Group Project Ideas for the Central Connecticut Drupal Meetup Group

Or better put over the top. Well here our some thoughts
Something we don't have to worry about breaking.

In order to do over the top you will start with the basics (blocks, menus, CCK, Views, permissions, roles, themes, rules etc.) but will allow us to go beyond that and learn new Drupal possibilities and alternative ways to do things.

I like the idea of multisite especially with a single log in and multiple database connections.

"Do it with Drupal" has done Basecamp, Flickr, and Twitter in the past.

A social network is one that comes to mind. Mainly because a open source Facebook alternative is wanted(needed) all over the internet. Also if we could build something like this and have it be stable we could also release it as a install profile on Drupal.org. A social site can cover so much and can get really complex allowing us to cover just about anything any of us can think of.

Multisite could be: Social Network(Mijn Drupal): Company Site/Community/Store

And while most may not have the need to build a Social Network it's making people think differently and what goes into building it that people should find useful. For me a lot of the learning curve to Drupal was learning to think "Drupal". I've found that even methods and modules introduced to me that I don't currently use have made me look at things differently and help me come up with better and more efficient ways of doing things now.

Development Seed did a intranet with Open Atrium we could do a CRM although there things like CiviCRM, SimpleCRM and Storm.

Hello Joe and welcome to the group.

As far as where to manage this I’m all for handling this somewhere other than on groups.drupal.org for many reasons. One reason is this project could get it’s start with a small group of us creating a smaller social platform for the overall CT group to communicate and collaborate on. This would allow us to see if this is going to be possible.

I think in order to keep people motivated and involved we would need to have regular scheduled meetings (physical or virtual) and the ability to share screens.

Here our my thoughts on how we might be able to make this work.

I suggest we agree on a project. Layout it out then break it up into small blocks. Project Leader or Leaders would be responsible for the overall progress of the project, distribution of the of blocks, user involvement and making sure the end goal achieved.

The blocks would be chosen by a Project Manager (groups or individuals that would like to take them on). The project managers could then assemble a group or be followed by a group.

Groups would consist of individuals that could help (Contributors)or would just like to follow blocks (Followers).

The project manager would then describe his method for completing the block. This is where members of the group would throw out ideas if they have any. With some blocks this will require collaboration between project managers.

The completion of the block then becomes part of the whole project.

At the end of every block we could then turn it into a presentation for everyone.

Breaking it up into blocks I think allows people to get involved with what interests them and contribute to the topics they know.
It’s like having subjects or chapters in a book.

http://www.mediacurrent.com/blogs/presentation-social-networking-drupal

Found on planet.drupal.org

BuddyPress bills itself as:

Social networking in a box. Build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community all based on the power and flexibility of WordPress.

providing features such as:

• activity streams
• extended profiles
• friend connections
• private messaging
• blogging
• extensible groups

and implemented as a set of plugin extensions and themes built on top of WordPress itself.

Other open source implementations of Social Networking software include:

• Elgg - features
• SocialEngine - features
• Dolphin - features

I read a possible realization of Tom's proposal to be the development of a "BuddyDrupal" on top of Drupal. I believe this would be a fun, educational, flexible and useful project to build.

Given, our different schedules, commitments and interests, the first questions we must answer are "What commitments do we have among group members to build a group project?" and "Is that commitment adequate and sustainable to develop such Social Network functionality on top of Drupal?"

I'd suggest we consider developing a project with a two-tier approach as is done with Drupal itself:

• a Social Network core (e.g. activity streams, extended profiles, friend connections) which is well architected and grows slowly but steadily
• supplemented by contributed modules which add to the core Social Network functionality (e.g. import/export and integration with existing social networks, building of a specific social network, theme development)

I would suggest that the development of the Social Network core be driven by a group of three to five core contributers perhaps divided into a three-person development team, a project manager, a designer, a documenter/educator, a tester, ..., as needed and availability allows. (The core contributer group would include group members who were interested and able to make a more significant and regular commitment towards developing the project.)

Other group members could contribute to the core under the direction of the core group, and/or contribute supplemental modules at a pace that is convenient to their schedules and interests. (This would include group members who could not commit significant and regular time towards developing the project.)

I'd say to move forward, we need three to five people to say, "Yes, I'm willing and able to commitment to being a significant and regular core contributer to the project." I'd suggest part of forming a confident, stable and amiable core contributer group includes potential core contributers getting honest with themselves and other potential core contributers on what is driving their interest in participating as a core contributer (e.g. fun of coding, increasing one's knowledge of Drupal, building a Drupal reputation, giving back to the Drupal community, making a difference in some community) and what role they would like to play when contributing to the project (e.g. lead developer, developer, tester, project manager).

What do others think?

If this sounds reasonable, with respect to participating as a significant and regular core contributer: Who's in? Why are you in? What role would you like to play?

I too would be more interested if there were a philanthropic purpose to the project, such as assisting a non-partisan organization or movement that lacks the funding to build or revamp a site.

I wouldn't stand in anyone's way wanting to to this, but my interests are business-related or giving back to the community, rather than social, so I too would watch and offer comments / feedback.

I can empathize with Sandra and ailgm in that it would be nice to help out a needy organization. My concern is that if the entire group commits to such a venture then the whole of our collective resources might be spent rehashing non-problems and serving as technical support in the long-term.

This being said, I will support and lend my time and expertise to any one in the group looking to help raise up a needy organization. Along these lines I think this stresses the need for our own space as soon as possible, where members can start and manage their own threads, asking questions and soliciting feedback, and keep us all up to date on the status of things. As much as I'm looking forward to working as a team, I would like to learn and share what we all do as individuals.

• Joe

I just want to clarify I have no problem with doing something else but I thought I would just make a few points.

I think everyone is looking at "social" as being another Facebook. I was suggesting more of a framework that could allow individual companies, non-profits or people to create their own social network to accomplish what they need. This could be used for the organizations internal or external purposes. Much like what Development Seed does with their projects.

I suggested a social network because it involves all possible aspects of Drupal that I can think of. So doesn't matter if your theming, building blogs, handling media, or pushing/pulling in data from outside sources everyone is covered and can contribute and learn new things.

@Sandra
Take your intrest in www.matchingdonors.com a social network could very easily work for them.
Users are patients, potential donors, doctors, etc.
So you have patient profiles, donor profiles, etc.
Social would mean that these people can interact with each other, give status updates, post news, events, etc.
There are currently 8203 people that can be sharing experiences, supporting each other, networking to get things done, motivating others, and so on.

@ailgm
As far as philanthropic purpose. The end installation profile or features could be used for these purposes. I'm not sure what you mean by business interests. Developing sites for businesses?

@Joe
I agree with you on needing our own space. Also with directly trying to help an organization while nice I do think the entire idea behind this will get lost with support and other things.

@ahynes1
I was going to try and make it there. We shall see.

@Mark
Agreed. Like I said my initial thought was to do a presentation after completion of individual blocks as I called them which could be recorded and posted online. Much like http://www.doitwithdrupal.com/free-videos

Either way glad to see people interested and hope we can get something going.