Thoughts about Lack-Of.org version 2

I've been thinking about where we might take the next version of Lack-Of. What you're using now is really a proof of concept, a hurriedly hammered together community design with mostly stock features. However, I do like to move things on and have been thinking about the next version and what it might be like.

You're a scientist, man. Where is the evidence!? Ethics, damn you!
They aim of the next version will be to make the site to better fit how we actually use it. I've seen how we use it, I can see the statistics of what gets used most, where the activity is and I'm going to use that to make some suggestions.

Were a community, egoboy! I want a say!
I'm counting on it. Although it is likely to be me and the admin team that will do a lot of the setup, migration and testing stuff, it is our community.

It ain't broke, it don't need fixing!
That was never a reason to leave something alone.

Shouldn't you be writing Chom?
Shouldn't we all be as fit as Pete?

I am Pete!
Shouldn't you be writing Chom?

So, what's the big idea?
The first item on the agenda has to be Drupal 6. It's been released for some time now, so I think it's stable. All the modules we 'need' are there now.

Front page
The front page is the most important thing. Everyone uses it most, no stories are really read here - people click on links to then access their content. What would be really cool is to have a menu across the top and then four columns consolidating blogs/links and so on from across the net. Which brings me neatly onto...

Aggregation
Who cares what services you use? Flickr, Google, Twitter, Plurk, Blogger, etc. It matters not. It should all be aggregated with equal weight on the front screen. I don't really care where the content is hosted. I want to see it in one place. Here. On the front page. If you use the Lack-Of services because you can't be bothered with Blogger or your own website then you're still good. Everyone else's stuff will get equal weight.

Everything else?
Oh, all the old functionality (and the data, natch) will remain. Probably better too, because Drupal 6 has stepped on a fair way. You will still have your mySites (although use is rare statistically, it does give a home to those that have no other). Permissions will be as before but Denizen marking of items will be more obvious.

Now what?
I'm going to set up a Drupal 6 install along side this one. We'll get all the modules in there, have a good play at getting security right (should be easier this time) and then test the data migration from the live version to Lack-Of version 2. Then, we'll skin, make little icons for things that are big words and test like mad before making the switch.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas? Pet hates? Air them here or in your own blog post!