Inspiration
Polarization is a growing issue in our society. Current online forums and social media tend to encourage echo chambers which facilitate this issue. Our goal was to design a forum concept which encourages both sides of an issue to be equally heard in a civil manner.
What it does
Vocal Locals is an online forum. What sets Vocal Locals apart is before entering a discussion about a specific topic, users are asked their opinion on that topic. This way, the highest rated comments from each side of the issue can be presented to the user, and conversation can happen in a civil manner.
How we built it
We stored the forum data on Mongodb including user comments, upvotes, and discussion topics. We used Django with python for full stack developement and to handle the majority of the logic including pushing and pulling from the database and navigating through the web app which we hosted on Amazon Web Services. Finally, we used React to make our front end user interface.
Challenges we ran into
Incompatible libraries and lack of documentation led us to blindly experiment at points to continue moving forward.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We were able to push through the issues we encountered and ended up with a project we are proud of. We made a working forum based off of a novel concept.
What we learned
Developing an app within 24 hours is a challenge. There are many unexpected hurdles you will face along the way. One key strategy is to aim at creating a minimal working model quickly. When we aimed for that goal, we made alot of progress.
What's next for Vocal Locals
Now that we have put in the time to create the basic functionality for our forum, we can spend some time refining it and adding features. And, most importantly, put it to work on it's initial purpose.
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