Green PHP'ers?

Green_House

Hi folks,

Please forgive me if this is the wrong place for this thread, but I wanted to hear from any excellent PHP/MySQL wizards who are interested in getting involved in a global community project to build a php-driven site, which help people become greener in their home and fundamentally help the environment.

We already have support from green "celebs", but need the technology!

If you want to make a difference, please get in touch.

Thanks
Green House
ralph.smith@ntlworld.com

Jason_Batten

Mmmm, please explain 😉

dalecosp

No time, but maybe we could barter a deal? I might work for you if you send me 10,000 barrels of sweet Siberian crude, 400 head each of sheep, goat, buffalo, deer, and those cute reindeer from Finland, 1,000 cattle, 2 diesel generators in the 20-40 kW range, and a small late-model Lincoln Continental, Cadillac ElDorado, or BMW Roadster.

😃

To be slightly more serious (and a tad less, wha, peckish?), it's not a bad place to ask, assuming you're asking for volunteers. If there is any recompense for services, then it's probably classed as a "job" listing, which means it goes at jobs.internet.com instead.

And, please pardon the above as a rather tasteless joke. I don't mind green, but unfortunately it costs a tad more of that other "green" right now in most areas. I do intend to start wind generation sometime before I die, though....

Jason_Batten

lol

Green_House

Thanks for your interest - yeah I totally understand the "green" catch 22!

The main idea is to encourage people to create new environmentally-friendly habits and get rid of the old-style habits which we all do every day.

It's not rocket science, but people need to be given a challenge in order to change their old habits. We want the php application to give them monthly challenges and feedback to them how they are doing.

So, we need a relatively simple php web application which gathers data by asking questions on a regular basis, and is able to report stats based on the results. In a way, it's like a survey tools, but needs to be customised.

Maybe there is some open source application that can do it already?

We're starting small and want to trial it on a around 500 users, but the idea is that is successful it can be ramped up. If lots of people start to do it and habits are changed, it will have a real beneifical impact long-term. It'll also help educate our kids on how to live and enjoy what we have (rather than waste it), which can only be good in the long run when we all check out!

Drop me a note if you are interested in helping out.

vaaaska

Sorry, but you need to spend the money and get it done properly. Surely some of these 'celebs' can cough up a few bucks to make it happen.

Recently I was asked to help build a site for a 'high profile' artist - yeah, for free. I was told the xxx xxxxxxx art community would be grateful for my efforts. WTF is with people constantly asking for free design...free build...for things this complex? Learn how to do it or hire somebody.

So high profile, apparently, that they feel they shouldn't have to pay for things. Bah...

Green_House

vaaaska - thank you for your reply and I appreciate that not everyone will be interested in helping.

Getting celebs time and name behind the project is far more precious than their money. Everyone working on the project are volunteers who want to feel good about contributing their skills to a worthwhile project. It's the whole ethos of what we are trying to do.

vaaaska

Well, we get a few of these requests every month...I doubt you'll find any real help.

"Ethos" aside...get involved with our community before you expect that we will get involved with yours. You have three posts and they are all in this thread.

Ps: if you thought Dalecosp was being nice. He was...but you clearly did not read closely enough.

Pps: yeah, I could be nice about this as well...but if you had a construction team in your backyard right now and a ton of work that needed to be done last week then...yeah...I don't feel like sugar coating things...

Green_House

I'll get my coat then... :-)

Green_House

Actually vaaaska, maybe I should let you have my coat and you could use it to stick in your ears to get some peace!

Seriously though, on a time management note, stop responding to this post and get on with some work 🙂

lupus2k5

Yeah, you're not going to get far with this. At all.

So, sorry.

Requests like that either require your own experience or someone who is willing to work with you. And those who work for free usually know you personally. Become somebody of the community here and you have a chance. But if your first post is a request without even giving REAL information of what you're doing, no. It doesn't work that way.
Ah, don't listen to advice from a 13-year-old, but go ahead. I don't think anybody's gonna come script for someone they've never met before who wants to create a "green" website or whatever for you.

phpshift

I don't really understand what you are trying to make. And what do you mean by you don't have the "technology"? Does that mean you don't have a single person who knows PHP? Here is what I gathered from everything you said, but it might be completely wrong:

You want to have some kind of form asking people questions all the time and you want a PHP script that will rate their answers.

Now, this might be completely wrong. If it is, please explain in greater detail. If what you're doing doesn't sound too complicated to me, I might volunteer a code or two, but no long lasting ties to your project. Reall, I just want to understand what you're talking about... :bemused:

Green_House

Hi folks,

I'm just one guy with a big dream to make a difference, trying to pull together all the various parts to make it happen. When I say I haven't the technology, by that I mean I don't know PHP myself enough to code. I don't personally know anyone who I can approach, hence the original posting to this great forum.

Having researched more on the web, I have come across these:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpsurvey/

http://www.butterfat.net/wiki/Projects/phpESP/

http://www.phpsurveyor.org/index.php

It might be that what I am looking for is already developed. Does anyone have any experience of these?

Also, if something needed customising, what are the general rules with GPL licenses? Is this right: "The freedom to improve the program, and release the improvements to the public".

It is likely that one of the above might do the trick with a different front-end.

What I need is:

1) Ability for self-registration (various registration questions

2) Take a survey

3) Get the result of your own survey

4) The ability for the user to find out how their results compare with various groups of users within the database (i.e those in their post/zip code, town, country etc). As surveys would happen on a regular basis, there would need to be the facility to set up surveys in advance and auto e-mails to users on a specified date to let them know the survey is live.

5) As users complete more surveys, it scores how they are doing, taking into account all the surveys they have taken (i.e. each survey is in isolation when taken but results of past surveys are aggregated into a "total score").

The other way of doing this is instead of thinking in individual surveys, is to have a master survey e.g. 120 questions, split up across 12 mini-surveys. If they first visit during e.g. October, they are served October's questions. Results analysis and comparison needs to take into account that people will come on board at different times and will be at different stages.

Any feedback appreciated. Even just thinking the system aloud with some coded-minded folk would help greatly!

Thanks.

phpshift

It sounds like a really big project. I'll think about it.

pohopo

So who are the celebs you got?