almost entirely PHP 4 based, with mySQL databasing. I plan to acquire a service
provider in a coupla weeks to replace my current one and hopefully have the
first version online by Dec 25 or thereabouts (I heard there was something
significant about that day). It is partly in response to a need for a
text archiving facility which has exploded into the next big thing (for
me anyway). Here's a loose description of the model I am working to:

#Frontpage news
#Sections for different topics
#Article rating
#Article comments
#Search facility listed by rating or date of submission
#User login (only name and email taken - this is to allow people to be associated
with articles and comments and thus retain an 'identity' based on what they say)
#Post-posting editing (if you get it wrong, you may edit the posting for up to
one hour after submission - it is then 'live' and you can't touch it.)
#User history - view the articles you have submitted, their ratings
etc.
#Yellow pages / contacts listing.
#Forums.

I have been an activist for a coupla years (I was pretty active in Manchester
England but have moved to Ireland now so am 'dormant' IRL). I'm hoping to get
back to a city in a year or so and get reinvolved. I have been working with
computers in many guises for four years or thereabouts. This current development
is on Linux with apache and MySQL 3.22.32, and the system will probably only run
on a *nix system. The aim is to provide a system that people can just drop into
their htdocs folder and with a little tweaking have a fully functional news
portal. I plan to make the configuration a web-based interface so that the
sysadmin can log in and set the whole thing up with a minimum of fuss - fonts,
colours, images (titlebars, etc) sections. It is also modular so that extra
functionality can be added with little or no fuss at a later date. I have only
been working on this for a few weeks, and in my spare time so the development is
fairly young, and the decision to go the MySQL route was only taken a few days
ago, but PHP is a wonderfully quick tool to develop with.
	Does any of this bear any resemblance to what you had in mind? If so
you can drop me a line on or off list. I am happy to share ideas and code and
perhaps develop a collaboration.
	BTW, while I am definitely one of the lurkers on this list and not a
contributer, it is because I have had great difficulty in figuring out what it
is for :-)

Regards,

Ciaran.

 --
---
"Anyone can make mistakes, but for very big mistakes, you need a computer."

cj@x21.org
RESIST AND CREATE . . .


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