Re: [hackers] How should we be enforcing Creative Commons liscenses?

[Joshua Koenig]

My choice is to require all people who sign up using our code to 
concede all
rights to their material to a Creative Commons share alike attribution
liscense. (or they we could give htem a couple other options for 
different CC
liscenses).
I think we want to stay clear of -forcing- people to licence their 
content in a particular way. However, I do think we can "highly 
recommend" a particular licence, as well as making it the default (and 
opt-out situation). We also must explain to people why we are doing 
this; most normal folks don't understand copyright issues.

Perhaps licencing information needs to be a part of our RSS 
syndication? E.g. Should some Site decide not to release their content 
as CC (for whatever reason) such content would be flagged and far less 
likely to be syndicated. People need to be free to shoot themselves in 
the foot from time to time.

- Josh


Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] Reminder - we are still no where on naming the network

[Joshua Koenig]

Please - everyone who is recieving this email.  Go add atleast 3 more 
naming
suggestions to the wikki.
Zack, what's the latest on legalities and naming issues. Does is 
behoove us to have a name without the letters D-E-A-N in it?

cheers
-j

Re: [hackers] When should our second weekly IRC meeting take place?

[Joshua Koenig]

Go add suggestions for IRC meeting time / day on this wiki page:

http://www.hack4dean.org/phpwiki/index.php
I suggest Sunday afternoons. I created a wiki page here:

http://www.hack4dean.org/phpwiki/index.php?IrcTime

cheers
-j

Re: [hackers] When should our second weekly IRC meeting take place?

[Joshua Koenig]

Hehhe... confusion.

 I was under the impression we were not changing the
IRC meeting time for the first IRC meeting, just adding a second time. 
 I
could be wrong though. Is there much of a need to change the first IRC
time? who cannot make wednesday's at 8:30 EST?
This is my bad. I aughtta read all the messages before starting on 
replies.

I updated the wikki info to reflect this:

Whoops! Turns out this is the same time that Zack suggested for the 
SecondMeetingTime. In that case, I suggest we go with a non-wednesday 
at about the same time. This will prevent us from conflicting with 
other Dean groups which have also followed the convention of meeting on 
wednesdays ala meetup.

There are a lot of other folks who got the idea to meet on wednesdays. 
This will also keep us from missing one meeting a month due to meetup.

cheerio
-j

[hackers] Unofficial Dean Blog: Phase II Begins

[Joshua Koenig]

Here's some good reading at the unofficial dean blog. Like the rest of  
us, they're beginning to concern themselves with moving offline in  
their campaign efforts:

http://dean2004.blogspot.com/ 
2003_07_13_dean2004_archive.html#105837771350386418

 I'm going to email them and see if they want to make use of our  
tools/collaborate with us

cheers
-josh

Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] Thank you for a wonderful meeting...

[Joshua Koenig]

It's a productive idea, but the time is not right for me either. This 
weekend I'm attending a wedding in Oakland. Perhaps we take a more 
measured approach and try for next weekend? Extreme programming 
marathons work better when you have a pretty clear plan...

-j

I would be all for this - except i will not be able to particpate 
(NYC) ;(
Everyone else? sounds like fun - and very productive to me

-Zack

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003, Britt Blaser wrote:

Zack, Zephyr, et.al.

It was such a productive night that we should schedule an even more
productive weekend:
A 30-hour Extreme Programming Codefest!

We'll have the customer, Zephyr, with us for instant feedback as we
work, and she can get responses from others in the campaign.
We can have our team standing by nationwide to build modules,
interfaces, graphics, copy, etc.
Let's parse out the task categories to teammates by tomorrow night and
be ready to hit it Sat. morning at 9 EDT.
Zephyr and I can do our needs analysis tomorrow night.

Any objections?
__
On Thursday, July 17, 2003, at 02:04 AM, zrosen wrote:

By far the most productive night imo.

If you missed it you can go read the transcript:

http://www.hack4dean.org/phpwiki/index.php?FifthIrcMeeting

(link is at the top).

As you can see by all the email's ive been sending out, we covered a
lot of
ground.  Also a reminder - anytime you are at your computer and
thinking about
hack4dean stuff, come sit in the channel (#hack4dean on
irc.freenode.org).
Thanks again all,
-Zack







Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

[hackers] Americans For Dean .com down

[Joshua Koenig]

Just an FYI;

For anyone who's noticed that americansfordean.com is down, this is a 
problem with our shared hosting provider. All of their sites (including 
their own home page) are offline. So there's presumably nothing much to 
worry about, other than the fact that we have some downtime.

However, this does underscore the need for us to secure a far more 
robust hosting solution in the near term.

This leads us back into the morass of PAC money or Official Campaign 
money, because none of us can spend more than $250 without potentially 
running afoul of FEC regulations. I need to follow up with Franz from 
MusicForAmerica; last time I spoke to him he'd expressed a willingness 
to help us become our own PAC. However, this might bugger our 
relationship with campaign HQ.

In any event, this is only going to become more of a liability in the 
future. Better we resolve it sooner than later.

cheers
-josh

Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] PROPOSAL: Naming the Network [closes 2003-07-21 00:00 EST]

[Joshua Koenig]

DeanSpace is ok by me. I'm not a big one for going nuts over names. As 
long as it's not something that's dragging you down. We should run the 
name by Zephyr before confirming.

I'm off on the road to Berkeley. I'll write you all back tomorrow.

-j

|  in my proposition
|  we would have
|  americansfordean
|  the top node on the XX network
|  and here is a link to
|  the XX network dev community
Sounds fine to me.

All right.  Given that we need to get a decision made on this
soon, i will just make a proposal and see if there are objections.
(Sorry -- i don't mean to be pushy about this -- it just seems
that the issue has to be moved along toward a resolution.)
I propose DeanSpace.  There have been several positive responses
so far and no objections from anyone.  Both deanspace.org and
deanspace.net are available.
Let's give this three days, until midnight Sunday night EST.

Objections or concerns?

-- ?ing





Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

[hackers] Names and Domains

[Joshua Koenig]

Hey all,

My hometown Meetup group in Eugene (lane county) somehow got the 
following domain for their activities:

http://dean2004.lane.or.us/

I'll inquire. If there's free country namespace nationwide, this could 
be a good option for our network users.

cheers
-josh

Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] Names and Domains

[Joshua Koenig]

Before anyone goes and buys things there are probably FEC rules. I 
think I saw something come over the list saying there was a $250 
personal max, but don't quote me on that.
You can quote me on that.

We need to be very careful about who spends how much or who donates 
what with what value. All of this will come to naught if Bushco is able 
to undo us on FEC technicalities. So far we're in the clear, but this 
question isn't going away. I hope to have some kind of solution before 
the end of July, but we'll have to sit tight and/or do things on a 
peacemeal basis for now.

peace
-josh

Re: [hackers] Installation problem may be solved

[Joshua Koenig]

My drupal files were hung up in public ftp and were not moved 
automatically into public html.  I think I'm all set now...but I'm 
sure others will end up having this same problem and the installation 
directions should be more simple and easy to follow.  Okay, now that I 
appear to have drupal up, is there anything anyone would like tested 
by an average user?
Thanks for installing drupal and pointing out flaws in our install 
directions. One of the things I'm personally very interested in is 
making sure that anyone can set up a modified drupal site (or perhaps 
add some modules for their existing website) and be a part of the dean 
network. One of the first things we need to do will be to start a FAQ; 
thanks for getting the ball rolling!

I'll let Neil or someone else closer to the development end handle your 
request about testing, but I'm sure we'd all love to get the URL of 
your site.

thanks for your participation!
-josh

Re: [hackers] node hosting

[Joshua Koenig]

Offering non-partisan "Digital Town Hall" hosting is the only way to go 
about it. If we offer the same class/quality of hosting service to all 
candidates of all parties, then it's all good.

However, this only works if we do it in such a way that there's mild 
profit to be made. If we give it up for free then any hostile campaign 
could easily organize a movement by a few motivated dirty tricksters to 
sign up for free accounts and over-utilize system resources to throttle 
the whole works.

If we keep the costs of providing service tacked to the actual costs of 
service (which still makes this ridiculously cheap: probably 3 or 4 
bucks a month for most users) then when usage goes up we have revenue 
to expand capacity, whether that usage is earnest or just a ham-fisted 
politicians idea of a DoS attack. I also see no reason why a few 
dedicated souls couldn't make this a real job and live comfortably 
(though probably not richly) off the proceeds.

We need a lawyer to look at this, but I see no substantial difference 
between what we would offer here and what blogspot does. We would also 
need any domain suffixes (e.g. *.fordean.net or *.fordean.com) to be 
handled through a third party.

Also, we would need to think about personnel. If we do this, there's 
going to need to be a customer service number for people to call as 
well as a highly competent sysadmin to make sure the box(es) stay 
sturdy. See my point about jobs above.

This might be something to look into setting up in paralell with the 
actual code itself if there's actually any interest. It will take time 
to set up, and we'd want to be ready to go in September methinks.
-j

Why not welcome all campaigns to use the tools: Presidential, 
congressional, state, etc.? Then we can gold plate the damn thing and 
still be legal. Here's how I see it (from 
http://www.blaserco.com/blogs ):

A4D is being built by volunteers using an open source language (PHP) 
to assemble software components (like Drupal, MySQL, RSS, etc.) to 
build the toolkit. And their work is open source, so it's freely 
available for others to re-use and improve by returning their 
improvements to the code base. Sure, the code will be papered with 
advisories that it was developed for the Dean campaign beta 
users–notices that must be left in the code–but all candidates of all 
stripes are welcome to benefit from this extraordinary body of work.

If we offer it publicly and sincerely, it's just another open source 
tool, which is required of us by the GPL anyway. Why be afraid of an 
overwhelming grassroots movement of fundamentalist Internet mavens (is 
there such a thing?). We should embrace all grassroots organizing that 
raises the collective dialogue, since that exposes our most candid 
thinking.

Again, the GPL or any license requires us to re-publish the code, and 
we assume some republicans/Kerryites will get the code by becoming  
nodes. We're sharing it anyway, so if we say we're sharing it, the FEC 
issues disappear, IMHO.
__

On Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at 11:02 AM, CMR wrote:

Yeah, it is a soft money issue.  Well you've got a good idea that I 
will
go check on (if one contributer payed for hosting out of pocket as a
campaign contribution).  But i think if this thing works hosting will 
cost
a bit more than $2K a month and things will get messy. $2000 is not 
enough
to pay for this thing I think

Got it; and that's all fine by me (although, if it's just linux 
hosting,
it's amazing what $2000, even $200, will buy...).

But at least part of my idea on this was, what if (god forbid) Dean 
flails?
As I've said a couple times before, this project is potentially much 
bigger
than one cause because it's really all about the future of online
networking/organizing. I'd hate to see things disintergrate if Dean 
"goes
south", say, when the primaries go south. So having the hosting space 
might
have given us an tangible "turf" where the organization's code and 
such
could be sustained and a central "site" could operate if need be.

But, even in this scenario, some hosting space could be always 
obtained at
that junture and we all could (and will I imagine) talk about what, if
anything, is next. So it's all good. (Besides, DEAN'S GONNA KICK 
BOODIE!!!)

Cheers
CMR
<--enter gratuitous quotation that implies my profundity here-->







Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] is an automatic installation script feasible?

[Joshua Koenig]

Ruling out SQL Server for the time being, we do have the problem of 
only
having access to one database from an ISP.  I don't know how likely 
this is
going to be, but it is a problem we need to be aware of and ready to 
handle.
This is standard for a lot of shared hosting providers. I don't know 
about ISPs as I've never used mine for anything but bandwidth. ;)

Many shared hosting packages give you one unique database tied to your 
login name. Some will give you one for each domain you host. In any 
case, there's little chance we'll have significant problems arise from 
two nodes being on the same shared hosting provider or ISP.

There's also a chance we will still set up a hosting service to provide 
turnkey service. It would just have to be a regular business venture 
and non-partisan in terms of what it offers.

cheers
-josh

Re: [hackers] node hosting

[Joshua Koenig]

Yes - I am all for it.  The only concern is: if there is to strong a
connection / correlation between the Dean campaign and this  non profit
service then the campaign is liable.
Two points:

1) IMHO this should not be a non-profit venture. This is different from 
the idea of an academic project which will further the general goals of 
nodal/online politics. It needs to be non-partisan, but it's 
essentially a fee-for-service company, and that's all it should be. 
It's blogspot for a modified version of drupal. There are also 
strategic reasons for this (see my previous email).

2) As long as the class and quality of service offered is neutral, then 
it doesn't matter who sets it up. The proof is in the pudding, not in 
the pedigree. This would mean a stock turnkey install would not include 
a partisan drupal theme, but we could offer a theme gallery which users 
would be free to contribute to.

cheers
-josh

Re: [hackers] node hosting

[Joshua Koenig]

Sounds good to me, Howard. Though you don't need anyone's blessing. ;)

Also, in response to Jim's question, the problem isn't with individual  
people who want to set up their own h4d-modified Drupal. Our original  
plan included having a powerful turnkey hosting service which dean  
groups who don't have techies of their own could make use of in setting  
up their sites.

This large-scale turnkey service is the only part of the plan that  
potentially runs afoul of the FEC. Groups and individuals using  
whatever space they have to do their own Dean Site hosting is not going  
to be a problem.

cheers
-josh
I would like to propose this again ...

How about CMR, Aldon and I work on finding out what options we have for
hosting ... not to commit to anything, but to have our options fully  
known
when the time comes ...

We know the general FEC rules, and I have already made a very specific
inquiry to find out how we can handle ongoing expenses within the  
rules ...
this is not an isolated issue just for hosting ... it has already come  
up
out here as we are trying to establish a volunteer phone center ... it  
must
come up all the time in other campaigns and there has to be a banking
mechanism that is legal ... we will get to the bottom of it ...

Anyway, if the three of us get busy with this we can go faster, and  
leave
the coders to their work until we have something substantial to  
discuss ...

Howard2



Howard Vicini
computer graphics, prepress, animation & web design
San Francisco
Dean url www.bayarea4dean.com
personal url www.vicini.net
email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yahoo IM howardvicini
AIM IM howardvicini
voice 415-522-1555
- Original Message -
From: "CMR" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 7:04 AM
Subject: Re: [hackers] node hosting


- Node hosting as we had planned looks to be out.  We cannot raise  
our
own
money - if we became a PAC we couldnt coordinate at all with HQ, we
would
become useless.   They cannot pay for the hosting unless the sites
became
official.  However, it is expected that there will be ISP's willing  
to
offer
to host and help set up the tools for communities who want to use  
them
(for a
price of course).  This would get us halfway there (if the ISP's set  
up
the
scripts and we just had to teach them how to admin it).  More on the
later

Well, I remain ready to kick down for a big chunck of linux hosting  
space,
setup fees plus the first few months (say, till we know if Dean will  
be a
real phenom or a shooting star - or by super-tuesday); I want to put  
up my
own e-zine anyway so it wouldn't cost much more to get a boodie-load  
of
space and data transfer; wouldn't need much in the way of tools since  
we
have so many mega-geeks involved; just need SOLID and FAST tech  
support to
ensure absolute minimal down time. I don't think there'd be any legal
issues, I'd just be donating space for a cause, period; my dime,  
nobody's
else's bidness.

It's pretty affordable; check this out for instance; these guys are  
top
rated on tophostreviews.com:



http://www.ixwebhosting.com/pg.info.dspProductPlatinumPlan/ 
IXWEBSESSION/e2a6
b7bd3de509bd850dbf3ae9955c32

The Platinum linux plan might work, at least for a start; if not, we  
could
get somebody on the phone and see if we could get a customized deal  
for a
little more jack a month; if not thes guys, somebody with a good rep  
would
be willing deal I'm sure;

Anyway, look it over then think it over...








Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] Re: Legal Issues and dodo birds

[Joshua Koenig]

I was under the (perhaps mis)apprehension that all this had been hashed
out with the hackers, but it sounds like it may not have been. Of 
course
it's a tough choice. You guys have two choices, really:

(1) work w/the campaign
(2) work outside the campaign
Hmmm... I was going to respond to some of the other messages, but I 
think CMR already hit all the important notes. So I'll talk simply 
about working with/without the campaign.

I don't think it's as simple as that.

Here's the deal as I see it. Hack4Dean as an organization is highly 
informal.In many ways, there is no us. We have no leaders. We have no 
qualification for membership. We are an ad-hoc collective of 
individuals motivated by common cause, but we are by no means an 
official organization.  It's quite unlikely that we will en masse agree 
to work under or be independent of the campaign.

There are also many facets to what we envision, and it's similarly 
unlikely that all those facets would fall under direct campaign 
purview, or that the campaign would even want them to.

For example, the tool (the kit) we're building will not be owned by the 
campaign. It must not be. It will be a free-standing unit of open 
source software. Much of it is copyrighted by the original Drupal 
people and the new stuff belongs by default to whoever coded it. 
There's nothing for the campaign to gain from owning this part of the 
movement, by owning the "kit".

Where it does make sense for the campaign to step in and own things is 
on the meta level: the ideas of the Visable Volunteers (MetaDean 
Talent) and a Dean Space central aggregator (MetaDean) are both good 
ones for the campaign to run. The campaign can also promote the kit 
much as it does meetup, and of course once the network is up and 
running the campaign will be a major source of content.

You at HQ are right to be cautious about how all of this is 
implemented, about how the Sites will be hosted and who will offer 
support. But as I see it, it's really not something you want to try to 
control. On the one hand you won't be able to -- the genie is already 
out of the bottle as they say -- and on the other hand, the more 
controlling force you exert, the less participation you will have.

Maybe the campaign needs to have a "party line" on these issues, a 
stance they're sticking with; something that will legally protect you 
from whatever any individual might attempt to do with the products of 
our collective efforts. Individuals can either toe that party line (and 
work under the campaign) or remain independent, which means they are 
not allowed to coordinate.

I see the main advantage of working with the campaign being, from a
political point of view, that the work you are doing can not only win
the presidency but transform politics. Because there is a driver behind
it -- Dean -- it will grow exponentially.
I'll have to respectfully disagree with you here, Zephyr. As much as I 
like Howard Dean and want him to win the presidency, the truly 
transformative power of what we're doing comes from it's ability to be 
picked up and used by any campaign  by any party anywhere in the world. 
If it's just a DeanTool this will not happen. It will need to die (and 
hopefully be reborn) on election day. If it's something else -- the 
virtual town hall -- then it has a life and an impact that reaches far 
beyond Decision 2004.

 In my vision, Howard Dean will not just mention Meetups on the
stump, but setting up Dean Community Sites. I really believe this is 
the
next phase of the revolution -- and I'm sorry if you're feeling some of
the constraints, but I hope you decide that they are worth it.
I think we all share this vision, but at the same time I strongly doubt 
the campaign exercises any direct control -- legally or content-wise -- 
over Meetup.

Similarly, IMHO our effort needs to be fundamentally independent from 
the campaign for a time (as it has been for the past months and 
functionally still is now), until it is mature enough that we (the 
hack4dean working group) can release our code. At that point, the 
campaign is free to pick up the ball and run with it, and various 
elements of this group will be free to do the same, to pursue whatever 
other dreams they have for this movement.

We're not there yet.

From my recollection, this project has always taken a longer view than 
the Dean campaign. When I first started, there was significant doubt 
that Dean would even make it to the GE, yet I/we continued to work 
because we felt our project had more to do with the spirit of the Dean 
campaign (participation, empowerment, community) than with the 
actuality of it's success or failure. Even if Dean didn't make it, I 
thought, our project would help carry his energy forward.

Now with Dean as a frontrunner, we run the risk of turning too much in 
the opposite direction. To my mind, it's of the utmost importance that 
the effort of developing this kit be an all-volunteer Free software 
effort. Once thi

Re: [hackers] Code, Code, Code.

[Joshua Koenig]

Britt said it much more succinctly than I did. I agree with this 100%.

cheers
-josh
Gentlepeople,

1] We are developing a toolkit using open source tools. Free. As in 
speech AND beer.

2] The toolkit will include the simplest, most portable installation 
process we can provide.

3] Nodes built with the toolkit will encourage users to spin off new 
nodes fractally.

4] Anyone who wants to use/steal the tools to use for any other 
campaign will do so.

5] The Dean campaign is not a user of the kit and not even a beta 
tester. Some of us will be. The campaign is ONLY the first beneficiary 
of the first beta nodes.

6] The business of Hosting has nothing to do with our effort. After 
the kit is done, anybody can do whatever they want with it. If anyone 
on this list wants to host the kit and make FEC filings (or not), 
that's their business. It is not the business of this list, which is 
firewalled from hosting issues in fact, in our process, in our 
interest and under the law.

7] Dialogue expended on hosting issues is stolen from coding.

8] Lawyers can't hack code - they're way out of their depth. Hackers 
can't lawyer - Ditto.

Zephyr wants us to work with them as they introduce us to concepts 
beyond our experience, like "flyering" and "tabling" and "canvassing". 
Things we need to know to help our future users (perhaps including 
individuals in this list) to serve one campaign or another. They want 
to be able to refer people to tools they've helped envision.

Why would we hinder our work by speculating on activities that our 
group as a whole will never pursue?

IMHO,

Britt




Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] Goals

[Joshua Koenig]

This sounds (barely) reasonable - I like them a lot.

What about MetaDean / "Frontroom"-TalentDB goaks?

Zephyr / Josh?
I'm in dayjob land. I'll hit this stuff tomorrow. Design docs and wiki 
pages and everything.

cheers
-josh

Re: [hackers] Themes released on SourceForge

[Joshua Koenig]

I put bluesky, simpledean, and Dean01 in a single tarball and released 
them on http://sf.net/projects/dean/. I will install them on 
http://dean.sf.net/ as soon as that web server decides to cooperate 
(probably by later tonight) so you can try them out for yourself.

Has anyone contacted the people running http://indianafordean.org/ 
yet? Their site is themed nicely and we might want to grab that.
That's on my TODO list. I'll get on it directly tomorrow unless someone 
else wants to jump on the ball.

-j

Re: [hackers] Endorse and weekend

[Joshua Koenig]

if we use Illinois for Dean's Dean-o-gram initative (which isn't 
finished
yet), it is still going to need to be incorporated into Drupal. 
Someone
(Lynn seemed to volunteer) should start work or be thinking about this
IMHO
I am volunteering for it but I'm not sure what needs to be in the 
module. Do I just run with it? Seeing the Illinois one (even if it's 
not for drupal) would be a help if anyone has access to it.
Lynn: The answer is *run with it*! This here group is all about 
individual initiative. Also, I'm contacting indiana today to try and 
get some brains from their operation on our list. I'll include a 
question about the invite thingy as well as drupal...

-j

Re: [hackers] Goals

[Joshua Koenig]

I was actually thinking about this today. To what degree does it make 
sense for us to start setting people up with Drupal 4.2RC, let them 
start populating the userbase and using the stock tools, and then add 
our modules at they're ready?

This is really a question for neil and moshe and the others who have 
their heads under the hood, I think.

If our modifications are mostly modular, it makes sense to get people 
going and then feed them the good stuff as we have it ready. If our 
modifications require a total re-install (or even a significant 
upgrade) we should hold off.

???
-j
Hey guys, let me know if you want some sites to test on -- there are
dozens of sites out there that would be interested in knowing about
this, and I'd like to start giving some folks the headsup that you're
working on it, if nothing else (also I'm so damn thrilled about the
whole project its hard to keep in)-- let me know what you think, & when
I can leak it more publicly,
Z

Zephyr Teachout
Internet Organizing & Outreach
Dean for America
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Meetup at http://www.deanforamerica.com/meetup
Get local at http://action.deanforamerica.com
Contribute at http://www.deanforamerica.com/contribute
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Ka-Ping Yee
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2003 2:41 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [hackers] Goals
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Most of you don't know me very well yet but I am all about action and
immediacy wherever possible. Goals are important to keep us on track,
and
since last week's goals were not met, I think some level of dialogue
is
needed. I propose the following timeline goals:

A week from now all modules will be written.
I understand the need for urgency, but i don't see how you can be
comfortable setting deadlines for everyone at this point.  That
might be an appropriate thing to try if you understood the degree
of complexity of each module and the status of progress on each
module -- but some of the modules haven't been specified, and some
haven't even been claimed by anyone yet, so there's no way anyone
could possibly know that.
I do think the enthusiasm is good.  Let's just try to avoid setting
wildly unrealistic goals.  (Why do i think this is unrealistic?
With respect to the media module, unless you are already way ahead
of me on the code -- if so, great, but we should communicate --
there's no way it will be done next week.  I'll continue the
discussion of complexity and unresolved issues regarding the media
module on the developers list.)
I agree with you that setting goals is good -- when we set them,
they have to be both realistic and specific.
-- ?!ng




Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] A current endorse dean page...

[Joshua Koenig]

The talent db is misnamed, really -- it has a talent db function, but
the real trick is in the display, ALA friendster, and the social
community building. Its not about the info coming in (really easy) --
more about the way of showing it that induces connections (find a
neighbor for dean)
Heyo!

I'm working on a design doc for that right now.

peace
-josh

[hackers] Re: [developers] MetaDean NodeTracking Design Doc

[Joshua Koenig]

As I see it there are two purposes to having MetaDean "rate" content:

1) To tell what's hot, popular, kickin' etc. (most important)

2) To allow for some kind of editorial comment on content (e.g. "Be 
aware of this awful news article; it's a complete hack job.")

Item #1 is accomplished by having metadean observe how often a given 
piece is showing up around the net, how often something is 
re-syndicated. Perhaps this isn't feasable, but I always thought it 
would be rather simple to keep track of the origin of a piece of 
syndicated content. Then when MetaDean sees that a piece titled 
"Insightful Poll Analysis" originating from user fooboo on node 
desmoins.fordean.net is popping up on 35 sites, this piece will 
presumably get a high rating.

Or, looking at your question again, maybe we have different 
understandings of "bubble up" syndication: MetaDean doesn't really have 
much to do with this. If MetaDean picked up low-lying content and 
pulled it to the top, it wouldn't really be bubbling up. The whole 
notion of the bottom-to-top feed is that it occurs though different 
site admins and blog editors deciding that each other's content is 
worth linking to or re-posting.

Item #2 is encapsulated in the normal blog format. We have to trust 
that we're smart enough and tasteful enough to do our own 
editorializing. If someone just links to a dean-bashing article, pretty 
soon someone will pick it apart in their blog, and then that blog 
content becomes the hot link.

This making sense to y'all?
-j
Looks great so far Josh, but my one big question is - how does MetaDean
assign ratings to content so that it can be bubbled up? Will sites ping
the server? Or will it just have feeds for "hot" items? Or is there an
easier way to do this that my addled brain isn't coming up with right
now?
-Zack

-----Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joshua Koenig
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2003 3:18 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: Zephyr Teachout
Subject: [developers] MetaDean NodeTracking Design Doc
A first stab at a design doc for node-tracking MetaDean is here:

http://www.hack4dean.org/phpwiki/index.php?NodeTracking

If no one else does it, I'll hammer out a first-draft SQL schema over
the weekend. The other big question now is where we're going to set up
our sandbox.
Note that when I talk about MetaDean from now on, I'm talking about
tracking nodes/sites and content only, not talent. The talent stuff is
going under the Visible Volunteer social networking tool (aka
Deanster). Unless there are objections, of course. ;)
cheers
-josh

Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/



Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] RE: [developers] MetaDean NodeTracking Design Doc

[Joshua Koenig]

Right. Part of MetaDean is a (re)publishing piece: hot content comes up 
on a front page. Content within categories can be browsed. There would 
be RSS-feeds eminating up the ying-yang.

-j

I'd vote for feeds for "hot" items (not knowing anything about
programming part of it). Seems like that would make lots of intuitive
sense to everyone on the receiving end. Its how I've been describing it
-- and whatever we do, describing it is important, too. But I don't 
have
a good alternative vision --

[hackers] Draft Deanster Design Doc

[Joshua Koenig]

Here's a draft of my design doc for Deanster (a.k.a. the talend 
database, the visible volunteers, the "front room"). Please excuse the 
parts that aren't quite filled in yet and feel free to correct me where 
I'm wrong:

http://www.hack4dean.org/phpwiki/index.php?TalentDatabase

peace
-josh

Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

[hackers] Fwd: User account details for joshk at Indiana for Dean

[Joshua Koenig]

Some very interesting perspectives from the webmaster at indianafordean.

Worth a read.

He's invited any of us that want to discuss further to join him in IRC.

irc.openirc.net
#deanchat
cheers
-josh
From: IFD Webmaster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sat Jul 26, 2003  3:42:56  PM US/Pacific
To: Joshua Koenig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Zack Rosen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: User account details for joshk at Indiana for Dean
So, do you intend to take a stock Drupal source tree, hack it up, and 
then
release that as your kit?  I would prefer to see the tools you're 
building
be drop-in modules, and any core Drupal code modifications rolled into 
the
main source tree.  Hopefully this is the approach you're taking.

Looking at the design goals again, here are a few concerns to think 
about:

Calendar:

The tool doesn't send E-mail reminders prior to the event.  The Dean
groups in our state are hooked on Yahoo Groups, and their calendar does
this.  The existing Drupal calendar needs to be modified to support 
this.

Mailing List/Message Forums:

The majority of Dean groups across the country are using Yahoo
Groups/Lists.  How do you intend to convince all of these folks to move
away from those and sign-up to local site lists?  Frankily, there are 
just
too many mailing lists already.. look at our site.. Indiana has five!

I think the logic of "mailing lists for small groups, forums for big 
ones"
is backward.  A web-based forum is not a good medium by itself for 
large
groups where there will be many postings.  Even with threading and 
searching,
it becomes hard for people to dig out the information they're looking 
for.
If you really want forums, get every "state for Dean" site setup with 
one
mailing list each by consolidating the existing lists, and then tie 
this
in with a web-based forum and an NNTP news feed.  See 
http://papercut.org/
which is written by a friend of mine.  The mailing list would then 
populate
the forums and the news feeds.  All the information is now the same for
multiple tools (which lets people use the ones they're most comfortable
with)... syndicate the results.

Getting existing mailing lists consolidated would allow more thoughts 
and
ideas to reach everyone involved, instead of having isolated pockets of
information, and requiring everyone to subscribe to multiple groups or
look at multiple places/tools.  Social engineering plays a role in 
this as
much, if not more so, than technical prowess.

News/Blogger Tools:

Many folks have their own blogs on other blog sites.  Is it really
necessary to have even more?  I would encourage these tools to be 
disabled
locally as we have done, and just have folks use existing blog 
resources.
As long as those provide RSS ability, it's trivial to syndicate them on
the local site.

General concerns:

It's a lot of effort for little gain in terms of practical usability to
end-users.  All of this relies on the assumption that the consumers of
these services check websites more frequently than they check E-mail.  
It
also assumes that existing sites not using Drupal will be compelled to
switch because of the new tools, and that these folks have the 
necessary
technical expertise to set it up.  I'm not sure who these 40 groups 
are,
but I assume some of them are existing "state for Dean" sites.  If 
you've
noticed, a lot of those use the http://www.fordean.org/ tools, which 
is a
pretty good indicator of their abilities.  The majority of existing 
sites
are not dynamic or DB driven.

Our philosophy is not based on flooding the web with more Dean sites,
but rather enabling Dean-supporters to easily set up locally-relevant
nodes which are used by campaign participants to coordinate,to get
information that's specific and relevant to them, and to express their
own voice in a way that the entire campaign can potentially hear.
While this sounds like a noble goal, the "to easily set up" part
assumes a lot.  Setting up Apache/PHP/MySQL and installing
Drupal+Hack4Dean kit isn't trivial for my interpretation of the target
audience.  Look at those 40 groups you mentioned.  Is it safe to say 
they
have the ability to do this?

Most people don't have the first set of requirements.  They would have 
to
pay to host their sites on an ISP that does, which usually isn't cheap.
This isn't meant to sound negative again, but I'm just curious if 
you've
done a reality check lately. :)

Maybe my assumption regarding the target audience is wrong.  In any 
case,
it may be a good idea to provide resources for those interested,
such as a listing of ISPs that would be suitable for hosting Drupal 
sites.

What about hack4dean.org and americansfordean.org?  Where are you 
hosting
your sites?  I am only running indianafordean.org because I don't pay 
for
my bandwidth, and had existing server resources in place for my other
projects. 

[hackers] Fwd: Postermaker

[Joshua Koenig]

This is fucking cool. I'll contact Stephen to see about putting 
something like this up elsewhere.

-j

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Stephen Bourne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sun Jul 27, 2003  8:00:53  PM US/Pacific
To: "Scott Powell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Joshua Koenig" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Postermaker

Added three more backgrounds to the postermaker.
http://tcfb.com/dean2004/deanposter.php
Try it out if you like.

Stephen Bourne



Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] Draft Deanster Design Doc

[Joshua Koenig]

The one thing that I would change in Josh's model is just that we are
not thinking of this as a place for public expression ("why I support
Dean") not because we don't want that expression, but because
(1) there are other venues for it, and
(2) it drastically (or almost completely) eviscerates the
moderation/management needs if we don't provide that space--if there is
no "enter your own content here" but all pick and choose and links to
forum, we don't need to vet who enters at ALL which is ideal (this is
the big diff between us and friendster -- we don't have staff who can
routinely check every new person and we don't have people who want to
kill the campaign by posting obscene or harassing posts (that's the big
concern, not dissent).
I built this in after talking with Britt about the idea for future 
Howard Dean sites to include rotating "volunteer statements" as part of 
the design. Also, for this to work users need to be at least able to 
tell other people a little about them.

If you're worried about Trolls (people trying to sabotage the system 
socially), the best way to deal is to have a "flag for review" button 
ala Friendster. Let the users do 90% of the moderation for you.

It seems if we can do that and roll it out, we can then add other
features like uploading contacts and rating -- but I'm not the
programming guru.
Yes, a phased approach is best. I'll turn out some more detail today. 
Then we start breaking this (and MetaDean) into discreet chunks and 
handing off the work. You know, the fun part.

cheers
-j

Re: [hackers] Privacy control for profiles

[Joshua Koenig]

I agree.  Giving members privacy control over their profile information
encourages them to share more information and add more value to the
database.  (It's also respectful and polite.)
Preaching to the Choir here. ;)

I've been working on an enhanced profile module -- please use it or 
build
off of it if it can help you.  Currently, it has the following features
in addition to the standard profile module:
We should coordinate on this. Part of my vision is having matching 
fields between an extended Drupal profile and Deanster. That way when 
people register for a Drupal Node they can check a box to 
simultaneously create a Deanster profile. This works both ways: when 
registering for a Drupal Node, the enhanced registration will ask, "are 
you a Deanster" and if so it will create a useful default profile from 
your data there.

Deanster could also act as a (Jabber/Drupal) single-sign-on point for 
any Drupal Dean Nodes a Deanster also frequents.

I'll post a link to this module on the TalentDatabase page.  Please
let me know what you think of it.
Excellent. I'll review it further.

cheers
-josh

[hackers] More on Deanster Participant Content

[Joshua Koenig]

After Zephyr's previous posting about content for Deanster, I just 
wanted to give y'all a little more of my vision for the whole Deanster 
"user expression" piece. You're indubitably "the boss" on this one, so 
the call is yours, but I wanted to give you the whole nine yards.

The notion for this sprung from the fact that there's a wealth of ideas 
and content being created by the devotees of the Official Campaign 
Blog. Originally, I had thought of hacking Movable Type so that there 
would be a way for users to "concur" with other users' comments; to 
mark them as an idea, a phrase, a story worth saving. This way at the 
end of the day, you can  have someone from your team browse through the 
25 most "highlighted" posts.

Creating a way for the Official Site to grant recognition to stellar 
user participation will spur greater participation as well as greater 
quality.

From that came a discussion with Britt about how deanforamerica.com 
might be re-designed. I've attached an image of what he's come up with. 
It shows the idea pretty well: a quote from a participant for every 
section. This would be easy enough to set up if it were static, but my 
immediate thought was that it should be dynamic. It should be a 
rotation of many quotes, which will further drive participation as it 
shows that everyone has a chance of having their voice heard.

But for you to try and do this -- incorporate participant content -- 
requires some structure be built around it. So I thought of a facility 
on Deanster which would let you elicit on-topic quotes from your 
userbase; there would be some administrative overhead in terms of 
flagging content either as "worth highlighting" (good) or 
"administrative review" (bad), but this won't take much time at all. 
90% of it can be done by users. Here's how:

1) Most of the content will be neither worth posting on DFA or worth 
badgering anyone about in terms of taking it down. The process I 
describe here will happen less than 10% of the time.

2) Objectionable content (e.g. explicit photos, objectionable 
statements) can be flagged by any user and quickly addressed by the 
moderation staff. If you create an environment that doesn't provide an 
opportunity to create entropy, then it won't happen. In other words, if 
people don't see bogus profiles, they're far less likely to try it 
themselves.

3) High-quality content can also be flagged by any user (though not for 
themselves), and dealt with in the same fashion.

4) Volunteer moderators (trusted participants) can further vet flagged 
content. People will kill to have this job. They can send warning 
letters to objectionable content posters and give a more seasoned 
"thumbs up" to high-quality profiles.

5) Finally, one staff member can invest an hour a day selecting the 
best of the best and flagging them as worthy of the DFA homepage. 
Likewise they can take the official action of booting people who don't 
respond to a warning letter. At this point were talking about 1% of 
total posts, so it's not really a lot of overhead.

Do we think this will cure a potential troll problem? IMHO, rigorous 
moderation is sufficient for stopping harmful BS. By giving users a 
"flag for review" button, you give them a means of doing something 
about trolls without feeding them.

cheers
-josh

Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] Privacy control for profiles

[Joshua Koenig]

Deanster could also act as a (Jabber/Drupal) single-sign-on point for
any Drupal Dean Nodes a Deanster also frequents.
We talked about this with Zephyr, and the deal is - if DFA run Deanster
then it cannot handle Authentication for the Nodes or they would have 
to
be vetted by DFA (ie official) so I don't think this is possible.
What about the opposite direction? Can unofficial nodes act as 
single-signons for Deanster? All this implies is that Deanster will 
trust an external source for identity validation, a necessary component 
of any distributed identity framework. To put it another way, how is 
this different from Deanster accepting MS Passport validation?

Not that I'm recommending this, but you get the point.

cheers
-josh

Re: [hackers] Privacy control for profiles

[Joshua Koenig]

We talked about this with Zephyr, and the deal is - if DFA run 
Deanster
then it cannot handle Authentication for the Nodes or they would have
to
be vetted by DFA (ie official) so I don't think this is possible.
What about the opposite direction? Can unofficial nodes act as
single-signons for Deanster? All this implies is that Deanster will
trust an external source for identity validation, a necessary 
component
of any distributed identity framework. To put it another way, how is
this different from Deanster accepting MS Passport validation?
I don't see any problem with the opposite direction.  THere shouldnt be
any bad implications of Deanster using trusted node logins that I can
think of.  The issue with nodes using Deanster logins is that - if the
nodes authentication is "controlled" by "official" DFA services, then 
the
nodes must become official / vetted as well.  This make sense?
It does make some sense. I think it's a little over-cautious (e.g. MS 
doesn't have to "endorse" every site that wants to use Passport) but 
it's not that big a deal. Having it work by allowing local Nodes to be 
trusted sources for identity is probably better anyway. More of a 
foundation for distributed architecture.

cheers
-josh

Re: [hackers] RE: More on Deanster Participant Content

[Joshua Koenig]

One other point about Deanster: you might get some flak from 
Friendster if
you combine that concept with that name. The Friendster guys aren't
necessarily Dean supporters. Zephyr, you might discuss with legal 
whether
there's any exposure - obviously it's a great name but a legal hassle 
would
make it counterproductive, I'm afraid.
Surely we'll vet the name before launching. It makes a good "internal" 
name though. Pretty clear what we're all talkin' about.

We should ask the friendster guys. Maybe they -are- deanies.

And when it comes down to it, there are about a zillion *-ster sites 
out there. Just like there's also iEverything and Apple can't do much 
about it.

But let the law-folk make the call by all means.

-j

Re: [hackers] Deanster run at DFA

[Joshua Koenig]

Just catching the tail end of this, but we're fully planning to run
deanster, I've got the server space planned, and I'm looking to hire 
for
someone to administer. So all we're doing is making sure its designed 
in
a way we can manage. There's a lot of projects we're going to build on
this, and it runs off our main database (we'll be sending out email
asking folks to register additional info to fill out deanster 
profile).
This is one that we're completely committed to -- and it would be 
silly
to set up rival deansters off site!
Except that if you run the auth, then all sites have to be approved and
vetted... or have I managed to completely misunderstand this whole 
thread,
Zack?
Well, it's debatable what it means. From my perspective it would just 
be independent sites -- could be any site online -- deciding they can 
trust DFA for login data. I'll go with whatever Howard's wonks want to 
do. It's not a critical piece.

-j

Re: [hackers] Draft Deanster Design Doc

[Joshua Koenig]

I built this in after talking with Britt about the idea for future 
Howard Dean sites to include rotating "volunteer statements" as part 
of the design.
That's funny, Zack and I were talking about something similar on AIM 
as part of the endorse module (but we kind of agreed to put it into 
something separate).
I think it's a dynamite idea myself. Just like how if you go to 
theonion.com, they have a featured personal ad; this will encourage 
people to put their stuff out there.

just my $0.02
-josh

Re: [hackers] RE: More on Deanster Participant Content

[Joshua Koenig]

Sure, I think it might work. But there is a more basic role for
Deanster, and the reason for its urgency (w/the idea of experimenting
w/this functionality on top of it).
People can't find eachother.

Dean supporters in the same area can't find eachother.

Dean supporters w/the same interests can't find eachother.
If you take the profile module i just posted, adjust privacy settings
to taste, and add some category terms for interests, you should be
3/4 of the way there, no?  The only two missing pieces are (a) to hook
up the taxonomy module so it can tag users as well as content nodes,
and (b) to search for zipcodes by distance, but that can't be too hard,
since we already have zipcode -> latitude + longitude data.
Right. The first iteration won't be hard. But this is separate from the 
Nodes and the Kit. It's something DFA is going to run/host themselves.

I have a line on a database which will give us ZIP --> City/State data. 
The first version will be quick. Depending on how fast a server emerges 
we might have something basic up and running in a week or so.

-j

Re: [hackers] Draft Deanster Design Doc

[Joshua Koenig]

Aldon,

I think you're missing part of the picture here. DeanSpace (e.g. 
volunteer effort, community websites, blogs, etc) and the Deanster 
application (hosted and operated by the campaign directly) are 
logically separate. Deanster wouldn't include blogs for users, though 
it could include a guestbook ala Ryze.

Personally, I think there are lessons to be learned from both of these 
systems. Friendster has a vastly superior user interface to Ryze, but 
Ryze allows people to join groups of interest in addition to having a 
network of friends.

Your Deanster profile could of course include links back to your blog 
or personal website. What we're talking about in terms of "user 
content" is giving people quick, focused opportunities to offer their 
opinion or explain what interests them about Dean or what they're 
working on accomplishing.

We actually want to take this a step further in terms of adding 
xpertweb functionality so that people can use the Deanster network to 
get things done.

Hope that helps
-josh
p.s. It won't be called Deanster, by the way, but it makes a good 
codename for now.


Well, I'm trying to catch up on everything that happened over the 
weekend
while I was off at the folk music festival.

So, I'm sorry if I'm covering things that have already been covered, 
but I
would like to throw in my two cents here.

Zephyr, I respectfully disagree with you on the importance of public
expression in whatever sort of space is created.  The public 
expression is
crucial in establishing a sense of a cohesive community and in 
facilitating
different people in connecting.

Let me illustrate:  On Friendster, I am connected to 157232 people in 
my
Personal Network, through 17 friends.  However, friendster doesn't
facilitate communicating with others in a manner that develops 
community.
As such, I haven't made any useful new contacts.

On the other hand, communities like www.ryze.com and www.ecademy.com 
do a
much better job of promoting community through things like blogging.

So, I strongly encourage facilities to promote blogging.  Granted, 
there are
other venues, including posting comments on the official blog, having 
your
own blogs, etc., but I believe having blogs, forums, or similar tools 
as
part of Deanspace will make it much more effective.

Zephyr raises the issue of moderation.  DFA doesn't have the staff to 
vet
who posts or what posts remain if we have a giant network of people 
posting.
However, following the paradigm of self organizing systems, and the 
example
of DMOZ, I don't believe that is important.  Every site that gets set 
up
will have its administrators and/or moderators.  This is no different 
than
the close to 400 mailing lists that have already been set up.  These
moderators can be as controlling or free flowing as they feel 
comfortable
with and fits their particular community.

Part of the beauty of a truly distributed system like this, is that I 
can
(or should be able to), as moderator of one system decide what content 
I
pick up from other systems.  This provides a natural feedback system.  
Those
sites that develop a good sense of community through an appropriate 
level of
moderation will end up producing more valuable content, which will get 
more
widely distributed.

So, that's my two cents on the role of blogs, content, moderation and
community building within DeanSpace.
Comments?

Aldon

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Zephyr Teachout
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 1:53 PM
To: 'Joshua Koenig'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [hackers] Draft Deanster Design Doc

This is fantastic. Thanks Josh! I believe that if we get this up and
running, over 500,000 people will use it. I do -- over 1,000,000 on
friendster, and they aren't trying to change the world :)
The single biggest request we get from folks in the field is "how do I
find other Dean supporters." This provides that means. It's a top
priority for the campaign, and if we can provide other resources to 
help
make it happen, ask me and I'll do everything I can do provide them.

The one thing that I would change in Josh's model is just that we are
not thinking of this as a place for public expression ("why I support
Dean") not because we don't want that expression, but because
(1) there are other venues for it, and
(2) it drastically (or almost completely) eviscerates the
moderation/management needs if we don't provide that space--if there is
no "enter your own content here" but all pick and choose and links to
forum, we don't need to vet who enters at ALL which is ideal (this is
the big diff between us and friendster -- we don't have staff who can
routinely check every new person and we don't have people who want to
kill the campaign by posting obscene or harassing posts (that's the big
co

Re: [hackers] Draft Deanster Design Doc and other stuff

[Joshua Koenig]

Here's where I begin and end on this.

It is in fact the nature of the "beast" and one can choose, as a 
"player" to work for
change within it (and risk being consumed by it), or work outside for 
it
(and risk being "used", then ultimately sidelined by it) or choose to 
sit it
out and navel gaze to the end of days. All three have selling and 
damning
potentials. Ours is but to choose individually.
That last sentence, cast in bronze. "Ours is but to choose 
individually."

Whatever your opinion on the Dean campaign and how they interact with 
us, it's up to individuals to make their choices. This group is an 
informal association, and I don't think we're going to make a 
collective decision on whether we're "in" or "out."

Further, I don't think we should try to tell one another where their 
participation should go. Not that anyone's tried this, but I could see 
it happening in the future. I trust in the divinity of our collective 
forward momentum.

-j

Re: [hackers] Draft Deanster Design Doc

[Joshua Koenig]

Independent of the terminology, I believe it is crucial
for any sort of online community building tool to facilitate 
interaction
between the users above and beyond merely listing information.  I am
concerned from what I am hearing, that such functionality seems to be
missing from 'Deanster' and I feel that needs to be addressed.
What you see now is an attempt at a first iteration of this service. I 
find the three-step development methodology of "crawl, walk, run" to 
generally be helpful.

Right now all the campaign has is a bank of email addresses and no way 
to connect them. Step one is to let people put a face to the name, seek 
each other out and make connections. Step two will be allowing them to 
express themselves a little more through the system. Step three will be 
layering on the xpertweb tools to handle reputation and tasks.

It may be that it is best addressed by avoiding too strong a 
bifurcation
between 'Deanster' and 'DeanSpace'.
Indeed. When it comes to creating voluminous content and original forms 
of expression, we need to trust that people will find a place for that 
in the wider deanspace (or just online in general), and can link to 
that via their profile. This is the same as how I link to my own blog 
from my ryze profile.

P.S.  Personally, I think the Friendster UI sucks.
Different strokes for different folks I suppose. The layout on Ryze is 
highly overcrowded and chaotic to my eye. Friendster is a lot more 
simple.

cheers
-j

Re: [hackers] Abandoning current theme project

[Joshua Koenig]

I'm abandoning the grassroots theme because it's the butt-ugliest 
thing I've designed since 1995, and that's saying something. (Don't 
believe it? See http://www.siprelle.com/sandbox .) I've got one other 
theme idea I'm going to give a run at (black and white). Somebody 
point me at something.
Just a quick note and two questions on themes:

1) You guys/gals are doing great work.
2) Are you (any of you) open to "requests" for themes?
3) Are any of you open to mentoring other graphics people who might 
want to create themes?

We're getting serious interest from some state campaign offices about 
our tools, and they'll want a good look/feel but are all seriously 
under-resourced for this.

thanks!
-josh

[hackers] Notes From Meeting

[Joshua Koenig]

Here are the high points from tonights IRC meeting; it was long but 
productive.

Mostly I've taken note of things that seem "actionable" or which affect 
our immediate progress. The most important thing that happened was a 
hashing out of our "vanilla" site kit feature list. This is what we're 
working towards for releast ASAP.

The High Points

1) LynnS needs a module list and a central place to store 
documentation. Drumm suggests the book module. A feature-list was 
decided on later in the meeting (see below).

2) Zacker points out that there's already been some talk about install 
scripts and that some people have volunteered to coordinate. 
http://www.hack4dean.org/phpwiki/index.php?InstallationScripting

3) Josh_k would like a mailing list or something similar to help 
organize the MetaDean crew. Ditto for DeanSter. These will go up along 
with the new DeanSpace home for

4) eponics suggest a "fixed" taxonomy for the kit, ping suggests the 
same for people's interests/skills on deanster. The kit vanilla 
taxonomy (and other vanilla concerns) will be discussed on sunday at 
3pm EST in the IRC channel.

5) Madoc volunteers to be a press/PR coordinator; he will post things 
to the wiki for collab-edit and send pointers to the wiki to an 
editorial-committee mailing list.

6) Milestones: people will self-set specific milestones. We will agree 
on general milestones in meetings, and rely on people to report on 
progress. We also need to be mindful of "external" milestones.
 - Zack will be a "nudger".
 - Jeffk points us to phpCollab: http://phpcollab.sourceforge.net/
 - Ping suggests our milestones be specific
 - Zephyr points out that having a reliable sense of when things will 
be done is very important for the campaign
 - aldon: milestones should be tied to the needs of others

7) Setting milestones
DRUPAL/KIT:
- A vanilla release
- Feature list:
- endorse
- event (calendar)
- export (rss transmitter)
- import (rss recieving)
- mailinglist (mailing lists)
- make_block (makes a node into a block)
- postcard (ecard/graphic endorsement)
- Not included:
- Action (may end up being part of DeanSter)
- Media (not necessary, potential hold-up))
- Needs tech support to be ready
8) DeanSpace:
	- Polycot is donating server jail. THANKS!
	- Neil is admin
		- He'll be around IRC and IM tomorrow as the site goes up
	- Josh, Zack, Madoc will work site copy
	- Aldon has volunteered to port the wiki
	- Neil will hack up a quick template, ask list for more support
	- Timeline for switch-over of h4d activity: site ready for migration 
on friday, migration finished by midnight sunday. Aldon will set 
blackout dates for wiki migration.
	

Re: [hackers] Status: Media, VV, Action (addendum to last meeting)

[Joshua Koenig]

Pardon me if I'm a little late to this discussion.

2.  There is significant debate over whether the database for
the media repository should reside in a central location,
or be distributed among DeanSpace sites.  I have posted my
arguments for a centralized database in/on [*] the Wiki:
http://www.hack4dean.org/phpwiki/index.php?CentralizedMediaDatabase
It seems to me that there's a "third way" for this to work. I think the 
media needs to be in some ways both centrally organize/aggregated, but 
also distributed in terms of production and actual media hosting.

In other words, there needs to be a main source for finding Dean media, 
but that main source should not be a controlling entity, and our media 
functionality should not be dependent upon it.

I also think the issue of bandwidth demands at the minimum a 
distributed media hosting solution. Zack is right on with this. The 
amount of bandwidth required to feed the independent dean media 
movement will generate > $2,000 in bills over the course of the 
campaign, so it can't all be in one place.

4.  I said i was going to do an "action" module.  Where does
that fit into all of this?  Well, i personally consider
Visible Volunteers to be an early step towards Dean Action!,
my original concept for the "action" module.  Dean Action!
was supposed to be a site where volunteers would register,
find each other, and propose action items for each other.
Whatever we call the site [**], it seems clear to me that
the two concepts overlap heavily.  Zephyr, i'd love to
talk more about this with you when you can spare the time.
Currently, I'm operating under the understanding that we're going to 
make an attempt to implement Britt Blaser's Xpetert Web protocol on an 
opt-in basis to crack this nut. This will give us tasking, ratings and 
reputation-tracking and to me it makes sense to pick up an existing 
protocol rather than trying to develop something from scratch. I'm just 
beginning to wrap my head around this, but the XPW development team 
seems ready to help us out with this when the time comes.

This would be run through the VV/DeanSter system. Local groups are free 
to use other tools (e.g. drupals project module) to get their work 
done, but I think for national coordination of volunteer efforts, we 
need a national standard. The campaign will foot the bill for the 
servers and so forth here.

cheers
-josh

Re: [hackers] Re: Edge-to-Edge Principal / Reed's Law

[Joshua Koenig]

It seems to me this relates to the classic napster vs gnutella 
achitecture
evaluation(?). The selling point of the distrubuted, decentralized 
nature of
gnutella was, in the main, user  privacy. Performance though, in my 
personal
experience and from a system logistics point of view, was in napster's
corner and I atrribute this to the directory residing on a centralized
server. Though the files were distributed, queries were routed thru a
central hub as opposed to decentralized nodes and thus the "path" 
between
users was shortened.
This better performance is also why napster disappeared in one day. 
Complete centralization with fail for legal reasons.

A) Being run by the campaign, in which case it will be non-lively and 
relatively un-cool (they already have howarddean.tv...)

B) Run by a PAC, which has a very similar set of problems to situation A

C) Being shut down by hosting costs

-j

Re: [hackers] Re: Dean, Democracy, and more (fwd)

[Joshua Koenig]

Yes. I think CC (which flavor, I'm unsure) by default. Opt out as 
needed.

-j

Hey guys - let's figure out what we want to do about CC liscensing 
soon -
Lessig has offered his staff to help us work through the issues.

I think the latest agreement i heard was an "opt out" forced CC 
liscence
in the user preferences?

What are everyones latest thoughts?

-Zack

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 08:03:38 -0700
From: Lawrence Lessig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Matthew Haughey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
 Mike Linksvayer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
 Glenn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Laura Lynch 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
 Neeru Paharia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Dean, Democracy, and more

If Bush vetoes, it would be wonderful. Yes, that will become a huge 
issue.
Let's only hope.

Let me know when we can talk about the uploading/embedding stuff. I'm 
cc-ing
(so to speak) the cc staff. We'd be eager to help make it simple for 
people
to choose licenses for uploads. Ideally (as in MT) by setting it in 
their
preferences.

On 7/31/03 9:12 PM, "Zack Rosen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Second, there are two ways to implement it. One would be for them
simply
to release plain mp3s that say they're free. But the second (better)
way
would be for them to imbed CC licenses in the MP3s. The advantage to
that > is that it has an authenticating link back page -- which could 
be
the Dean
site. So, e.g., Lyle Lovett does a Dean song. You imbed a CC license.
That > license has an authenticating link back page. That link back 
page
is Dean.
Let me know if I can help with this.
Ah yes.  This will work nicely.  They could link to whatever
personal political message they had.  Ok, great.
The development community is moving into our new home:
http://www.deanspace.org .  Soon, when the move is complete, we are
going to try drumming up a bit of fanfare.  Campaign communities are
going to set up the first network sites these coming weeks, and 
needless
to say, we are very excited.

The Dean guest-blog thing was remarkable.  The implications for
presidential political dialogue on the internet are extremely 
exciting.

I am hearing interesting things about the net policy they are 
crafting.
If Bush really pushes for the FCC veto do you think these issues may
become significant in the next election?

-Zack

-Original Message-
From: Lawrence Lessig [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 11:51 AM
To: zachary rosen
Subject: Re: Dean, Democracy, and more
Great to hear from you Zack.

Replies below.

On 7/29/03 8:44 AM, "zachary rosen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Hello Larry,

A quick update: the project I talked about a few weeks ago at iLaw -
creating open source grassroots web tools for the dean campaign - is
moving along very nicely.  We have early test software running
(dean.sf.net), and the campaign headquarters are working very closely
with us. I am taking time off from my school this next year and
moving up to Burlington to work on the project as a campaign 
employee.
That's great.

Also, Joi Ito, Jay Rosen, and I are working on creating a "Emergent
Democracy" blog /community discussion group / web site / thing. We
have a
long list of people we think we can get interested in participating
including: You, Jim Moore, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Mitch
Radcliffe,
Jon Lebkowsky, and Howard Rheingold.  We are in the early stages of
drafting up a design document for the site on a SocialText wikki. If
you're interested in helping out now, Joi can make you an account.
I'll talk to Joi about it.

I have a question for you as well.  What do you think of creating a
creative commons liscense for artists who want to free their works
from
copyright but retain *some* control over the political message it is
attached to?
It is a great idea.

First, check out
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/2003_07.shtml#001386
Second, there are two ways to implement it. One would be for them 
simply
to
release plain mp3s that say they're free. But the second (better) way
would
be for them to imbed CC licenses in the MP3s. The advantage to that is
that
it has an authenticating link back page -- which could be the Dean 
site.
So,
e.g., Lyle Lovett does a Dean song. You imbed a CC license. That 
license
has
an authenticating link back page. That link back page is Dean.

Let me know if I can help with this.




-Zack




-
Lessig
Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA  94305-8610
650.736.0999 (vx)
650.723.8440 (fx)
  Ass't: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
  
  
  
  Help reclaim the Public Domain: Please sign this petition:
  http://eldred.cc/sign
  How else can you help? Check out:
  http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=Lessig


-
Lessig
Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA  94305-8610
650.736.0999 (vx)
650.723.8440 (fx)
Ass't: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Re: [hackers] Notes From Meeting

[Joshua Koenig]

Excellent point Lynn. I think the stock drupal modules we're including 
are:

 - forum
 - blog
 - profile (which will be modded)
 - book
 - poll
We may want to include more and/or have some of the above installed but 
"turned off" by default in our kit. This will allow administrators to 
add functionality not by installing anything, but by activating what 
already shipped with their kit.

cheers
-josh
7) Setting milestones
DRUPAL/KIT:
- A vanilla release
- Feature list:
- endorse
- event (calendar)
- export (rss transmitter)
- import (rss recieving)
- mailinglist (mailing lists)
- make_block (makes a node into a block)
- postcard (ecard/graphic endorsement)
Sorry to be so late on this--this has been Hell Week. These are the 
features
we're writing, basically; what about "native" drupal modules already 
extant
in the vanilla kit and encourage admins to enable? Are we going to 
ship with
forum? blog? weblink? book? profile? poll? wha? Is it more a matter of
stripping some modules out? Just trying to figure out what us tech 
writers
have got to explain.

Lynn S.




Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] Edge-to-Edge Principle / Reed's Law

[Joshua Koenig]

So either the media-network intelligence goes in the nodes of the
network, or it goes straight to the center of the Dean Media Team
mother-ship.
A few times now you've talked about "having to get permission from DMT"
or being "controlled by DMT", and now the "DMT mother-ship".  It's 
clear
that you don't like the idea of someone else telling us what to do.
But it's unfair to describe DMT so adversarially, as though they were
some sort of independent controlling entity.
If the DMT were the only place to go to get media, they would by 
necessity be a controlling entity. Slashdot -- which invites some user 
moderation -- works ok, but you'll also find many people who are 
disgruntled with the way it is run.

Luckily for people who don't like slashdot, there are 100s of places 
you can go for "News For Nerds, Stuff that Matters." What we're talking 
about here would be a system where DMT would be the only source for 
Dean Media. As such, any top-down control by anyone will create 
friction.

There is no "us" and "them".  We are all on the same team.
Not really accurate. We have the same ultimate goal, but for various 
reasons (legal, technical, political, social) we are not on the same 
team.

Look, as Zack pointed out, a user-driven moderation system doesn't 
depend on a centralized media server. Being able to link media doesn't 
depend on a centralized media server. Being able to widely promote 
media doesn't depend on a centralized media server.

The only thing a centralized media server does is (potentially) shorten 
the development time. As a tradeoff to that you have legal liability 
due to cost, a high admin load, and the potential of stifling 
innovation.

No one is arguing against a search hub for media. This is clearly 
necessary. The question is which entities have control over how media 
is produced and what it contains, how media is promoted and released to 
the public, and where in cyberspace media is hosted.

All of these questions push me in the direction of a distributed media 
system, and the cost/liability issue seals the deal. We obviously need 
search hubs for the many types and shapes of Dean media, but we cannot 
have one host for it all.

cheers
-josh

Re: [hackers] Stupid GPL question

[Joshua Koenig]

OK, so there's a postcard script I'd like to cadge a few ideas from. 
Not
wholesale cut/paste, just a couple ideas. It's licensed under GPL. 
This is
the first open source group project I've worked on; while I've been
programming for a bit, it's almost entirely been private work for 
myself and
my clients. What if anything do I need to do besides acknowledge the
original script? Add the GPL license to it? What? Sorry to be so dumb 
about
it, I did look up the GPL and read it but I'm still unsure as to widely
released work like this.
If you're just taking "inspiration" from something you don't have any 
obligations under the GPL. Only if you include significant portions of 
identical code (e.g. more than a couple lines) are you bound by it's 
terms.

cheers
-josh

Re: [hackers] IRC meeting tommorow afternoon

[Joshua Koenig]

Hello? Are we meeting? Am I in the wrong place
(tolkein.freenode.net/#hack4dean)? is it my breath? wha?
So it seems like this week's sunday meeting was a wash. Shall we try to 
re-convine later tonight? If not, I think we should meet prior to 
Wednesday in any case, as it's meetup day and we also have a lot of 
ground to cover.

peace
-josh

[hackers] Release Strategy

[Joshua Koenig]

This is going to be a big week for Dean.

In our own corner of the universe, we've gone "live" with our new 
website, deanspace.org. This is good stuff. Now we need to think 
strategy.

Basically, as soon as we start pushing this, we're going to get a lot 
of interest from techies and regular campaign people alike. Deanspace 
needs to channel that interest so it is rewarded and put to use, rather 
than frustrated.

Here are some ideas:

1) A "first time here?" page that explains what we're about
2) A release schedule and strategy for our "vanilla" kit.
3) A place for tech people to get the whole "alpha" package and start 
messing around on their own.
4) A place for regular campaign people to get a taste of what we're 
offering (e.g. a freebie demo site)

I'm going to take a stab at a "first time here" page. Anyone else 
things think these are good ideas?

cheers
-josh

Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] Release Strategy

[Joshua Koenig]

Yes. Agreed. I think it helps us internally if we have a "launch" 
moment though. It focuses effort.

-j

This is great. I really don't think a big release is the way to go -- 
in
fact, I think it would backfire. For this to work, I think I'll start
offering particular services, like a "want to set up your own Dean
website?" there are volunteers who can help.

And then build off that, slowly and quietly. I'll work on the DFA page
that can do this.
Z

Zephyr Teachout
Internet Organizing & Outreach
Dean for America
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Meetup at http://www.deanforamerica.com/meetup
Get local at http://action.deanforamerica.com
Contribute at http://www.deanforamerica.com/contribute
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of zachary rosen
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 12:00 PM
To: Joshua Koenig
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [hackers] Release Strategy
All sounds great Josh - ill get cracking on this stuff tonight with 
you.

Also, i think a theme contest is in order for DeanSpace.org.  Does 2
weeks
sound like a long enough time? We can put a vote to the submitted
themese
- with the winner winning "Default".
-Zack



On Mon, 4 Aug 2003, Joshua Koenig wrote:

This is going to be a big week for Dean.

In our own corner of the universe, we've gone "live" with our new
website, deanspace.org. This is good stuff. Now we need to think
strategy.
Basically, as soon as we start pushing this, we're going to get a lot
of interest from techies and regular campaign people alike. Deanspace
needs to channel that interest so it is rewarded and put to use,
rather
than frustrated.

Here are some ideas:

1) A "first time here?" page that explains what we're about
2) A release schedule and strategy for our "vanilla" kit.
3) A place for tech people to get the whole "alpha" package and start
messing around on their own.
4) A place for regular campaign people to get a taste of what we're
offering (e.g. a freebie demo site)
I'm going to take a stab at a "first time here" page. Anyone else
things think these are good ideas?
cheers
-josh

Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/




Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Participate!
Elect Howard Dean President in 2004!
http://www.outlandishjosh.com/politics/dean/

Re: [hackers] Question on editing

[Joshua Koenig]

Please please please do.

typos are no good...
I second that. Anyone can edit my text for typos and obvious language 
bugs. If you want t cut a paragraph, ask first, but otherwise I say go 
for it.

peace
-josh

Re: [hackers] IRC Rescheduling.

[Joshua Koenig]

Thurs is better for me too ;)
Ok... can we set the meeting to be on Thursday? 8:30pm EST?

Any objections?

-j