An open source Edwards project, or, Help wanted

As regular readers of this blog know, I've been very impressed by the independent Internet efforts of Howard Dean's supporters. They've created real political communities, and the candidate has obviously benefited enormously from their contributions (in every sense of the word).

So about five days ago, I decided to put my money (or at least my time) where my mouth has been by creating a website that real people could use to help organize their independent ideas and efforts on behalf of John Edwards. (Why should the Dean folks have all the fun?) The first stage of this extremely modest contribution to the Edwards campaign is now just about complete.

And that's where you come in. I could really use your help between now and next Monday, when the site is due to go live. The basic structure is up and functional, but it's riddled with errors, omissions, syntactical atrocities, etc., and it would be enormously helpful if you'd stop by there and start banging buttons while I spend the next few days adding content. (Registration is required for some activities, but I'm not going to give anybody's e-mail address away, so feel free to register and play with the whole site.) Just send me e-mail as you come across things that need to be fixed and I'll take care of them [jack-at-jackotoole.net]. Also, if you're an Edwards supporter, please don't hesitate to submit content after you've registered (you'll see how) and/or write me about becoming one of the site's editors.

The website can be reached here: http://edwardsgrassroots.com/index.php (Sorry there's no hyperlink, but I don't want Google to index it yet. Just cut and paste the address. Note: Until next Monday, the index.php at the end of that address matters -- without it, you won't get there.)

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks in advance for your input. And please don't limit your comments to obvious errors like misspellings; if you think some aspect of the site's design or navigation stinks, tell me. I'll be happy to consider each and every idea, suggestion, complaint, etc.

Thanks!

UPDATE: See the next post.