"Black THIS Out" Money Bomb site is LIVE!

[dusman]

Moving things over to new DNS servers and hosting, so some of you may see the web site down.

 

[parocks]

I should probably explain a difference with MODx, that is going to be a little bit foreign if you are used to Joomla or Drupal. Those systems do have a lot of plugins; however, part of that is because everything must to be plugged in, whereas you can basically accomplish the same things on the fly in MODx by simply calling placeholders and manipulating their parameters. I prefer to call MODx a framework and I guess what I was trying to illustrate is that MODx is my programmer. It dumbs it down just enough to where I can create just about any interaction pretty easily. With that in mind.. you can integrate any other system that has an API and make a hybrid with MODx.

It's pretty neat stuff.. I wish I was a hardcore PHP guy, because I would go crazy with it.

The problem with MODx is that it's often too flexible and therefore every feature you want needs to be formatted and styled for each interaction. However, I'd like to think any need can be met with it. Perfect for someone like me who prefers to mainly focus on design.

I'd like to know what kind of features you had in mind? I've so far set a pretty low bar in my phases here and have intentionally kept it open for expansion into better things. I've only got one page here so far! I'll review over your suggestions and see if there is anything that might cause any issues in regards to MODx, but I'm pretty confident they wouldn't cause much issues. The great thing is.. anywhere I might need help, anyone here can author traditional HTML/PHP and I can use it, so there is no need to have to learn MODx. Although, if anyone else wants to learn it.. I'm never against that!

What I picked out was this "who prefers to mainly focus on design."

Your designs are good/great. They look a lot better that the average.

My argument I guess is that it seems like it might be more difficult to implement more functionality with MODx than with joomla / drupal.

With joomla you can just browse the extensions.

http://extensions.joomla.org/

I would think that for this, a community extension, a group extension, an events extension. All which have plugins for each other.

Each person would have their own community page. With "my groups" and "my events" I don't really care how it works and I don't really care if the functionality is exactly how it appeared in someones mind.

Data should be gathered. And the idea that you might not be gathering data is problematic.

 

[parocks]

Disagree. People go there to pledge, there should be no impediment to them being able to do it quickly. They can surf around and watch videos after if they want.

They don't go to the site to be convinced. They go to pledge because someone already talked them into it.

They would go to the site for a number of reasons.

If the site is ABOUT the moneybomb project, they would go there to learn what's going on with the moneybomb project.

If they wanted information on how they could get organized and help the moneybomb project, that should be there.

If the ONLY thing on the moneybomb page is a place to take a pledge and a ticker, the only people who go there would be people who want to pledge and look at a ticker.

We do not have very many websites where people can get more informed, more organized. Because people will be going to this site (mostly because it's the right url), we should do as much with those people as we can.

Dusman does seem to agree with me with a Less and/or More approach to gathering the data that we need so much. I personally don't care if the "Quick Pledge" is small or big, top or bottom. As long as the people who are complaining about too much data gathering will scare some people away will be happy. And then Dusman, in the long form, can gather all the data we want.

 

[parocks]

I could include in the pledge form a checkbox that says something like "I want to get more involved" and if they check that, the CMS creates a username with their e-mail address and sends them off a password to login.

I would say "good" to that. Even better perhaps is if there's no check box, and everyone has a username and password created and sent to the email.

 

[dusman]

What I picked out was this "who prefers to mainly focus on design."

Your designs are good/great. They look a lot better that the average.

My argument I guess is that it seems like it might be more difficult to implement more functionality with MODx than with joomla / drupal.

With joomla you can just browse the extensions.

http://extensions.joomla.org/

I would think that for this, a community extension, a group extension, an events extension. All which have plugins for each other.

Each person would have their own community page. With "my groups" and "my events" I don't really care how it works and I don't really care if the functionality is exactly how it appeared in someones mind.

Data should be gathered. And the idea that you might not be gathering data is problematic.

It might be worth reiterating this: "Those systems do have a lot of plugins; however, part of that is because everything must to be plugged in, whereas you can basically accomplish the same things on the fly in MODx". I guess the only difference really is that Joomla forces a pre-packaged format and business logic, whereas MODx doesn't have that restraint. Having to either modify that format/logic vs. building on the fly in MODx.. there isn't much difference in efficiency that I've ever noticed. In my experience, starting from scratch has been faster for me. However, as you pointed out that is likely because of my emphasis on design.. so that might be unique for my necessity to modify Joomla's plugins in most cases.

It seems you are leaning toward more a social solution? I should emphasize that I'm completely open to what you are suggesting here; however, I need more details on the benefits you see it generating and how that applies to each user coming to the web site.

Would every person pledging be brought into a social platform or are the social features you are suggesting specific to volunteers for the web site? I guess what I am hung up on is "Each person would have their own community page." Can you define that better for me? What features should that provide?

Thanks for taking the time to give your input.. it will be valuable in rounding out a final solution.

In conclusion, I'm weighing all this against the ability to redeploy this system out for other moneybombs rapidly when needed and Joomla simply doesn't provide much in that area. What I see is the potential that if this really shows an exceptional result vs prior moneybombs.. we can establish a single database to manage ALL future moneybombs and create a snowball effect by focusing more on retention of the user base built from prior moneybombs.. starting with this one.

So, for example.. when someone sets up a "community page", as you suggest, that profile would be accessible to the user from this and all future moneybomb web sites. So, if there is a high percentage of retention moving into say the Tea Party Moneybomb in December, I aim to eliminate the need for redundancy of our support base... they'll just be able to login to their account as they always have and we won't have to recapture those people.. both for pledges and volunteers.

 

[parkway3000]

Any thoughts on this?

Hey man, I think this idea is awesome. It would
Give the moneybomb a unique feel to it
And would attract interest and build momentum.
I have followed Ron Paul for years and tell everyone
I meet about his thoughts. People are coming around.
I think what you guys are doing is really
Great. Keep up the good work!
I hope NYC comes around and supports Ron
Paul. He is the truth!

 

[parocks]

That sounds fine. Later in the campaign, the RP2012 site will set up a volunteer area for canvassing and we'll want to be able to direct these people there.

We'll want to send the rp2012 people to the moneybomb page. Sounds good.

If RP2012 is going to put up a good community/volunteer/events/groups portal, all the better. There's no reason why it shouldn't be up right now.

Dusman could come up with a great moneybomb portal right here with this. With all the functions, all the bells and whistles. Or I could, Or someone else.

 

[teacherone]

every joomla module and plugin is open source so you can alter a you can alter all the source files to fit any design.

 

[pen_thief]

Ah, that's a relief. I saw the link in a youtube vid and tried to go there and then was a bit worried it'd been shut down. Shall check back later then

 

[ItsTime]

I was a bit confused by it too. I guess I assumed it would go to the event page.

Ok no worries, can't hurt to have both

 

[parkway3000]

sorry guys i am new to this!
I think we should try do this idea suggested
By dusman, we should make the media
Pay for trying to control what is put in front
of us instead of letting us make our own decisions!
They really are a bunch of arrogant bastards,
We have to make them realize we are not
mindless drones we are individuals! NYC for Ron Paul!

 

[dusman]

every joomla module and plugin is open source so you can alter a you can alter all the source files to fit any design.

Keep in mind.. I'm a prior Joomla/Drupal developer and abandoned both all together for MODx. It's difficult to explain the justification, without completely overwhelming this thread with that topic.

 

[teacherone]

sorry guys i am new to this!
I think we should try do this idea suggested
By dusman, we should make the media
Pay for trying to control what is put in front
of us instead of letting us make our own decisions!
They really are a bunch of arrogant bastards,
We have to make them realize we are not
mindless drones we are individuals! NYC for Ron Paul!

are you related to Aratus by any chance?

 

[ItsTime]

are you related to Aratus by any chance?

Just reading the post I thought it was!

 

[dusman]

Can I get suggestions on how to integrate into rp2012.com?

 

[parkway3000]

No I don't know who that is. I am studying for my
LSAT right now, but sometimes I can't help
following Ron Paul and the developments in the
News!

 

[Eric21ND]

I dont know how it is confusing. But in any case here is the event page http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=181997088537471

There weren't fan pages for the other money bombs. It distracts from the event page which is the critical one so people can invite their friends.

 

[Eric21ND]

I completely agree. I'm probably going to build a slider feature for the donation amount to make it a little more neat, instead of just a typical dropdown box or rely on the user to format the amount field properly. Kind of like a fail-safe measure.

What are your thoughts on collecting ZIP? I'm still at odds with that one. However, location would be really useful for something like a map and feeding results into a map.

I love maps and seeing things represented graphically. Collecting donor zip codes could make for interesting mapping.

Something like this http://lobbydata.com/Donors

Or a donor heat map.

 

[teacherone]

No I don't know who that is. I am studying for my
LSAT right now, but sometimes I can't help
following Ron Paul and the developments in the
News!

what's with the premature line breaks? maybe you need to see a doctor about that.

 

[parocks]

It might be worth reiterating this: "Those systems do have a lot of plugins; however, part of that is because everything must to be plugged in, whereas you can basically accomplish the same things on the fly in MODx". I guess the only difference really is that Joomla forces a pre-packaged format and business logic, whereas MODx doesn't have that restraint. Having to either modify that format/logic vs. building on the fly in MODx.. there isn't much difference in efficiency that I've ever noticed. In my experience, starting from scratch has been faster for me. However, as you pointed out that is likely because of my emphasis on design.. so that might be unique for my necessity to modify Joomla's plugins in most cases.

It seems you are leaning toward more a social solution? I should emphasize that I'm completely open to what you are suggesting here; however, I need more details on the benefits you see it generating and how that applies to each user coming to the web site.

Would every person pledging be brought into a social platform or are the social features you are suggesting specific to volunteers for the web site? I guess what I am hung up on is "Each person would have their own community page." Can you define that better for me? What features should that provide?

Thanks for taking the time to give your input.. it will be valuable in rounding out a final solution.

In conclusion, I'm weighing all this against the ability to redeploy this system out for other moneybombs rapidly when needed and Joomla simply doesn't provide much in that area. What I see is the potential that if this really shows an exceptional result vs prior moneybombs.. we can establish a single database to manage ALL future moneybombs and create a snowball effect by focusing more on retention of the user base built from prior moneybombs.. starting with this one.

So, for example.. when someone sets up a "community page", as you suggest, that profile would be accessible to the user from this and all future moneybomb web sites. So, if there is a high percentage of retention moving into say the Tea Party Moneybomb in December, I aim to eliminate the need for redundancy of our support base... they'll just be able to login to their account as they always have and we won't have to recapture those people.. both for pledges and volunteers.

Let's see. About joomla vs modx. I completely get that you don't like how many of the plug ins look on joomla. you tend to play around with the css on the plugins, yes? and because you do this, because you want it to look just right, it is almost always a time consuming pain in the ass. Because you're coming at it from a design perspective, it's really important that it not look terrible. I look at is from a functional standpoint. If the icons for one component look entirely different from another, it's bad design, but I don't care.
My care is functionality. I get what you're talking about though.

About community page. I did a 5K member community site. We were giving away free downloads, complete albums, free and with the support of the bands. So, we could get the user data. There would be a link - called members, or community. That page would have a search page, to search the members, and a number of different ways to sort the members. And also a cool looking list of members - 50 most recent members perhaps. If you are in PA, you can search the database for other PA members.

Then each person who gave you their email gets their own community page. They may never use it. But it would have features like "my groups" "my events" private messaging, etc.

This website - if it's good - SHOULD be used for all money bombs. That's the idea.

Honestly, the best of the websites should be doing constitution day. If the THIS moneybomb page is better than the Constitution page, all the moneybomb specific URLs could be pointing to the best site.