NewsLynx — Launching, Installing and Lynxing at SRCCON

Two weeks ago we did our first NewsLynx install party at the SRCCON conference in Minneapolis and it went great! We had about a half dozen folks get the Core API service up and running and we got some starting contributions on other install techniques using tools like Docker. We also brainstormed potential future ideas such as organizational level dashboards with week-on-week or month-on-month comparisons. Over-sized post-its were sketched upon and many sharpies used.

This week we are releasing our first stable, public build of the platform, which is awfully exciting. This version differs from our prototype in a few key ways:

1. The dependencies are much-reduced — most notably eliminating Elastic Search in favor of running entirely in Postgres
2. An extensible Sous Chef framework that will allow for custom modules for newsrooms to track any new service that might arise. We discuss this issue in the white paper as one of the main obstacles any analytics framework would need to address.
3. A new Reports API for generating data-based html, Microsoft Word or PDF reports on a regular basis.
4. More customizable interface vizualizations. Now you can customize what metrics you can view across articles.
5. And last but not least, a desktop application so Merlynne can live in the Dock! A desktop application not only cuts down on the amount of software that needs to be installed and maintained (the desktop version is auto-updating), we also think it is a much easier paradigm for newsroom adoption.

Whereas our protoype was in closed-beta, going forward, our philosophy is to make us as non-necessary as possible to the ongoing success of the project. To that end, we have released API documentation as well as continuing to document architectural decisions so that those interested in using it will be empowered to update and configure it to their needs.

When we think about how our platform could be used to empower people, a Borges story entitled “The Witness” comes to mind. The story describes a man dying in a stable “within the shadow of the new stone church.” The man is unremarkable, a pauper, the reader is led to imagine — except for the fact that he carries with him something different.

This man, as a child, saw the face of Woden, the holy dread and exultation, the rude wooden idol weighed down with Roman coins and heavy vestments, the sacrifice of horses, dogs, and prisoners. Before dawn he will die, and in him will die, never to return, the last eye-witness of those pagan rites; the world will be a little poorer when this Saxon dies.

In the course of time there was a day that closed the last eyes to see Christ. The battle of Junin and the love of Helen each died with the death of some one man. What will die with me when I die, what pitiful or perishable form will the world lose? The voice of Macedonio Fernandez? The image of a roan horse on the vacant lot at Serrano and Charcas? A bar of sulpher in the drawer of a mahogany desk?

The story sticks with us because so many open source projects go this route. While we release a year’s worth of labor into the world, we are hopeful that others can now take the ball and configure it as they see fit (to slightly mix metaphors). And with that, Happy Lynxing!