I keep getting people on IRC saying they want to help with this but, at the moment, I'm not in a position to take on help. First, I need to get organized, get a roadmap in place, get some issues going.... I am still finishing up a prior project as of this writing (Sep 1) but intend to start work on Artesian on September 12.

If you are interested in helping out in any form (code, docs, issue queue triage, whatever), here is a once in a life time opportunity to "subscribe" to an issue without me getting annoyed. :)

Michelle

Comments

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

woot... +1 subscribe ;-)

brianV’s picture

brianV commented

+1 subscribe!

nicxvan’s picture

nicxvan commented

+1 subscribe looking forward to it.

haza’s picture

haza
Primary language French
commented

Yeah ! subscribe !

Psikik’s picture

Psikik commented

Would be happy to help out.

rade’s picture

rade commented

subscribe

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

Subscribe, we already have a entity based forum done based more or less artesian forums specifications. We still need to get the client to approve about sending it to you but it should provide quite a nice boost for the initial design if it meet's all your requirements :)

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Wow... this is getting to be more people than I expected. And now possibly a big chunk of ready-made code... I'm going to take this issue off topic a bit to try and explain something right now upfront so I don't risk hurting anyone's feelings. I don't want to come off as some ungrateful bitch and get everyone mad at me, so I'm going to try and put into words what I'm feeling. I did this a bit in http://shellmultimedia.com/space-create but there's really more to it.

I'm not writing Artesian for a client; I'm not getting paid for it at all, unless I happen to get some donations. I'm not even really doing it for my own use. While I have a couple of sites that will have it installed, the forums on them are a very minor part of the site and very low traffic. I could probably just toss on core forum and be done with it. So I'm getting no money and really not very much use out of this thing I'm planning on devoting several hundred hours to.

So why do it? Well, forums have become my niche in Drupal. I work on forums for a few reasons: to give back to the community, to learn more about Drupal, to earn karma that gets me help when I need it for other things, and generally to have a piece of this software that I can point to and say, "That's mine; I did that", which is a wonderful ego boost for someone who struggles with self confidence issues.

When you are writing code for a client, the big goal is to get paid. If people want to jump in and help you get it done faster or hand you code you can use, that's awesome because you can get paid that much faster and move on to the next paying thing. When you are writing something to get enjoyment and knowledge out of the actual writing process yourself, having people wanting to help or hand you ready made bits makes for a lot of mixed feelings. It's like sitting down to write a novel that you've been planning in your head for ages and then suddenly having people offer to write some paragraphs or even chapters for you or handing you pre-written chapters and saying here you go, work these in.

Part of me wants to turn everyone down and say, no, this is mine, I want to do it. But I'm not writing a novel; I'm writing software that the community will be using and something that is really needed by a lot of people. And a lot of those people don't want to wait forever while I slowly write my vision of a "perfect" Drupal forum. They may have clients that want something right now and don't want to wait. And so there's that pressure. If it's people who are just demanding, I can ignore them. But when people are offering to help out, offering to give me huge chunks of code, even, I look like a fool if I say no. At the same time, though, if this project turns into me basically just being a project manager with the community controlling it, I'll be miserable. If I'm not getting paid, not in any big hurry to get the end result, and the whole joy of creation is taken away, why should I bother?

So I'm trying to find some middle ground here. Right now, when I'm just getting started, I'm really only looking for high level help. I'd love access to someone who knows entities so I can get questions answered with a minimum floundering. I'd love people who know performance to weigh in once I get some detailed specs written. I'd love for someone who knows the contrib Entity API to go over my entities and see if using that would be a better choice. Stuff like that would be great right now. What I'm not ready for, yet, is for people to start handing me code unless it's just to look at as an example.

Once I get the vision out of my head and spec'd out and documented so there's a clear path to follow, and get a baseline foundation of code going, I'll be much more open to patches. If people want to pick a bit of functionality and "claim" it to write, that would be great at that point. It's not that I don't want any help at all; I'm not crazy. :) I just don't want to get overwhelmed with well meaning people and end up pissing everyone off because I don't know how to (and don't really want to) jump from being a lone coder like I have been for years into running a community-written project.

If following my lead on this and letting this keep being "my thing" doesn't work for you, I understand. I know I'm taking the risk that people will get annoyed and just go do their own project. But it's a risk I need to take because the alternative is letting this become something I dread working on and get nothing out of. So I hope people understand.

Michelle

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

Totally understood and perfectly fine with me. I'm available for whatever / whenever-- entirely up to you (no need to worry about feelings from my end). I'm here mostly as one of the main users of core forum on d.o to put more skin in the game.

I'm still learning entity api myself, but I'm happy to review / work out entity stuff also.

nicxvan’s picture

nicxvan commented

I'd like to just echo what Worldfallz said, I understood what you meant, and I am by no means an expert in what you are looking for experts for. But I am willing to put in work just for the experience as well. So when you are ready for help let me know.

Thanks

mcdruid’s picture

mcdruid commented

Hi Michelle, I think you've been very articulate in explaining your approach to Artesian Forum and in the process made some interesting observations about contributing to an open source project.

I would like to offer to help in whatever ways I can (probably discussing design / helping with code & perhaps support / testing) as and when it suits you, but certainly not before :-)

rlmumford’s picture

rlmumford
Primary language English
Location Manchester
commented

Hey Michelle,

Totally understand your massively long post. I'm working on some Drupal CRM stuff at the moment and so kind of get entities (well I hope I do). I'm also intimately acquainted with the limitations of views relationships. So If I can be of any help let me know.

Rob

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Oh, I should update this, sorry. I've been absolutely slammed by the camera club site running longer than I expected and prepping for our rummage sale. I've been working from 7:30am to 11pm with the sale and barely looking at the computer. Our sale ends tonight and then tomorrow morning I have a volunteer photo project that will take Sunday plus probably part of Monday. I'm really, really hoping to get started on this Tuesday, maybe Wednesday.

Sorry to keep dragging out the start. :( Life has just been absolutely crazy.

Michelle

tpopham’s picture

tpopham commented

Hey. I was just poking around looking for a non-core forum, since I expect it to get dropped from core one of these days, and ran across your post. I'd love to see the architecture as it unfolds.

P.S. I noticed the Relation module the other day. I haven't taken a close look yet myself, but it's non-trivial and built from entities. It might prove useful or informative in your endeavor--good luck!

(subscribe)

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Yeah, I've looked at Relation. I'm undecided if it will be useful to Artesian, yet, but will definitely be keeping it in mind.

Core forum definitely won't be dropped any time soon. The soonest it could happen is D8 and I think that's unlikely since it has a maintainer now. And there will be an upgrade path from core to Artesian so no worries with starting with core.

As for Artesian... I'm really sorry for all the "will start on X" posts. I can't seem to get the chaos under control so I can focus on this. We're done with the rummage sales but now there's all the aftermath of cleaning up what's left and catching up on life that was put on hold while doing the rummage sale stuff. And it's also Oktoberfest, here, which I photograph for them so that's hours of photography and then many more hours of editing. Plus all the normal stuff that goes with taking care of two young children. So it's been pretty nuts. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, though. :) I'm definitely getting there and it should be soon but I'm not going to give an ETA since all my other ones have come and gone. :(

Michelle

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Title didn't go back after deleting spam... I think this is what it was.

Michelle

bfr’s picture

bfr commented

I'm not sure how your project is going Michelle, but we have now released an entity based forum(based on the code Forgenator offered earlier in this thread) which we will continue to develope. Feel free to chip in(anyone).
Brain Forum

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

@bfr: I'm sure that's great news for people who need a viable solution right now and don't want to wait for me. However, I can't just walk away from this as I explain here: http://shellmultimedia.com/blog/artesian-forum-still-go-despite-competition

Michelle

bfr’s picture

bfr commented

So it's not great news for you? Not very sporty attitude. I understand that forum is a very personal thing to you, but you need to understand that we are both creating open source and there is no unhealthy competition going on and no one is trying to step on your toes. I dont see how another forum solution would hurt your cause(in fact, your forum solutions have never even been the only solutions available anyway).

Brain Forum was not developed as a competition or to prove anything, but as a something we really needed for a client.
We fully support development of Artesian Forum and REALLY hope to see it come alive some day. That's why we offered you the whole Brain Forum codebase in the first place, and that's why Rade was trying to follow your specifications while developing it.

I also replied to your blog. Let's co-exist in peace, ok?

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Did you honestly expect it would be great news for me? I got very sick, my life got chaotic, I'm finally getting things back on track and am a couple weeks away of finally getting to fully dive into the project I've been dreaming about for a year, and I find someone beat me to the punch. How is that supposed to be great news for me? For everyone else, sure. People need solutions now, not whenever I manage to get them done at my slow pace. I understand that. It's great for the community that you released a working solution. But for me? Not so much.

I don't see where you offered me the codebase, either. forgenator said he had something he could share with me if his client approved and I never heard more about that. I certainly would have been interested in taking a look, even if just for help with the entity code I'm stuck on. I just wasn't ready to take on full collaborators. I didn't want to become a project manager while people who could code faster than me did all the work. I wanted to be able to fully dig into it myself and develop my vision, not just cat herd.

If you couldn't wait for me to be ready, fine. I don't expect the Drupal world to just stand still while I get my life under control. And I don't have any issues with your releasing the code. I don't have any exclusive rights to develop a forum. But to expect me to be happy about it? That's a bit much.

Michelle

bfr’s picture

bfr commented

Well. i guess we have a little bit different view at things. I will be happy when the community gets Artesian Forum and other cool things. So what if we have our own forum project going on? If that means that Brain Forum has less users, so what? It's still good for Drupal and that's reason we are doing these things. People will choose what's better for them, and it's better for everyone that there are some options to choose from. All Drupal modules are community projects anyway, no-one owns them, someone just starts them.

You "beat us" at releasing a widely used forum module by many years anyway, so dont feel sad if you did not get your next vision out before anyone else did anything similar.
No one is taking your merits away, and people are still still waiting for your solution as enthusiastically as ever. Including me.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

I'm not sure what more to say here. You seem to want to put things in my words that aren't there and we're just going around in circles.

Michelle

bfr’s picture

bfr commented

Yes, well, i think we reach'd some kind of consensus at your blog, and there's no reason to turn this into debate. I understand your personal feelings on the thing, and just hope that we can co-operate once you get Artesian out. Remember that there is always help available at the drupal community should you need it, struggling alone with such a big project can be really fatiguing as you surely know.

synth3tk’s picture

synth3tk commented

+1 Subscribe.

Like I said on IRC, I'm not launching my site for another year, at the very least, and the forums aren't a major focus, so I'm fine waiting for Artesian. I'm willing to help out with docs, testing, and possibly some minor code (I'm still getting a grip on Drupal API and advanced PHP).

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

I haven't been struggling alone... I've been begging help off IRC folks and they've been helping. The trouble is that I've only been able to work on it in bits here and there first because I had very few days I felt well enough and then because I was playing catchup. I haven't had solid time do dedicate to it. So I would ask questions and start grokking some stuff but never quite get the whole thing and then have to put it away again for weeks/months. Next time I'd basically be starting over again because so much time had passed. What I really needed was someone who would be willing to dedicate some hours to working with me on it and getting past the conceptual wall I was hitting but everyone I know is far too busy for that.

At any rate, since similar code is now out there, I'm going to compare it to my code and try to figure out the missing link. I'm a bit over a week away from being able to dedicate serious, continuous time to this. I expect to be able to turn the embarrassing mess of code I have into something committable by early December.

Michelle

bfr’s picture

bfr commented

You know, i'm sure you would get help faster if you shared the code somewhere. Don't need to think it's embarassing, believe me, you are not the only one struggling with the entities. Everyone seems to get them somewhat differently and all the examples and modules implement them a bit differently.
The documentation REALLY needs to improve and i hope someone from our company(Soprano Brain Alliance) can chip in to that also at some point once we really master the entities.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

I haven't shared it because it's been in a massive state of flux while I try stuff and then delete it all and try something else. Up until recently, it's just been scratch code that I'm learning from. The last time I worked on it, though, I got a pretty solid install file. I almost committed that but felt silly committing an install file and no module. LOL! Anyway, I'll get the rest of it cleaned up and committed soon. I'm not going to wait until it's all done or anything crazy. I just want to have something that won't make me cringe to have people see it. :)

Michelle

rade’s picture

rade commented

Michelle, I just want to say for my part that I'm really looking forward to seeing your plan of Artesian Forum come true. After all, you have more experience of planning and developing discussion forums than any of us :) Also, I want you to know that I'll be glad to try to help you out with any questions you may have regarding entities.

Best regards,
Rade

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Thanks. I wish you luck with your forum as well. I had a peek at the code and realized the mistakes that were keeping my entities from working. Thanks for that. Now that I'm finally over that hurdle, I can move forward. I have quite a bit of code already written but it's a rather big mess. Because I couldn't get the entities working, I was just bouncing around putting in stuff I knew I'd need once the entities were in place but none of it could be tested without the entities. Now I need to turn that mass of code into something usable and get it committed. :)

I'm out of town for the next week. I may poke at it a bit during that time but won't be able to fully dive in until I get back.

Michelle

Grayside’s picture

Grayside commented

Long term speculative +1.

Forums are near and dear to my heart, if only from nostalgia. Would love to see Drupal compete. I doubt I can provide too many cycles to this project, but as issues come up I'll see what I can do.

synth3tk’s picture

synth3tk commented

That's great news, Michelle! Glad to hear that you overcame the largest obstacle. :)

kerios83’s picture

kerios83 commented

It would be nice to combine those forums cause forum is a large thing to build from scratch, and drupal community need good fast forum (well all other CMS got them, AF is nice but it's time for something new, fast and shiny). Anyway is nice to see that ppl speak each other about future possibilities. It's always good to know what "the other side" think about your ideas and what they would change. I hope that in no time I could use Brain Forum, Artesian Forum whatever suits me better (or... Artesian Brainer :)

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Combining is very unlikely. I have my own vision that I'm following for Artesian and want to see it through. It's hard to say which will be the better in the long term. In the short term, though, Brain is likely a better bet. It is being built for an (I'm assuming) paying client by a business and I'm doing mine part time for free when my kids are occupied. They have more resources to throw at it and a head start. Artesian could very well end up being an "also ran". We'll see.

Michelle

bfr’s picture

bfr commented

Well, the client mostly got what they wanted already, current development of Brain Forum is done as a hobby(i just started on the moderation part, which i',m developing when my two kids let me ;) ). We'll see if the client(or someone else) will continue the development in the future(which is quite possible).

Joining forces would of course speed the development, but then again, the users would have to rely on one single vision and solution.

We could, kind of, get the best of both worlds if more developers joined both of these projects.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Honestly, I'm not so sure joining forces would go any faster. If we joined forces, you'd either be slowed down by me or would just be doing your own thing instead of waiting for me. Neither sounds like a good plan. By having your own project, you can work at your own pace and I can work at mine. The important thing is that we make sure to clearly document the differences to make it easier on the users to know which to use. That was always my biggest beef with project duplication: user confusion.

Michelle

Grayside’s picture

Grayside commented

I've been following the discussion, it looks to me as though both projects should move forward separately for now, but keep tabs on each other to see if there might be emergent common dependencies. For example, the File Entity module spun out of the Media module.

acausing’s picture

acausing commented

Subscribing

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

@acausing: Please use the Follow button.

Michelle

synth3tk’s picture

synth3tk commented

In my personal opinion, both projects would be better off separately, at least for the short-term future. That doesn't mean completely ignoring each other, though. I'm sure both devs would be more than happy to help each other out with minor issues (such as a "How do I...?" question). I understand the concern for duplication, but forums can go in two wildly varying ways.

kojow7’s picture

kojow7 commented

+1 subscribe

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented
Status: Active » Closed (works as designed)

@kojow7: There is no need to "subscribe" to issues anymore. You can just click the "follow" button.

@all: I'm going to close this issue because we have a group for stuff like this now and there's no need to have it in the issue queue.

Michelle

synth3tk’s picture

synth3tk commented

For the sake of those out of the loop, can you post a link to the group? (I'm a poet and I didn't know it)

Thanks. :)

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

http://groups.drupal.org/artesian-forum

To be in the loop, I suggest reading the project page. ;)

Michelle

synth3tk’s picture

synth3tk commented

I have absolutely no clue how I missed that, especially since I've been stalking the page quite a bit recently. Sorry. :)

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

That's all right. I tend to be rather wordy so I see how a link could be missed... LOL!

As a mini update since I'm pinging everyone on this issue, anyway, I'm still working on it very slowly. December has been a crazy month and I just have very little time to code. I've made more progress than is there in the last commit, though, and will likely do another commit today or tomorrow depending on how bad this stomach bug I've got gets me.

Hopefully the pace will pick up in January. We'll see. Still an awful lot I didn't get done in December that I was hoping to have done to free me up to code. :(

Michelle

juan_g’s picture

juan_g commented

Quick update: For all those on this helper list willing to assist in some way, maintainer Michelle recently (June 2013) announced a new situation related to Artesian Forum, with forum development opening to the community, that is being discussed in the Artesian issue #1948626: Planned Features and Getting Other Devs Involved.