Mentor Mark Miller suggested finding a university willing to host it cuz they'd have dirtcheap price on bandwith, and would probably do this for free.

I know lycos has a huge banner. Somehow when I installed php-nuke the banner adds actually disappered.:rolleyes: Anyway I think the idea would to be and try the unproven ideas so then people would know they work.

hey joseph im in, you know from pit news,i'll help with what ever you need, right now im working on PR stuff and also on some draft letters.

~Dez

Try http://www.netfirms.com
They have pretty good service, only problem is the max file size is 273kb or sometihng like that.

If you have signed up for the FREELANCE FIRST news letter (send an e-mail to freelance_first@yahoo.com) there will be info comming out tonight around 8pm est.

I'll be asking for help.

I've spent much of the day creating an outline of the effort as I see it. It includes Effort Organization, Site Organization, and Page Organization.

It's exhaustive, but by no means is it complete. I'd like to get others' feelings on it when it's done; particularly its scope, feasability, and structure. Ideally, I'd like to pare it down some as well, as its nearly overwhelming.

Like I've said before, the potential is enormous. Half of this battle may be finding the resources and dedication to realize that potential.

When I've completed my work, I'll attach it to this thread.

You can count me in if you're looking for programming/control system stuff.

Also, for the short-term, I can create a sub-folder of robbayer.com if you want to put stuff there for testing, etc. Just let me know and I'll see what I can do...

Hey M, if you could send it to me at the given e-mail, that would be great. I'll send out some things tonight too. They can be changed and altered, but they are my ideas.

FreelanceFIRST Outline
 

Okay, I pared down my own expectations for this outline slightly, eliminating a detailed description of the layout of each page. That's something that will probably become evident as the rest of the features are implemented.

As described, this project is a monster, but it follows the philosophy I adopted when I first made my offer to help whichever team needed my help. The attached Microsoft Word document outlines the infrastructure and organization necessary to implement a service-based effort that caters to the FIRST community. It presents a proposal that would create a website as a showcase for FIRST design-components, but the real potential is behind-the-scenes. It also calls for the creation of a network of volunteers with varying expertise and experience to take on team-specific projects, truly realizing the concept of FreelanceFIRST.

By this proposal, a team that doesn't have the time or resources to take on a certain project or design feature can approach FreelanceFIRST with their ideas or needs. From there, the FreelanceFIRST staff will claim this request and begin correspondence with the team. The end result may be something as simple as an answered question, or as complex as having a part or system built and mailed to the team. After a team's project has been completed, the entirety of our design process archive for that project will be made available to the public.

The outline is 8 pages, but I'd really appreciate it if everyone who is interested in being a part of this read it and offer feedback. It seems overwhelming at the start, but with proper implementation and dedication, it's definitely possible.

I say, go with a system that you and some of your trusted helpers setup to start with. Then as you find out who tries to do as much as they can to become part of a head group of administrators, then multiple teams are contributing and the people doing the most get the most say, and as others contribute they can be brought up as administrators and then the rest is for anyone to contribute. It would make things fair and not a single person could say they did it all. Then to make things truly fair, you can put a side-note on every bit on the site with the name and team number, just so people see who is really helping out, then everyone gets credit for their share of work and everyone is happy without any classification system dividing people in a sense that you can't become an administrator, you can work and become part of that group, so everyone gets the oppurtunity.

Just to get everyone up-to-date....

M. has created a business plan.

I also want to add that her and my ideas are different but compatable. Hers will get done first and I will bow down to her. She created and thought of this concept first. I'll bow down to her and she will get her ideas done before mine.

Hers will be a place for people to help teams via the internet on small and large projects of varying sizes.

Mine is a place of concepts, proven ideas, and non-copy righted items for use on robot, animation, and PR.

Hers will be dynamic and flowing, while mine will be static and user submitted.

Freelance FIRST will start out as M's idea. Mine will come second.

I am extreme excited about all of this. This is exactly what i had been talking about starting atleast localy in th state of indiana for awhile but hadn't had the time until recently. I would love to help in any way i can and however my skills can be applied!

wooo excitment!

For all interested, I started a yahoo group to make it easier to tie everyone in. You can sign-up to it by e-mailing freelancefirstgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. To send messages to it the e-mail will be freelancefirstgroup@yahoogroups.com. So everyone try to add yourself so we can make it so everyone can contact everybody. Thanks.

Since there is a new newsletter system up, I will stop the freelance_first address. You can reach me at JosephM1314@yahoo.com instead for info.

Thanks

I can provide server space on my home computer, the upload speed is 256 kbps (32 kilobytes per second,) so it's not stellar, but you can take up as much space as you need (150 gigs)

Also, with the permission of the team, i might be able to set up a freelanceFIRST mailing list on our team's server, where people could sign up and email stuff to it.