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By hip on
Hi,
The more I enjoy Drupal CMS, the more I try to get involved, the less I'm sure about Drupal developement coordination.
I come to Drupal forum to get the latest info, as well as to give some ideas/ coding back and ask some questions (both, general and technical). Then, I wait, but I get no response at all. Ok, for sure my comments may not be very interesting, nor very clear. But then I read posts offering, for instance, polish translation for Drupal and asking how to get involved and... no answers at all either.
I'm sure a great job is being done in Drupal: results are the answer. But I get to think there's a kind of misscoordination with us, 'the people out there'. It is many of us, using Drupal, who would like to participate but don't know how.
I may be wrong, please correct me!
Suggestion: someone from the Drupal organization to
- read all the posts (+ maybe outdoors comments, aka other sites - other media)
- give response to them
- redirect them to their 'natural target'
- if requered, 'rewrite' or summarize the comments to show them up in a cleaner and more ordered way'
Again, thanx for your attention. I think Drupal and Drupal users can be favoured by these improvements,
hip
Comments
Common problem
You are right, this would be nice, but who? The people most involved with the development of Drupal don't have any more time to commit to the project, and we need their code submissions more than anything. It is a common problem with open source that things get done based on the priorities of the people willing to donate their time. It is also the strength. It simply means that if nobody knows the answer to a certain comment, or doesn't feel inclined to spend the time formulating a response, posts go unanswered. Likewise, offers to help out also go unheeded because they are either not seen by the right people, or uninteresting to the right people. Drupal does a pretty good job mitigating both of these compared to some other OS projects, but perfection, alas, is unattainable. I hope someday to launch a site that will address a couple of these issues, but it is not yet ready, and won't solve all problems anyway.
I'm sure all your suggestions are welcome - we all want the same thing, after all; a great piece of software and a community to back it.
- Robert Douglass
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visit me at www.robshouse.net
documetnation and
You problem is adreessed in the mailinglistst (http://lists.drupal.org/archives/drupal-devel/2004-06/msg00172.html)
Any comments on this are most welcome.
And there are at least 9028 articles on drupal.org when you count an average of three comments per article (wild guess) that makes 27084 articles. That adds up to a LOTR trilogy book amount of words. Are you going to read them? Over here in .be a day still only has 24 hours.... ;)
[Ber | webschuur.com]
Time not interest is the problem, I think
I'm also a "normal" (happy) Drupal user. I think time and not interest are the problem. In most open source projects the developers usually have normal day job (and family, friends etc). Only on there free time can they spend time on the open source project.
The fun part is coding, answering questions from newbies like us can be quite boring after a couple of years. (I do some computer support my self so I know. ;-))
What I try to do is ask as intelligent and precise questions as I can. Show what work I have put in myself, show what resources I have studied my self.
Drupal is the third CMS I use and it leaps better than anything else I have tried. If the price for excellent code is that I will have to figure out some things for my self that is a price I don't mind paying.
Aswers (to above) answers
Hi,
Thanx for your time and replies.
I am probably too exigent. I am (I have been) with Drupal as I'm at work. You may be totally right when address it to a problem of time. On the other hand, and it's no free compliment, I think Drupal really does work and it is because of the people behind it (I had already mentioned it in my prior post)
"that makes 27084 articles"
ok, for user no one is going to read them all
"If the price for excellent code is that I will have to figure out some things for my self that is a price I don't mind paying."
I agree, and I believe we all do, otherwise we get stuck at some point and give up.
"You are right, this would be nice, but who?"
This is, in a way, the grounds of my suggestion. I am trying to make positive critics on this matter. I don't know at all what the internal organization of Drupal developers is. But what I think is that there could be 'a department' in charge of collecting and redirecting most comments/ info/ collaborators wannabees/ ... for efficience matters.
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At this moment I am working in school coordination. In principle it may sound as 'being paid for doing nothing'. But I'm trying to change their mind to anyone who think so, by improving the educational subjects, getting feedback from teachers and pupils, listing the actual and potential problems, and showing them back for them to get to solutions. And I think it works.
At Drupal it shouldn't be to have to read 'it all', but to check, select, group and redirect the important subjects. In the case of people willing to collaborate and not knowing how (I already talked about it in the prior mail) the efficiency is yet more clear. If, say, 2 people at Drupal are in charge of 'getting rid' of all this people willing to collaborate, it doesn't mean 'losing' 2 co-workers, but getting 10 more, e.g.
As always, it is just what I think. I may be totally o partially wrong, or I may be in a kind of 'uthopic phase'. So, I won't write more about this (unless for answering new comments), not to make anyone lose their time (and I am not trying to be ironic at all).
[for the case of 'people willing to collaborate and not knowing how' there may be a tutorial and it'll be the solution to this very problem. Or maybe there's already one and then, I think, it should be more publically advertised, for I've read many comments with this subject.]
Thanx for your attention,
hip
Contributing
If you want to contribute to Drupal, just do so. If you want to contribute a translation, request a CVS account so you can upload and maintain your translation. As soon you're familiar with the process, you could help other people (people like you) take their first steps with contributing. ;-)
Ok
(I was sure I had sent a response to this comment an hour ago or so but...)
Ok. Thanx for the comment, Dries. I'just requested my CVS account in order to help translating Drupal into spanish and, in case is of no need, into catalan.
So I'll try to get familiar with the process, and later contribute with themes and even 'tweaks' or changes of function of some modules if I feel comfortable with it. (http://drupal.org/node/view/8909)
Thanks again,
hip
Steep Learning Curve
I have just passed that very initial stage of getting to understand Drupal, and I must say it's not easy to understand Drupal and stay with it at that stage. Drupal appears as a very hard nut to people with some PHP knowledge (not experts), and it really requires a lot of persistence to stay with it in these initial stages. Many docs are written shortly, like 'it's clear enough'...
In most cases, it's not. It may be clear to experienced users and Drupal developers, but meeting Drupal means a lot of ends that appear as loose, confusion. It is my opinion that Drupal features should be documented better and more extensive - both on starter and advanced level. That would solve a great quantities of forum threads. By 'documented better' I mean that some thing have to be explained better, to provide the usability insight to beginners.
Yet, as you advance in development, you are starting to find your way around it, you stop cursing and screaming 'WHY, OH WHYYYY....!!!!'. The huge power of Drupal appears slowly before you, and as you go along the way you begin to perceive it's power and flexibility, to finally understand the darn thing is a true workhorse de luxe. ;)
And it would be a nice addition to search capabilities if some thread titles were moderated. On a few occasions I have searched and had to open all threads found because I couldn't nearly determine what the thread is about from their often senseless titles. I know this takes time, but otherwise reduces the issue 'findability', and forces moderators to spend time pointing the users to a certain thread.
On a few occasions I have searched for something and haven't found it, and later someone pointed me to a thread leaving a question mark in my head - where was that so search couldn't find it?
I am really delighted with Drupal as I go along, but on numerous occasions at the beginning I had to force myself not to abandon it. Luckily, I have smelled it's power ;)
Guys, my compliments and thanks for Drupal.