New handbook section proposal: "Community Initiatives"

[Angela Byron]

Drupal core development involves the coordination of literally
thousands of open issues, hundreds of contributors, and dozens of
initiatives. It's been challenging to coordinate all of this, so I'm
constantly on the hunt for ways to streamline the process. I'm sure
the docs team can relate. ;)

Tonight we were kicking around ideas about how to handle this
situation and (with Addi's permission) created a new top-level
handbook called "Community Initiatives": http://drupal.org/node/361842.

The idea is that major efforts in the community (Drupal core,
documentation, d.o redesign, etc. ) could create a series of sub-pages
that explain to people who want to jump in where to do so. See (and
sub-pages) http://drupal.org/node/361846 as an example of what I mean.

Addi asked me to post here to get thoughts/impressions. So. Thoughts?
Impressions? ;)

-Angie

--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[Pratul Kalia]

Post by Angela Byron
The idea is that major efforts in the community (Drupal core,
documentation, d.o redesign, etc. ) could create a series of sub-pages
that explain to people who want to jump in where to do so. See (and
sub-pages) http://drupal.org/node/361846 as an example of what I mean.

Brilliant idea I see! But will this section be only for Drupal
programming initiatives? Or more stuff as well?


cheers
pratul

[Addison Berry]

So one of the things we were discussing and wanted feedback on, is
whether this should be its own top-level book that needs links from
various corners to get to (i.e. it is currently not easily
"discovered") or should we incorporate it into the Getting Involved
book and, if so, how/where?

Post by Pratul Kalia

Post by Angela Byron
The idea is that major efforts in the community (Drupal core,
documentation, d.o redesign, etc. ) could create a series of sub-
pages
that explain to people who want to jump in where to do so. See (and
sub-pages) http://drupal.org/node/361846 as an example of what I mean.

Brilliant idea I see! But will this section be only for Drupal
programming initiatives? Or more stuff as well?

It can be used for any community initiatives that need a space to
summarize and organize as it were. Things like the ongoing doc team
projects would fit neatly in here. They just need to create a new top-
level child page as a sibling to "Drupal core improvements".

Post by Pratul Kalia
cheers
pratul
--
Incoming!
- OSScamp Pantnagar, 30 Jan - 1 Feb, 2009
- Freed.in, 20 - 21 February, 2009
dum vivimus, vivamus.
http://pratul.in
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

--
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[Laura Scott]

It almost sounds like this should be a view rather than just books
hierarchy, since it could include time-frame-limited things, etc.
Maybe it is a "dashboard" of embedded views of 2 or 3 different kinds
things? It just seems like something requiring more relational
connections rather than hierarchical burying.

Laura

Post by Addison Berry
So one of the things we were discussing and wanted feedback on, is
whether this should be its own top-level book that needs links from
various corners to get to (i.e. it is currently not easily
"discovered") or should we incorporate it into the Getting Involved
book and, if so, how/where?

Post by Pratul Kalia

Post by Angela Byron
The idea is that major efforts in the community (Drupal core,
documentation, d.o redesign, etc. ) could create a series of sub-
pages
that explain to people who want to jump in where to do so. See (and
sub-pages) http://drupal.org/node/361846 as an example of what I mean.

Brilliant idea I see! But will this section be only for Drupal
programming initiatives? Or more stuff as well?

It can be used for any community initiatives that need a space to
summarize and organize as it were. Things like the ongoing doc team
projects would fit neatly in here. They just need to create a new top-
level child page as a sibling to "Drupal core improvements".

Post by Pratul Kalia
cheers
pratul
--
Incoming!
- OSScamp Pantnagar, 30 Jan - 1 Feb, 2009
- Freed.in, 20 - 21 February, 2009
dum vivimus, vivamus.
http://pratul.in
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[Addison Berry]

Post by Laura Scott
It almost sounds like this should be a view rather than just books
hierarchy, since it could include time-frame-limited things, etc.
Maybe it is a "dashboard" of embedded views of 2 or 3 different kinds
things? It just seems like something requiring more relational
connections rather than hierarchical burying.

Yeah, I agree that figuring views into this would be nice and I still
think that we need to take a real look at an "ideal" long-term
solution. We also need to find a short-term solution that does *not*
involve views though. We do not have Views enabled on d.o and it will
not be until after the upgrade/redesign stuff, but Angie is in need of
some sort of overarching way to organize things *now* and this seemed
the handiest way to go. I did also raise the fact that we now have
tags and wouldn't using the taxo lists for tags be one way to go, but
Angie didn't like it because she wants to highlight only the
"important" stuff.

- Addi

--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[Gábor Hojtsy]

Post by Addison Berry

Post by Laura Scott
It almost sounds like this should be a view rather than just books
hierarchy, since it could include time-frame-limited things, etc.
Maybe it is a "dashboard" of embedded views of 2 or 3 different kinds
things? It just seems like something requiring more relational
connections rather than hierarchical burying.

Yeah, I agree that figuring views into this would be nice and I still
think that we need to take a real look at an "ideal" long-term
solution. We also need to find a short-term solution that does *not*
involve views though. We do not have Views enabled on d.o and it will
not be until after the upgrade/redesign stuff, but Angie is in need of
some sort of overarching way to organize things *now* and this seemed
the handiest way to go. I did also raise the fact that we now have
tags and wouldn't using the taxo lists for tags be one way to go, but
Angie didn't like it because she wants to highlight only the
"important" stuff.

We got to same / similar conclusions with the redesign / upgrade
project planning. We can tag stuff, but in huge projects, such as
these, we need a hierarchic, prioritized plan for what should happen.
Therefore I've extended the drupal.org project filter, so if you use
[#112233] (with the issue number), you'll get the status and the
assigned user to the output already. From here, we can use this to
build nested lists with annotations, images, etc for bigger project
plans. This is all due to our project module lacking things like
milestones, relative priority, project plans, etc, and they will not
be implemented anytime soon (not that they should be). Flat views
listing is not cutting it, since you cannot order stuff by relative
priority (eg. an issue might be an important thing for implementing
the map on the redesigned homepage, but the map on the redesigned
homepage is not the highest priority overall). Tags don't provide a
way for people to understand the process of implementing a big change
in Drupal or on drupal.org, the order of them, cross-dependencies,
etc.

What we do because of the lack of higher project planning tools,
milestones, etc. is a bit hackish, but looks like we prefer to use
drupal.org then to use a third party, where these would be available,
since here we can utilize our userbase, issue status data, etc, which
we already have.

Gábor
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[John Noceda]

Creating a top-level book does not mean that it has to become a handbook. So
my suggestion is, even if we're utilizing the book content type, we do not
call this a handbook and not list it on http://drupal.org/handbooks. We
instead make a link on the "Contributor Links" block called "Community
Initiatives" right after the "Advanced Search" and before the "Queue". Then
it becomes a project management tool related to the issues queue and not
related to documentation. The documentation blocks: "Quick Links" and
"Handbook License" shouldn't be visible on this top-level book. We then
announce the new functionality on the front page. The documentation
admins/managers (or whatever name we decide on this on another on-going
discussion) will then make it a task to explain the "Community Inititiative"
feature in the "Getting Involved" handbook.

IMHO, this put things in proper places. Listing it under the "Contributor
Links" block makes it more visible to the correct target audience as well as
it gives the impression of a better connection with the issues queue. My
point is that it's a project management tool and not documentation.


John


-----Original Message-----
From: documentation-***@drupal.org
[mailto:documentation-***@drupal.org] On Behalf Of Gábor Hojtsy
Sent: 21. januar 2009 17:39
To: A list for documentation writers
Subject: Re: [documentation] New handbook section proposal: "Community
Initiatives"

Post by Addison Berry

Post by Laura Scott
It almost sounds like this should be a view rather than just books
hierarchy, since it could include time-frame-limited things, etc.
Maybe it is a "dashboard" of embedded views of 2 or 3 different kinds
things? It just seems like something requiring more relational
connections rather than hierarchical burying.

Yeah, I agree that figuring views into this would be nice and I still
think that we need to take a real look at an "ideal" long-term
solution. We also need to find a short-term solution that does *not*
involve views though. We do not have Views enabled on d.o and it will
not be until after the upgrade/redesign stuff, but Angie is in need of
some sort of overarching way to organize things *now* and this seemed
the handiest way to go. I did also raise the fact that we now have
tags and wouldn't using the taxo lists for tags be one way to go, but
Angie didn't like it because she wants to highlight only the
"important" stuff.

We got to same / similar conclusions with the redesign / upgrade project
planning. We can tag stuff, but in huge projects, such as these, we need a
hierarchic, prioritized plan for what should happen.
Therefore I've extended the drupal.org project filter, so if you use
[#112233] (with the issue number), you'll get the status and the assigned
user to the output already. From here, we can use this to build nested lists
with annotations, images, etc for bigger project plans. This is all due to
our project module lacking things like milestones, relative priority,
project plans, etc, and they will not be implemented anytime soon (not that
they should be). Flat views listing is not cutting it, since you cannot
order stuff by relative priority (eg. an issue might be an important thing
for implementing the map on the redesigned homepage, but the map on the
redesigned homepage is not the highest priority overall). Tags don't provide
a way for people to understand the process of implementing a big change in
Drupal or on drupal.org, the order of them, cross-dependencies, etc.

What we do because of the lack of higher project planning tools, milestones,
etc. is a bit hackish, but looks like we prefer to use drupal.org then to
use a third party, where these would be available, since here we can utilize
our userbase, issue status data, etc, which we already have.

Gábor
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[Addison Berry]

Sorry for the delay. Had one more quick chat with Angie and I agree
with John, that this isn't really "documentation." So, we'll leave
Community Initiatives as a top-level book and link to it where
appropriate. It is already has an alias (http://drupal.org/community-initiatives
) and is linked from Getting Involved landing page. I have reopened an
issue and attached a new patch to remove the patch spotlight and add
the CI link to the block (http://drupal.org/node/
341070#comment-1230034). Feel free to sprinkle liberally where it
makes sense.

I'll start setting up the Documentation projects section this weekend
and we can remove the tabs from the OG (which no one ever sees or uses
anyway).

Thanks to all the ideas and discussion.
- Addi

Post by John Noceda
Creating a top-level book does not mean that it has to become a handbook. So
my suggestion is, even if we're utilizing the book content type, we do not
call this a handbook and not list it on http://drupal.org/handbooks. We
instead make a link on the "Contributor Links" block called "Community
Initiatives" right after the "Advanced Search" and before the
"Queue". Then
it becomes a project management tool related to the issues queue and not
related to documentation. The documentation blocks: "Quick Links" and
"Handbook License" shouldn't be visible on this top-level book. We then
announce the new functionality on the front page. The documentation
admins/managers (or whatever name we decide on this on another on-
going
discussion) will then make it a task to explain the "Community
Inititiative"
feature in the "Getting Involved" handbook.
IMHO, this put things in proper places. Listing it under the
"Contributor
Links" block makes it more visible to the correct target audience as well as
it gives the impression of a better connection with the issues
queue. My
point is that it's a project management tool and not documentation.
John
-----Original Message-----
Sent: 21. januar 2009 17:39
To: A list for documentation writers
Subject: Re: [documentation] New handbook section proposal: "Community
Initiatives"
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Addison Berry

Post by Addison Berry

Post by Laura Scott
It almost sounds like this should be a view rather than just books
hierarchy, since it could include time-frame-limited things, etc.
Maybe it is a "dashboard" of embedded views of 2 or 3 different kinds
things? It just seems like something requiring more relational
connections rather than hierarchical burying.

Yeah, I agree that figuring views into this would be nice and I still
think that we need to take a real look at an "ideal" long-term
solution. We also need to find a short-term solution that does *not*
involve views though. We do not have Views enabled on d.o and it will
not be until after the upgrade/redesign stuff, but Angie is in need of
some sort of overarching way to organize things *now* and this seemed
the handiest way to go. I did also raise the fact that we now have
tags and wouldn't using the taxo lists for tags be one way to go, but
Angie didn't like it because she wants to highlight only the
"important" stuff.

We got to same / similar conclusions with the redesign / upgrade project
planning. We can tag stuff, but in huge projects, such as these, we need a
hierarchic, prioritized plan for what should happen.
Therefore I've extended the drupal.org project filter, so if you use
[#112233] (with the issue number), you'll get the status and the assigned
user to the output already. From here, we can use this to build nested lists
with annotations, images, etc for bigger project plans. This is all due to
our project module lacking things like milestones, relative priority,
project plans, etc, and they will not be implemented anytime soon (not that
they should be). Flat views listing is not cutting it, since you cannot
order stuff by relative priority (eg. an issue might be an important thing
for implementing the map on the redesigned homepage, but the map on the
redesigned homepage is not the highest priority overall). Tags don't provide
a way for people to understand the process of implementing a big change in
Drupal or on drupal.org, the order of them, cross-dependencies, etc.
What we do because of the lack of higher project planning tools, milestones,
etc. is a bit hackish, but looks like we prefer to use drupal.org then to
use a third party, where these would be available, since here we can utilize
our userbase, issue status data, etc, which we already have.
Gábor
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[John Noceda]

The first thing that came to my mind upon seeing the section was "We have
the 'Getting Involved' handbook for this". Didn't want to be negative on
this great initiative in the beginning so I waited on more feedback by
others. But now that Addi mentioned it, I think the "Community Initiatives"
is better as a sub-section of that handbook. IMO, that handbook should be
the place where people find ways to get involved.

Haven't inspected the idea of incorporation thoroughly yet but at first
glance, rewrite http://drupal.org/getting-involved landing page, have the
"Community Initiatives" as one of the sub-pages of that (same level as the
"give effective user support", "translating", "Talk with the community",
etc.) as well as link to it in other appropriate handbook pages.

I think it is more organized if it is not a top-level book.

John
(JohnNoc)

-----Original Message-----
From: documentation-***@drupal.org
[mailto:documentation-***@drupal.org] On Behalf Of Addison Berry
Sent: 21. januar 2009 15:03
To: A list for documentation writers
Subject: Re: [documentation] New handbook section proposal: "Community
Initiatives"

So one of the things we were discussing and wanted feedback on, is whether
this should be its own top-level book that needs links from various corners
to get to (i.e. it is currently not easily
"discovered") or should we incorporate it into the Getting Involved book
and, if so, how/where?

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 10:05 AM, Angela Byron

Post by Angela Byron
The idea is that major efforts in the community (Drupal core,
documentation, d.o redesign, etc. ) could create a series of sub-
pages that explain to people who want to jump in where to do so. See
(and
sub-pages) http://drupal.org/node/361846 as an example of what I mean.

Brilliant idea I see! But will this section be only for Drupal
programming initiatives? Or more stuff as well?

It can be used for any community initiatives that need a space to summarize
and organize as it were. Things like the ongoing doc team projects would fit
neatly in here. They just need to create a new top- level child page as a
sibling to "Drupal core improvements".

cheers
pratul
--
Incoming!
- OSScamp Pantnagar, 30 Jan - 1 Feb, 2009
- Freed.in, 20 - 21 February, 2009
dum vivimus, vivamus.
http://pratul.in
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[Gábor Hojtsy]

Post by Angela Byron
Drupal core development involves the coordination of literally
thousands of open issues, hundreds of contributors, and dozens of
initiatives. It's been challenging to coordinate all of this, so I'm
constantly on the hunt for ways to streamline the process. I'm sure
the docs team can relate. ;)
Tonight we were kicking around ideas about how to handle this
situation and (with Addi's permission) created a new top-level
handbook called "Community Initiatives": http://drupal.org/node/361842.
The idea is that major efforts in the community (Drupal core,
documentation, d.o redesign, etc. ) could create a series of sub-pages
that explain to people who want to jump in where to do so. See (and
sub-pages) http://drupal.org/node/361846 as an example of what I mean.
Addi asked me to post here to get thoughts/impressions. So. Thoughts?
Impressions? ;)

Absolutely perfect timing! Yesterday I almost created subpages under
the "About Drupal" section for the d.o redesing, but now you just
created a better place for that :) We need to capture the decisions
made, and the issues lying ahead.

Gábor
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[Pratul Kalia]

I suggest the menu "Community Initiatives" be expanded by default. On
the first look, the page looks quite empty otherwise.


cheers
pratul

[Addison Berry]

Post by Pratul Kalia
I suggest the menu "Community Initiatives" be expanded by default. On
the first look, the page looks quite empty otherwise.

Well, ideally we will expand the text to explain what "community
initiative" means more (e.g. not a roadmap), how/when you might add
something to it and how to jump in. The last may sound weird but we
tell people to "jump in" a lot but most people need a little more
specific guidance on what that actually means before they will step
in. This is also related to the question about whether this should be
under the Getting Involved guide and such.

- Addi
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[Angela Byron]

Post by Angela Byron
Drupal core development involves the coordination of literally
thousands of open issues, hundreds of contributors, and dozens of
initiatives. It's been challenging to coordinate all of this, so I'm
constantly on the hunt for ways to streamline the process. I'm sure
the docs team can relate. ;)
Tonight we were kicking around ideas about how to handle this
situation and (with Addi's permission) created a new top-level
handbook called "Community Initiatives": http://drupal.org/node/
361842.
The idea is that major efforts in the community (Drupal core,
documentation, d.o redesign, etc. ) could create a series of sub-pages
that explain to people who want to jump in where to do so. See (and
sub-pages) http://drupal.org/node/361846 as an example of what I mean.
Addi asked me to post here to get thoughts/impressions. So. Thoughts?
Impressions? ;)

Thanks a lot for the feedback, folks!

1. I deliberately named this "Community Initiatives" and not
"Developer Initiatives" or similar because I definitely *do* want this
to be for organizing *any* kind of wide-spread community effort going
on, from documentation to graphic design to usability to fundraising
or whatever. I merely filled out the Drupal core part as an example
(and I see Gábor is already filling out the d.o upgrade stuff --
awesome!)

2. I'm totally cool with putting this under the "Getting Involved"
guide, and in fact think it could fill a nice niche there. Currently,
Getting Involved gives you all of the higher level skills you need in
order to be a proficient coder, translator, documentation contributor,
etc. But what it lacks is a cohesive "Here's where you can jump in"
list. IMO, Community Initiatives could be that list. I didn't re-
parent the book because I am not sure where weight-wise it would make
sense under Getting Involved, but am totally cool w/ it being put in
there if people think that'd be good.

3. I actually vastly prefer a book-based solution over some sort of
Views-powered solution because there would be absolutely no way to
build a page like http://drupal.org/node/362152 with Views. You get
finite control over the task list hierarchy, how much description you
give to people, etc. Anyone can edit it. It's also easy to organize
efforts into a hierarchical structure and get a "table of contents" of
sorts as you click in. To me, book.module is an ideal solution for
this and on Drupal.org, that means making it part of the handbook.

-Angie

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