Askbot

Askbot is the software behind Ask fedora

http://askbot.org is a question and answer oriented forum similar to Stack Overflow or Yahoo Answers. It is written in Python and Django. You can file bug reports via http://bugs.askbot.org/ and the source code is at https://github.com/ASKBOT/askbot-devel/. It is primarily developed and maintained by Evgeny Fadeev.

Contributors

• Rahul Sundaram (packaging, upstream contact)
• Prasad J Pandit (administration help, FAS auth support, packaging)
• Arun S A G (package reviews, patches upstream)
• Ratnadeep Debnath (patches upstream)
• Praveen Kumar (packaging)
• Jitesh Shah (packaging)
• Lakshmi Narasimhan (package reviews)

Feature wishlist

• Find a extensive list at http://askbot.org/en/users/309/mether/

• identi.ca support (Ratnadeep Debnath)

• Tip for browsers with Javascript disabled (Arun SAG) - Merged upstream

• Integration with Red Hat bugzilla, Bodhi, Koji and Pkgdb (Arun SAG) - - Merged upstream

• Per question RSS feed and RSS feed for tags (Sayan Chowdhury)

• Fix re-tagging bug and hyper linking bug.

• Support combined RSS feed for multiple tags. One should be able to follow multiple tags via single RSS feed or email.

• hide the description box by default in Ask Question tab.

• Ability to flag a comment as offensive

• Automatic shortening of url's posted via Twitter and Identi.ca using ur1.ca. Can reuse the Python script from here done.

• Don't show "first time" message unless the user really is a new visitor. Use a cookie.

• Comments should bump up the question to the front page

• Export question and answers as PDF (Koustava Goswami)

• Better spam control - Blocking a user by IP address. Destroying user etc. Django tracking module could potentially be used for this.

• Fully anonymous - asking questions and answering

• Tag enhancement - clicking on a tag should provide a page with a description of the tag, ability to subscribe via email or RSS

• Site promo and stats side bar

• Announcement side bar

• Bounty

• Inline editing

• Suggested edits

• Content filtering - For blocking swear words etc.

• Invite a friend and if they answer, earn karma

• Stack Exchange export dump of data

• Support for browser id

Status

• Rahul Sundaram is leading an effort called Ask Fedora based on http://askbot.org and expected to be running at http://ask.fedoraproject.org and serve as a forum for questions and answers. The dependencies are useful for various other projects as well. Refer to http://mether.wordpress.com for various blog posts on the the Ask Fedora effort.

* Toshio from Fedora Infrastructure team raised the question of liability and Red Hat Legal has clarified that there isn't any. It is like the users list where end users answer other user's questions and we don't have to moderate the answers for legal reasons. Thanks to Spot for helping with a quick response.

* Rahul Sundaram is in touch with the upstream developer, Evgeny Fadeev (evgeny.fadeev gmail) who is willing to help out with the integration with Fedora Account System. He has made some changes upstream to make it easier to integration with a external authentication system. Refer to http://askbot.org/doc/askbot-as-reusable-django-application.html for more details.

* Prasad.J.Pandit (PJP) has added support for Fedora Authentication System (FAS) in Askbot. These patches have been sent upstream. Upstream has agreed to make auth support extensible so that we can plugin FAS auth support without having to patch Askbot and has sent us (Rahul and PJP) a patch to test this. Rahul Sundaram will followup as required.

• Rahul Sundaram has discussed several enhancements and bug fixes with upstream and upstream is making progress. Check status via http://askbot.org/en/users/309/mether/. Some patch discussions etc are offlist

Review requests filed by Rahul Sundaram

django-keyedcache - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=697492 (Lakshmi Narasimhan approved. In the repo now)

django-robots - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696516 (in the repo now)

django-countries - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696485 (in the repo now)

django-celery - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=697483 (Ankur Sinha approved)

django-kombu - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696527 (approved)

python-coffin - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=699335 (in the repo now)

askbot - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=699336 (PJP approved)

Bundled dependencies split up

python-grapefruit - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720141. Filed by Praveen Kumar (Rahul Sundaram approved. In the repo now)

django-recaptcha - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=716844 Filed by Jitesh Shah (PJP approved. In the repo now)

Upstream status - http://askbot.org/en/question/484/status-of-bundled-dependencies

Optional dependencies

django-avatar: Rahul Sundaram mailed upstream asking for a release since Askbot has a optional dependency on the development snapshot of django avatar and upstream hasn't responded yet. Praveen Kumar filed a review request of the devel snapshot at

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720138 (Praveen Kumar file. Rahul Sundaram has pre-reviewed. PJP approved. In the repo now)

django-followit: Praveen Kumar has filed https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720149 (Pravin Kumar filed. PJP approved)

Other dependencies (pre-existing review requests and more)

django-picklefield (dep of python-celery) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=611068 (Rahul Sundaram has approved. In the repo now)

python-msgpack (dep of python-kombu) https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=691114 (in the repo now)

python-kombu (dep of python-celery) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=722407 (PJP has approved)

python-celery (dep of django-celery) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=722444 (PJP has approved)

python-importlib (EL dep of python-celery) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=722427 (Rahul Sundaram approved)

python-html5lib (runtime dep of askbot) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=252108 (Rahul Sundaram has reviewed)

python-unidecode (runtime dep of askbot) https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720447 (Review request filed by PJP. Rahul Sundaram has approved)

django-threaded-multihost (runtime dep of askbot) https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720664 (Review request filed by Praveen Kumar. PJP approved)

python-setuptools_hg. Praveen Kumar has submitted review request at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720989

django-repatcha-works. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=727382 (Review request filed by Praveen Kumar. PJP approved

askbot-plugin-authfas - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720807 (Review request filed by PJP. Rahul has approved)

EPEL 6

Askbot and dependencies are in EPEL 6. You can refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ask_Fedora_SOP on configuring it.

TODO

• Get the rest of the dependencies reviewed and in the Fedora and EPEL 6 branch (collective effort)
• Package FAS auth support plugin (PJP)
• Test Askbot in RHEL 6 with Askbot and dependencies from RPM packages (PJP)
• Package django-threaded-multihost, runtime dep of askbot (Praveen Kumar)
• Split up the rest of the bundled dependencies as appropriate and update the Askbot package (Rahul Sundaram)
• File a request for resources with Fedora infrastructure team. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Request_For_Resources (Rahul Sundaram)
• Test the instance including admin interface, fas auth support, setup cron jobs (collective effort)
• Add identi.ca support, both as a login method and posting to it (rtnpro has added login support and sharing link)
• Add a sidebar for announcements (owner needed)
• Theming needed. Information on how to create a custom skin is available at http://askbot.org/doc/customizing-skin-in-askbot.html and http://askbot.org/wiki/index.php/Custom_Skins. Rahul Sundaram has filed a request with the design team

Askbot info

• Feature list: http://askbot.org/en/question/43/askbot-feature-list

• Moderation system: http://askbot.org/en/question/108/does-askbot-have-its-own-member-management-system

• Management: http://askbot.org/doc/management-commands.html

• Deployments of Askbot:

• http://ask.sagemath.org
• http://answers.ros.org/questions/
• http://asterisk-support.ru/questions/

Also WindRiver (Intel) has a internal instance running according to upstream. More examples at

- http://askbot.org/en/question/28/list-of-askbot-sites

• Alternatives:

• Shapado - Shapado is an open source question-answer system written in Ruby, Mongomapper and MongoDB. http://ask.debian.net is running a instance of this.

• OSQA - OSQA (Open Source Question and Answer) is an open source question-answer system written in Python with Django. Askbot is a fork of OSQA.

• Question2Answer - PHP. Simple to setup. Lacking in features.

• Stack Overflow - Proprietary. http://askubuntu.com/ is using this.