Update

[Ken Cooper]

I’ve changed course a bit for short term solutions. Late last week I
was monitoring the chatter on CR, and there were clearly some serious
problems with JS Kit indicated. I had hoped it was mostly a UI issue,
but people have been frequently reporting dropped and duplicated
posts. Not a good base to work from, and I see some attrition
happening out of frustration.

So what I’ve been doing this week is working towards getting a simple
system up and running, with haloscan like functionality. I think
that’s most likely to keep people happy while the next generation code
is incubating.

I’ve quit work on the chunk server approach, and I’m now actively
building a site using drupal 6, on the premise that it has an
extensive range of functionality that should meet our needs longer
term (built in page caching, a flexible roles based permissions model,
moderation features, RSS feeds, SOLR integration, and rich taxonomy,
for example).

My intent is to get a basic site up and running, and then get
volunteers involved in prettying it up for release.

In preparation, Lawrence Krubner has graciously set us up with an svn
repository and basecamp environment for project management. The
basecamp system looks like it might work better for us than this
google group, so anyone seriously interested in volunteering, please
contact me via email, and I’ll see where we can fit you in.

In the immediate term, areas we need help with:
- cross browser javascript developers for some simple client side
behaviors I have in mind. We’ll be working with jquery.
- graphic design for the comments page itself, and for the broader
site as we expand.
- apache/drupal tuning. I will be setting up a server soon.
- staging scripts, in php (with some drupal integration).
- testers

Longer term, there will be more cross browser javascript, drupal/php,
and some firefox javascript addin work (i.e. next gen CRC).

[Asun Cakep]

OMG, Ken's update to HCN killed Amazon EC2!!!11!!ONE