"I think the homepage needs to be directed towards Joe Public who has been inspired enough by a local initiative to want to find out more about Transition. Space for initiatives/transitioners needs to be behind this, but easily navigable for those with less confidence/competence."

(Melissa W in the forums)

The NEW Transition Network site:

Our recommendations on this will be one of the outputs of this phase of the project. It  is intended to be the direct replacement for the current Transition Towns Wiki and Forum.

When this project was first announced, many of us thought this was the principal output of the project: a singe mega-site to be used to provide support for the Transition movement at many levels, local, regional, national, transnational. Our online discussions swiftly through this into question. Now that is still a possibility, but there are various others.

This page is meant to reflect the current views of this group on this issue. Members of the group can edit this page, to reflect their own take on its contents, or post comments which might later be incorporated, or seen as expansion and clarification.

Purpose of the new Transition Network site:

1. To act as a first point of contact for people want to know about the transition movement.
2. To act as a 'community newspaper' for the Transition Movement, giving news, views, discussions on relevant issues.
3. To act as an aggregation point for information from the movement, receiving feeds from all transition initiatives and re-presenting them through keywords (location, subject, people), search and tags.
4. To enable people at the regional and local levels to easily find the right people to contact, for whatever reason.

And 5: To support the routemap/toolkit/technical support communities?

-------------------

Work with Ben, Totnes: 17/04/09

Transition network website outline:

About:
(static pages)
contact totnes contacts
trustees
disclaimer
contact regional contacts

News:
(blog posts)

Newsletter:
current newsletter (blog post)
(un) subscribe (link to current registration form)
old newsletters (blog posts)

Calender:
1. group editable calender for Network activities
2. aggegation calender of events around the network

Initiatives:
List/map/contacts (static page and google map)
what (static page)
mulling? (static page)
12 steps (static page)
7 buts (static page)

Training:
train the trainers (static page)
training for transition (static page)
giving talks (static page)

dates and calender?

Publications:
Book (static page)
Primer (static page)
future publications incl. food, money, reports etc. (static page)

Resources:
either file store and listing/search
or blog posts with new stuff as it comes out

Around the network:
aggregation results of ongoing API work (events, news, projects)
aggregation results of ongoing tag based work (bookmarks, videos, photos etc.)
search and refining function (location, subject, keyword...)

Regional hubs:
outline and link to LRP pilot



Things to consider:

1. identifies: need to carry from old site/newslettter/forum and plug into new system
2. URLS: need to keep formal URLs (at least have re-pointing service)
3. current initiatives with pages: need clear strategy with advance warning, offer of LRP pilot, URL maintenance
4. profile management, rights and roles, dynamic user-led changing and setting up of roles etc.
5. all publishing to be user-led (ie no need for tech support to add sections, categories, new blogs, new fora, new wikis etc.)
6. search (to include updating self when new content, functionality added)
7. WYSIWYG editing a must
8. W3C compliant CSS
9. Simple branded design
10. RSS compliant

--------------------

From the TT wiki (original outline):

Goals - "must haves"

• Local initiatives will be able to set up their own web presence quickly and easily
• Groups, within geographical dimensions (local, regional, national, global) and/or on a specialty dimension (eg Transport), will be able to:
  • communicate with eachother
  • organise their calendars and events
  • coordinate their projects and activities
  • in such a way that avoids communications overload for individuals
• Individuals and groups will be able to solve community problems by collaborating and sharing solutions and knowledge

Goals - "nice to haves"

• local initiatives will be able to:
  • trade within and between eachother
  • launch and manage a local currency
  • manage subscriptions and donations