Hi Les,

On Thursday 17 January 2013 20:13:54 Les Henderson wrote:
> 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.

That's a bit unfair. In my dealings with the Habari development community I've 
not seen any evidence of eliteism. They have always answered my questions with 
courtesy and speed.

> 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.

Why not commit to helping the project? You won't be asked to commit to a fixed 
number of hours per week. I am sure all contributions, whether sporadic or 
regular, that benefit the Habari community will be welcomed. We all have lives 
outside our pet-projects.

> 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?

I am sure, for many people, Habari works out-of-the-box with little extra need 
of additions. I am always prepared to dig into the Habari or plugin code to 
get a feel for what it does in a particular situation. I have had to do this 
with other projects like ProcessWire. A little hands-on learning isn't a bad 
thing if you are going to use a product for the long term.

> 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?

The time you have invested is praiseworthy but, like others, I really think 
that putting that effort into the official Habari resources would have given 
more 
value to the Habari community and yourself without incurring hosting expense.

> 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.

The need I see here is for someone to work closely with the developers to 
resolve the outdated documentation and broken links. Updating that information 
elsewhere doesn't do anything for the existing stuff. If the developers don't 
have time or resources to do this then you could help by doing it for them 
where it is needed.

> 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 think that Habari has fallen foul of the hype that existed, initially, that 
it had the potential to be a WordPress killer. That might very well be the 
case but it needs effort in many areas to achieve it. Just because Habari isn't 
a major news-grabber doesn't mean it's not achieving it's intended purpose of 
being a solid, modern, blogging solution.

> 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.

Seriously, Les, I think your efforts would be better spent on improving Habari 
resources rather than marketing. There's an old adage that says "Good products 
sell themselves" and the developers have a good handle on improving the 
features and efficiency of Harbari itself, they just need assistance in 
documenting it. Why not help them, officially?

> 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.

You have all the enthusiasm that a project needs of its contributors. I really 
think that you should consider applying your efforts to improving Habari as a 
part of the core team. I am sure you won't have to sell your soul to do that!

Regards,
Neil Darlow

-- 
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

Reply via email to