<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><DIV>On Feb 24, 2006, at 1:33 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Unfortunately, we are no longer able to make progress. The criticism from the most advanced users to build an interface that meets their needs over the needs of new users is too strong. <SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>New users don't understand what "users" means, they don't understand what "content" means.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>They have goals they want to accomplish and tasks they need to complete and those things are too obvious for the critics to tolerate because they know too much already.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>When I describe Drupal to people, I explain that there is a definite learning curve, but the biggest burden is on the people who do the initial setup, configuration, IA, theming, etc. I've always referred to the people who do this as Drupal implementors. This step can be difficult and confusing, but it's usually better handled by an experienced implementor. 2-8 hours of time from someone who is well-versed in Drupal configuration can get you a site that would have cost $20,000 5 years ago.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>When I've configured Drupal for people, I usually turn off all of the confusing stuff. I provide admin access to only the functions required by the site's owner to do what they need. Sometimes they can just add stories and edit existing pages. When they're more experienced, they get user administration or stats access. Sometimes they're still confused, but they're not nearly as overwhelmed as they would be if I just untarred it and gave them the keys.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I think that the best course of action is to identify these common functions and make them even easier, and possibly to group them somehow so we can have a site admin's view (as opposed to the current, implementor's view). I think there's already some work in this area.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The implementor's role may be phased out in favor of install profiles and hosted solutions. Maybe some of those implementors will write content, documentation, or become subject matter experts :). At that point, work done on making the basic functions easy and navigable will be even more valuable.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV> <DIV>Allie Micka</DIV><DIV>pajunas interactive, inc.</DIV><DIV><A href="http://www.pajunas.com">http://www.pajunas.com</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>scalable web hosting and open source strategies</DIV><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Courier New" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Courier New"></FONT></P> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>