Dan Gillmor Launches Grassroots Journalism 89
kbahey writes "
Most Slashdotters know Dan Gillmor from his San Jose Mercury days, with lots of article on technology over the years, from the dot-com era down to now. As has been rumored before, Dan has left the SJ Mercury to found a 'grassroots journalism' project. Well, it is here, and called the Bayosphere. The site is powered by Drupal, an open source Content Management System. Jay Campbell, Dan's Technologist, writes about why they chose Drupal. "
Osphere... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Osphere... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Osphere... (Score:1, Funny)
mod parent funny (Score:1)
Anyway, I got a giggle out of this comment...
Re:mod parent funny (Score:1)
I guess I'm just an old fart who needs to revise his theories about the way the web should be.
Re:Osphere... (Score:2)
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
However for my next project I will probably look for a CMS that uses perl or python or something. PHP is a bit fluffy really for bigger projects.
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
http://www.rupaul.com/ [rupaul.com]
http://www.lyricsondemand.com/onehitwonders/mambo
A great big little bit of black transvestite in your -osphere...
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:2)
zope.org
> PHP is a bit fluffy
zope.org
I've ran a Zope site (Zope which I haven't had to update for the past two years; it did have 2-3 security bugs during that time but none of them affected me). It never crashed (moderate loading, static, but over 200MB of content) and it gave me several years of piece of mind.
Compare that with some PHP-what-have-ya and their constant security disasters (not to mention quarterly Apache security updates).
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:2, Informative)
regarding performance (Score:1)
At least I have "read" drupal
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
One of the reasons I liked Mambo is because even though it is not required to have "powered by mambo" in the footer, the Mambo team encourages it [mamboserver.com] (no.5) and it does seem well, proper, to do so.
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
It doesn't matter. Just an ethical question I was wondering and it's OT, sorry about that.
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
It's written in PHP, but it's clean PHP, if there is such a thing.
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
Re:drupals ok, I prefer mambo (Score:1)
Why add such a comment?
OK, I'll explain the joke to you. Some people feel that PHP, with it's required parentheses, brackets, and somewhat homegrown syntax, is innately unclean; therefore, "clean PHP" for these people is an oxymoron.
All right, architected isn't a word. Drupal is well designed.
Good luck, Dan (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good luck, Dan (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot isn't journalism, it's shared links. (Score:2, Informative)
The stories are just headlines and blurbs that link to an actual journalistic piece located on some other site.
Slashdot's motto should be, We don't make the news, we don't report the news, we collect the news.
What a screwed up link.. (Score:4, Informative)
Worth noting is the update at the end of the article: Update: killes points out at Drupal.org, "Chris Messina (a.k.a factoryjoe) has spend long hours with Dan to convince him to use Drupal. Thanks Chris." Indeed.
Re:What a screwed up link.. (Score:1)
Re:What a screwed up link.. (Score:1)
Why they choose Drupal? (Score:2, Interesting)
looks more like they needed serious persuading to choose it.
Re:Why they choose Drupal? (Score:2)
They did explain in the article that the reason that they had such trouble choosing was that there were just so many open source CMSs to choose from. The fact that they needed "seriously" persuaded shows, if anything, that Drupal stood up to a critical evalution with its peers, rather than being chosen on the say-so of a friend.
So goodness all round :)
Re:Why they choose Drupal? (Score:1)
Re:Why they choose Drupal? (Score:2, Interesting)
Corrected Text (Score:5, Interesting)
I am the submitter of the article and here is the correct text. It was fine when I submitted it.
kbahey [slashdot.org] writes " Most Slashdotters know Dan Gillmor [dangillmor.com] from his San Jose Mercury days, with lots of article on technology over the years, from the dot-com era down to now. As has been rumored before, Dan has left the SJ Mercury to found a "grass roots journalism" project. Well, it is here, and called the Bayosphere [bayosphere.com]. The site is powered by Drupal [drupal.org], an open source Content Management System. Jay Campbell, Dan's Technologist, writes about why they chose Drupal [bayosphere.com]. "
Re:Corrected Text (Score:3, Informative)
Gillmor is just a blogger now? (Score:2)
Most read the SJMerc? (Score:2, Insightful)
I never realized that local california papers had such high readership in Bangalore or Boston or all the many other places /. readers read.
Re:Most read the SJMerc? (Score:3, Informative)
You don't know the San Jose Mercury [mercurynews.com], then. It was very widely read and influential during the dot-com boom in particular, and certainly would have been heavily read in Boston and probably Bangalore too (considering the software tech connection).
Can Net journalism be good journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can Net journalism be good journalism (Score:1)
So its the politics of journalism in a capitalistic society that wants to control as much market through as many eyeball possible that begets bad journalism.
Re:Can Net journalism be good journalism (Score:2)
What planet are you on? The
I think you're thinking of something like kuro5hin, where the users actually can vote fo
Re:Can Net journalism be good journalism (Score:1)
-Conciseness
Strip out the fluff for those who just want the meat.
-Separation of author opinions from the facts
I want to judge things by myself first, then see what others would have to say about it afterwards, if necessary
-Context for those who need it
Ability to present a concise, meaningful and accurate big-picture view for those who are encountering the subject for the 1st time
Oh and for me, accuracy comes first and foremost rather than speed. No contest.
To the naysayers: (Score:4, Insightful)
The news media can talk about blogging killing the media, but bloggers haven't contributed to people being killed yet. The mainstream media on the other hand, has. So much for the much vaunted "accountability" that is supposed to separate blogging from "journalism" these days. That's what's always cited by the media as the important difference. While I don't trust bloggers either for objective reporting of the facts, can anyone seriously say that the professional media cares about the truth any more than bloggers do?
Re:To the naysayers: (Score:4, Informative)
Newsweek's story was multiply sourced. The retraction by one source is about whether or not the Koran-flushing would appear in a particular government report, not whether the flushing of Koran pages occurred. Some released inmates from Gitmo have in the past (2004) said that their Korans were tossed in the toilet.
Miami Herald, March 9 2005:
Yet recently declassified court documents allege that, as far back as 2002, some of Guantanamo's staff cursed Allah, threw Korans into toilets, mocked prisoners during prayers and deliberately took away prisoners' pants knowing that Muslims can't pray unless covered.
Maybe you should think and research a little before repeating white house talking points? At least try to learn from how this one was spun: a minor backing detail was changed, so they seized on that to try to destroy the messenger and never have to respond to the message. Sorry guys, there are too many other sources describing Koran desecration, and stories from US intelligence officers participating in mock prison camps (as inmates), where the bible was desecrated. Seems to be SOP when trying to break down religious inmates.
The news media can talk about blogging killing the media, but bloggers haven't contributed to people being killed yet.
How many bloggers such as Instapundit fed the lie machine that convinced the US populace to back an unneeded invasion of Iraq, which has resulted in 1600 dead US troops, 50 to 100 thousand Iraqis, and crippled our ability to control the Taliban in Afghanistan?
Re:To the naysayers: (Score:1, Interesting)
Meanwhile your "multiple sources" was the original unnamed source who brought the allegation to Newsweeks attention (the man who has since retracted) and two Pentagon spokesmen who simply didn't contradict those claims. And it's nice that court documents allege
Al Qaeda training manual: Claim torture (Score:1, Interesting)
Yet recently declassified court documents allege that, as far back as 2002, some of Guantanamo's staff cursed Allah, threw Korans into toilets, mocked prisoners during prayers and deliberately took away prisoners' pants knowing that Muslims can't pray unless covered.
Quick! Call a WAAAAMBULANCE! It's so HORRIBLE!!! Someone may have cursed their god!!!
Seriously, you also seem to have a proble
Wikinews needs you (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to contribute, you can submit a story [wikinews.org] right away, or you can learn more about writing news stories the wiki way [wikinews.org].
Wikinews is run by a non-profit organization, the Wikimedia Foundation, which also runs Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, and the Wikimedia Commons [wikimedia.org], a media repository with almost 100,000 free content images, videos and sounds.
Is Wikinews misguided? (Score:3, Interesting)
Focus can be a good thing. When I look at the Wikinews home page right now, I see an eclectic mix of headlines that look as though they might have been ripped from a combination of Reuters and Slashdot, but really not much of interest to me.
This is intended as a constructive question: what is it that's going to bring read
Re:Is Wikinews misguided? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, just lik
Wikinews, and Indymedia (Score:2)
Yes, Wikinews precedes this, and has a larger scope. There is also a quite large and serious grass-roots news effort, Indymedia [indymedia.org], with branches and local reporters in the US, UK, and (I gather) many other countries.
Problem is... how many of them have RSS? Wikinews doesn't seem to, which is why I'd forgotten all about it until you mentioned it. The idea of a web-based news service without RSS is a bit pointless, never mind a news service that aims to be innovative. Hopefully they'll get that sorted soon
Re:Wikinews, and Indymedia (Score:2)
Re:Wikinews, and Indymedia (Score:2)
Re:but Wikis suck when it comes to accuracy (Score:3, Informative)
For example, the Britannica article on circumcision is heavily biased in favor of the
Re:Wikinews needs you (Score:2)
NowPublic.com (Score:4, Interesting)
Outside of the single most established Korean based OhMyNews [ohmynews.com] most, if not all [cyberjournalist.net] of the citizen reporting web sites I've looked at, including WikiNews, have had a hard time gaining traction. I'm not sure why they're having such trouble, particularly given the popularity of WikiPedia, but it is clear however that the movement is beginning to take off, and here to stay. News will never be the same - and imho that is a VERY good thing!
What I really like about NowPublic, and what imho differentiates it from the other sites, is that the site is NOT trying to be the hub of citizen reporting itself - it's trying to create a toolset to facilitate citizen reporting. Through creative commons licensing and their really nifty 'SmartMedia' technology their goal is to facilitate the spread of newsworthy information created by people like you and I (though admittedly they need to do a MUCH better job of communicating this). Anyone (you don't need to be a member) can use the content posted on NowPublic. So if you have a blog and are writing a story and you need/want pictures or video you can use existing or request new photos/audio/video from NP members.
Being a photographer, I like the fact that through their SmartMedia my photos always show my name, and provide a way to contact me directly (actually had one person offer me a gig through this already!!) - this is all done through the image itself ensuring that anyone who uses my photos attributes it back to me (anyone who has posted a good pic to the web has most likely had it ripped off and should really apperciate this new idea). Additionally, anyone who sees the photo on any site can in turn copy it and put it on their site... it's really a great promotional vehicle for photographers. But my favorite bit is that every story is implicitly a request for citizen coverage - if you want to see a local perspective on a story, simply post it to the site. In effect every story is actually an assignment - you now have an army of people, soon to be larger than any major media organization willing to go out and get coverage of the story for you! As a photog, I'll never be at a loss for photos ideas again!
They are currently running a contest, awarding cash prizes to encourage people to go out and take photographs of newsworthy events. Their Citizen Photojournalism Awards [nowpublic.com] were created to encourage people to go out and cover news stories. Any newsworthy photo uploaded to NowPublic is eligible for weekly $100 cash awards and there is a $500 grand prize. I'm hoping I win something so I can get that fish eye lens I've been drooling over.
Re:NowPublic.com (Score:1)
>prizes to encourage people
>
You fool... grassroots is built bottom-up - NOT top-down. Get a clue.
nineteen eighty-what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fast-forward to 2004 (or 2005 I guess), and we have an internet news/media that does not have to remain persistant (like paper). Despite the valiant efforts of the Wayback Machine, Google Cache, etc., the vision in Orwell's book can actually happen!
Although slightly off-topic, it is food for thought.....
Other sites running Drupal (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Other sites running Drupal (Score:1)
Re:Blogs are garbage (Score:1)