Hi Sylvain,
Let me start by saying I have no desire to precipitate a fate such as this for the Cocoon community:
<http://www.netdisaster.com/go.php? mode=dino&destruction=massive&lang=en&url=http://cocoon.apache.org>
Instead, this is what I want:
I want to find richer and better ways for online communities to interact. I want to experiment with what I (and other energetic souls) can offer the online Cocoon community, utilising the wealth of new approaches to online communication.
One example: Cocoon developers are writing more and more in blog form. It's great stuff! Sylvain, you write about Cocoon 2.2, how it "will rock!". I want to everyone to hear it. Posts like this[1] give the community vitality and, crucially, a vision. People make projects. I think Cocoon's bloggers should be front and central on the Cocoon project site. Feed aggregation is a feature of PlanetCocoon.
Another example: Sarah Burri Windler writes[2] "Based on the very useful and well written tutorial 'Write a Custom Generator' from Geoff Howard I'm on the way to my first ApplicationGenerator and it's a great feeling!" She follows this up with two remarks noting her experiences and what needs updating in the tutorial. A respondent then invites Sarah to add a patch to bugzilla to help update the documentation. Know what? Sarah did! This, despite the fact that there are more instructions for Bugzilla[4] than for the zero gravity toilet in 2001[5]. Don't get me wrong, Bugzilla works, but there's got to be a better way for documentation patches. With PlanetCocoon, comments can be submitted to book pages[6]. Authors can be (automatically) subscribed and notified. It's easy, like a lot of the rest of the web.
So here's my vision of a site devoted to the marketing of Apache Cocoon: http://www.spreadcocoon.com:
* high search engine visibility;
* a repository of Apache Cocoon success stories;
* a catalogue of live Apache Cocoon web applications;
* an environment to discuss issues of visual identity;
* a repository of press clippings;
* site-wide search;
* a collaborative space to help formulate press releases;
* a noticeboard to raise awareness of community events;
* accessible, standards based design - maximum inclusion;
* a way to publicise key personalities and participating organisations.
Here's my other vision of a site devoted to Apache Cocoon developers, offering:
* high search engine visibility;
* multilateral expression through rich means such as blogs, forums, pages, polls;
* responsiveness to issues - with a personal touch - caring if you like;
* the ability to collaboratively author structured documentation;
* attractively formatted code snippets / recipes;
* aggregated newsfeeds, drawing on the personal blogs of notable Cocoon developers;
* site-wide search;
* taxonomy / folksonomy, modern information classification, management etc.;
* integration with other community sites such as del.icio.us, flickr, 43things, upcoming etc.;
* accessible, standards based design - maximum inclusion;
* XML feeds for all content.
I sense a fragility about Cocoon that I like. I want to help look after it, and help its community to grow. I want to get this line rising: <http://people.apache.org/~coar/mlists.html#cocoon.apache.org>
If you like my vision too, why not sign up to either site, or both even! If you've written to either users or dev in the last few weeks your account has already been created. Use "Request new password" to get a password. Then you can customise your account how you wish (even enter your birthday on the personal pages if you like[7]). Finally, why not take a look at the tool I'm using to build the site: <http://drupal.org>? It's not Cocoon. But then Cocoon is not Drupal. I find lots to admire in both.
Please be amused, not suspicious.
Best regards, Mark
[1] http://www.anyware-tech.com/blogs/sylvain/archives/000171.html
[2] http://www.planetcocoon.com/node/1198
[3] http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=34283
[4] http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/howto/howto-bugzilla.html
[5] http://www.underview.com/2001/funbits/zerog.html
[6] http://www.planetcocoon.com/node/1209
[7] http://mail-archives.eu.apache.org/mod_mbox/cocoon-dev/200301.mbox/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 4 Apr 2005, at 09:02, Sylvain Wallez wrote:
Mark Leicester wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'm attempting to analyse what the Cocoon community wants from itself. Examining the referrer logs for PlanetCocoon (last week of March) yielded the following top 30 search terms:
Mark, I certainly value your effort, but what is PlanetCocoon? What are these forums that are fed with the mailing lists? Is it a gmane-like system?
As stated on the main page it is "Confusing Apache Cocoon developers with yet another source of documentation". And probably users too ;-)
So what about discussing your objectives here to have better cooperation with the community?
Sylvain
-- Sylvain Wallez Anyware Technologies http://apache.org/~sylvain http://anyware-tech.com Apache Software Foundation Member Research & Technology Director
