The ReportingOn Blog

It’s alive.  ReportingOn — the Django-powered open beta backchannel for your beat, not the Twitter account — is up and running.

[UPDATE 10/21/08: Most of what's on this list has been added to the new ReportingOn feedback forum.  Check in there to vote for features, suggest new ideas, and report bugs.]

Here’s a brief glance at my list of the first additions and revisions to be made, not necessarily in order:

• On individual beat pages, a list of related beats.
• On individual beat pages, a list of the users who file updates on that beat most often.
• Add e-mail signals (optional?) when a user comments on an update.
• Add redirect from /comments/posted to the single update page.
• Direct messaging, or a way to indicate how you want to be messaged. (Twitter? E-Mail? Carrier pigeon?)
• Users input a few beats on signup.
• Friends
• Suggest friends on sign-up based on your beats.
• Address book import option.
• Groups?
• Add location metadata to each update. (By user location or by option to add a location to each update?)
• Post your update to Twitter.
• Implement standard microblogging API.
• Add Terms of Service (Written as of 10/8/08, but considering whether it’s necessary.)
• On user pages, links to recent comments they left. (Done 10/08)
• Add permalinks for each comment. (Done 10/08)
• On user pages, a list of the tags they use most often. (Done 10/27/08 8 a.m.)
• Move this list and all feedback to uservoice. (Done 10/21/08 11 p.m., added list items, added Feedback widget to RO template, changed /contact template.)
• Translate the FAQ into Spanish. (In progress on 10/10/08 with both unsolicited and solicited help.  Posted at reportingon.com/faq_es on 10/21/08 5 p.m.)
• YUI autocomplete for tags. (Done 10/20/08 5:00 p.m. although only works with the first tag in the beat field for now.)
• Merge the updates-by-user page with the profile page. (Done 10/17/08 noon.)
• RSS feeds for all updates, users, individual tags, what else? (RSS for latest updates added on 10/12/08 11:30 a.m., RSS for users added on 10/12/08 10:00 p.m., RSS for every tag added on 10/14/08 9:00 p.m.)
• Repair the stylesheet of this blog, which was nuked when I accidentally deleted and then restored the database recently. (That was awesome.)  (Switched to a different theme for now, 10/9/08)
• Permalinks for individual updates. (Done 10/4/08 11 a.m.)
• Comments on individual updates. (Done 10/9/08 12:30 p.m.)
• Add Google sitemap functionality. (Done for updates at 10/7/08 8:30 a.m., but still could use additional maps for static pages.)
• Add Creative Commons license (Done 10/7/08 1 p.m.)
• Yikes, tags with multiple words — as in “global warming” in quotes — are broken at the moment. (Please use underscores to connect multiple word tags for now, like so: “global_warming” — Use as many single word tags as you’d like, such as: awesome, cool, excellent OR awesome cool excellent.) (Fixed on 10/14/08 8:00 am)

OK, maybe that was in order after all.  Not really. As I think of easy-but-necessary things, I’m adding them to the bottom top of the list.

Either way, please report any bugs using the feedback form and I’ll add them to the list to be squashed!

[This post was also published at IdeaLab.]

I’ve been writing about ReportingOn, my Knight News Challenge project, in fits and starts for 11 months now, but it’s time to backtrack for a moment and answer some simple questions about what I’m up to here.

Q: So, what’s ReportingOn?

A: ReportingOn.com will be a simple way for journalists to update their peers on the stories they’re working on right now.  Tag your 140-character-or-less updates with the beat you’re on, and find peers reporting on similar beats to make connections, introduce yourself to potential mentors, or discover an unsung hero.

Q: When you say “journalists,” who are you talking about?

A: Anyone who publishes news, information, or commentary at a relatively stable spot in print and/or online.  That umbrella should cover reporters at the Washington Post, photojournalism students with a blog and a school paper, and independent bloggers who focus on a certain topic.  Ideally, the journalists in question have a definable beat, whether it’s geographical or topical, and they’re doing original reporting of some sort.

Q: So it’s a social network?  I already belong to a few of those…

A: You can call it that if you want.  If it’s a social network, it’s one based on beats, which doesn’t exist just yet.  There are plenty of blogs, social networks, and discussion boards based on craft, and there’s Wired Journalists for general professional networking, but no public place for journalists to flag themselves as, say, an education reporter who frequently writes about standardized testing, and find other reporters working the same beat.

Q: So what am I supposed to say about the story I’m working on?

A: As much or little as you want.  Maybe you just want to mention something general about your story and tag your update with your beat to let your peers know what you’re up to.  Or maybe you have a question that needs an answer, or you’re bored with all the “usual suspects” sources and you’re looking for an introduction to an expert with a different point of view.  You’ll probably get exactly as much information out of ReportingOn as you put into it.

Q: What if my competition picks up on what I’m working on and beats me to the story?

A: Really? You’re still worried about the paper across town? OK, no problem, just don’t included much specific information in your updates.  But really, ReportingOn is probably going to work much better if you’re writing an investigative/enterprise story or a feature.  I’m not sure how well it’s going to work for breaking news, unless you’re just looking for a source or some help making sense out of freshly released data.

Q: OK, where do I start?

A: So glad you asked. ReportingOn is currently in development, but you’re more than welcome to follow ReportingOn on Twitter and send it updates.  Also, there’s a spot at www.reportingon.com to enter your e-mail address.  I’m collecting those, and when there’s news about the site, I’ll send it out to the list.