Political Reform Scorecard - action plan (crosspost from Open Data Ireland)

[gerry k]

Myself and Johnny Ryan got together yesterday evening to discuss possible courses of action in the realisation of this project. The main crux was that in light of how soon the next general election is, stage 1 is to be bypassed, and the project is to be launched at stage 2.

The first course of action is to get a placeholder page up. For the moment I will host it, but, when traffic deems it necessary, we will have to look at a more sustainable (but costly) solution... maybe Amazon AWS or a hosting plan at Blacknight. Other ideas would be most welcome.

The placeholder page will consist of the following... a logo, a twitter feed, the project document and a paypal donate button.

I am not a designer, so anyone with design chops that fancies taking a look would be welcomed.

I can code, so, if necessary can do the twitter integration, but likewise, if anyone else wants in, please feel free.

We have chosen Drupal initially for a couple of reasons... I am prepared to get started on it immediately and time is a factor, it is pretty fit-for-purpose, and it provides for scalability, has a good ongoing roadmap and allows for relatively straightforward migration to another platform. There is also a solid skillbase in DERI in Galway, which might facilitate involvement from them. I haven't disregarded the suggestions made by other members of this list, but it seemed that in the short timescale we are faced with, that some sort of movement was necessary.
I apologise if anyone thinks it was a premature call, but, when time permits, this can be discussed further. I am going to proceed with D6, as it provides the greatest maturity in terms of available modules (like ratings etc). Once D7 catches up (probably about 6 months, from past experience) upgrade will be straightforward, as is usually the case with Drupal.

So, in short... immediate requirements are: gfx/logo design, page layout, twitter feed
Next in line would be any input from people with data modelling experience. I am good at the Drupal implementation stuff, but would appreciate input from anyone with experience in this field, or any suggestions, to be honest.

I'll leave it to Johnny to chime in with delivery dates for all of this.

- Gerry

[Johnny Ryan]

Thanks Gerry, done at
https://groups.google.com/group/open-data-ireland/browse_thread/thread/1967d64c12df466c/3a7523a1cfc69e76