Exploring DeanSpace

Christian Crumlish

In order to help the DeanSpace people document their software package for would-be site developers, I figured it was necessary to, like, actually use the software myself. I got a domain name from sites.fordean.net and free hosting from Bruce Forkush, logged in as admin, and started flipping some switches and voila! Oakland for Dean lives.

Of course, that was kind of cheating, since Bruce had DeanSpace already set up on his server, so I'm also doing a separate installation on the Mediajunkie server so I can truly pose as an expert and start making the docs a little more newbie-friendly.

One cool thing is that I quickly added RSS feeds for my favorite political websites and for a few other Dean sites that have them (along with some local sites for other Democratic candidates), and the incoming content has populated the site right away, which gives the impression of a full-fledged thriving site and just me as the "ignore the man behind the curtain" guy back there fiddling with the controls.

On the other hand, the site's own RSS feed puts out that same content again without clearly attributing it or citing the original sources, which feels uncomfortably like plagiarism. I'm not sure how I want to handle that.

Even on the main page I'd like it if the incoming feeds had their sources clearly labeled so people could tell easily what came in from beyond and which content is native. Anyone can sign up as an Oakland for Dean user and immediately get their own blog there.

There are also plans for a kind of feeds dashboard so that the various DeanSpace sites can find each other and start reading and republishing each other's feeds. I'd like that. It'd be nice to know that the content I've been writing for O4D was being picked up elsewhere in the Deanosphere.