Hi Alex, Thanks for your time to review and feedback on the initial topics, my comments inline.
Alex Leverington wrote: > I couldn't help but noticing there was very little on the roadmap... > > So why is it that none of the communities and/or projects have direction? > > I know that's *not* true - they do have direction. However, it would > be good to see within the redesign a focus on the objectives, > direction, and progress of communities and projects. It should be easy > and straightforward for the community CCs to update this information. > Lately there has been talk on OGB about core contributors and > communities dissolving based on lack of contributions. Unfortunately > no such provision exists with regard to a core contributors > responsibility to maintain their website - let alone that doing so > right now isn't a crystal clear process. I'm not sure the conversation on OGB is about dissolution based on lack of contributions. I think the discussion there is a continuation of the summit town hall conversation about re-organizing communities and flattening the hierarchy. Nevertheless, the conversation has just begun, so I won't pretend to know where it will go. To your other point here, I think adding to a best practices document, the basic notion that core contributors must keep the web pages fresh, makes good sense to me. I'm not sure OGB needs to be involved, but I'm open to your ideas there. Making editing of the website crystal clear is very important to me, so if you have comments on this guiding document, or how to make it more visible, let me know: http://opensolaris.org/os/communities/lead_reference/ > While it's good to be loose and leave it up to the community, the mere > process of the OGB to authorize a community dictates that having one > is a responsibility and not just an ad hoc establishment. > > A good example of current confusion is the recent storage community > announcement: > If you look at the storage community here, > http://opensolaris.org/os/community/storage/ > there is no mention of the information here: > http://www.genunix.org/wiki/index.php/Storage_What%27s_Happening_April_2008 > > ...which was posted to the mailing list. > > Now this is a link that *does* show up on the os.o page: > http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=235076&tstart=0#235076 > (it's > old news!) > Basically, if I want to participate in the storage community, I need to: > - keep up with mailing lists (plural) > - read the os.o front page > - keep up with the wiki page, which isn't actually linked to from the > os.o page > - understand all of the *other* complicated things that have to do > with contributing to os.o > > And of course, I have no idea what's going to show up on os.com for > the storage community... > > Apologies for picking on storage, but it's the first one I picked and > it's evident the storage community is trying to be verbose with > monthly updates (a good thing). OK, I'd like to hear from you some easier ways to contribute that you would expect to see. Let's also use the documentation community as the example, since I developed those pages and I'd rather bring commentary on my own work than on someone else: http://opensolaris.org/os/community/documentation/ > > I do not want to detract from navigation, internationalization, or the > other topics which are evident priorities, especially > internationalization. > > I would be very careful though, to make major changes at this time > which are not trivial with regard to "community". Not only is the > current idea of collaboration lacking in the current site, Can you clarify what you mean here? I'd like some more specifics on the 'idea of collaboration lacking' problem from your perspective, if you have time. > the OGB is currently discussing re-architecting the entire hierarchy > of the community and it's members. It would be unfortunate to set new > best practices, create new channels of communication (ie, brainstorm), > or add any other new functionality (editorial) if it will need to be > re-adapted to the new roles of communities and their members. Right, good point. I'm well aware of the conversation happening on OGB (as the secretary, I have no choice!), so the two efforts will be coordinated. But, feel free to keep me honest here, I agree that there is such a risk. > > With regard to a brainstorm idea, -1. There are already WAY to many > places to submit ideas or concepts and adding another one sounds like > a great idea but I think it would be a desolate place. Maybe it would > be a good idea after the next version of Solaris is released; I don't > believe any of the ideas posted would get significant attention until > OpenSolaris has reached that milestone. Now I'm a bit confused, but are you talking about os.org here? Because this seems to conflict with your statement about about the site 'lacking the idea of collaboration'. Maybe some clarification on the above will help me understand more. > > As far as an approach to improving collaboration I would ask that > editorials and solid wiki integration be a priority - as they kind of > go hand-in-hand. Although I'm not sure exactly what "editorial > functions" represent - I assume this means a CC or contributor's > ability to keep their site updated with objectives/progress/direction > without having to know HTML or worry about how it's laid out. The site content currently is authored in TML (a wiki-like markup) or HTML, which is very awesome because it allows you to do either, depending on your preference. Layout is definitely also something contributors need to deal with. So, we're 0 for 2 on this one if I'm understanding you (I'm not sure that I am). But, this is all easy for me to say, since I have leader privileges for a number of communities and projects. I'm starting to think you're saying that getting Leader privileges is the main blocker? I'm certain that I haven't made this process clear for at least one of the communities I manage, so it seems like good fodder for the best practices document also. > > Learn more - find help - get source - participate: > This sounds like a great direction, consistency is good, however I > would like to see 'get source' and 'participate' removed or possibly > separated out with their own navigational elements of "Bug Tracking", > "Wiki Docs", "Source", and "Contribute". I'm not sure where mailing > lists fit here but the goal would be to have these pages link to or > integrate with content for these [external] systems. Yes, this is exactly my thought also, that each community or project would include in the landing page for 'get source' or 'participate' links to the associated bug tracking tool, wiki pages, source repositories, etc. > > - Bug tracking could pull the relevant defects that are outstanding, > have a link to submitting a bug, and a list of recently completed bugs. > - Wiki docs would be a freeform wiki - this is where the community is > allowed to be ad hoc! > - Source would be all the typical details associated with source code > along with links to the "community standard" contribution guidelines > and instructions on how to contribute to the type of repository setup > the community/project uses > - Contribute would be filled out by the CCs with all of the details > pertinent to contributing to the project and/or the projects impact on > other projects/sites > - Learn more could be the "home page" with > objectives/direction/progress and social editorial functions. Maybe > twitter could be integrated? I like these ideas! > > Just some ideas, but the underlying concept is to make the site for > each project/community about collaboration and communication, not > about advocacy, interaction, or perception. Not that I think these > were the goals, but I believe those values are better served on > opensolaris.com than the developer-centered opensolaris.org. Agreed, for the first three years, we on os.org had to do both, so now we have some significant cleanup to focus a bit more. For each community and project this will be a bit different, but I'm confident we can develop best practices that are generic enough for everyone to relate to and provide strong examples that are easy to adapt. yes, I'm a dreamer :) > > I hope these comments are helpful and I hope my goals in submitting > these comments are evident. Primarily, opensolaris.org and it's many > mailing lists become less of an information overload for us all and > second the folks outside the firewall are able to find it easy to > navigate, participate, and collaborate within and among the > opensolaris community. Within and among are very important. Got it, thank you very much for this detail, it helps me to think about all of this in different ways and from the new user perspective. Much appreciated. Regards, Michelle > > > > -- > Alex Leverington > > > On May 14, 2008, at 7:54 PM, Michelle Olson wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> We had a 2-hour face-to-face meeting last week so I could get educated >> on all of the issues that touch website content. Find what I learned >> below. (I will setup a conference call for all of us to meet when >> Alysson returns from vacation, so you know I haven't forgotten about >> that request.) >> >> Attendees: >> Jim Grisanzio >> Derek Cicero >> Bonnie Corwin (first 1/2) >> Michelle Olson >> Bill Rushmore >> Eric Boutilier (first 1/2) >> >> Agenda: >> 0. OpenSolaris web site application >> 1. Splash pages for launch >> 2. Poll data, wiki, and re-structuring communities >> 3. Navigation >> 4. Best Practices >> 5. Submit Content >> >> Notes: >> 0. OpenSolaris web site application >> >> The last version upgrade to the OpenSolaris web application (webapp) was >> delivered in Nov. 2006, to v.1.82. Since that time, we've been keeping >> the lights on and integrating new components based on the priorities for >> new things like bugzilla, polling, code review, and the effort to open >> source the web application code. We are about two months away from being >> ready to upgrade the webapp to v1.91. This has a new version of jive and >> some other goodies that we need in order to be fully up-to-date. >> >> 1. Splash pages for launch >> >> I put this on agenda to enable any residual feedback to come out and to >> ask if the portals were going to translate the new pages. Jim felt that >> because the splash pages are temporary and because there is a lot of >> planning happening for new site infrastructure to handle localization, >> we should not begin an effort to have the splash page content translated >> by the portals. We did agree to let the splash pages 'soak' for two >> months, so we'll revisit those on July 5th. >> >> Infrastructure for the portals is a non-trivial project, so we start >> with requirements, here is a beginning: >> http://opensolaris.org/os/project/portals/portals-v2/ >> >> We tried not to spend too much time on this topic, but it was hard. It >> is a huge topic with many issues. Jim and Alan are leading this up with >> our G11n partner engineers and we'll communicate more as we know it. >> >> 2. Poll data, wiki, and re-structuring communities >> >> I had this on agenda because the voting members of OSOL put addition of >> a wiki as 5th priority in 2007 poll and 4th in priority in the 2008 >> poll. Re-organization of communities and projects also ranked 4th in 07 >> poll. The OGB started discussing re-organization of the communities and >> projects at yesterday's meeting. Watch ogb-discuss for more on that >> coming later this week. >> >> The discussion of a wiki for the website content meeting was declared >> out-of-scope because we didn't have the right people on the call, so we >> didn't pursue it. But, I went back through the mail on the topic from >> last year and put together a requirements candidate summary page here: >> http://opensolaris.org/os/project/website/wiki_requirements/ >> >> To be sure, the wiki/CMS need still exists, I'll report out when I get >> time with the folks who are just now picking up the evaluation based on >> the requirements gathering we did last year. >> >> 3. Navigation >> >> Navigation of the web site is an issue that has two components, taxonomy >> and editorial. Taxonomy is the site map and two forms of navigation >> (left-navigation bar and upper-right icons). Editorial is how we >> pull-through links to components in running text or in banner adds on >> the right side. Omniture data can inform us a great deal about where >> people go on the site. But, it can't tell us much about how they get >> there. I agreed to pour over the omniture data for the site in >> preparation for preparing studies (usability/feasibility) on the >> navigation elements. >> >> In parallel to reviewing the statistics, I'll begin an audit and reviews >> of the common pages of the site using website-discuss list. You'll soon >> see review requests from me starting with the Roadmap, Site Guidelines, >> About, FAQs and then all the pages on this list: >> http://www.genunix.org/wiki/index.php/Website_Editorial_Board >> >> This morning, Bonnie updated the Roadmap here: >> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/roadmap/ >> >> 4. Best Practices >> >> Related to the topic of editorial functions of the site, we talked about >> crafting some best practices for communities and projects to improve the >> usability of their areas of the site. My opinion is that using the 4 >> buckets for each project or community (learn more, find help, get >> source, participate), like we did with the splash page, could go a long >> way toward improving and making a more consistent user experience. I've >> done this with the docs community and I think it helps, but I'm open to >> ideas about best practices beyond this, and I think I'm on the hook to >> produce something along those lines and do some outreach to projects and >> communities to implement. >> >> 5. Submit Content >> >> Just as a final masochistic self-flogging, I broached the subject of a >> 'submit content' button. This is a bad idea on so many levels because it >> doesn't scale and would be impossible to manage properly and it thwarts >> a number of other processes we already have in place for contributions >> of code, docs, etc. However, it was suggested that possibly user profile >> pages could be altered to allow members to upload content of their own, >> which didn't fit on a project or community. This could include pictures, >> podcasts, presentations, etc. Also, a couple of folks have mentioned >> brainstorm.ubuntu.com as a good way to manage a stream of submitted >> ideas, so maybe we could do something similar for our project in future. >> >> Thanks, >> Michelle >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> website-discuss mailing list >> [email protected] > _______________________________________________ website-discuss mailing list [email protected]
