[libreoffice-website] Re: Regroup and further development of the website(s)

Le 2011-01-06 21:05, Bernhard Dippold a écrit :

Hi Bernhard, thanks for your comments and opinions. I also leave my 
opinions on this matter then, and I would not be surprised if others 
will also leave their comments as well.

> Hi Mike, all,
>
> just a few points I want to mention...
> They are my personal opinion, but having been part of the OOo community
> for quite a number of years, I'm quite sure that they are shared by
> other people too.

Maybe some but not all people. The LibO community has grown with new 
members, which is what the LibreOffice is also all about. Some of us 
have no prior knowledge of problems with the OOo. Knowing/informed of 
prior problems with OOo is great for insight, but new people may have 
fresh ideas that they bring to the new LibreOffice group. This will add 
vibrancy to the group and give it more of a "forward looking" view of 
LibreOffice and its communities.

> Michael Wheatland schrieb:
> > On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 9:40 PM, Charles-H. Schulz
> > <charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org> wrote:
> > > Michael,
> > >
> > > The admins have run this since the beginning and I don't see why we
> > > should
> > > host our website elsewhere. Now the website team has some people with
> > > admin
> > > rights and that's how it works. It's actually the usual way to operate
> > > elsewhere. What wouldyou suggest?
> >
> > I am not suggesting changing anything as long as the website team has
> > the autonomy and authority to modify and improve our areas of
> > responsibility ourselves.
>
> The present website team consists of the people working on the website
> and improving it.
>
> Your activities have been a different main focus in the past, so it is
> great to have you on board again.
>
> When David presented his first iteration of the website, he had to face
> some comments on different parts of his work. He tried to reply to quite
> a number of postings here on the list, but he couldn't see a common
> direction in the comments, so discussions led to nothing than more
> discussions.
>
> As we urgently need the website and most of us think it has to be
> improved sooner than later, David started a new iteration of the site.
>
> He asked the SC for their approval to work on the site until the 10th of
> January and he wanted to hand it over to the community at this time.
>
> Probably because there have not been an active website team, but only a
> few people commenting the now active website in different directions, he
> asked the SC to be the responsible group to accept the website.

I beg to differ. There was a group of website members willing to help 
out and had their names listed on the Silverstripe team wiki page 
membership roster. Now, I can no longer seem to find the wiki page, you 
only have to re-read the thread on the website discussion list titled: 
"[libreoffice-website] [SC] Decision about CMS" to get a feeling of who 
had volunteered/offered help with the site. Just in case you are too 
busy to re-reread this voluminous thread, as I was the one who also 
helped in organising the initial wiki page with the pro/cons of the 
remaining contending CMS' as well as the section with the website 
Silverstripe and Drupal teams (Christian had originally started the 
page), you could either filter the thread on my last name "pare" to see 
the development of the CMS member volunteer discussions or I have listed 
the particular posts talking of offers of help here:

http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/410
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/460
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/487
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/462
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/406
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/461
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/465
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/467 


As you can see there were some members who had offered their help, some 
of whom, very experienced in website building. Again, I had personally 
worked on a section of the site adding content. It was only later that 
David asked for a larger role in order to complete adding content. It 
was at this point that we all stood back and agreed to unfettered 
control to David so that he could complete this task (as agreed by the SC).

I myself was/am a little concerned that these situations should, at 
best, be avoided in the future as it does not promote to the community 
aspect to the project. We may risk losing capable members if they see 
their role in the LibreOffice diminished this way. A community 
involvement should always be the option for all parts of LibreOffice ... 
is this not what we signed up for? But OK, the SC decided on this path 
which will result in the CMS of Jan. 10th.

> > It was simply the suggestion that the Steering Committee would be kept
> > in the loop before the website team that seems disrespectful and
> > somewhat belittles the team.
>
> You might see it different, but there is no active website team at the
> moment except the few people working on the site.
>
> The website team didn't manage to create content for the main site for
> several weeks, so we have to doubt, if there is a team at all.

I can only speak for myself on this point. We were assured that a 
working website would be available in short after the SC had decided on 
a Silverstripe CMS start. I assumed, naively, that there was a content 
team ready to pour content into the site. I therefore spent time with 
the Drupal team. It was only later that I realised there was no content 
team for the international site (English) and that the German and French 
teams had in fact added sufficiently amount of content themselves to go 
live! At this point I jumped in and started helping out. Note that there 
had already been calls for better guidance in the marketing confcall or 
at least a list of tasks to be taken care of, but none was ever produced.

When there is no organisation, then there is no action and a loss of 
collective contribution. There has to be better organised methods used 
if we are to get anywhere. Proof that organising works is the recent 
movement to organise all teams with a tasks list 
(http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Marketing/Release) targetted to the 
release(s) of LibO distro(s). We are all better equipped to work this 
way. Many thanks to the person who organised this list of tasks.

> We will create the team in a few days, as I'm very sure that the SC will
> accept the website created by David and Ivan who supports him at the
> moment.
>
> As this new version will contain address of our concerns for the present
> website, the new website team will be able to work on improvements
> continuously.
>
> I don't know if we need a formal "lead" as the LibO community tries to
> avoid hierarchical structures. Decisions are based on merit instead:
> People who have actively worked on a certain task have the most
> important voice in decisions about this topic.
>
> The website needs a group of people taking care of it's quality, because
> this is the first and most prominent area where potential users and
> contributors contact LibreOffice.
>
> This group has to consist of specialists in webdesign, user experience,
> marketing and documentation, and I'm quite sure that you will be a
> relevant part of this group once you have shown your active contribution
> to *this* area of work.

Perhaps then we should revisit this. There have already been discussions 
on the documentation team of a documentation lead. Italo is our defacto 
lead with the marketing team (we have ablsolutely no problem with this). 
This seems to work quite well with these teams. Why would there not be 
this kind of leadership role for the website team? As you state, this is 
the "first and most prominent area" of LibreOffice.

> We will have a new active website team - let's start working after the
> 10th.
>
> > Hence, the progress that David has made privately should be shared
> > with the website team as a whole to allow review and future
> > contributions from the whole team.
>
> It will be shared after the 10th (as I already mentioned above, the SC
> will not refuse Davids and Ivan's great work).
>
> Review and future contributions will be done by the new team - following
> the recommendations of the experts mentioned above.
> > There are many people involved in this list who are keen to
> > contribute. Lets get them involved.
>
> I truly hope so, even if the past did prove the opposite...
>
> > To do that, we need to be kept up to date with the Silverstripe site
> > progress and encourage collaboration, delegation and accountability.
>
> Even if David is working on a sandbox site, his progress can be looked
> at, as the link to the site has already been posted here on the list.
>
> He's probably doing more work in the background, so the site is not at
> the bleeding edge, but as he asked us to wait with comments three more
> days, I don't think that this causes any problems.
>
> (I don't repeat the link here - if you think it is important to have a
> look at it *now*, you'll find it in the archives).

Here it is, in case anyone missed it: http://188.40.32.145:7780/ . This 
is public knowledge for the website list and was given out by David 
here: 
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.design/176

> If we'll have an active team from the 10th on, the future workflow will
> not only concentrate on improving the content, but in involving (new)
> community contributors too.
>
> Best regards
>
> Bernhard
>
> PS: Please remember: My personal opinion only!

My opinions as well.

Marc


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