[libreoffice-website] Re: [Drupal] The road ahead and missed opportunities

Hi Christian:

Le 2011-01-19 10:04, Christian Lohmaier a écrit :
> Hi Marc, *,
>
> On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 4:39 AM, Marc Paré<marc@marcpare.com>  wrote:
> > Le 2011-01-18 17:57, Christian Lohmaier a écrit :
> > [...]
> > As you say, people were not listening to each other. As a LibO member who
> > did participate on the Drupal team and helped organise it under the
> > impression that, clearly, the SC had given us the go ahead with the
> > possibility of moving on to the Drupal CMS within 6 months.
>
> Yes, the possibility.
>
> > The proposal put
> > to the membership by the Drupal group was that Drupal would act more as a
> > hub offering windows to the various LibO communities. Somehow this also got
> > lost in the disinformation that was being passed around.
>
> Yes, as the impression is that the drupal group would like to force
> everything into the drupal-infrastructure.

Well, this was the wrong impression as we often times offered specific 
Drupal tools but also affirmed that working closely with all 
stakeholders was our main objective.

> > > LO does not start completely from scratch. It has 10 years of history
> > > it shares with the OpenOffice.org project. During that time, various
> > > ways of collaboration have formed, various tools are used. You cannot
> > > just throw that all away and force it all into drupal.
> >
> > So, would you be OK with having a Drupal site acting as a hub directing
> > traffic to the different sites? This is then the question. Would it not be
> > more impressive to have people think that we are a whole community?
>
> I do not get the idea why for this to work you need to force
> everything into a drupal-driven tool.

My intent here with my statement was to show that the Drupal site could 
have provided itself more as a hub to the outside communities, contrary 
to the information that others were saying that, as you say, "the need 
to force everything into a Drupal-drivfen tool". The Drupal site would 
have been used no more and no less than what Silverstripe is trying to 
achieve today, of sending people to their different communities. The 
only difference being that users/visitors to the site would have the 
distinct impression that of a LibreOffice family.

> > Would it
> > not be more advantageous to find all of the connections in one spot? Would
> > not this give us all a sense of community?
>
> Finding all in one spot is completely different in telling people.
> "Sorry, you won't be using the tools you've been working with anymore,
> since drupal got this shiny nice module that surely is superior"
> This is the message that was received. Maybe not what was intended,
> but this is at least my impression.

Remember that we were led to believe that we were told on the website 
membership list that the Silverstripe first then migration within 6 
months to Drupal. We were letting the membership know of certain 
modules. We were being open and transparent and the modules were up for 
discussion, with implementation on the Drupal site for testing.

> > Yes, the urgent need for content. Unfortunately, the Silverstripe team had,
> > at the time, assured the SC that the site would be up and running in a
> > matter a few weeks.
>
> Again you're twisting facts, just like Michael. So a history lessen of
> the situation at the time:
>
> The Drupal-proposal sites were all *NON FUNCTIONAL*, they sucked
> regarding the inbuilt editor, they sucked in *BASIC* functionality.
> While silverstripe was ready to be used.
>
> At no time I or anyone else had made a claim about creating the
> content itself. The statement was always "Allow people to start
> working on it".
>
> And yes, I also was disappointed that there have not been people who
> were eager waiting to providing the content, there my (and other
> people's) impression was wrong.
>
> But don't claim that silverstripe-team promised a complete site!

Then yes, we did misunderstand the Silverstripe approach. You then 
delivered a functional working site.

The Drupal team had plans on involving people with content. I guess we 
had a more holistic approach to website building. There were offers from 
a couple of Drupal devs with ongoing mentoring/facilitating help for 
contributors and the use of the Drupal site modules.

> > We were led to believe that all of the site would just
> > be available to all for use in so little time.
>
> For use, yes, and that really was a matter of days to setup the
> DNS-entry and silverstripe was up and running (at the
> test.libreoffice.org location at the time). From that point on it was
> ready to use, working.
>
> > What was not said, is that,
> > in fact, the Silverstripe had not prepared any IA or any sort of planning
>
> You are a liar, and that more or less represent the communication
> style of the drupal-team as a whole. Those who voice their opinion
> twist the facts at their will.

Thanks then, could you point me to the pages that we had asked for on 
the website list? There must be a place where we can all see the 
Silverstripe plans for us to see. If the website membership had seen 
that there were no plans for content then perhaps we could have helped 
make provisions for this.

> > for the actual web development and that it would be done on a "first come
> > first serve" meritocratic way. Unfortunately, it was, and still is, quite
> > difficult to find any members experienced enough in Silverstripe
>
> Again complete bullshit. You can count the "problem" reports with
> silverstripe people posted to the list with your fingers. You don't
> need to have experience with silverstripe to provide content.
>
> There is no need for experienced silverstripe people because there is
> no need of fancy features yet.

Sorry, I just thought that experienced Silverstripe people would be 
lending a hand at helping the content contributors manage and work out 
the formatting of their sites. How many Silverstripe people do we have 
to help out? Is there anyone on the Silverstripe actively helping NL 
content contributors so that their sites look good at first landing?

> > As for adding content, well, why was this not planned when the SC was
> > assured that the site would be ready within a short time frame? So, the
> > excuse for having no content for the Silverstripe site is that the Drupal
> > team were being too organised or that they were negligent in providing
> > content? I would find it strange that for some reason, ALL of the content
> > contributors were on the Drupal side? Then why was Silverstripe chosen?
>
> AGAIN: Silverstripe was *ready to use*. Drupal sites at the time *DID
> SUCK*. All there was was "there are modules for drupal, and once you
> configure it it won't suck". This did go on for weeks, without anybody
> installing those modules, configuring the drupal site (remember, there
> were four different drupal demo sites at the time, and *NONE* featured
> a working editor.
> *NONE* offered an easy way to insert links to another page on the same
> site, etc.
>
> Despite all the people knowing drupal, despite all the people dealing
> with drupal for their living.
>
> /*THIS*/ is what made the SC made their decision.
>
> People need a tool that /works/, not a system that /works once it is
> configured/. And it isn't enough to assure "you can do it, thousands
> of sites are running with drupal, drupal is great, bla bla". If you
> cannot get the basics to work right within a couple of weeks, you're
> out of the question.
>
> Silverstipre's editor and site management was working right out of the box.
>
> And this has nothing to do with the content, which is completely
> independent of the underlying CMS. So yes, if drupal team now claims
> they have put so much effort into designing a IA and thinking about
> content: Why didn't they just implement it on the site that was
> available?

We thought that you had included it in your plans. Maybe the words that 
you would provide a working website confused us. We assumed, as was 
stated before, that this meant along with plans for content. And, yes, I 
for one jumped in and completed a whole section of the site only to have 
it deleted without consultation. I also believe that another member had 
commented that going about it this way, deleting contributor content 
without consultation, would perhaps dissuade more contribution.

> > Sadly, the constant reminder that the Drupal CMS solution is not dead and
> > may be considered later is disheartening. This is just saying, that, if the
> > Silverstripe site doesn't work,
>
> If you got a problem with the functionality of the site, then say so.
>
> WHAT doesn't work (because the site runs silverstripe, not because
> just nobody provided some content)?

Sorry, you are mis-reading my sentence and completely taking it out of 
context.

> > well, we will be sorry to everyone and move
> > to Drupal anyway. Regardless of any outcome, the SC will just have to come
> > to terms with the fact that, for a large site such as LbiO with a potential
> > of 100 million users/downloads, most serious devs would recommend the use of
> > a Drupal CMS solution. You will constantly have to explain your reasons for
> > picking Silverstripe ... or maybe just add it to a FAQ.
>
> Again the same FUD again and again. Yes, Drupal is great, but within
> nearly two months (during the CMS requirements phase), all those
> knowledgeable people didn't manage to create something usable. That's
> why SC did vote to go with Silverstripe, with the possibility to
> revisit drupal a couple of months later.
> But instead of providing a working site with the basics, Drupal team
> started their "we conquer the world" crusade and that lead to the
> current statement to get a grip of the priorities that matter.

I think if you re-read the start of the CMS search for LibO, you will 
find that your answers to anyone making reference with Drupal was met 
with a negative tone from you. Feel free to re-read your posts. You had 
discounted Drupal right from the start.

It seems to me that most groups would want to look for a CMS that best 
fits their needs, consult with their membership (in this case our 
website membership) and test-try collaboratively different CMS sites to 
see how well they work and fit with the community project. I don't 
believe that making it into a confrontational test of "who can make it 
work first before a deadline" was the best approach. It disregards all 
of the professional advice from the membership who signed on to help 
with website building. For which we are still struggling with. This is 
not the way to build community, rather, it splits communities.

> ciao
> Christian

Cheers

Marc


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