I have finally submitted my Skejo.com showcase entry at Drupal.org. The full text is also captured at How Skejo.com Works. Since Skejo.com is really my flagship, design/configuration site using Drupal, I made a long forum post there, highlighting what I have done, and what Drupal is able to do. Hopefully it inspires others to try bigger things, and it just might drive a little traffic to Skejo as well. :) Here is the text from my post at Drupal.org. --------------------------------- At Skejo.com, the key idea is that rewarding people for their contributions, will stimulate more participation and better submissions. So we built a site that makes finding helpful articles fast, and submitting content easy, coupled with a rewards system that goes beyond what has been seem before. We decided to find the middle ground between the volunteer, anonymous submission of Wikipedia, and the ‘pay-the-few’ way of About.com. We believe that all our members and visitors should be recognized for their contributions, large and small, and even reward them for taking the time to give to the community. Our Rewards System gives incentive to our members to contribute regularly, and is open to all who contribute quality, needed articles. Credit is given to the authors, and above that, they are rewarded for it (not like professional writer’s, but we do spread it around to more people). Skejo.com is a complex Drupal site sporting over 75 core and contributed modules, a customized theme, along with a few custom modules and changes to the core. We started with the Andreas1 theme as a foundation and then made many layout changes, as well as the header functionality. We use a multi-site setup, with some distinct tables (mostly for look and feel changes across the sub-domains like menus, blocks, views and panels). The multi-sites are differentiated along taxonomy vocabulary lines. Sub-divided permissions were created using distinct permission tables, with shared roles and users, matched with the Taxonomy Access control module. This setup enables sub-domain specific editors and administrators who oversee content and submissions in one or more taxonomy categories. With this robust but flexible permissions, taxonomy and sub-domain setup, Skejo.com is ready for quick and sustainable growth as new content authors and editors arise. A small change to the url function merges our implementation of the Taxanomy Breadcrumb module to make persistent article based URLS across the sub-domains. Key Drupal Modules: The Userpoints module sets the foundation of the Skejo.com Rewards System. This module has been extended to enable a total point count along the current counts (patch has been submitted). A completely custom module has been written to add new Reward System events and administration abilities. The Views and Panels are the amazingly flexible modules that helps differentiate the look and feel of different pages and administration functions, as well as allowing for the segmentation of editorial processes across content sections. The invaluable Workflow and Actions modules streamline and empower our publishing process. Automatic emails and notifications help keep our editors and administrators stay on top of the user submitted content and move them quickly to publication or, as needed, back to the author for further rewrites. Skejo.com will constantly be adding new features to this site. From helping streamline the submission process, to making it easier find new articles, or to just plain make the site load more quickly. This is all done so that our visitors and members can find or submit new articles quickly, but here is a brief listing of our current assets: For all visitors and members:
For our contributors:
For our editors and administrators:
Come visit this new Drupal site. Please Digg the original article posted at How Skejo Works |
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Tech-Wanderings of Greg Holsclaw |
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