[thesite] hosting listings on d.e.o.

[David McCreath]

> From: Warden, Matt
> 
> >It'd be a copy of the database, like feo. The content woudl be 
> >entries/articles about hosts (name and short description, prices, 
> >whatever).
> 
> Building on my own reply...
> This would be a nice place to use my recent/still-in-progress 
> (eh, rudy?  =) changes to the database. price range, features 
> could be attributes (or categories... still working on exact 
> implementation) of the content piece (the host) and they 
> could all be searchable.

That would be cool.

> But, now we're getting complex and this is getting big...

Amazing how quickly that happens, isn't it?

> someone wanna comment on whether this should be that big? is 
> there a demand for the effort required.

Show of hands? 

Does this seem like something that would be useful? 

Is there a simple version that we can implement that would be useful?

We have a few options before us at this point:

1) just allow people to list hosts higgeldy-piggeldy.
   pro: easy to implement
   con: could rapidly get out of control and lose context of quality

2) allow anyone to list hosts, and allow anyone to rate and comment them
   pro: still not a bitch to implement, and even if hosts start listing 
        themselves, there is the control of the ratings and comments
   con: could still create such a morass that it would become useless at
        worst, no better than other such sites at best

3) allow only evolt members to list hosts (assume that if they 
   choose to list their host, they like them) and forgo ratings/comments

   pro: evolt membership declares a certain quality of judgement
   con: have to add user authentication to d.e.o.

4) allow only evolt members to list hosts, include ratings/comments
   pro: would probably result in the highest quality list
   con: would be time consuming to implement, requiring user auth
        and rating/comment system

I'm personally kind of leaning towards Option 2 in the short term, with
an eye toward Option 4. The problem with that is that by the time we get
to implementing Option 4, the category could be so lousy with crappy,
self-listed hosts, that it would still not be great. In which case, we
should probably stick with Option 2.

Whew!

(So much for my resolution to be brief!)

David