Wow. Even though I truly respect your opinions, which are based on years of experience dealing with something I know next to nothing about, they do seem a tad something. I'm just not sure if the right word is possessive, protective, or protagonistic. If anyone deserves a fan club it's the rather compact Habari PMC.
First off, since you find it so offensive, I can assure that I won't ever leave another link to my forum on this group again. And if you don't even want me to ask any further questions, that's fine too. Clearly I'm a money-hungry devil. I do find it strange that you seem to have some strange aversion to a positive marketing approach simply because I won't become part of the official community. I just prefer avoiding the commitment is all. Sadly, from reading scores of past posts, it looks like many people have tried to help market the product but they must have come up against the same brick wall. After three years of relative obscurity, following a two year surge, surely it's time to try again? What's the worst that could happen by having Habari mentioned a few hundred more times? As regards your logic on search, I'd like to point out two things. First of all, one should well expect that a Google Group post would have a faster and higher ranking in a Google search than some obscure new forum that has yet to even be indexed. Secondly, I haven't yet taken the time to research and add more non-geekspeak info on the topic of password recovery so that the average person has a clue of what the official sources are talking about. Once I do so, I always try to link back to the current top level resource. Just for argument, which I never imagined doing, let's say I want to search for Habari themes or plugins on Google. Will I find any sensible info (beyond one line) explaining what they do, whether they are currently working, or an example of them in action? If it's taken me a hundred hours to compile what I have so far, not using anything much yet from the users-group, just so that I can even start to grasp how good Habari can be, do you honestly expect the rest of the world to do the same? Even after all this time I still can't tell you what most plugins do or what third party themes will work with version 0.9. I'd like to think that I will soon rank much higher than the disjointed, dated and disorganized posts referencing broken links about non-current info and features that no longer exist. You core guys are like race car drivers forced to offer training to elderly people who've had their licenses revoked. Clearly you seem to resent it and are impatient, wanting to turn people away for even asking to look under the hood. You peaked with geeks when you first launched and now, from afar at least, the boat appears listless and adrift. I certainly don't want to be the captain. I just want to blow some wind. I hope that I haven't been deterred from continuing to want to complete the project to the best of my abilities though it is clear, from the fact that most of your other non-core promoters and devotees that I have researched thus far appear to have deserted Habari around 2009, that they were not as obstinate or motivated. After all, I've been going through your Contributors list one by one and do you know what I see? Unbridled enthusiasm and joy for the prospects of Habari between 2007 and 2009 and then apparent abandonment. Old version blogs with limited features and sporadic entries, even from core members. Maybe that's the nature of devs, to keep trying the latest open source toy, one after the other. It's only the odd jewel and burning spirit I find that keeps me going. If you don't offer the same spark of hope to someone wanting to help on their own terms then perhaps you had best reconsider your objectives once again. Sure, the core is strong and you are all chums and reward in dev heaven awaits you but seriously, let someone toot your horn for you if you are too humble to do it yourselves. Hate me if you want but having someone at a distance who can look at it from a different perspective might just help. How can it hurt more than doing nothing for another few years? Jeepers, here you have me dumping on your great works when all I was trying to do was promote it out of the doldrums it seems to be mired in. Since it's my time to waste, and I can clearly not expect or deserve any appreciation at this point in time, I'll simply leave you to your work and we'll revisit the issue down the road. Right or wrong, I'm truly on your side. After all, I've now read just about everything you've written about your quest so I know where your heart is. Since it's now all compiled for easier reading, my viewers will too. <not a link to Praise for Habari> Ha. On Thursday, January 17, 2013 8:42:23 PM UTC-5, ringmaster wrote: > > On 1/17/2013 7:10 PM, Les Henderson wrote: > > I hope that taking the time and effort to generate an easily searchable > > and categorized forum for such queries using edited conversations from > > here isn't considered theft of intellectual property or stepping on > > toes. I certainly endeavor to give credit where due. > > > > Here's what this particular conversation has produced, so that future or > > past related queries can be added to it and hopefully relieve devs from > > having to answer it again too many times. Next time you could just > > provide a link. > > While I appreciate the effort, this particular issue exemplifies the > reasons why I think this is a waste of time. > > If you search for "habari password recovery" on Google (words from the > title of your post on mybb), the link to the thread in habari-users is > the third link on the first page, which is preceded only by other > official Habari resources on similar topics: > > http://screencast.com/t/KrGWBuXTaRy > > This is pretty good for a thread that started yesterday. This is also > from a clean, cookie-free browser, so it's not tainted by my own search > preferences. > > If a user goes to that page, which is an official Habari resource, not > only can they read the solution, but their replies are guaranteed to be > read by other project members. Content copied to an external bulletin > board is not the same thing. > > Moreover, there's a hidden implication to the bulletin board that the > documentation there is complete. It is not. This user was asking > specifically for help for an edge case. Most users with their PHP's > email properly configured can use the password reset functionality built > into Habari with no trouble. This is apparent from the documentation > available on habariproject.org, where the habari-users mailing list is a > supplemental solution to documentation. It is not apparent that there > is any other solution on the habarians.com bulletic board. > > When visiting the site the Google group is searchable, using the full > power of Google's search algorithms, and has literally years of historic > data. I'm unsure that an external source of support would offer the same. > > When the thoughts above are combined with prior implications of > monetization, the whole 3rd-party bulletin board idea leaves a foul > taste. I won't (can't) stop you if you're motivated to do it, but I > think working with the community to produce better, curated > documentation on Habari Project resources would be a better use of your > time and the time of others who might want to collaborate on this > important issue. Tacking a link to an external bulletin board on the > end of every thread seems spammy to me, and I suspect it will get old > quickly. > > You've made many good points on other threads about the promotion of > Habari for new users, but I'm now even move convinced than I've ever > been that a bulletin board that reposts things from the mailing list is > the wrong solution. I hope we can all work together to come up with a > better one. > > Owen > > -- To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/habari-users
