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
