Re: [Social-mediagoblin] web-site, docs, et al (status 4/7/2011)

[Christopher Allan Webber]

Deborah Nicholson <address@hidden> writes:

> We should be answering the classic questions.

Good list!  I'll provide some awful and rambly thoughts and you can make
coherent answers.

> Who are we?

I'm not sure if the answer to this should be specific to certain team
members or if that's a bad idea because it could be exclusionary to
potential contributors.

"people who are interested in federated blah blah...", maybe link to
autonomo.us franklin street statement:

http://autonomo.us/2008/07/franklin-street-statement/

... which is timing out currently, sigh :\

If we do talk about "who we are" to give a sense of "we're the right
people, totally qualified", maybe we can list that people on the team
have brought several modern sites and applications to life, such as:

 - Miro Community
 - Miro Guide
 - creativecommons.org's licensing infrastructure

maybe other GNU projects?

> Why are we doing this?

Again, if it weren't timing out, I'd love to link to the Franklin Street
Statement.  Sigh.  But at the very least I'd like to say something
similar to what I wrote in the READMEish file.  In fact, here's the
intro from that file:

  What is MediaGoblin?  I'm shooting for:
  
   - Initially, a place to store all your photos that's as awesome as,
     more awesome than, existing proprietary solutions
   - Later, a place for all sorts of media, such as video, music, etc
     hosting.
   - Federated, like statusnet/ostatus (we should use ostatus, in fact!)
   - Customizable
   - A place for people to collaborate and show off original and derived
     creations
   - Free, as in freedom.  Under the GNU AGPL, v3 or later.  Encourages
     free formats and free licensing for content, too.
  
  Wow!  That's pretty ambitious.  Hopefully we're cool enough to do it.
  I think we can.
  
  It's also necessary, for multiple reasons.  Centralization and
  proprietization of media on the internet is a serious problem and
  makes the web go from a system of extreme resilience to a system
  of frightening fragility.  People should be able to own their data.
  Etc.  If you're reading this, chances are you already agree though. :)


that line about "Centralization and proprietization of media on the
internet..." is probably a goodish one to start with.

> When will this be ready for launch (probably)?

So, I'm guessing it will take at least four months to get something
people can log into and post pictures, and that's pretty optimistic.
End of september 2011?

I think it's important to note that:
 - we don't really know
 - the more people help us out, the sooner a release is possible.

> And how - code we are basing this on/how can people get involved in coding or
> helping in other ways, even just spreading the word.

So, 

<willkg> as an aside, i want to have a big button on the GNU MediaGoblin
         web-site that is "WTF is MediaGoblin?" where people can click on it
         and get a real explanation sans buzzwords and marketing horseshit of
         what we're doing.  [14:34]
<willkg> where "want" is defined as "dream about it and it makes me go to my
         happy place because I'm tired of web-sites for products lacking a
         'WTF is this' explanation in non-faux words."

Will should make that happen in the developer docs ;) (and of course I'm
happy to help) and we should link to it.  As for on the main page, a
simple description like:
  "Mediagoblin is <a href="/docs/technology-overview.html">based on
  Python, MongoDB, and a whole bunch of other cool technology</a>."
is probably good.

I'd also really like a "hacking quickstart" page, but I guess that'll
come later.

Other than that, as for getting people involved, we should link to IRC,
the identi.ca group, etc.

> Feel free to pass along any thoughts that will help answer those
> questions and Will and I can sort out what belongs on the site and
> what goes into a press release.

Hopefully this was helpful and not exhausting!  I'm happy to clarify anything.

> BTW, I am in Maryland for 2 or 3 days so my connectivity will be limited.
> Cheers, Deb

Absolutely no problem, thanks for getting involved in this.
 - cwebb

-- 
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