Introducing myself and my goals for this month....

[DrSKooT]

I recently sent a mass e-mail out to some members I ran across in Teamspeak. This is the mail I sent them.

    So I am uber serious about developing the ZM sites and/or chapters and I want to be in touch with everyone else who does. This way we can either be heard collectively and find a workable solution to how we can make the ZM site as easy and powerful as possible, or start our own open source project. I am even willing to go as far as purchase own our domain name and hosting space to start this project if I am unable to work with the ZM admins. I have a billion ideas for development and all I need is a platform to start building on. I'm sure some of you feel the same.

    I have been involved in this movement for over 2 years now and I have not been impressed with the rate of web and communication development. I'm ready to start working on any type of tool / site / software that better connects members who want to communicate or contribute information, time, effort, media, blogs, or any other material, skill, or service they can offer .

    Since I have no idea who most of you are I would welcome any info about yourselves that you could provide me with on how you would like or be able to help. So let me tell you what I am planning, and you let me know how you would like to help..

    What I am seeking to do is either work with the existing Zeitgeist Joomla site or develop a new Joomla 1.5 site. Users will have accounts, be organized by area, with options of joining groups and seeing their own unique pages relevant to their area/group. Messaging system, linked to facebook, twitter... with blogspace, chat bar, image and file hosting, article creation, etc.. to maximize user experience. This is what I consider hardcore dev project and would only need a small trustworthy team of intelligent minds, or honestly I could do it myself.. lol   Then there is content...

    The site can be basically assembled in a week enough to allow media contribution. There is a lot of information in the world so it needs to be organized and easily navigated. Preferably relevant to RBE concepts. =)  Sections would be created for News, Education, Handouts, Radio Shows, YouTube Videos, Open Source Software, etc. and obviously sections will have sub categories for more specific information. I want the site to empower the user. The movies are basic at this point, and we need a database of relevant information to move forward with....  A Wiki+HowStuffWork+ZeitNews+Facebook+OpenSecrets+YouTube but with more type thing centered around RBE ideas and concepts.

    The main goal of the site is to keep the user up to date with relevant world/area news and events, communicate with friends and team members with similar goals and interests, entertain and educate about sustainable practices, and eliminate "dead ends" by allowing users to participate and contribute more material to the site as a whole. Every user should be able to be educated to a point to where they can contribute to the site. If they don't know how to do something, there will be an educational tutorial about how to do it. Everybody knows how to do something, so lets start combining our forces so that we can collectively educate the masses. With enough information the RBE concept become self evident. Lets help others get to a point to where they can see that this direction is necessary, and create an environment that encourages social change. Uniting like minded people who want to collaborate towards sustainable social change while educating and providing them with the tools to assist them.

So again please reply or connect with me if you want to help, and let me know what you do or how you want to contribute.


E-mail:   m...@drskoot.com
Skype:   drskoot
facebook.com/drskoot
twitter.com/drskoot

www.drskoot.com

[Sebastian Chedal]

Hello drskoot, others,

Thank you for taking the time to form a body of people together, and to work on a new website revision.

Since I am "new" to the dev-team, some of what I may say is already known or redundant, or worse: irrelevant, if so I sincerely apologize, newbee-grace?

1. The movement would benefit greatly from a website that was polished, free of prominent "bugs" and had an extremely well designed/thought-out layout, architecture etc. We are a "technology movement" and quite honestly, no disrespect intended to anyone: the existing site is somewhat of an embarrassment [see below for some examples].
   
2. We should have an issue tracker where we can post development items, assign them to someone's name, assign to a release version, priority, area [design, SEO, development etc] and status [new, open, duplicate, won't fix, inprog etc]. People could then log in, find an issue unassigned, and then take on the issue and fix/develop it on a test-env for later code-merge into a stage env with production data.
3. At least three environments for code development: live, test and stage and use of GIT or SVN for code development [if lacking].
   
4. There should be some central overview of the skills involved in the team, like an HR resource, so that different programmers/coordinators can find other programmers, for particular projects / needs. If one person alone can make the website ten times better, think what 1,000 of us could do if properly networked and coordinated on this and/or other web projects??

Some of the main problems with the current site might include:

1. URLs are not clean, bad SEO and looks ugly when pasting around URLs
2. User log-in AI flow is clunky and confusing
   
3. Layout of chapter pages is poor
4. Deep links to forum often "break" when posted on twitter, so you can't tweet your website [or deeplink for that mater]
   
5. Site is slow and sometimes down [hosting limits? and/or code optimization]
6. Overall site design / menu system is lacking, and feels amateur
   
7. Lack of data objects: most of the site is flat HTML where it could instead be data objects. This over-site prevents future feature scalability. For example: a "resource" shouldn't be a line of HTML, it should be a dataobject with properties: URL, picture, type, authorname [link], votes etc. You can then search or sort by field, display a sortable list, or have an RSS/XML feed for just resource types. This is just one example, but there are literally dozens of implied but "missing" datatypes. In Drupal I would call this a "Node" with CCK fields. Presumably in Joomla you have the same concept.

Now I am very willing to help, I have a lot of design and IA experience. If the site was in Drupal, I would also be able to help with the programming. Should it somehow be of need: I specialize in making the admin-interfaces of my Drupal sites incredibly user-friendly and simple for content administrators.

If you wish, you may see examples of my work on:

http://fountain-city.com under both "blog" and "examples" links.

To see some of my IA and management documentation/processes, please click "portfolio" and then "IA and PM examples" for a flip-book.

Again, thank you for your time. It is a pleasure and honor to participate in this process and I wish the website a fabulous rebirth in it's next Joomla 1.5 incarnation!

Let's make the website shine.

Sincerely,

Sebastian Chedal

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-- 
Sebastian Chedal
http://chedal.org
http://twitter.com/schedal
skype: schedal
503 706 2858

[DrSKooT]

     I dig the site. a few bugs. I really like that Issuu picture browsers. I don't see a way to make an account, but I like the content. it's way nicer looking than my site. lol

[Nick Polimeni]

Hi, Doc,

I know where you're coming from, and I have a similar view about combining resources, and building something really good. Read my approach article in the wiki: http://wiki.zmlingteam.org/w/General_Ideas#Concepts_and_Approach.

This is very much wanted, and I think this is the process... at least, we need to build a foundation of people committed to that idea, and go from there... and I think we can build that foundation with this group.

Cheers, Nick

[James Tarpinian]

Hi DrSKooT,

I dig it! Although I'm a pretty fresh programmer, I have a lot of time
on my hands, learn fast, and of course have motivation. I've been
trying to get in touch with the Oregon chapter but responses are very
slow. Plus I am a new member of the movement so I doubt (and
understand) that they are going to trust me with making any changes to
the website. If you are so inclined, could you perhaps try and contact
them about beefing up our page? At the very least I would love to have
the American Chapter Map you created up there. Let me know if there's
anything I can help with.

J~

[DrSKooT]

I have zero pull with anyone in the movement.. lol but lets keep in
touch and maybe we can work together on something someday

Skype drskoot
facbook drskoot.
google drskoot
everything drskoot

[Nick Polimeni]

Come on, Doc... you've got pull with me!

When people make sense, they do in general have in their logic, the power to get others to listen...

At present there's a lot open in what the Global Developers' team is doing.

As I keep mentioning, the Global Developers' wiki keeps growing with information and guidelines to make it possible for those who want to play and contribute, to do so. The work is set up so that there is room for every good idea.

Of course, TZM is a large movement, and with few rules on how to work, so we have to learn to work with others, regardless of their ideas, be they silly or brilliant. I think TZM is also a new world and new view about collaboration without duress. We should try it.

Everyone here, I have to assume, wants to make a better world for all. But few if any will go to a better world where they were not able to add at least a few pieces. So, we should try to embrace what comes, and figure out ways to work with them.

At the Intro Page of the GG, there are links which now work... and where you can go to the wiki, and get an overview of what it's all about... and of course, you can contribute.

[waycooljr]

Nick, I am the Portland Oregon Chapter coordinator. I have some lines of communication with the State cood. I have been made an admin on the state site, but there are several issues with getting that state site updated or away from the standard template that has been provided by global TZM. This has driven me a little crazy but I am more then busy just keeping things going with the Portland chapter and websites.

Please email me directly and maybe we can arrange a state teamspeak meeting to talk about what we need and what we can do. At the very lease, I am sure that we can at lease get some of DrSkoot's magic on there.

-Jesse

ad...@zeitgeistpdx.org

[waycooljr]

Sorry Nick, this was intended for James Tarpinian. Picked the wrong name in the thread.

-Thanks

Jesse (waycooljr)

Skype jesse.gravenor

Email admin at zeitgeistpdx.org