[SGVLUG] A modest proposal (for the SGVLUG website)

[James McDuffie]

I have a modest proposal for what should be done with the SGVLUG 
website. I know that Matt and Miguel put effort into putting together a 
Drupal website, but I think I have a idea that is more maintainable 
given the structure of the club.

Firstly, I do not believe that our club needs a dynamic website for its 
own sake. I believe the purpose of our club website is:
1. To let people know when and where we meet
2. Post description of upcoming topics
3. Archive presentations from past meetings
4. Link to the mailing list

All of this can be done with static pages given the frequency of updates 
needed.

Now that being said, these do not have to be hand edited pages or pure 
HTML. There is a growing trend of using static website generators.
http://inessential.com/2011/03/16/a_plea_for_baked_weblogs
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2378237

So with this in mind I investigated and found that using one such 
combination of generator and open source friendly website: Jekyll + 
Github we can get a pretty nice website for free. Here is why I like 
this combination:

1. Its free, no one has to shell out for hosting
2. Can utilize Github for user management
3. Can use Git for version control and essential mirror the website to 
whoever clones the repository (free backups!)
4. The entire website can be deployed pretty much anywhere should Github 
drop into the ocean
5. As long as enough people are admins there is no single point failure
6. Even if all the admins for the Github page suddenly disappear, anyone 
could clone the website and redeploy elsewhere
7. Anyone can fork the website and contribute (sending a pull request) 
without waiting for or needing direct repository access
8. Its pretty easy to use (IMHO)
9. Non-programmers and more web design centric people can contribute 
more easily
10. Our website is also open sourced!

Stated another way I think this works best with the semi-functioning 
anarchy of the club.

It requires a minimal amount of effort to be able to contribute:
1. Install git
2. Fork
3. Edit
4. Push changes
5. Issue pull request

Even less effort for people who don't want to use Github
1. Install git
2. Clone repository
3. Edit
4. Email a patch to someone

So if your still reading, I have already set up an example club website 
here:
http://sgvlug.github.com/

I think its ready to use and just needs additional stuff pulled from the 
old Joomla website.

Need more information? Well here is a more detailed guide to getting 
started using a Jekyll website:
http://jekyllbootstrap.com/lessons/jekyll-introduction.html
http://jekyllbootstrap.com/usage/jekyll-quick-start.html

And for people who want to skip straight to the reference material, I 
found these pages more useful for knowing how to change the bootstrapped 
website:
https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll/wiki/YAML-Front-Matter
https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll/wiki/Template-Data
https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll/wiki/Liquid-Extensions
http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax
http://github.github.com/github-flavored-markdown/

Did I mention I already have a working example, that just needs a CNAME 
pointed towards it :) ?
http://sgvlug.github.com/

Now please discuss.