Caucus Proposal

Overview

The intent of this project is to create an online community for political online caucuses. We will be creating a social media outlet that has its cultural emphasis on discussing the means on implementing ideas. Derailment of threads to question the politics of the threads will be discouraged. Individual blogs will be called ‘Soapboxes’.

Technical Description

Drupal is a powerful content management system that will be installed on the server to enable updating and configuration of website content. The basic Drupal install will be configured according to the specific needs of your website. The “organic groups” distribution of Drupal has been determined to be the most suitable baseline for this website.

We will be using a customized version of Drupal, heavily relying on Views, and a robust search based on tags, time, location, and other criteria. This will also include a Social Network component with groups, forums, etc etc

Stages of Development

Development will be broken into three stages, two of which are covered in this proposal. The initial phase, pre-alpha, also known as the initial development. In this stage we will develop the functionality as prescribed in this proposal. Once the site has the functionality as described, the site will open for in a alpha state. The site will remain in alpha for three months during which users can use a site issue tracking system vote for the development most desired by the community.

After these three months of development in the alpha stage the site will graduate into beta, and development as described in this proposal will end.

Creation of the Initial site

Drupal Installation

We will be installing a Drupal distribution that will be the core system that will be built off of. We will install Drupal and set up a secure mysql database connection. We will patch the known security issues available as well as set up backups for the account with the Drupal installation.

Soapbox Content Type

We will create a diary-like system on the caucus site called soapboxes. The intent of this content type is to let people voice political strategies and comment on the various ways to enrich their strategy.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/19/1224929/-The-Caucus-Project-at-Daily-Kos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/15/1231491/-Draft-Community-Guidelines-and-the-Caucus-Project

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/26/1233787/-The-Caucus-Project-We-re-Nearly-Ready-to-Start

Location Based Services

We would like it so if authors decide to, they can tag their posts, groups, etc with locations. Location search would be useful for finding content that is relevant to their geographical area. This would be very useful for finding groups and posts that relate to a certain neighborhood, or occupy location.

Branding & Customization of Theme

This is the step where we take a stock, generic web template and make it shine. We will be making custom menus, sidebars, and creating an overall unique ‘look and feel’ to the website so that it will be pleasant to look at and intuitive to use. This step is an important process in ensuring the website will actually retain visitors and be usable. If custom artwork is commissioned for the website, they will be used in this process, otherwise open-source images will be used to populate the user interface.

Karma System

We will institute a karma based system for soapboxes and comments to help cultivate the culture of this site.  Initially this karma system will resemble a like button with a like count as well as a way to follow people of interest.

SSL Security

To ensure that the information being sent to and from the site is sent securely, and to verify the identity of the website when users visit it, we will be purchasing an SSL certificate and setting up the access file to ensure that all visitors to the website are connected securely.

Optional branding artwork

An outside artist will be contacted for a quote on how much it would cost to create a custom logo for the website, as well as custom graphics for the user interface. There will be an opportunity to approve or deny the artist’s quote prior to contracting the artist.

Estimate for Initial Site.

Service
Drupal Distribution with Social Media Installation $ 375
Creation of a new content type for soapboxes $ 275
Installation of Location plugin for content types and configuration of location search. $ 500
Branding & Customization of a prebuilt Drupal theme $ 350
Installation/configuration of a basic karma system for users, content and comments $ 350
SSL Certificate $ 150
Artwork for branding (sub-contracted graphic designer) TBA
Total $ 2000

Completion of the initial development will produce a basic, alpha version of the site. The site will then enter a another development cycle to round out features and take in user feedback.

Initial three months.

After the creation of the alpha site we will release the site. During this time we will be working on perfecting the site, and finding bugs before beta release. The site will be live to use, but not fully featured.

During this time we will have an issue tracker built into the site that will allow users to vote on the priority of the issues. This stage of the proposal accounts for the development time in the first three months, repairing and configuring the site to cater to the community’s wishes.

We prefer this method of development because the community can see the site and have input on the site. This improves transparency as well as ensuring that the direction of the website development is guided by the community.

This section of the proposal will be accounted by the hour. Below is the estimate for three months.

Estimate for initial Three Months

Item Cost Quantity Total
1 Month of Prepaid Development (40 Hours@ $21.5) $860 3 $2,580

Ongoing Services

Webhosting

Cosmic Threads will set up an account on their server to provide for hosting of the website. This account will be a courtesy account while the site is launching.

DomainName Registration

Cosmicthreads will provide the domain name caucus.op99.org as a courtesy.

Summery of on-going services.

For the services offered by cosmicthreads as a courtesy, cosmicthreads will be able to create and utilize an spot on the site for advertising.

Further development outside the scope of the first three months pre-paid estimate would require an additional proposal.

Total Estimate

Service
Drupal Distribution with Social Media Installation $ 375
Creation of a new content type for soapboxes $ 275
Installation of Location plugin for content types and configuration of location search. $ 500
Branding & Customization of a prebuilt Drupal theme $ 350
Installation/configuration of a basic karma system for users, content and comments $ 350
SSL Certificate $ 150
Artwork for branding (sub-contracted graphic designer) TBA
Three Months of Prepaid Development (40 Hours per month @ $21.5) $ 2,580
Total $ 4,580