SITE TECHNICAL PLANS

Draft 0: 2004-06-14

This is a preliminary draft for discussion, which has not yet been discussed, let alone approved, by either the technical group or the management committee.

Immediate

Before reopening registration for participation as members of the site we have to:

1. Test and provide some minimal end user documentation for the enhanced Blog that will be the main focus for participation and for the site generally.
2. Finalize a folder structure for published documents so that discussions in the Blog can use permanent URLs to link to related documents.
3. Inform people who have joined the announcements email list advertised on the front page that they can request their old user account names and join in the final tests just before we reopen to the general public.

That should all be feasible very soon.

Initially, users should be referred to the generic end user documents for the software we are using at plone.org and www.cmfboard.org

Also anyone interested in helping on the technical side should start by installing their own Plone web site with CMFBoard for discussions on their own PC. No skills are required to get started. Just download and double click to install your own desktop webserver and content management system!

Each registered user can also create an entire personal web site within their own personal folder on this site, as well as being able to keep track of what’s new since they last logged in and “favorites” and “topic searches” pointing to areas they are interested in.

Group folders for joint editing by active participants in particular projects will also be available.

Transitional

Then we can proceed to:

1. Generally enhance the usability of the site within essentially the same framework as the old site, except that the “forum” has become more like a Blog, published documents and links, including links to highlighted Blog discussions are stored within folder categories, and more emphasis on active participation through personal and group folders as well as comments in reply to Blog items.
2. Restore material recovered from the Google cache when the old site was stuffed and integrate it within the new site.

The site will then essentially work as follows.

Anyone who has registered as a “member” can contribute documents and links to external sites in their personal folders and refer to them via links in their comments in reply to Blog items.

A small group of “reviewers” can start new topics on the Blog and can select documents and links that have been contributed by members for inclusion as part of the site’s “published” (and therefore easily accessible) navigation structure rather than just within personal folders.

Ad hoc groups can work together on jointly editing material for publication.

Later

We can develop in various directions, including separately managed sub-sections of the site, using the very powerful facilities available from Plone.

One direction we are likely to move in is much greater integration into the “Blogosphere” and the web generally, with a regular flow of links to interesting items supplied by members as they browse other web sites and a smaller flow of properly categorized published links and documents and Blog items starting topics discussing those links and documents.

At the same time we can also export that material, in categories, both as news feeds to other Bloggers and as email subscriptions etc.