My goals for community journalism, and my overall software
I built my whole own stack for software development - testing, documentation generation, web framework, user login, and loads of other tools.
I have two major goals.
One is to create citizen-journalism software to be used by local communities for reporting on themselves.
The other is to build and distribute open source software that solves real problems for real people.
I also have some minor goals like building a thrift store directory for my city, and some other more personal or local projects.
What I struggle with, more than anything, is ... getting people to use things I've built. I know how to code and write good documentation. I'm good at it.
But I'm not good at marketing, and I hate it. It stresses me out.
Plus I'm disabled and can't do a lot of ... stuff. So I can't do devlogs while I'm coding. On a day that I code for 2 hours, I can barely take care of myself. So also doing marketing while I'm working on coding is just not realistic.
I've been coding recently, largely because I've been obsessed and craving and literally can't keep myself from doing it. I don't know if I'll be able to code a week from now. This roadmap could take years to execute, thanks to my mental issues. But the dream has never gone away.
I've found one of my biggest pain points with my software has always been this - I think the software is bad and needs a rewrite, but in reality good documentation would solve 80% of the problems with it, then the actual code issues could be fixed piecemeal, rather than as an overly-ambitious total rewrite. Every step of this will include incremental improvements to various pieces of my software.
Anyway, here's what I'm thinking my vague roadmap is:
- DONE - Finish documenting Liaison - my web framework upon which all my website projects are built.
- There's a few other TODOs listed, but they're basically all optional.
- DONE - Rewrite Documentation for Code Scrawl, my Documentation Generation software.
- Finish polishing my User Login Library
- Update ReedyBear.com and Taeluf.com to both use my updated Liaison & User Login library. Add 'Powered by Liaison' to the bottom. (Also: My personal website for local political issues)
- I put mtgpaper back online at mtg.reedybear.com and it is using the newest Liaison.
- DONE? Finish any updates to BigDb
- I documented BigDb ... and now that it's documented, I don't think it actually needs code updates. If it does, I'll probably be adding features while I'm using it.
- Add blogging, file uploads, and maybe some other web-based GUI features to both these websites.
- Do at least a little marketing for Code Scrawl.
- Code Scrawl is a unique solution to a common problem - Documentation becomes out of date as the software changes. Code Scrawl adds functions to markdown so that (among other things) you can import code from your software, and from it's tests. This way, if the code changes, your documentation changes.
- Build my first public project in a long time - Thrift Store directory for my local town.
- I started this project years ago, but burnt out, was trying to do way too many things at once, and my mental health was just so bad. I'd update the software to be compatible with new liaison. I'd go to every thrift store, take photos, talk to the owner, and get a little bit of information to put up. I might share some business cards or flyers for marketing purposes. Once it's up, I could kind of just leave it, and not touch it unless a thrift store owner had a specific request, or a new store opened or closed. I am NOT interested in creating an online market. If I were mentally well, this would be two-three weeks of full-time work. And then it will just be a resource for my community thereafter. I'm not well, so it could take multiple months.
- Update my local political journalism site to the new liaison and user login and database lib. Restructure the site to pare down the focus.
- Previously, I was working on investigative journalism, interviews with candidates, lots of foia requests. This is a lot of work. But also, because of my mental health, I can't reliably keep up on activities like this. But I also have other goals I want to work toward, so starting a long-term commitment to something that requires constant work is not in my best interest, and probably not in my community's best interest either.
- Fill out the base features of the local government site - Directory of Government Offices and Boards, Directory of candidates for local offices, Data Exploration Portal, and Local News Directory (singular feed and search for all local outlets)
- Build a FOIA center for sharing government document requests.
- Create community journalism software with source management/fact checking/editorial review built in.
- This will be geared toward local communities and citizen journalism. I just don't expect established news providers to switch their whole platform, yaknow? Maybe some smaller outlets would be interested. Also, I'd like to focus this on having a central local site for citizen journalism from lots of people and organizations, rather than being something that regular journalists use for community-wide reporting. As-in: your local neighborhood organization might write a journal article about the changes happening at the park down the road, or covering the police chase that just went through your neighborhood roads.
- Talk to community organizations in my area. Get them on my platform for publishing news that is of importance to them. Put together some resources about how to do good citizen journalism and editorial reviews. (as in a journal article should have a score-card that indicates bias and level of fact checking and stuff)
- Market my platform. Hopefully the grass-roots aspect would be helpful for getting the word out in my community.
- Talk to small news outlets, journalism communities, and try to get the word out about my software to professional journalists who may be interested, or organizers in other communities who might like to start their own version of my community news platform.
That's basically my plan.
The end goal is the citizen journalism software. I want to support and empower local communities. Getting stories into traditional media is about getting broad public-awareness. My interest is on informing the communities that are impacted. The East End does not need to know about the changes to the park on the west end. But the West End folks DO.
Well ... the East enders might care, because if they go advocate with the park district, being able to point to the West Enders' journalism could help them advocate for funding and improvements on the East.
But that's the point - Not getting information to everybody or creating a big algorithm, but organizing information for the communities that need it. A teachers' union might publish a journal article for their teachers about the new contract they're negotiating, and parents and students would probably benefit from that journal article as well.
The internet should empower communities, not stifle us or make us subject to algorithms or large centrally-organized news outlets. So this is what I'm trying to do.
This is, in part, what I set out to do years ago. The vision and goals have developed extensively. I previously just wanted to cover my local elections so people knew who they were voting for. I still care about that, but it's honestly ... kind of a weak goal compared to what I have in mind now.