Hi! The Students for Free Culture web team needs help, and a lot of the
things we need to do can be done by anyone who can use WordPress and likes
playing with the Internet.
Do you want to join the SFC Web Team? You can make a difference in the
ongoing maintenance of the Students for Free Culture web presence -- and
our website has over 100,000 pages linking to it [0]. It's not that hard:
keep reading.
Plus, if you successfully accomplish this, I'll send you chocolate in the
mail, and you'll be a proud new member of the Web Team!
(If you've already contributed to the freeculture.org website or tech, I'd
like you to refrain from fixing this until the end of the contest.)
Background about web chat
-------------------------
Right now, http://freeculture.org/contact/ mentions IRC chat as a way to
stay in touch with Students for Free Culture. Some people do not have an
IRC client, so we also link to a web chat system. But there's a problem:
Right now, it puts you in the #jhuacm channel, a place where acm.jhu.edu
people hang out. ("Channels" are the IRC term for "chat rooms.")
Go ahead and try it.
Instead, it should put you in the #freeculture channel -- that's the
channel where Students for Free Culture people actually hang out. (If you
haven't joined IRC before, you might like to try using Freenode Web
Chat... more on that below.)
It's quite an embarrassment that it's broken -- that's no way to run a
website. So you'd be really fixing something important.
Your mission
------------
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to simply fix that link.
It should be that when you click on it, you get to the #freeculture
channel. I suggest one way to do that below.
If you make it work, I will send you chocolate in the mail. But there's a
catch: My offer applies only for the next week; it expires when September
ends [1].
Do you want to help?
--------------------
If you want to help out, here's what you need:
* A subscription to the Webteam email list
* The willingness to edit an HTML page living inside WordPress
* An account on the freeculture.org blog
You can subscribe to the Web Team email list at
http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/webteam .
If you don't have a freeculture.org blog account, you can get one by
emailing [email protected] asking for one. Just say:
* the login name you want to use
* the email address you want to be associated with the account
and we'll make it for you.
Here's what you do
------------------
Even before you have any special accounts, you can try to verify the
problem. First, try the web chat interface that we have now. Go to
http://freeculture.org/contact/ and click the link labeled "web chat
system". Verify the problem: Do you end up in #jhuacm like I did?
Second, try the freenode.net web chat at http://webchat.freenode.net/. Try
telling it you want to join #freeculture . Say hello to someone in the
room, if you want! (I'm "paulproteus" there.) You might want to click in
the little drop-down in the upper-left, and explore the options. Pay
particular attention to "Add webchat to your site".
Now, to actually *fix* the issue, log in with your new freeculture.org
WordPress account. (You can find the log in link at
http://freeculture.org/ -- scroll to the VERY bottom and look for "Log
in". It's a green link on a dark grey background.) Go to
http://freeculture.org/contact/ and click "Edit". See if you can replace
the link with one to the Freenode Web Chat. You can choose either the
IFRAME chat, or a link. If you don't understand the difference between the
options, it's okay -- you can just try them both out on the page. It's
okay if you edit the live page!
It's really really okay. We have backups in case you mess something up.
Related links
-------------
You might like to read some more information:
* About freenode and IRC in general:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenode and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IRC/Tutorial
* About freenode webchat:
http://blog.freenode.net/2009/06/new-freenode-webchat-and-why-to-use-it/
and http://blog.freenode.net/2010/06/freenode-webchat-changes/
* About the Web team in general: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Web_team
* About the web team's responsibilities:
http://wiki.freeculture.org/Web_Team/Responsibilities
If you want to get involved in a *different* way, email the webteam list
and introduce yourself. You'll probably get chocolate too, if we can find
something productive for you to do. (-:
References
----------
0.
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http://freeculture.org&bwm=i&bwmo=d&bwmf=s
1. "When September Ends":
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22when+september+ends%22
Signoff
-------
That's all from me, for now. If this sounds interesting, reply! (-:
-- Asheesh.
--
When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.
-- Dylan Thomas
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