[HacktionLab] ideas for basic system for movement support gathering

[Tom Lord]

Hello again...

So, as promised:

I'm thinking that the initial Thing that might be useful at the MSG 
would have the following functionality. I'll add this up on 
http://lopad.org/msgtech (like a pirate pad, that we run) in case email 
is a messy way to keep track of thinking.

In some kind of priority order:

- DIRECTORY - record some info about the groups involved, like name, 
location, website, public contact details. Probably under some taxonomy 
of groups, like "kitchens" "legal" etc.  This could be as simple as a 
wiki for now, and left to my own devices that's what I might come up 
with (or a spreadsheet first, as Mike suggests). However, if we want to 
do other stuff, it probably can't stay like that!

- MAP - let's see where groups are based physically, innit. Find your 
nearest facilitation training group. Join your local medics. Realise we 
have no widget-makers in Scotland and should start a group there, or 
whatever. So I'm thinking would be handy to have structured data entered 
in the directory, that could then be used to populate a map. Google maps 
is probably cheapest, obvious concerns about corporate provider. 
Although this is meant to be public-only information.

- ACCESS LEVELS - it would be nice if people other than sysadmin types 
could edit at least their own stuff. Linked heavily to...

- BASIC WEB SPACE FOR EACH KIND OF GROUP - e.g. "here's the Activist 
Medics network intro page". Part of the MSG is going to be encouraging 
groups to think about pooling their knowledge / resources. So, I think 
it might be useful for each group to have some simple web space to 
cobble together any info and links to documents for each other. Or to 
link to their own sites where they're already doing this. Think would 
first need different access levels, to let people edit their own stuff.

- UPLOAD DOCUMENTS - following on from previous point, if groups can 
also store docs on the system, makes it easier to pool resources in a 
central place if people want to.

- CONTACT DETAIL OBFUSCATION - would be nice to have a form for 
contacting groups by email (mebbe with a captcha or something) rather 
than groups having to be happy to make contact details public, if they 
don't want.

- SECURITY? - I'm thinking of it as publicly available info which any 
sensible secret service types will already have mapped out anyway, so 
apart from harvesting login details (which might not have to be personal 
email addresses), I'm not sure if there's a strong security risk. I 
welcome input on this optimistic statement :-)

- MODERATION? - I'm thinking that because we're talking about groups, 
and not individuals, there will be more accountability, and less 
moderation will be required than in a system that deals with 
individuals. We're less likely to have GBC London putting up stuff about 
how the moon landings were faked etc.



And maybe out into the future, if this takes off and people think it 
might be useful...


- SHARED CALENDARS - I was thinking it'd be nice to be able to see "all 
legal training in March in the UK" or "show me all events happening 
within 40 miles of Cambridge today", in a format that means I only need 
to type this stuff in once somewhere and can then reflect it on my 
group's own website, or vice-versa. Maybe this is a bit pipe dream at 
the moment.

- RESOURCES REQUESTED / OFFERED - I know there are systems that do this 
kind of thing already for individuals, and obviously there are more 
security risks with this. Might be nice to tie something that satisfies 
public requests into one place to look at though, with single sign-in.



In terms of initial ideas for what to use, I've come up with:

- A wiki

- Google maps

- A Django-based intranet that my work have built and I need to take a 
look at! It does structured data, handles documents, and group-based 
admin rights. It would need some re-skinning from the project it's 
currently being used on, doesn't have maps yet, although I've seen the 
Leaflet library used to create nice dynamic maps with Open Streetmap, on 
this local food site: www.sustainablesouk.com

- Had a couple of mentions of CiviCRM.

- Someone suggested Wordpress Membership plugin would be a way to create 
structured data forms + display the results on a site, possibly with 
levels of admin control, and obviously different pages available for 
different groups to upload stuff. Looking at the membership plugin, I'm 
not sure about that - it looks like it's intended for something else, 
and the admin levels look like they might be a single hierarchy rather 
than individual groups having access to individual pages.

I think I want something basic at first; something with minimal barrier 
to entry, no clutter that people don't want, no forcing them into using 
it in a way that doesn't suit them or their politics. I'm thinking that 
if people find an initial directory useful, they may be willing to 
engage with a process of working out what else would be useful, and 
engaging with a more feature-rich and potentially bit more complicated 
system.


cheers!
Tom.