[magius]

Hi all,

I like very much the idea of CBOX, that IMHO basicly is a user-friendly loader of community related plugins. I wish to add some ideas to enhance the CBOX model, I hope someone could use to develop some.

This CBOX enhancement that we could call XCHANGE to name it, is a WordPress plugin and a website using the plugin. It could be a tool to facilitate relationship between people for affinity on a territorial base. The software/website is the tool to offer services that keep people in *operative* relationships involving individual and collective, monetary and non monetary exchanges. But also community activities as community gardening, social actions, soon. A sort of a community incubator.

The tool as website could be WordPress Multisite based network of cities and for big cities, a subnetwork of city districts. A glocal network, both global and local. Local is important for timebanks and collective purchasing. Global is important for internal projects fundraising.

>> example: we could register a domain like http://www.together.org, to have a multisite like newyork.together.org, sanfrancisco.together.org and in big cities district groups, like brooklin.together.org and soon.

It could be work in this way: “I like to make these things x,y,z. Find me people around me interested in making x,y,z and give me the tools to do it”.

>> example: user1 registers on system with geo-localization and interests, the systems put his position on map and send notification when user2 registers with near localization and similar interests, adding them to an internal tool to facilitate the actions requested by user1 and user2.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-groupomatic/

Basicly users express needs that are addressed by system offering services to aggregate users that could use together the services offered. User has to do nothing more than describing himself (also through a guided service — as is on CBOX) and the system then push to him what he/she needs. We need to write this code that notifies and aggregate people in offered services.

The most of these webservices exist in a form of wordpress plugin or standalone software that could be converted to a wordpress plugin. Some free and some paid but all GNU/GPL so reusable if licensed in the same way.

All could be linked togheter with a loader. IMHO we only need to make some pieces of code and to write a good documentation.

The main services offered by XCHANGE are:

1. A social network
2. A news service
3. A timebank
4. A skillshare service
5. An online collective purchasing service
6. A projects’ crowdfunding service
7. An online learning platform
8. A support service
9. A collective decision service

1. A social network

Basicly using Buddypress we have a tool to have a social network. To it we aggregate other plugins using the CBOX model

Buddypress
http://buddypress.org/

Commons in a box
https://commonsinabox.org/
When all the system is ready we also need to develop APPS for smartphones

http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/5-plugins-to-turn-wordpress-into-a-mobile-app/

2. A news service

A news aggregator that search, copy and categorize news to be pushed to users through notifications.

But also an aggregator of data (texts, video, audio, multimedia) to be archived on a knowledge base

Wp-o-matic
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-o-matic/

3. A timebank

Something to be built 🙂

myCRED
http://mycred.me/
Timebank myCRED plugin
http://pastebin.com/70K0GhMe

But also
Wordpress Timebank Plugin
http://www.time-bank.info/
The system has to be connected with Buddypress and possibly with Woocommerce (for mixed payments, part credits part money) When the system will be ready it needs to be connected with other services

The paid offered services have to be glued with a plugin for “pay to be member” (membership) or “pay per service”. Basicly the system (website/software) could have two levels one free, on paid.

4. A skillshare service
It’s similar to the online learning service and could be connected with projects’ crowdfunding service if the skills’ sharing is finalized to start a collective project

Based on the principle “if you want to do this, you need to make this. To make this you need this skill. Learn this skill.”

More: “if you have no money to pay to learn, exchange with timebank or ask for collective funding through crowdfunding service”

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679931/trade-school-a-learning-space-that-runs-on-the-barter-system

https://ourgoods.org/
https://github.com/orzubalsky/tradeschool

5. An online collective purchasing service (like C.S.A. – Community Supported Agricolture or G.A.S. italian solidal purchasing groups)

Here’s a definition of GAS
http://www.retegas.org/index.php?module=pagesetter&func=viewpub&tid=2&pid=10

Here’s a definition of CSA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agriculture

There’re some italian coders that developped standalone freesoftwares for GAS. Here is a list, in italian. When it will be needed I can translate to you major features to better understand the code.

https://it.wikibooks.org/wiki/GAS_ed_Economia_solidale/Gruppo_d%27Acquisto_Solidale

The idea is to make a new one as wordpress plugin using existing features of Woocommerce and Buddypress.

6. A projects’ crowdfunding service

Actually there’re four crowdfunding platforms for WordPress. One free, three paid. The first (http://wordpress.org/plugins/appthemer-crowdfunding/) depends on specific themes and so I exclude it. Another is this http://ignitiondeck.com/id/ Another one is https://premium.wpmudev.org/project/fundraising/

Due we need a common ecommerce system, that I think is Woocommerce, I prefer we use the latest one paid Woocommerce plugin for crowdfunding, Galaxy Funder (that I already bought)

Woocommerce
http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/
Galaxy Funder
http://codecanyon.net/item/galaxy-funder-woocommerce-crowdfunding-system/7360954

7. An online learning service (How-tos, with payments through internal Timebank credits and/or funded through crowdfunding)

I already explained partially the idea before. Basicly could be a sort of “assisted” barcamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp , a sort of “guided” how-tos making and a sort of online learning service management (LMS), both free and paid (with credits and money) based on how deep is knowledge.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/daskal/
http://wordpress.org/plugins/instruct
http://wordpress.org/plugins/namaste-lms

http://wordpress.org/plugins/search.php?q=lms

8. A support center (Q&A, , with payments through internal Timebank credits and/or funded through crowdfunding)

The Q&A system is both free and paid, depending on complexity. It could be finalized to develop projects (personal, enterpreneural, social). It could be simple like a KB http://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/knowledge-base

Q&A
http://wordpress.org/plugins/q-and-a

or a more complex like an help desk
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wpsc-support-tickets/

More software is available searching

9. A collective decision system.

IMHO this bundle is a sort of community facilitation support software, so is needed a way to take collective decisions.

In Italy it was developped an interesting project, but under Ruby on Rails. It uses some of the features already offered by Buddypress so it could be useful to watch at it for ideas.
https://www.airesis.it/

Another one with Ruby on rails
https://github.com/rbjarnason/open-active-democracy

An interesting commercial project is Nation Builder and a noprofit one is this https://www.yrpri.org/home/world

Some survey WP plugins are here
http://wordpress.org/plugins/search.php?q=survey
http://wordpress.org/plugins/voteit/

and something OT. a interesting commenting system
http://wordpress.org/plugins/ergo
I stop for now 😉
Let me know your impressions.
magius

• This topic was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by magius.
• This topic was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by magius.

[Ray]

Hi magius,

Thanks for your interest in CBOX.

We don’t have the resources to support all these different variants of CBOX, but there have been internal talks to allow organizations to build their own version of CBOX.

Right now, all the plugin requirements and branding are hardcoded and specific to the Commons In A Box project, however the goal is to fork the CBOX code into a library and allow developers to be able to list the plugins, themes, localization strings, etc. that would be needed so someone like yourself can maintain a separate CBOX project.

This would allow for the types of scenarios you listed above. Hope that helps.

Ray

[magius]

CBOX basicly is a plugins’ loader. There’re no other plugins similar to CBOX and could be very interesting to have a tool to make WordPress customized installs, something similar to what are the Drupal “distributions”.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by magius.

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