Vision document

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pmackay's picture

Hi,

When talking to people about this project there is a need for a short document that could outline the vision and key goals of what we are aiming for. What does anyone else think about that? It could go as content on transitiondrupal.org but a PDF could be good too.

If its felt this would make sense I could have a stab at writing a OpenOffice doc (which can save as PDF).

paul

Comments

Great idea

aangel's picture

Hi, Paul.

I think it's a great idea. Now that we have permission with the name I feel more comfortable putting effort into transitiondrupal.org.

If you want to make a stab at it I say say go for it! Personally, I wouldn't put the effort into a PDF. Just make a page on td.org and send people the link. Or, if you need a printout for some purpose, just print the page.


Andre Angelantoni
Founder, PostPeakLiving.com

Great idea

edmittance's picture

Brilliant idea Paul,

I'm very keen that Transition Drupal and the Transition Network (http://www.transitionnetwork.org) sites are connected in process and data sharing, so this would be really helpful.

ta
Ed

Expand a bit?

pmackay's picture

Hi Ed,

Could you expand a bit on the connection for process? I think I understand the data sharing stuff, we need to document common content types and the like. Any thoughts on best place to record that?

I think Andre's point about using the website makes sense, rather than separate doc, if we can get a dedicated page for a general overview of the project..

Bit more expansion

edmittance's picture

Hiya,

Best place to record is on Transition Drupal, absolutely. I think I had an id on there, if not, will get one and participate therein. This is quick and early after an insomnia night, before some local council workshops, so forgive my brevity.

On process - well - Transition Network is primarily a directory of people, projects, initiatives and (just about to go public) patterns.
The social networking stuff we're not taking onboard (although I do a bit of Facebook, we do some tweeting as you would expect). The profiles do have some sociality built in (location and contact), but we're not going down the whole status updates etc. etc. patterns.

The initiative profiles reflect the taxonomy of the movement (local initiatives, local co-ordinating hubs, regional co-ordinating hubs, national hubs).

We have the Community Microsites, which are deliberately simple organic groups configs (news/events/members/pages - http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/ed-mitchell/2010-02/community-mic...). These are not intended to be any more sophisticated - they are intended to fit into the constellation of all the different choices initaitives can make (especially TD).

There is a process for initiatives who want to 'go official' (http://www.transitionnetwork.org/support/becoming-official). And that is reflected in that we set a number to an 'official' initiative, which then appears via the various views in the right places.

So I guess I'm thinking that we've got content types and other data sharing stuff (no problem), which we can help with in our phase 3 (Sharing Engine: outside the walled garden) later this year, but we need to ensure that users know where they are and, if possible for the sites to work together - probably a bit of user journey work..

Sorry this is waffly - count me in on co-working on the page when it's there,
Best
Ed

My hat: In

Jim Kirkpatrick's picture

Hello all,

I'm Jim Kirkpatrick and I've been working with Ed Mitchell a lot over the past year on the Transition Network site. Indeed, I'm the developer that did most of the work on the site. In addition to that I've been lurking here since the start of the group. So, hello!

I just thought this would be an apt moment to say 'hi' and that I'm on hand to answer any more technical questions about the site, or indeed to pitch in on code, theme, views etc. development and design for this project. Am moving house and a bit all over the place presently, but want to get involved as my time allows.

On the topic of data sharing, there are several modules and views in place on TN.org that allows exporting/importing of data (views+bonus, feeds etc) - we just need to agree the method(s) and some common features of the content types I guess.

Anyway, I'm around and willing to help.

Best,

Jim

nice to meet you

aangel's picture

Hey, Jim. Pleased to meet and you welcome aboard!

Take a look at the Requirements Document so far:
http://transitiondrupal.org/reqs-1.0

Once the beta of D7 is released and the contributed modules we need start being ported we will divvy up the work and your help at that point would be invaluable!


Andre Angelantoni
Founder, PostPeakLiving.com

As for vision

Jim Kirkpatrick's picture

And since I'm here, just wanted to say well done all for getting things this far!

My £0.02 on the Vision thing:

  • Core: Replace Ning where possible: basic social networking, events, news, comments, etc
  • Facilitate the TN 12 ingredients and similar 'getting off the ground' actions: messaging/notifications, newsletter, wiki and mailing list type stuff
  • Be really easy to set up (installation profile) and nice to use (Drupal 7) but have the power to be extended easily without having to have a developer (e.g. just turn a feature on and configure).
  • Allow events and news to be easily cross-posted/imported on TN.org, and/or other national hub sites. RSS & RDF everywhere. Many other 3 letter abbreviations too!
  • A nice theme out the box supporting colouring and being accessible/usable on mobile devices (a growing audience) and by the elderly/poorly sighted. A choice of themes later.
  • (Later) have a repository of other Transition-y features for users to download and install.

I realise I'm re-covering some ground here so apologies for just barging in, but most local initiatives would love the basics covered in a non-techy way. Ning did that, till they pulled the inevitable cash-cow manoeuvre. I think, as Ed is suggesting, a key requirement here is to create and build a network, global in reach. No website is an island, as is no man or Transition initiative!

Oh, and perhaps a Google doc rather than a PDF for now so several people can edit?

Best,

Jim

Good summary

pmackay's picture

Hi Jim, great to hear from you :-)

I agree with Andre's initial comment that its probably best to just develop the content straight on td.org, so I'm going to start to edit that, unless you feel strongly that wouldn't work? Or I could start a Google doc and it could be transferred later...

Great summary of key features, we could drill into some of those and make them a bit more concrete over time.

Regarding events and sharing with TN.org, do you have the current content types used on that site documented? Can we start to develop a set of core fields that would be common across the sites?

If there are any theme suggestions to start with that would be good to know, but I suspect we'll ultimately want something customised.

Thinking of "vision" ideas, for the other Transition-y features, what I'd like to see is that a Transition site can be a central point for many things that are currently springing up in many other websites. So rather than having to register on sites for recording fruit, exchanging/trading/giving stuff, sharing gardens and so on, all those kinds of things are supported on the Transition site. This would then support perhaps a dashboard covering the community, or a block listing ways people can contribute (Add a fruit tree, share your stuff, share your garden...).

Paul, that whole piece about

aangel's picture

Paul, that whole piece about connecting to other sites is a big one that someone needs to tackle at some point. There are a lot of moving pieces!


Andre Angelantoni
Founder, PostPeakLiving.com

Or...

pmackay's picture

Do we connect to other sites (of which there will be an increasing number) or attempt to roll our own modules to support at least basic versions of some of those things?

I think that call has to be

aangel's picture

I think that call has to be made on a case-by-case basis. For instance, do we re-implement what the folks over at greenmap.org have done? Maybe, because it is likely to be a core feature of any initiative (some sort of mapping system). Plus, integration may not be easy or desirable. They might use some weird code library that we just don't want to support or is not easy to support, like Java.

It might make sense to integrate a feature in version 1.0 but put the call out for a developer to code our own version for version 2.0.

So it really comes down to the list of features we want to roll out and whether it is more work to build than to integrate, plus an assessment of how much time it takes to do either one and how much maintenance and support work we are setting ourselves up for.

Everything has a cost and even integration with other systems takes time, especially when the integration has to be documented and then people need to be supported after rollout.

For version 1.0, I recommend that we pretty much include nothing other than the modules that are ported to D7. We are going to have our hands full with those, is my guess.


Andre Angelantoni
Founder, PostPeakLiving.com

Hi all, Mapping is great, and

Jim Kirkpatrick's picture

Hi all,

Mapping is great, and combined with a decent taxonomy will be invaluable to small local groups. However, GMaps, Location and others aren't ready for D7 yet, so this one's naturally on the back burner for now - see http://drupal.org/node/692938

My point about sharing between sites is that the Feed aggregator is already in and working for D7... So the main thing is to:

  • make sure each TD install creates nice feeds out the box. A general feed, one for events, another for news, blogs etc will allow other nearby groups to pull in information that might be relevant to locals. It'll also allow the Sharing Engine on the main TN site to have lots of food, once it's in place. This means creating a few extra views as part of the features we add to provide feeds - all very straight forward.
  • make sure the Feed aggregator is easy to use (it is) and obvious to find (it isn't really) - so the idea of a TD 'dashboard' as Paul mentioned is a good one.

The above is possible in TD 1.0 easily. I can certainly help write a TD Dashboard module.

I reckon that, in an ideal world/later versions, we would create a module that can talk to TN.org (or later any other TD install) that allows any TD install to know what is around it geographically, and how to talk to these sites. My point here isn't to create a hierarchy or control, just facilitate communication and support of the newcomer by linking it in immediately and providing a rich source of events, news, blog posts and other stuff. This is a dream, obviously, but a simple "I'm here" module in each TD install combined with a "Thanks, we've got you - here's what's nearby" module at TN.org and some views at each end might make this a really powerful tool by getting groups connected to their local initiatives and inspiring one another from the start - configurable and turn-offable, obviously.

Whaddayathink?

Another point is that the Location module for D7 seems to be some way off, but TN.org has a pretty complete directory and runs on D6 with full location capabilities... I would strongly recommend keeping things 'Drupal' where possible, too... 3rd party libraries make sense for some stuff, but if there's a Drupal 'standard', we should stick to it to avoid extra coding/bugs/hassle and help the wider Drupal community.

Oh, and I've registered on TD.org - can I have some edit permissions please? Pretty please? I'll be gentle!

Best,

Jim

When you say dashboard here,

pmackay's picture

When you say dashboard here, are you thinking of an admin dashboard or something for users? Would users do anything with the feed aggregator?

Having a way for a site to figure out other nearby initiatives and be configurable to pull in content from them would be awesome. I'm often coming across situations where this would help. Just today I talked to someone one who mentioned calendar aggregation would be good, so one calendar view could show multiple inputs, like Google Calendar does.

For the user dashboard, might it be good to call it a noticeboard? Dashboard is perhaps a bit techie? When I discussed wiki pages in our group, one comment was that it might be easier calling it Notes, just to be a bit more common for all. Maybe the idea of a customisable community noticeboard page per user would make sense to more users?

aggregation

edmittance's picture

for what it's worth, we'll be aggregating a lot of (TT/partner) sites using Managing News (and then making sense of it all in some way) as part of our development phase 3 - November-ish. The aim is to start with straight RSS, then move into more complicated structures like events. In parallel, phase 3 has a goal to explore sharing project/initiative data 'outside the login' between different spaces. Some slightly out of date info here: http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/ed-mitchell/2010-02/sharing-engine

So to put it briefly, we'll be working on a sharing engine thing which is there to be shared ...

Third Party Partners

bkeevil's picture

I know in our case we are doing a lot of work with other more established 'green' groups. We partner with one group for 'green screenings' and the locavores are already doing a database of local food producers. When we talk about content sharing amongst initiatives, that's good, but perhaps this idea needs to be extended to information sharing with other non-transition partners. Edmittance has alluded to this and perhaps other people too because I haven't been able to read all the posts yet.

What I'd like to see is a well defined data format for exchanging callander events, blog posts, food producer listings, etc. and a protocol for exchanging this information that is technology independent and can therefore include non-transition partners.

I'm thinking data exchange should be done by XML, so the place to start would be creating a DTD that defines the exchange protocol or interface between sites. I don't think we should base it on RSS because it is not really designed for synchronizing database records and therefore we'll outgrow it quickly.

RDF

aangel's picture

Well-defined is a good idea and RDF seems to be gaining some steam (finally):

Why RDF model is different from the XML model
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/RDF-XML.html


Andre Angelantoni
Founder, PostPeakLiving.com

Transition Directory

bkeevil's picture

I wrote a two page summary with a UML class diagram of a "Transition Directory" here.

http://ttnorthbay.org/files/TransitionDirectory.pdf

Outside of the current scope, but I'm thinking that we ought to do something custom that meets our long-term requirements rather than rely on a variety of third party apps and over-abstracted protocols.

RDF represents our data closer than XML, but we have a lot of data that doesn't fit subject-predicate-object relationships (a discussion forum for example). Also too abstract for the average local webmaster and we don't need these sorts of abstractions...when will we ever need to represent data with an unknown structure on a website?

A single initiative doesn't generate enough content on it's own to attract people to the site...too small.

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