ActionDirectory

ActionDirectory

ActionDirectory is a collaborative tool for publishing 'yellow pages style' directories of organizations. Individual people or groups can also use this tool to set up their own online directory. ActionDirectory supports customizeable categories, geographic information, user submitted entries, internationalization, multiple administrative users, a flexible template system, web services, and is built as a foundation for a network of syndicated directory sites. While each directory is autonomous and locally controlled, they can be linked together to share information. The intended result is a decentralized web of information, mapping the global community of organizations working for social change.

This tool can be used on its own or as part of a web-based activist toolkit, currently in development, that includes secure email and listserves, community calendars, open publishing websites, and friend-of-a-friend networking. By packaging these tools together, more grassroots organizations can join the growing world of online activism. By establishing an interchange protocol, that world becomes more coherent and gains access to a larger, common pool of resources. This allows activists, NGOs, and funders to find all of the information they need to build social movements, to collaborate with their existing allies, and to find new partners.

Project Background

The people and organizations that launched this project were frustrated by the incoherent mass of critical contact information scattered across the internet and in isolated address books. They were also inspired by the number of different groups that wanted to develop online directories and share their resources. And they had a profound faith in the benefits of open participation, based on their experience with various community media efforts and the global Indymedia network.

In particular, they saw that local media projects, while providing a profound resource to their local communities, could have a serious global impact if they could connect and collaborate. Tools that allowed these groups to share resources, audiences and information without sacrificing autonomy could contribute to an independent media alliance that effectively competes with corporate media conglomerates. In connecting these media, the communities that sustain them begin to imagine themselves as a single, larger community. One world, active and progressive.

In spring 2003, Eggplant Active Media (EAM) and Allied Media Projects (AMP) began to design the database and build a community of support for the project. This summer, they launched a beta site and found organizations to build out the ActionDirectory community including Rooftop Films, Clamor Magazine, Foro de Acá Michigan Indymedia, and Uruguay Solidario. EAM and AMP are actively seeking collaboration with other organizations that serve as hubs for their geographic, disciplinary, or cultural communities. The aim of ActionDirectory is not to replace other directory projects but to make them more accessible.

Technical Explanation

ActionDirectory has the look and feel of a straightforward address-book style directory, written in Perl. The design is based on a MVC pattern in object oriented Perl with proper separation between the database, the 'business logic', and the front-end representation in using a template toolkit for html templates. The application supports an administration interface which allows for extensive management of the directory through easy-to-use web based forms.

However, ActionDirectory is much more than a basic address-book application. It stores and presents all of the data in a standardized interchange format using XML/RDF. This makes the data accessible to other databases in the ActionDirectory community and to other applications. Categories will be systematized and arranged in trees using industry standard RDF XTM TopicMaps, so some databases can be more focused than others. The data will also be made available as a flat file for systems that are unable to parse XML/RDF. ActionDirectory will be guided by developments in the standardization of the semantic web.

ActionDirectory's development project is hosted at sourceforge, sf.net/projects/actiondirectory. This open development process allows users download the code, particpate in the development, and submit bug reports. The code via cvs and as tarball The code is online and can be browsed at [[code in cvs]], and the database schema is mapped out [[graphic of the database schema]] and is useful to understand the back-end. There is a snapshot tarball of the code as of Aug 5th. To see the program in action check out our test directory at [URL TK]. If you want to install and use it please email evan at protest.net for help as the documentation is still in development.

ActionDirectory's development project is hosted at sourceforge, sf.net/projects/actiondirectory. This open development process allows users download the code, particpate in the development, and submit bug reports. The coded can be downloaded from our sourceforge project. If you want to know a little more about how things are structured i recommend looking at the database schema graphic of the database schema and is useful to understand the back-end. To see the program in action check out our test directory. If you want to install and use it please email evan at protest.net for help as the documentation is still in development.

AD encourages standards compliance and interoperability. The source code is licensed under a General Public License. It is based on Unicode encoding to support localization in non-Latin character sets.

The source code is licensed under a GPL General Public License. The enclosure of the creative, technologic, and intellectual expression within the confines of capitalist conceptions of property which can be bought and sold poses a serious threat to fundamental freedoms within our globalized society.

Participants

Eggplant Active Media is a worker run collective, providing new media and communication services to businesses, communities, organizations and individuals. Eggplant Active Media is dedicated to promoting an ecological and egalitarian society with political, economic, social, and civil freedoms for all people and communities.

Allied Media Projects is a not-for-profit organization that promotes access to the tools of media creation and distribution and supports others who are doing the same. AMP networks other participatory media organizations so they can learn from each other and magnify each other's efforts. AMP's projects are designed to remove the obstacles that all of these groups face collectively, but that none can remove separately.

Project Advisors

Kendall Clark - Semantic Web Researcher
MIND Lab, University of Maryland and Contributing Editor of XML.com and Monkeyfist.com.

Dan Merkle, Center for Social Justice Policy Director
Dan Merkle has been an attorney in Seattle for 20 years working on a wide range of social justice issues. He has convened several large community and professional events and currently chairs the Race and Class Disparity Task Force for the King County Bar Association Drug Policy Project. He is also a co-founder of the Independent Media Center.

Geert Lovink is a media theorist and Internet critic
A postdoc fellow at University of Queensland (Brisbane). His books include "Dark Fiber" and "Uncanny Networks," and "My First Recession: Critical Internet Culture in Transition". Lovink is a founding member of Bilwet/Adilkno, also known in Germany as Agentur Bilwet. He is a member of the editorial board of CTHEORY. Lovink is also known for his development of the Digital City (DDS) of Amsterdam and for co-organizing first three of the Next 5 Minutes Conferences.

Examples

The AMPData.net directory of North American media organizations is the current test case for the ActionDirectory software.

In addition to directories using this code base, we hope where ever possible to work with existing directory projects.

Contact

For more information about ActionDirectory or to join in the beta network, please email info (at) actiondirectory.org. Or contact us directly: evan (at) protest.net for technical questions; joshua (at) clamormagazine.org for outreach questions.