MyDD 5
by Jerome Armstrong, Thu Dec 31, 2009 at 11:16:49 AM EST
We are bringing in 2010, the new decade, with a new platform or MyDD. First things first, a lot of things need changed, but the switch flipped on and it's all here :)
This MyDD is the 5th. First, there was MyDD the dark ages, of the end of the 90's, when I first bought the domain (I actually wrote a paper on the site name for a linguistics class-- will have to see if thats around somewhere on a CD). Basically, MyDD HTML-sytle. I learned how to cut and paste and found script to make three columns, and post thoughts and push them onto the site. Things like FTP that brought me back to the mid-80s', when I gave up programming with BASIC and PASCAL.
Second, Gray Matter, at somepoint mid-2001 through mid-2002. TPM and PW also ran on GM back then, but the difference was that we opened up comments here on MyDD, and invented community blogging with things like open threads and guest blogging. Third, was Movable Type, which happened with Markos coming into blogging mid-2002, and his doing a site redo for me (including the graphic)-- which launched the idea in my head that we could do this for candidates... like Howard Dean. MyDD took a haitus a in early 2003, when I went to work on Dean's campaign, until early 2004, when it returned running on Scoop. For nearly 5 years!
MyDD5 is built with Ruby on Rails. Its a blogging component of the new WSG Netroots platform. I put off launch a new platform earlier this year, because it was too crowded a platform to innovate off of, and the developers basically re-did the Netroots platform (Netroots2) over the past few months (and the next three months), of which this is a part.
As for features, one of the biggest changes is that we are integrating BreakingBlue.com with the site, and Facebook/Twitter/Google. BB now has a bookmarklet and sync's up its content with MyDD, and will be adding those other social networking sites too soon.Another big change is how Mojo works-- off of personal verification and then contribution of content to the site. I am in the process of re-doing the FAQ/Usage pages and getting user permissions updated, so will come back to these in another post.
UPDATE: We are experiencing technical difficulties. It appears to be a cache issue-- pretty expected that we'd run into scaling issues right away though. But what this means in the next couple of days, is that we don't get to the minor fixes until we figure out how to make the data bottlenecks go out of the way. I'm putting in the extended entry things we have tickets for already.
Here are a few things:
Up the font size of the comments.
The narrow width needs to be expanced from the 925 width. Wasn't the plan to make it 1050 or something?
Decrease the font size of the entry titles.
Picture 4 attached. The site title needs to be changed from "Netroots" to MyDD: Admin
We need to have a link there that lets the user go back to the website.
"netroots2 admin" should also be changed to MyDD: Admin
Pics 3 & 5 are from trying to facebook the post. For some reason, they are pulling in blogads and CSM logos, instead of the mydd logo.
Am getting a "we're sorry" page for when I try and change to using a breakingblue photo: http://mydd.com/connect/photo/2
The breaking blue posts on mydd in the upper right column are too bold. We should have those be a normal font entry, which can be of a smaller size too, and the name in italics, as is. This should be the case on breakingblue in the column of recent bb posts too.
There should never be more than 5 diaries on the Recommended Diaries list.
We need to be able to blockquote, with the blue shade in the background, quotes in posts. I don't see how that's done, but also, it looks like many of the blockquotes were carried over in the archives.
Lets make that @2009MyDD into a @2010MyDD
We need to put up a "Powered by WSG" link/icon at the bottom in the footer too.
Picture 6, when I recommend a comment, it flashes the green confirmation, good, but shows 0 recs there, when it should show 1 rec (that I just gave it).
The blogroll appears to have disappeared, and should be put on again-- can I do this?
Extra space between bb posts on mydd top nav link.
The rec doesn't appear to be working for the comments. I hit rec and it doesn't register for the comment, nor does it show up on the Rec List. See photo attached.
http://launch.mydd.com/live The individual entries for comments need to have permalinks with them. Basically, the comments that go onto the live thread and onto the rec list, need to carry with them the righthand column that contains the flag comment/permalink/photo of the entry.
integrate the BB posts with the Twitter and FB accounts of a user.
Have comments of a user tied to their blog profile page, similar to how MyDD used to have it, DKos does still.
(new) comments in a different color than ones already red in fp entry of comments listed.
Preview of post, saving as draft.
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