[wp-hackers] GSoC 2010 (event management plugin)

[Jane Wells]

On Mar 29, 2010, at 12:53 PM, Ralph Bergmann wrote:
> The idea was born in 2008. I have organised a Java conference in  
> Berlin
> and was frustrated to add the speakers profil and the talks.
> The main feature should be: make it easier.
> There are a lot of tools which can do it. But I would a tool which is
> embedded in my website with the same still and the same domain.
Since a few people have mentioned a potential application for this on  
WordCamp sites, I'll chime in with the status of WordCamp.org. We're  
currently starting on a project to redo the WordCamp.org site using  
BuddyPress to manage user profiles (tied to WordPress.org profiles)  
and using an e-commerce plugin for the ticketing. Each WC event will  
be a BuddyPress 'group' and have it's own site under the WordCamp.org  
domain, so if you wanted to propose this for use with WordCamps, you'd  
need to tie it into BuddyPress, since we're committed to using it for  
the variety of community features it offers and the ability to share  
information with WordPress.org profiles.

> I think of a workflow with some users. Speakers which add his / hers
> profil and talks. A program committee which accepts or rejects speaker
> and/or talk. A manager for the timetable and available rooms. Financer
> for ticket and advertising space sale. And all this with one tool.
A panel submission and voting piece would be cool, but I believe there  
are already plugins that do this, no? A room setup app would be cool,  
but since WordCamps do room assignments in so many ways, an app that  
could serve them all would be extremely complex. Probably not a high  
priority for our GSoC allotment. Also, this is sounding like a full- 
scale application, possibly too big for a GSoC project. Managing scope  
is important.

> When the speaker adds his / hers profil, he / she post all needed  
> datas
> incl. an picture which will be crop to fit the theme.
We're using BuddyPress profiles and gravatars for profile images  
(which also ties into our nametag script, which generates the name  
tags for the event from the ticketing module).

> The financer can see how many tickes was sold and who has bought
> advertisments. After the money arrived he / she can send out the  
> tickets
> (per email) or can activate the ad banner upload.
We can already see all the details on our ticket sales and stats  
(tshirt sizes, meal requests, etc.) in our ticketing plugin. Since  
WordCamp.org is non-commercial, we do not sell ads. You could perhaps  
translate to sponsorships, but it's not really a one to one  
relationship.

> An other great feature should be an app for Android / iPhone /
> BlackBerry to see the timetable, profils and talks on the divice and  
> to
> create the own plan with the prefered talks.
That would be an awesome project component. Based on what I see at  
WordCamps, iPhone would be the most used platform (right now, anyway).

Focusing on a plugin that could be used to create the conference  
schedule on a (BuddyPress-driven) WordCamp site, with a 'my wordcamp'  
schedule creator (basically selecting sessions and then displaying  
them as a schedule)
with a mobile version would be something I could get behind as being  
useful to WordCamp.
jane