Sustain’d is Born!
Posted by Connor Boyack on August 30th, 2006
Two days ago, I started creating Sustain’d. It’s already come a long way (thanks to some long nights and an otherwise-occupied girlfriend) and hopefully should launch soon.
I’m coding it all by hand in PHP/MySQL. Yeah, I could probably use some of the frameworks out there, but it’d take me just as long to learn how they work than it would for me to do it all myself. Sure, the code will be ugly, but if it works, it works.. right?
I’m really excited for this project and hope it will take off. Soon to be gone are the days of moderated aggregators and blogrolls. Now, the bloggernacle will be able to vote on what stuff they like the best. You control the content. You decide.
Do you have any suggestions or ideas for features to be included in the release of Sustain’d? Please comment below and let me know what you’d like to see.
This looks very interesting. I tried to sign up for notification and saw an error message.
Left by danithew on August 30th, 2006
Whoops - forgot to update the file. It is working now.
Left by Connor Boyack on August 30th, 2006
Hey!
Eventually, one thing we’ll want for sure is some type of Wordpress plug-in that allows people to click on a little small “sustain’d” button within each post to automagically nominate it on the site. That will help accelerate things.
Woo hoooo!!! Go Connor!!!!
Left by John Dehlin on August 30th, 2006
When can we start submitting?
Left by Kim Siever on August 30th, 2006
John:
Yeah, I’ll make some instructions on how to set it up in Wordpress. I’m debating on whether to have people sustain from the actual site, or have a “sustain this!” link to take them to the Sustain’d site for nomination and comment review.
Kim:
As soon as I finish coding everything.
Left by Connor Boyack on August 31st, 2006
My suggestion is to do the latter. Will we be able to vote on comments too?
Left by Kim Siever on August 31st, 2006
Yeah, I am leaning towards the latter as of now. It’ll be easier to implement.
As per voting on the comments, I haven’t given it much thought. Thanks for bringing it up, I will definitely consider it.
Left by Connor Boyack on August 31st, 2006
Looks like an interesting project. Good luck!
Left by Christian Y. Cardall on August 31st, 2006
“I’m coding it all by hand in PHP/MySQL.”
You’re coding it by hand??!! J/k. Looking forward to seeing your Digg-inspired chops.
Left by Blake Snow on August 31st, 2006
It always freaks me out when some project pops up that I was about to start working on. Seriously this was my next project after Scripture Tag (http://www.scripturetag.com). I think this is an awesome idea. I was just wondering, have you looked at pligg? http://www.pligg.com it might save you some development work. Drupal also have some nice mods for this kind of a site. Good luck with the development work and I look forward to the launch. BTW. I was thinking of calling mine “All in Favor” … Sustain’d is better though.
Left by Stewart Foss on August 31st, 2006
Sounds like a terrific idea…I’ll pass the link around.
Left by Chris Alvarez on August 31st, 2006
Sounds like a terrific idea…I’ll pass the link around.
I’d suggest advertising in the Zogdog.com forums as well. Try the Religion and Beliefs board in there.
Left by Chris Alvarez on August 31st, 2006
I will paste what I posted at BofJ here:
Wait a minute. Is this not a dangerous idea? Anything can be posted and voted on. So what, if anything, stops this from becoming an anti-mormon dominated site? Some anti gets wind of it, submits his stuff, gathers all his friends to sustain it like mad, and dominates the site.
Or worse yet, what if someone were to submit some triple X rated child porn post with pictures, submits it, and gets all kinds of internet perverts to sustain it? Does anything prevent this from happening?
What am I missing?
Left by Eric Nielson on August 31st, 2006
Good luck. You might try posting this on Provopulse.com too (unless you already have).
Left by Rob on August 31st, 2006
Eric:
I will include in the “terms of service†for the site the mandate that all content be constructive, LDS-related material. I will reserve the right to delete anything that is offensive, pornographic, defamatory, or blatantly “antiâ€. This will not be a site for people to post critical, “anti†garbage, or vent their frustrations with the church.
The great thing about letting the users be in control is that if you come across something offensive or not in line with what “should†be on Sustain’d, you can “bury†the article (as you can on digg), and hence remove it from display.
Take, for example, the wikipedia page on mormonism. Sure, every once in a while you get somebody who tries to post something “anti†or false, but then there are people who will come along and correct it. We will be able to do the same thing on this site - bury the trash, promote the good stuff.
I’ll be curious to see the response to and use of the site…
Rob:
Yup, I already have
Left by Connor Boyack on August 31st, 2006
Connor,
Good to see you building something constructive for the LDS community.
I hope my BoMToons games get sustained.
Left by Nick on August 31st, 2006
Nick:
I freakin’ love your BoMToons, man. I’ll definitely sustain them
Everybody, if you haven’t seen them, go here.
Left by Connor Boyack on August 31st, 2006
I love the idea. Sustained is the perfect name for it too.
It would be really good if you can create an RSS feed for the news items. I’d possibly be interested in helping you create it if you were interested.
If you did have an RSS feed, then I’ve been working on implementing phplist which takes an RSS feed and turns it into an email list. I’d love to do it for Sustaind too.
I’ve created a beta version of the email list of an RSS feed on my BYU Sports website: http://www.crashutah.com/byu/byu-updates-by-emailbeta/
Let me know if you’re interested.
Also, I don’t know if you had categories of news, but if you are then you should definitely consider a Sports category. There are a lot of LDS sports players.
Left by techguy on August 31st, 2006
Stewart:
Thanks for the suggestion to look into pligg. Their site was down for a few days (so I looked at meneame, which is the original project), but now Pligg is back up and I’m investigating whether or not to use it. Thanks.
Techguy:
There will definitely be RSS. I’ll let you know if I can use your help, but I think I’m set for now - especially if I use pligg.
Left by Connor Boyack on September 1st, 2006
Great idea for the bloggernacle; we’re on board. We also get a bit of a kick out of the fact that “Sustain’d” works well in both the LDS and the legal context. Nice.
Left by LDS Law Students on September 6th, 2006
PHP by hand, right
This is drupal, with mostly stolen digg.com css and js files. Add a little touch of poor photoshop and presto, distained…. Actually, I’m only a bit miffed that you got your “me too” of digg.com done about 2 months before mine would have been done.
Left by Nathan on November 7th, 2006
Nathan,
This post was written before I decided to use Pligg, which I announced here. No reason to accuse me of stealing code. You can have your own “me too” by using the Pligg code like scores of other sites now do.
Left by Connor Boyack on November 7th, 2006