The WordHack at WordCamp UK in Manchester this year was really exciting. By 4.30 pm on day 2 the team had created a stunning WordPress site that:

• Reads and transforms XML data on DFID aid projects into a format ready for import into WordPress
• Imports the XML into a WordPress Custom Post Type for each DFID aid project, creating new post versions if the source data has changed
• Links comments to the post version, so that someone can view comments in the context of the data at the time
• Displays the data in a clean user interface, focussing on the conversation that people can have around aid projects

User Story
The concept (User Story) of the site is that people (either UK citizens or citizens of developing countries) can view summary details of DFID aid projects, and can start conversations around individual projects. Ultimately, this may be best used for sub-sets of the full 3000-odd projects based around communities of interest, for example by a community within a developing country.

Why WordPress?
The new Custom Post Types in WordPress provide the framework needed to handle more structured data around aid project information. Other core features are the commenting capability, use of categories and tags for classification, and the built-in post versioning system. These would require a significant effort to write from scratch.

Credit to the Team
I was really pleased with what the team achieved, and it builds on work done at the recent Aid Information Challenge. It clearly shows what can be done with government information when the data is provided in a reusable format.

The keys to the success were:

• Shaun Hare‘s organisation was critical. He set up the WordHack wiki page, canvassed for ideas early, and allowed for discussion within the group.
• Getting ideas early really helped, as people could develop the ideas over a couple of weeks, and come to WordHack with a better-formed solution in mind. It also helped to break up the problem into a number of logical components that enabled everyone to do something useful.
• The skill and dedication of the team was phenomenal. Each person chose a different component and delivered something useful, and Chris and Shaun tied it all together on Sunday afternoon.

More details
The technical details of the site are available on the OpenAid project page on the WordCampUK Wiki, and we hope to have a Google Code project set up soon.

Next steps
The next steps are likely to be:

• Add Ajaxy goodness to the front page to allow the most recent conversations to magically appear, Twitter style.
• Make the import plugin generic to allow any XML data to be transformed into the Custom Post Type – possibly by providing a URL for the XML and an XSL transform.
• Create a map based on country data to show where the conversation is happening.
• and many more…

If you are interested in continuing involvement then please follow @openaiduk on Twitter.

Adverts used in the Metro

I was able to help in a couple of ways:

• Helping them to set up the survey in SurveyMonkey. This was fairly straightforward, and setting up the survey in SurveyMonkey early enabled us to visualise the user’s journey through the survey, and to run some early pilots to iron out (most of) the inevitable “eh?” questions.
• Creating links and link pages in the BiG website, including setting up a new domain for use in print media – www.glasgowspiritualitysurvey.com.
• Designing a postcard and a set of adverts to be run in the Metro over a 4-day campaign period. (I didn’t take the pictures, they’re all from Kim and Gerd, two friends who’ve given permission.)

Survey Postcard

If you live or work in Glasgow City Centre, and would like to complete the survey, there’s still time!

We’d been at a retreat where William Perrin was the after-dinner speaker, and he was talking about how the web can be a powerful tool for community action. In fact that has been the focus of his work for the past few years.

Martin’s idea was to set up a community action site to try to persuade the train operator Scotrail to improve the service on the train line between Glasgow Central and East Kilbride. The trains often run late, and because the line goes down to a single track beyond Busby, passengers are sometimes kicked off at Busby station to wait for the next train, while the original train heads back to Glasgow to catch up on time. Hence kickedoffatbusby.org.

The basic content was the product of a 15 minute brainstorm during a coffee break at work, and was set up using WordPress (obviously) in around 2 hours. I used the Mystique theme as this provides a lot of smart controls, including a cool slider to set the width of the right hand column and a simple way to override the inbuilt CSS (credit to Martin for his work on the customised CSS).

I’ve also found these plugins useful:

• TDO Mini Forms – this allows any visitor to the site to submit a post without having to have a WordPress login, and therefore encourages community participation. To keep the site safe, the plugin uses Akismet to check for spam and permits moderation.
• Twitter Hash Tag Widget – to display any tweets with the #ekline hash tag.
• Widget Logic – this allows each plugin to be controlled using WordPress conditional tags, so that the widgets don’t need to be displayed on the sidebar for every page.
• I also wrote a widget to load live train times sourced from the National Rail Enquiries web service.

There are still some gremlins to iron out, but I think the site isn’t bad for a few hours work, and really shows the power of WordPress.

Do let me know what you think.