About us

What

Corvalligator is a unified community calendar for the community of Corvallis, Oregon and surrounding areas. We are an all-volunteer effort and encourage anyone to import, create, and edit events. Corvalligator is powered by Calagator which is a free and open source project.

Corvalligator aggregates events so that users can visit a single source to discover interesting activities. Event organizers and participants share events with others through Corvalligator. Event planners use Corvalligator to check for possible scheduling conflicts, allowing them to make smarter decisions. Many people check the site regularly to find out what events they can attend each day.

Who

Calagator grew from a broad technology community discussion about how to find and share local events. The Calagator project started in January 2008 with the formation of a mailing list, followed by an initial code sprint a few weeks later. The group decided to build a public, non-commercial software project and website for sharing events.

The software was developed through code sprints, where volunteers meet up to write and improve the application. The group used agile development methods from the start and has been able to provide a solid, functioning site from the first meeting on. Using these software development practices has helped developers share knowledge, made it easier for new developers to join in, and kept the code behind the application stable and maintainable. Although the application is written using Ruby on Rails, the group welcomes non-Ruby developers to participate. The code sprints also involve community members that contribute design, project direction, and documentation.

Why

It became apparent that Corvallis could benefit from a Calagator based site beyond its uses for technology events. We didn't want to pollute the main Calagator site, so we decided to roll out our own so that we can help expand our own community needs and thus Corvalligator was born. Feel free to add technology, live music, arts, or any other interesting event to Corvalligator that you think that the community would enjoy. We're a group a volunteers so please understand that we run this site in our free time. Its our intention to always keep the site free and ad free.

Contributors

  • Lance Albertson - Site Hosting, and cat herder
  • Sheri Dover - Founding event contributor and promoter
  • Jillian Burrows - Calagator "corvalligator" theme

Have an issue with the site?

If you've encountered some issue with the site and require some help, please file an issue and we'll get back with you soon. Also feel free to reach out to us via twitter if its a simple issue.

Getting started

Find local events

Browse

Search

  • Search for events at the top of each page.

Subscribe or export

  • Subscribe to a list of events with your favorite calendar or feed reader.
  • Export a single event to your favorite calendar.

Share local events

  • Add an event by entering its details.
  • Import event(s) by entering a URL to a feed or webpage, or via a bookmarklet.
  • Improve content by editing events and venues.

Get involved

Anyone can participate. There are no entrance requirements other than interest and enthusiasm for the project goals.

Step 1: Sign up for the mailing list.

Step 2: Sign up for the Facebook Fan Page.

Step 3: Contribute!

Use the site.

Help garden the site.

  • Help us remove duplicate events and duplicate venues.
  • Add details to existing events and venues.
  • Correct missing venues and incomplete venue addresses.
  • Edit our wiki to improve our documentation.

Come to Calagator code sprints.

You don't have to be a programmer; Calagator code sprints are general work sessions, and we also work on design issues, documentation, and discuss project direction. If you are interested in programming, or learning Ruby or Rails, our pair programming environment is an excellent environment to learn using Agile methods. We'll be glad to help you set things up.

Help the Calagator developers.

Contribute code.

Calagator is a Ruby on Rails web application that runs well on UNIX, Mac and Windows. You can find more details on downloading the source and running it at our Google Code Page.

This site uses a branch of the Calagator code and can be found on github. Please use the 'corvalligator' branch which includes theme specific bits for the site.