[Imc-summaries] imc-sf-tech/sf-active summary, may 2002

[gekked@blackflag.net]

IMC-SF-TECH MAY 2002 SUMMARIES:
(includes sf-active)
	Continuing Spam Adventures
	sf-active Code Freeze
	Documentation in CVS/WWW
	New Way of Handling Categories
	New Publishing/Commenting Code


Continuing Spam Adventures

	"Holy shit! they have these things for every city in the
	country! This is an endless spamming job. the CIA and the
	bush administration are going to have to increase our pay if
	they want us to carry on this disinformation campaign."
	
	We have added anti-spam code to the administration pages 
	for sf-active, in response to a concerted effort to disrupt
	our newswire. First, per consensus by the larger editorial
	collective, the homepage newswire has been split into Local,
	Global and Open sections. Articles must be promoted to the
	Local or Global newswires by a member of the editorial 
	collective. There is also a Hidden newswire still.

	In addition, we have added limited IP address identification
	and "poison cookies" which allow you to give someone a cookie
	that at least stalls their effort to add abusive articles and
	comments.

	To see into the minds of right-wing indymedia spammers, see
	here: 
	http://www2.bestofberkeley.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000634.html
	http://www2.bestofberkeley.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000695.html
	http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/677632/posts
	http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/05/130757.php

sf-active Code Freeze
	Currently, there is a code freeze which means that
	development is not really happening, even though we have
	a sizable buglist at http://bugs.sfimc.net/
	The code freeze has been happening for about two weeks.

	The code freeze is partly so that sites hosted at
	linefeed.org can be moved to a new server and upgrade their
	software to the latest sf-active. In addition, they will 
	mostly share a code/logic directory which will make
	upgrading sites with the latest cvs release extremely easy.
	In addition, internationalization will be better supported.

	When we have a clear idea of when the code freeze will be
	over (hopefully not more than 2 more weeks), a large planning
	meeting will take place on IRC for all sf-active developers.
	If you have been meaning to get involved, this would be a 
	great place to start. The meeting agenda is deciding how to
	best proceed on development and in what direction.


Documentation in CVS/WWW
	Occam has created a base documentation for sf-active, which
	includes user/admin docs. A docs website which is 
	automatically updated once a day from CVS is here:
	http://tech.sfimc.net/docs/


New Way of Handling Categories
	We have changed the way sf-active uses categories and 
	features. "Feature pages" (including the homepage) are now
	bound to a global categories system. Categories can also 
	have a configurable newswire. These changes are made towards
	complete web-based admin of categories, newswire and feature
	pages.


New Publishing/Commenting Code
	Occam and Zogren overhauled the publishing and commenting
	code, which means: auto-detection of uploaded media mimetype,
	multiple file upload, use of templating system.

This is a summary for the San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia Tech 
Collective. The best place to get info on us and sf-active is:
http://tech.sfimc.net/