Re: [libreoffice-website] Libreoffice.org website dev sitrep 2011-02-02 - [Was: Work on the "Why?" pages]

Hi Narayan, all,

*short version:*

Thanks for proposing a web design expert to provide his knowledge and 
expertise to LibreOffice.

Like mentioned by others it might be hard for an external expert to 
learn about the needs and preconditions in our community being the 
prerequisite for any acceptance of his work by the community. Most of 
these conditions are not written, but need explanation by long-term 
project members during a phase of iterative improvement.

If your expert doesn't want to be involved in discussions and proposals 
with experts and community members from other parts of the LibO 
community, his work can't be more than a proposal, perhaps used as 
starting point for a community based web design. Most likely he will 
find important parts (in his expert opinion) of his design modified and 
downgraded. As this might have an impact on your personal relationship, 
I want him to know this beforehand.

But if he is interested in getting information about our needs, wants to 
join a collaborative effort to improve the website and is open to 
modifications caused by present community experience (especially in 
iterative improvements rather than general overhaul), he is more than 
welcome to propose his ideas.

Even if he doesn't want to stay longer with us, I think everybody will 
see his positive contribution (and if he likes the way we work - perhaps 
he reconsiders his decision...)

In order to include his work in our efforts it would be necessary to 
license it under a proper OS license (CC by-sa 3.0 for the website).


*long version (covering some other topics too):*

Narayan Aras schrieb:
> Hi David,
>
> > From: commerce@traduction.biz Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 10:32:56 +0800
>
> > @Narayan: I understand very well your thoughts and attitudes about
> > involving that talented graphic designer contact of yours. I also
> > see the need to someone to work closely with us on graphics and
> > page presentation. But, this is an OS project, and I don't think it
> > can be achieved in quite the manner you envision.

I think it doesn't need to be black or white -  if the designer would be 
interested in work for the community, we'll probably find a way to use 
his expertise.
> > We have to remember that developing the libreoffice.org site is
> > very much a cooperative effort between design contributors and
> > content contributors, and that we need to keep Design in the loop
> > about things.

Fully agreed - so please read below.
> First, let us differentiate between (a) the designer and (b) his
> designs for our project.
>
> The designer would produce IA+wireframe+icon proposals.
>
> The proposals are to be reviewed publicly and subject to change.
>
> It is not a "take it or leave it" offer.

For any contributor to our project it is important, that he sees his 
contribution being respected and valued.

For the community it is important, that our central needs and interests 
are respected.

This is more easily to be achieved, if the contributor works 
collaboratively with the respective team, present his ideas and is open 
to improvements necessary because he can't know all the preconditions by 
the community.

It is possible to provide IA, wireframe and icons on a independent 
basis, but it's quite likely that it will not be accepted by the team 
because it doesn't include all the necessary aspects.

Re-iteration is necessary - and if the designer doesn't want to take 
part in this area, it is crucial to get the sources for his icons and 
the right to use his work (under an appropriate license).

If he doesn't want to be involved in this way, his work can't be more 
than a stimulus for the team to work in his direction.

> [...]
>
> Do we have bigger web professionals on board who can judge him?

I don't know, but this is not the main point:

Our website needs to fulfill several different goals - attract curious 
people to become users or contributors, provide information to present 
users and contributors.

The user groups are diverging, contributors work in very different areas 
- how can you describe the needs of our community to someone who doesn't 
know about our structure and the way we work?
> And what has this to do with the OS model?? [...] Website
> design is a specialized field, and even an OS project would have to
> follow its norms.

... provided the designer knows about the preconditions mentioned above.

Some of these conditions show up later on - just because they have been 
forgotten or not taken as serious as they should, some develop in 
future. They have to become implemented too - and evolving a design 
without the primary team is harder.

> I have often heard about this "design" group, but- I have not seen
> its leadership for the website (providing vision, setting scope of
> work, planning). It failed to allocate resources to this project
> (e.g. graphic designer, copywriters). It has not given periodic
> creative feedback on the work done so far.

You don't understand "leadership" in the way we define it in this 
volunteer community. As long as the group is not large enough to do all 
the necessary work immediately (and I never experienced this during some 
years of work in the OOo community) it is necessary to find volunteers 
to work on specific topics - or to wait a bit longer...

What we call "leadership" is providing the "overall view", some insight 
in the basic ideas and necessities of the community. This is very 
important in a community with so many different activities and groups - 
and that's the point that didn't work well in this team in the past.
> Given that, they should not at least be a hindrance when we are
> struggling to manage on our own. To be fair, I have not seen any
> evidence that they would block us from doing any positive work.

"On our own" might be problematic - because the website team is one 
(important) aspect of the overall community. But in general you're 
right: You will not be blocked, if the work is considered as positive 
for the community.
> [...] I think the root cause is that some members lack knowledge of this
> field (website design). Then they try to make it up with common
> sense. This results in conflicts.
>
> When two disparate Communities of Practice come together, it is best
> to give space to the core specialists.

Agreed - if the specialists are in line with the common community goals.
> > Everyone wants the project to go forward - but often in different
> > directions!
> >
> > There comes a time when we have to choose one path and then all
> > contribute to it.
>
> That was my point: The current design is way off course - Both in
> process and contents. See this checklist and decide for yourself:
> http://www.abrook.com/website-design/website-planning-checklist/

Thanks for this link - If I remember correctly, most of these points 
have been mentioned during our discussions here, but haven't been 
presented in such a good structure.


> [...]SC should give us a lab space. Like Google labs, we should
> have an official idea-generation and prototyping area.

With Pumbaa [1] there is already a staging site.

But we shouldn't start to work on an independent structure - at the 
moment the present website needs work! We don't have superfluous 
resources to divide our activities on two sites...
> > [... Drupal staging site ...]
>
> In fact, why not NOW? The two phases can run concurrently. And we
> will also work on phase-1 unreservedly.

Just because we had this problem already in the past.

The SC decision not to support Drupal development during the next month 
has been based on the experience, that Drupal supporters worked on their 
site instead of the main LibreOffice site, they started a challenge 
between the two CMS and proposed Drupal solutions as the best way to 
handle several tasks in different teams while people having worked with 
other tools for some years didn't want to give up their tools.

This led to numerous mails and discussions - with the result of a 
negative work/discussion ratio.

To enable work again the SC decision to postpone Drupal development has 
been taken - and as Charles already stated: Please don't try to revert 
this decision before we have reached a final state of our website.

It would lead to even more discussion and less real work...

Best regards

Bernhard

[1]: http://pumbaa.documentfoundation.org:7780/

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