We are pleased to announce the launch of Rebooting America, a project of long-time Lightbulb First client Personal Democracy Forum. At Rebooting America, users are encouraged to submit essays which answer the following prompt:
When the Framers met in Philadelphia in 1787, they bravely conjured a new form of self-government. But they couldn't have imagined a mass society with instantaneous, many-to-many communications or many of the other innovations of modernity. So, replacing that quill pen with a mouse, imagine that you have to power to redesign American democracy for the Internet Age. What would you do?
Users are allowed to comment on one another's essays, and to vote for (or against) each essay on the site. The top essays will be included in a forthcoming book with essays from a number of Internet-and-society luminaries.
Besides the creative and interesting subject matter of the site, we can't help but note the way Drupal made this project shine. Using a few well-chosen modules, including CCK, Views, and Vote up down/Voting API, we were able to put this site together very, very quickly. Moreover, Drupal's flexible multi-site architecture allowed us to tie the user database for Rebooting America into the main Personal Democracy Forum site, meaning that existing users can start participating in Rebooting America right away. This site is just one more example of the power and flexibility of Drupal.
This is a fun project, and we are eagerly looking forward to the resulting book. If you've got some thoughts about this fascinating topic, drop by Rebooting America and chime in!
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