Project: NYCSR Improvements (codename: Fresh Bread)

Updates:

Summary and mission objectives:

The NYC Streets Renaissance has already "changed the shape of advocacy in NYC".  Our goal is to bring NYCSR sites to the next level of online advocacy, through improved design, new community features, and a rock-solid technical foundation.

We will work directly with the Streetsblog staff and Streetsblog readers to develop and implement ideas for new features, starting with a handful of specific projects.

User stories:

• Aaron Naparstek, through feedback from his fan club, has an idea for a new feature.  Make it happen!
  
• A visitor to Streetsblog can immediately understand where it exists in the context of the NYCSR, and can immediately find other relevant sites and information
• A reader comes to Streetsblog and reads an interesting story about their neighborhood (Astoria, Queens).  They click on a map that shows all the other Streetsblog stories and StreetFilms videos about their neighborhood.
• It has been discovered that one of our council members is way out of touch with his/her constituency on a certain policy issue.  After reading a post about this issue, our reader can sign a petition or write a letter to their councilmember, either within streetsblog, on openplans, or through an external tool.
  

Functional & technical objectives:

• Collaborate with Aaron N & the TOPP design team to develop the next generation of NYCSR sites. Everything from writing WP plugins to extending our Ajax framework.
  
• Extend and fix WordPress plugins for Streetsblog
• Setting up Streetswiki.org to take advantage of everything NUI has brought, and supporting a successful launch
• Learn WordPress management & configuration, WP Plugins, Deliverance for brand identity
  

Ideas for specific features:

• Add geocoding & mapping to Streetsblog posts & StreetFilms films (by implementing and extending the GeoPress WordPress plugin)
• Add "action items" to Streetsblog posts -- ways to follow up an issue with real world actions (e.g., sign a petition, send a letter to a representative, etc.).  Begin by connecting to external tools; eventually build tools in-house
• Add "the crown of royalty" for good comments.  Admin-selected great comments get pulled out and featured.  Perhaps allow filtering of "all comments" page by crown.
• Consolidate and better feature the site's RSS feeds (by category, comments, crown of royalty, etc)
  

Longer range work summary:

This project will involve continuous communication with the "content" side of the TOPP team (bloggers, filmmakers, advocates, etc.) -- long range plans for improvements will stem from discussions with them based on their evolving missions and product goals.  Future work will be a combination of support and feature development.

Resources:

- StreetsBlog: www.streetsblog.org
- StreetFilms: www.streetfilms.org
- NYC Streets Renaissance: www.nycsr.org
- WordPress developer docs: http://codex.wordpress.org/Developer_Documentation
- Deliverance: http://www.openplans.org/projects/deliverance

Who to talk to:

• Wordpress: Nick / Ian

Initial Tasks:

• What is the NYCSR? Mission, history, and accomplishments
• Streetsblog & StreetFilms site investigation
• Introduction to WordPress, PHP & MySQL
• Help configure WordPress for openplans
  
• Access to dev.streetsblog.org
• Start your own blog on WordPress.com
• Install & configure a WP plugin for Streetsblog
• Fix outstanding bugs in Sblog WP Plugins
• Extend WP Plugins for SBlog
• Write new WP Plugins