grns-sf-it-website's topics - tribe.net

Sub Group - Data Storage and Management

aintry — Thu, 01 Jan 2004 02:35:50 GMT

Data Storage and Management

This sub-project's goal is to renovate the way the party stores, manages, and backs up its internal data. We currently use a FileMakerPro database to track people, donations, and other meta-information. We're in dire need of a revamp to this database, as it's difficult to use and provides no protection from malicious behavior.

I've posted a list of quasi-requirements at http://www.assailant.org/sfgp/database/requirements.txt

The people who have indicated an interest in this project are:
Joe Morse
Dave Snyder

Please indicate your interest here if you would like to be a part of this effort.

posted in grns-sf-it-website - 1 reply

Invitation to join the Virtual Greens

gabriel — Fri, 02 Jan 2004 03:13:44 GMT

You are invited to join the Virtual Greens e-group. The purpose of this group is to become a conduit for the coordination of a national effort to support the next Green presidential campaign in "safe" states using research, e-mail, bulk mailings and long distance telephone banks. By focusing a national campaign on the "safe" states we, as a third party, would be capable of putting our efforts exactly where we have the best chances of success.
We believe that the very existence of a successful Green cyber-campaign that is aimed at "safe states" in 2004 could break the barriers of distance that have historically held back the advancement of third parties in America.

We also intend to work in support of other campaigns where the Green Party has a real chance of achieving a significant political victory, such as the Matt Gonzolez campaign in San Francisco or the IRV referendum in Alaska. We believe that with a large enough active membership base we could take advantage of our numbers nationwide to conceivably overwhelm a political opponent and thus nullify the power of big money in certain key political campaigns.

To subscribe to this e-group please send an e-mail to:
virtual_greens-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

posted in grns-sf-it-website - 0 replies

SFGP IT and Site Priorities

aintry — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 18:37:37 GMT

Hello all. One of the goals we discussed at the GM meeting last night was to create a prioritized list of our systems, website, and software needs. After we create and prioritize this list, we can then figure out how to go about creating the systems involved and (eventually) integrating them. It's important to note here that at this point, we're talking about *what* we need the systems to do, and not how they should be implemented.

Last night we identified a few key areas where our systems need improvement:

**Party data storage and management**
The SFGP currently uses a very large, very disheveled FileMakerPro file set as our database. This database tracks (or attempts to track) SFGP members, volunteers, donations, sustainer signups, and a host of meta-data. The FMP database that currently exists is inadequate in several areas: (1) it doesn't adequately use the realtional capabilities of the software so it's nearly impossible to query (2) the data design is quite bad: there are duplicate fields, the tables and fields don't match the needs of the party (3) the database as currently used is a file database: people make a copy of the file, move it to another computer, and edit the copy (4) as far as I can tell, there is no backup strategy for the database. (5) the interface isn't quite usable (6) There are few permissioning and security considerations: we need different levels of access for different missions (e.g. we don't want to allow off-the-street volunteers to delete records).

**Communications: email lists and discussion boards**
I believe we're currently using the web-based system on sfgreenparty.org to do mass mailings. We've encountered problems with this system, but I'm not sure of other limitations or complaints. Ultimately, we would like to allow the list members to self-administer their email preferences.

As for discussion boards, we currently have a rudimentary system on the site. Some people do use them, but as I see it there are several problems with them: (1) many Democrats are using the boards to flame the Greens with the whole "you elected Bush" line of crap. (2) the boards currently allow anonymous posting and don't have moderation features (a la slashdot). (3) the boards are currently implemented in a proprietary technology (EML) that make them very difficult to change

**Communications: Web site calendaring and issue notification**
We currently have a database-driven site that allows people to update news items and events. We may want to discuss potential improvements (both cosmetic and functional) to the site.

If anyone has another area of improvement to add (or an elaboration on these three), please feel free to post a follow-up. Once we are relatively satisfied with our list, we should then determine who should work on what and how we should proceed.

Joe

posted in grns-sf-it-website - 2 replies

Sub Group - Communications: Email List Software

aintry — Thu, 01 Jan 2004 02:44:15 GMT

Communications: Email List Software

This sub group's goal is to build a more robust email list serving software for the SF Green Party. The party currently uses a proprietary system called ESM that exists on a hosted server (the same hosted server where the web site is). People add their email to the list by submitting a form to a PERL CGI script, which adds the email to a file on the file system. Mail administrators are provided a rudimentary web interface to create, alter, and manage these files, and to send messages to the subscribed users.

Our hope is to create a system where people can sign up for email lists and manage their subscription preferences themselves, without the need for administrator contact. The system should not rely on proprietary technology if possible, and should be able to run on multiple platforms. We may replicate whatever system is built in a hosted environment, so portability is a primary concern. Ease of administration is also a major concern, as we're all short on time these days.

John-Marc Chandonia has volunteered to lead this effort. Other people who have expressed interest are:
Marc Powell
Paul Platt
Rob Arnow

Please indicate your interest by replying to this post.

posted in grns-sf-it-website - 0 replies