spot-us / spot-us

Community Funded Reporting

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spherop (author)
Thu Nov 05 17:26:58 -0800 2009
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file .gitignore Loading commit data...
file CHANGELOG.textile Tue Sep 16 09:07:02 -0700 2008 added changelog, excuse to test runcoderun.com [l4rk]
file Capfile Tue Sep 16 08:49:15 -0700 2008 boilerplate [l4rk]
file README.textile Fri Apr 17 12:21:50 -0700 2009 Add note about mysql to readme [Steffen Hiller and Veez (Matt Remsik)]
file Rakefile Tue Sep 15 19:04:54 -0700 2009 Just trying to get things working [spherop]
directory app/
directory config/
directory db/ Tue Oct 27 10:14:55 -0700 2009 merged with master [spherop]
directory doc/ Mon Sep 22 11:50:22 -0700 2008 added example config file [l4rk]
directory features/ Mon Apr 20 14:37:36 -0700 2009 Unintrusive login workflow This was done to en... [Tim Pope and Veez (Matt Remsik)]
directory lib/ Tue Oct 20 16:52:32 -0700 2009 Facebook Integrate [spherop]
directory log/ Sun Apr 05 20:47:35 -0700 2009 Now properly ignoring log/ folder. Thanks to C... [l4rk]
directory public/
directory script/ Mon Apr 13 14:47:07 -0700 2009 Updated rspec to 1.2.2 [Jacqui Maher and Veez (Matt Remsik)]
directory spec/ Fri Oct 23 07:20:39 -0700 2009 Crediting pitches reprise [spherop]
directory stories/ Tue Sep 16 08:49:15 -0700 2008 boilerplate [l4rk]
directory tmp/ Sun Apr 05 20:47:35 -0700 2009 Now properly ignoring log/ folder. Thanks to C... [l4rk]
directory vendor/ Tue Oct 20 16:52:32 -0700 2009 Facebook Integrate [spherop]
README.textile

Spot.Us

Community Funded Reporting

“Spot Us” is a project of the nonprofit Center for Media
Change that allows an individual or group to take control of
news by sharing the cost (crowdfunding) to commission freelance
journalists. Spot.Us is made possible by the Knight
Foundation. Read more.

Spot.Us won’t be ready until the Fall – but we’ve received lots of interest. So we’ve
launched a wiki to capture ideas and test the concept of
“community funded reporting” in Northern California’s Bay Area.

We are looking to partner with news organizations, freelance journalists and civic leaders in the
Bay Area. Don’t hesitate to contact us.

How does Spot.Us work?

  1. An individual or journalist creates a pitch that outlines an untold story in a local community.
  2. Members of your community vote, with their money, on what stories are most important to them.
  3. A journalist researches the facts and puts together an article. Editors provide check-and-balance
    on the story.
  4. Spot.Us publishes the story in its news feeds and works with local media outlets to have the
    articles published more widely.

http://www.spot.us/

Setting Up Spot.Us

setup configuration files – make any necessary edits to these if the defaults don’t work for you. Spot.Us is dependent on MySQL because it uses the rand() function.

  1. cp config/database.example.yml config/database.yml
  2. cp config/newrelic.example.yml config/newrelic.yml
  3. cp config/settings.example.yml config/settings.yml

run basic setup tasks

  1. rake db:create:all
  2. rake db:migrate

setup your local domains

Spot.Us relies on subdomain_fu to route requests to various networks. To use the site locally, you’ll need to add these entries to your /etc/hosts file. spotus.local will become the main Spot.Us site. Any subdomains you create will need to be added to the file also (in this example, we’ve added an sfbay network).

  1. sudo $EDITOR /etc/hosts
  2. Add these lines:
    1. 127.0.0.1 spotus.local
    2. 127.0.0.1 sfbay.spotus.local

start your local server

  1. ./script/server

Spot.Us should now be running on your computer at the URL http://spotus.local:3000