TDAC

Below is a recap from our TDAC website meeting on 12/9/09 (meeting notes here) going over how the new TDAC website will be built.  Thanks to everyone who made it!  To those who couldn’t make it, feedback is welcome and we’d love to hear your comments.

Overall Design / UI

• WordPress MU, BuddyPress and bbPress need to be updated and setup on a faster server (we can use www.creativeoven.com as a testing site and switch over to this bluehost account if it runs fast enough)
• Better access to group discussions / forums
• Users and content needs to be ported over to this new testing server.
• Need to update the structure of the homepage and decide which elements should be featured.  Include “Teaser Text”.
• Creating simple wireframe layouts should be done for each page of the site, though most importantly the home page.
• Show a personalized homepage for users who are logged in.  Show the groups they are a part of and other information related to them.
• Add blog where people can post things to? Guest bloggers? Aftermath blog of each event AFTER each event (like this post you are reading right now)
• Twitter feed shows activity of all members.  Our current list: http://twitter.com/tucsondigital/tdac-members

INDIVIDUAL SECTIONS/BLOGS OF THIS SITE:

Events

• Events should have own WordPress blog
• Option 1: Possibly setup simple contact form allowing members to submit events to the current calendar plugin.
• Option 2: Setup the Events Manager plugin (updated 3 days ago) and test capabilities (RSVP, Submitting Events, RSS feed, etc) http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/events-manager/
• Option 3: Use Google Calendar
• Differentiating between *official* TDAC events and user submitted events
• Area to help decide on future events.  This should be it’s own Group/Forum where event topics may be proposed discussed.  Might be good to have a poll to decide between a few finalists on the homepage.

Forums / Groups

• Separate forum for easy navigation of all discussions.
  • Option 1: remove group forums and just use bbPress as a standalone forum (like BuddyPress.org does)
  • Option 2: try to use keep forums within each group, but add a “Forums” link to top navigation that shows activity across all group forums
• Group discussions need to be all seen in one place (new bbPress version does this)
• Try to find a way to allow invitations to groups without the “friends” feature (possibly just make everyone a friend with everyone else upon signing up)
• Ties in with proposed Ask TDAC feature.  (just ask your question in the appropriate group forum)

Job Board

• Job area will have it’s own WordPress blog
• Grid should be easy to explore and filter through
• Admins will be notified of new job posting and filter them as needed
• Listings will expire after 30 days?
• Make it easy to submit — anyone should be able to submit (Gravity Forms submission to specific WPMU blog (and category)) see an example at http://jobs.wordpress.net/
• Members need to login to respond to a job and see contact info
• Idea of the LinkedIn style checkboxes that allow you to show what you desire from employers (freelance, full-time, etc)

User Profiles

• More fields need to be added to profiles (such as company you work for, twitter link being link, and website links)
• Select type of work they do (top 3 categories)
• Allow members to upload images of work (http://www.wpveda.com/buddypress-kaltura-media-component/ )
• Combine mailing list (google group) with member profile. Manage subscriptions. Built in Newsletter (Subscribe2 plugin?)
  Make the email subscription an option when signing up for TDAC (MOVE IT AWAY FROM GOOGLE GROUP since it’s not a discussions)
• Sort Directory of members by tag/category
• Facebook Connect (could be easy to login without signing up)  VERY LOW PRIORITY
  Maybe use OpenID too?
• Remove auto-linking in profile fields
  • The problem is that it tries to link everything: your name, your state, etc
  • sample code to do this: http://buddypress.pastebin.com/f461fc21e
  • see also: http://buddypress.org/forums/topic.php?id=1864#post-14923
  • then use a similar function to link the Twitter name to the actual Twitter URL

Podcasting / Video

• Goal of doing short videos with each member. Quick/short/interesting.
• Panels of people discussing a topic?
• Set up a standard for recording events and managing responsibilities
• Find video people in Tucson who will do this! (MPG, DP, and UP Groups?)

Sponsorship and Ads

• Ad space is earned by participating.  You earn credits by presenting, working on website, creating content, editing video, etc.  This credit can then be used to place an ad up on TDAC.
• Tracking and value system needs to be setup for this
• Ad program needs to be added to the site which can rotate ads through the various blogs which makeup TDAC