My dream
I want to create open source web-based journalism software, to serve as a platform hosted for and by the communities they're about.
I want to use this software to cover politics & elections in my city (& county?).
I want to go to community groups (there are neighborhood groups in my town, as well as many nonprofits, businesses, city government departments), and ask them to use the platform to share semi-journalistic news from their communities.
My neighborhood had a new park playground put in not too long ago, and a resident (such as myself) could write an article about that. Other residents could add details and sources, such as costs, government documents, and email threads.
A university student got hit by a car. The school (including student groups) could write a journalistic story about it.
I want collaboration features for writing, fact checking, and editing. I want features to add sources and notes to articles.
I want custom datasets (& forms & pages) to track, categorize, and properly display local politicians, government offices, non-profit organizations, and other entities that would be written about.
I want these entities to be reference-able by @name within the post or add name-tags separate from the post. I want category tagging too.
Verification is necessary - it's intended to be a journalistic platform hosted locally by an individual or group in a city or county. Anyone who wants to write & post should be verified. There should also be an editorial process, where nothing is posted automatically. Articles should show the results of the editorial review - fact checking, bias notice, context, notes, and perhaps opinions?
--
I originally wanted to do this all "myself"; start a business (maybe non-profit eventually) and hire journalists. But for a long time it would be grinding to get it off the ground.
But I can't possibly report on everything. I do want to report on some things (which is good because I'd be better at building the software if I were actually using it).
But even making this software seems like a monumental task. I actually have a lot of it already, but it's such a mess I don't know how to develop further with it. I've been working on improving my open-source libraries that I use for building websites.
I had to stop programming many months ago due to a mental breakdown. A month or two ago, I got into a programming stint for 2 or 3 weeks.
I loved it. I wanted to code all the time (a lot, not all the time), and I made huge improvements to some of my software without doing any major overhauls.
Then I got into some overhaul territory. But rather than completely rewriting a library, I'm trying to write a new Package class that supports the built-in package, sets up all the addons correctly, and whatnot.
So I think it was a responsible direction. But then I hit a wall (emotional wall? idk) and couldn't continue. I had a couple nights of trying to code and just being miserable. My brain wouldn't work. It just wouldn't think correctly.
And I don't push myself so hard now. The years of intense ups and downs really wore me down, and led to that mental breakdown.
I'm stable and content now; I have been for several months. But I'm still quite limited. I do focused work for an hour or two & my brain turns to mush.
I need to keep the house clean, buy groceries for myself, work on this mold problem when I can (I rarely can), sell blood plasma, do yard work, odd job work, and so much other stuff just to live.
I really struggle to make progress on anything because of how much it takes out of me just to live. I wonder how much the mold, weed addiction, and sleep issues contribute.
I've had the sleep issues for like 23 years (I'm 32), am an alcoholic (9 years sober), smoked weed since I've been alcohol sober (only in the evenings, ~4-7 one-hits over ~7-9 hours), likely have OCD (or another anxiety disorder), might suffer from clinical depression, wonder if I'm autistic, have pain in my butt & knees & wrists & lower back & hips.
I appear physically fit, and have decent strength where I don't hurt. I think I eat pretty well, though ~4-5 of 7 dinners are frozen entrees (seemingly healthy other than salt and some processing) and frozen potatoes.
I'm applying for disability soon. I need the help. Selling plasma is awful for me mentally. I suspect it doesn't affect me much more physically than most people, but that physical takes a huge mental toll on me. I can barely do anything the whole rest of the day (except play video games and watch tv).
And I can struggle to do stuff both the day before & day after.
Day before, I need to take extra care not to use to many spoons, or I might end up having a panic attack when I try to go to plasma, either because I'm physically uncomfortable or because my mind won't stop assaulting me with stressful thoughts or both.
The day after, I often just need to recover. I typically need to recover the day after I do anything. I start to become mentally unstable if I push this too much & don't get my recovery time. (I can push it though when I need to, but I believe I pay the consequences later)
My mental instability involves: being unable to motivate myself to do most things, intense spikes of anger over mundane annoyances, unable to focus on a task, difficulty making decisions about simple non-consequential things, difficulty performing basic motor functions (throwing a stuffed animal), difficulty performing simple tasks (wet dish in left hand, dry dish in right hand, and getting stuck not knowing what to do), difficulty interpreting social behavior (and taking things the wrong way), obsessive thinking, suicidal ideation, feelings of shame, social withdrawal, lack of contentment and joy, feelings of sadness and despair, exhaustion.
My dream is to fix most of that, then work on the idea I talked about at the top of this.