Checkdesk is a multilingual custom CMS tailored for the verification and liveblogging of social media. It is built upon the Drupal 7 PHP content management platform. Technically speaking, Checkdesk is a Drupal distribution.

Application model

Checkdesk allows citizen journalists to submit social media links for verification. The purpose of verification is to check the veracity of the information presented by the media item. On Checkdesk, verification is a social activity that is carried out by the users.

A new media link becomes a report around which the verification activity is conducted. A professional journalist is notified of the submission of a new report, and upon review, can decide to publish it in an update to one of the running stories on the site.

The community of users can then proceed to add verification footnotes to the report, where they discuss the veracity of the information. Users can also flag the report for spam, graphic scenes, etc. Journalists can change the verification status of the report to such states as "verified", "false", "pending verification", etc. The report's verification log reflects this fact-checking activity.

A published update shows up on the public view of the associated story, which is a liveblog. The public landing page is an aggregated liveblog of all running stories.

Users and visitors can share stories, updates and reports to various social networks, as well as embed those objects on their own pages, using oEmbed codes.

Installation

Checkdesk installation is similar to a standard Drupal installation, with minor twists:

1. Create a blank MySQL database, e.g. checkdesk and grant all permissions to some user, e.g. 'checkdesk'@'localhost'.

2. Create a /drupal/sites/default folder and /drupal/sites/default/files subfolder.

3. Copy /config/settings.php to /drupal/sites/default.

4. Create a new file settings.local.php in /drupal/sites/default where you enter your database configuration, e.g.:

    <?php
   
    $databases['default']['default'] = array(
      'driver'   => 'mysql',
      'database' => 'checkdesk',
      'username' => 'checkdesk',
      'password' => '',
      'host'     => 'localhost',
      'prefix'   => '',
    );
   

5. You're now ready to run the Drupal installer by navigating to /install.php on your website (e.g. http://example.com/install.php). Choose the Checkdesk installation profile. During installation, you will be asked to configure a few Web services:

• Embedly, a service that renders links into embeddable HTML components using oEmbed. Sign up for a free account and copy your account's API Key to the corresponding form field.
• Twitter, to allow logging in through Twitter. To fill in:
  • Create a new Twitter application
  • Set the Callback URL is set to http://<checkdesk.domain.name>/twitter/oauth
  • Set the Access level to Read-only
  • Turn ON the option Allow this application to be used to Sign in with Twitter
  • Once the application is saved, copy the API key and API secret to the corresponding form fields
• Facebook, to allow logging in through Facebook. To fill in:
  • Create a new Facebook application
  • Add a Website Platform
  • Set the Site URL to http://<checkdesk.domain.name>
  • Turn ON Advanced >> Client OAuth Login and Embedded browser OAuth Login
  • Once the application is saved, copy the App ID and App Secret to the corresponding form fields

Project layout

meedan-checkdesk/
   |-bin                                         # executable scripts needed for build
   |-config                                      # configuration files
   |-drupal                                      # Drupal application root
   |-patches                                     # patches to Drupal core, modules, other components
   |-test                                        # testing files
   |---behat                                     # Behat tests
   |---html                                      # HTML tests

Compiling SASS

The Checkdesk theme uses SASS. Although the repo contains the pre-compiled CSS files, you will need to setup a working SASS development environment if you wish to modify the theme. Install Ruby 1.9.3+ (but not 2.x) then type the following in a console from the Checkdesk root folder:

> gem install bundler
> bundle install
> bundle exec guard start 

The last command should start a script that watches the contents of the SCSS files in the Checkdesk theme folder, and trigger a recompilation of the CSS if the files are changed.

Running a development environment

While developing, it is useful to turn on debugging features on Drupal and modules. Debugging settings are all bundled in a configuration feature called Checkdesk Devel. To turn it on, install Drush then type the following from the Checkdesk /drupal folder:

> drush en -y checkdesk_devel_feature

Running Behat tests

Checkdesk comes with a number of Behat test cases, and allows more cases to be written and ran via the Drupal admin interface. Refer to TESTING.txt for instructions on setting up and running Behat tests.

Feedback

Please submit issues to report problems. Pull requests are welcome!