[CS-FSLUG] Christian FOSS News/Portal Site

[Tim Young]

The main issue we are dealing with is not making a site that handles everything, but rather
using tools that can handle the various needs out there.  For example, if we had some sort
of tool that allowed [missions, churches, bibleschools, etc.] to manage their "postings",
where they could build and maintain all of them locally, but the RSS feeds went to the
respective server that hosted the particular topics...  Something like that.  So the
organizations do not have to hunt high and low to find a spot to post their particular
item.

The Christian news / technical discussion server is a similar type of thing, but an
individual topic or a few of many.  I would not hold up the creating of a Christian
slash-dot until we have this question worked out.  The end result will be about the same,
and it will probably not be difficult to change servers to whatever the ICTA team finds
would work out the best.  (Or build a portal between the two.)

    - Tim Young

Josiah Ritchie wrote:

> > But there are a few other things that we are trying to find a solution for.  In
> > particular there is a need for us to find a way for mission organizations to post
> > things like project needs, job positions, etc.  And to have those postings travel to
> > a central location, or be distributed to other locations through something like RSS.
> > But the missions need to feel the ownership of their data, and not have the overhead
> > (or cost) of posting it to multiple sites.  (There are a number of sites for
> > short-term-missions that organizations pay to post a short blurb about their mission
> > on, and because of the process involved it is difficult for them to keep up).  Once
> > they have this process for projects, they would like the same thing for short-term
> > missions, and other such things.
>
> Sounds like you are speaking of a site with less of a technical bend and
> more of a global ministry news site. Both would be useful, but I think
> merging the two might drastically reduce the potential audience and
> therefore the potential use.
>
> The concept reminds me of an automation of "CraigsList".
>
> > I think what we are looking at is something that is a cross between newsgroups and
> > rss feeds.  We still do not have all the pieces together, so we do not know how to
> > describe the whole problem.
> >
> > How would a church use such a site? What types of postings might they make?
>
> pastor job postings
> equipment needs
> service needs
>  - Church needs new roof
>  - Church needs network consulting
>
> > How about Bible Schools?
>
> Short-term missions postings
>  - Missions Boards
>  - Projects that overwhelm a small church
> faculty-staff positions
> news releases - new programs, services
>
> We could perhaps highlight services online like
> missionarytechsupport.com and individuals in certain areas interested in
> showing churces the proper usage of FOSS. This could connect up with
> Don's work on the creation of tutorials and direct to other relevant
> resource centers.
>
> JSR/
>
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