I started StackGeek so I could share my explorations with the OpenStack project. In May I authored a guide for OpenStack titled Installing OpenStack in 10 Minutes which has been getting a good amount of traffic since. That guide is now in the top 10 results on Google when you search for ['openstack install'](http://lmgtfy.com?q=openstack install) and the site iself gets around 120 uniques a day, with over 10K video views so far.
I want to help more people find solutions to their infrastructure questions and bring those people together in a community where we can share what we know with each other. Given enough content and a good community behind it, I think StackGeek could become a fantastic resource for infrastructure architects.
I also wanted it to be 100% Open Source, including article content and source code for the site.
The new StackGeek site is build in Python to run on AppEngine and uses the GAE-Boilerplate project hosted on Github. You can follow the project on Twitter if you like. GAEB provides a social enabled web service framework which provides signup, login, user profile, simple account admininstration, and more. The project could use more contributers if you are interested in joining us. I'm currently working on adding a blogging framework to the project (which is used on this site) and there are plans on adding more modules in the future.
If I build a site, and then expect people to contribute to it, I expect the contributers to a) want credit for their contributions and b) be able to use their contributions on other sites, including perhaps their own blog running GAEB. I figured the easiest way to manage and spread around content was the same way code does it - Open Source that shizzle!
Syncing up with Github gists makes things a bit complicated code-wise, but I think the way it's currently working in the UI makes it pretty easy to use. If you have a feature you'd like to see added to the site, please head on over to the site's project on Github and put up a feature request!
To get started create an account and then head on over to your settings page and add the Github and Twitter associations. Obviously you'll need both a Twitter and Github account! Fill out your profile, including the Bio, Gravatar and Twitter Widget fields. Those will help poplulate with content.
You can create an article one of two ways on the site. The first way is done by going to the create a new article page and then enter an article title and summary. You'll also need to select a post type. Posts go into your blog timeline and guides go on your guide page. Video posts don't go anywhere right now, but eventually they'll help populate the videos page on the site and there will be a user video page as well.
The second way to create an article is to fork an existing user's article. If you have a good Github association on the site, you'll see a fork button next to the articles. Clicking on that button will fork a copy of that article into your account. The copy will be created as a draft.
Right now there's no way for you to 'submit' an article in your account to be seen via the public URLs. I'll have some tool to enable that done in a few weeks! In the meantime, feel free to drop me a line and request publication.
I started StackGeek back in April as a place to write about OpenStack happenings. In May I authored a .