[development] Call for action: Drupalize Google's SoC Mentors App

[Dmitri Gaskin]

(I also cc'd you, Matt ;))

So another tricky thing - there are two types of comments - public  
comments and private comments.

There is a distinction because public comments are student-visible,  
and private comments, and edits may only be made after a public  
comment is posted.

And FYI this app is only for mentors and administrators.

Dmitri

On Mar 28, 2008, at 7:08 PM, Angela Byron wrote:

> (Larry, I cc'ed you because dmitri said you'd done this before and  
> thought it would be a good idea ;))
>
> So as those who've participated in Summer of Code as a mentor before  
> know, the web app that Google provides for ranking/reviewing  
> applications is a little bit ... suboptimal. The view of  
> applications it provides isn't sortable, it's not possible to see  
> when applications are updated, or when new comments have been  
> posted, or... And unfortunately, the person on Google's side of  
> things who's in charge of making incremental improvements is out on  
> medical leave, so the tool we have is about all we're going to get.
>
> This is a great opportunity for Drupal to shine, however. With  
> Views, CCK, VotingAPI, and a couple other add-on modules, it'd be  
> possible to whip up a very comparable web app, only with tons more  
> features such as  a "new" indicator, the ability to sort  
> applications by last updated time, the ability to tag applications,  
> etc. And if we did this with something like Organic Groups, we could  
> potentially build infrastructure for all 175 open source mentoring  
> organizations to use Drupal, plus take some much-needed weight off  
> the Google admins who are busy with other organizational things.  
> Nice way to build positive relationships in the open source community.
>
> Functionality is as follows (rough outline):
> - "Organization" node type (Organic group); one for each of the orgs  
> listed @ http://code.google.com/soc/2008/
> - User import of list of Organization Members (http://code.google.com/soc/2008/drupal/mentors.html 
> ) -- I think only admins can see this screen.
> - "Application" node type with fields for (starred ones are the  
> important ones):
>   - Title*
>   - Student*
>   - Student Email*
>   - Student Major
>   - Student Degree
>   - Student Graduation (year)
>   - Student Home Page
>   - Student Blog
>   - Student IM
>   - Assigned mentor (userreference)*
>   - Abstract*
>   - Description*
> - Probably a "Tags" vocab on that application node type as well, so  
> people can group them.
> - A View that displays a list of applications with columns for  
> sorting by things like "last updated time", "title", "student", and  
> "assigned mentor"
> - The ability to vote on applications and display a score. In the  
> Google app, this will be basically a +1/-1, or a +4 ("I want to  
> mentor") or a -10 ("Ineligible"). Maybe those last two could be  
> flags instead and we could just use Vote Up/Down module?
> - The web app has both private and public comments. Not sure how we  
> could do this in Drupal off-hand.
> - A bunch of data import crap to synchronize stuff between Drupal  
> and Google.
>
> This is the tricky part: sucking in (and ideally, synchronizing)  
> data between Google's app and the Drupal side. For example, when I  
> post a comment on Drupal, it ought to show up in the Google app and  
> vice-versa.  When an application is updated on Google's side, it  
> ought to update it on Drupal's side as well. But at a minimum, we  
> basically would need to "screen scrape" information off Google's end  
> and suck in applications as nodes.
>
> I was pointed in IRC at dataminerapi, which looks awesome. However,  
> I won't have time this weekend to monkey with this at all, and  
> ideally we need a solution built by *Monday*. :\ Dmitri's offered to  
> pick up the ball and run with it.
>
> a) Anyone have time to help him with that?
> b) Can anyone give us some advice on how to do the screen-scraping/ 
> synching? Have some sample code? etc.?
>
> -Angie