[Seattle-editorial] CONVENE - mega website redesign meeting!!!seattle.indymedia.org website - needs to be moved by december 1

[sheri at speakeasy.org]

calling all imc people
all techies
all editorialistas
all readers of the site
all lovers of independent creative dissemination of information

why?   because the seattle website needs to find a new home
when?  next wed at 630 pm
what?  figure out how to overhaul the site beginning now

background:

this critical agenda item was bumped at the last general meeting unfortunately, although i gave a brief report to a core structure and process meeting the week before.  so here's the gist of it.  our website is currently hosted on stallman, one of the bigger servers in the network, which also has about 20 other local sites and global.  it gets alot of traffic.  speakeasy has been donating this coloation for stallman since the beginning and we are so grateful.  however, they can no longer afford to do this and we must move.

the cost would be about 650 a month.  so the techies are looking into alternatives and other possible colocation ideas.  

in the meantime, we must be proactive and consider the need to move off of stallman by december 1 (bewitching hour) and we need to then "migrate our site" to a different code base.

so i'd suggest that all people interested in this topic meet next week:

- all web designers (let's pull up all those in the database who want to do web design)

- all techies with codebase knowledge and migration skills (oh stefani :))

- all editorial folks who are interested in the various features of the codes that have been seriously discussed on our local lists for a while - with preferences going to mir and sfactive.  

- all media makers who want a say in what this site should look like and how it might serve the independent media community better.

- all people who use the website and have ideas about how to make it more user friendly.

i'd suggest that this mega meeting happen to get folks on the same page and hear from all interested parties.  at that point, we can break off into the necessary and respective working groups for follow-up meetings.  

i'd like to suggest next wed evening at 630 pm.  the evening is open.  it follows on the heels of a ctc class on web design on monday (oh please come to this meeting) and an editorial meeting that tuesday).

we need to start discussing this collectively and then move into respective working groups.

PS - there is a small possibility that a friendly colocation isp will want to take on the server, but that doesn't mean we still don't need to kick ourselves into gear and redesign our website.  it's ancient and out of date and needs a major face-lift!

come with ideas, creative and inspiring and simple...

peace,
sheri