I dunno .. I've been around since about Drupal 4.6. Have some modules behind my back, but most of what I do, I do for clients and it ends there. I used to run support on the forums, but in the end, the forums just seemed dead. I haven't been on IRC for a long while, though I used to hang out there, both in #drupal and #drupal-support. My Drupal blog is all but dead, though I still read <a href="http://planet.drupal.org">planet.drupal.org</a> regularly (daily). I never got into the groove of the Groups thing. Not even sure where to look and it doesn't just 'come to me' the way that mailing lists do.<br>
<br>I'm on all the mailing lists, and I read - everything - even if I don't always reply. I try to hit support questions, as I can. I don't handle support on the forums anymore, as I find the forums relatively barren and uninteresting and just don't visit. I'd certainly hate for them to go away, although they certainly have changed shape and scope over the years. As has all of the communication venues.<br>
<br>Lists put something in my inbox. When I have the time, I read them. I like that. Topics that I might not have sought out just magically come to me. <br><br>The development list is *nothing* like it used to be. But it is still something. I'd hate for it to go away. How else am I expected to know what you a**holes are on about? ;)<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 11:26 PM, Charles Mattice <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:admin@authentic-empowerment.net">admin@authentic-empowerment.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
personally, if you move everything online such as a drupal
"facebook" it might help, then again it could blow up in drupals
face. Yeah, it would be great to have a place where we could go and
get relevant information.<br>
<br>
I started with drupal around ver 4.5 with the civicspace version, I
had looked at drupal earlier but at that time was a infant with
portals and php-nuke was the best thing out there for quickly
getting a site up. Nuke went through the same thing drupal is
experiening, rapid growth, developer burn out, the consumers, and
then the arrogance of what we at drupal call ""core developers"".
Got to say drupal's ""core developers"" are not nearly as bad and
this issue is nothing more than a growth spurt. <br>
<br>
In my early days people were more open, if you had a question it was
generally answered fairly quickly. It may not be what you wanted to
here but you were directed to a resource that did in fact have a
solution. Since then the whole drupal project, including contrib,
has skyrocketed. Instead of a few hundred modules there are a few
thousand. Yet at the same time the ratio of new developers to lets
say core developers for lack of a better phrase has not even come
close to matching that of the skyrocketing community.<br>
<br>
I would say one of the reason for this has to deal with the
response, or lack of response, to these lists. For instance, in
working on the 6.x to 7.x update functions, if I would post
something I could almost guarantee who would review it. Typically
sun or catch and maybe chx or damz, and yes I learned alot for
working with it and the comments I received. but there were other
times as well when I would post something and get totally shot out
of my seat as I was a bother and didn't know what the f*uck I was
talking about and didn't understand. Of course these responses
usually came from names I did not recognize but all in all is this
the reputation we want for drupal. A couple of times I came close to
saying screw it do it your self. <br>
<br>
Do I have any commits? NO!, Did I contribute? YES!, Was it worth
it? YES and why? I might have been able to contribute back to a
community that I have benefited from. Drupal is unique in that
anyone can be a ""core developer"", yes there is structure there has
to be and for any community to thrive it must be structured
accordingly. Success comes from the top down in business or in a
community the leaders down. Their impact on the success (or failure)
depends on their involvement and how they interact with people.<br>
<br>
Now getting back to a facebook drupal and possibly subsites. This
could be a good thing to distribute the load, but there still needs
to be this list and others so we, who have precious few minutes to
contribute may prefer to use. I believe at one time this was brought
up (civicspace days) and a bunch of drupal information sites started
to crop up, then came the tug of wars on who had the better
information and <a href="http://drupal.org" target="_blank">drupal.org</a> itself started to suffer with the newer
information lacking behind. hence whether official of not, it was
decided that it should be <a href="http://drupal.org" target="_blank">drupal.org</a> that was the main source for
information. I think this was right before Dries legally took
ownership of the drupal copyright.<br>
<br>
If drupal becomes another "Facebook", how soon will it be before the
same issues crop up, ie; can't find what your looking for , can't
get a decent support response, blah, blah, blah.... How soon will
"Drupal Facebook" become "Drupal MySpace"<br>
<br>
If subsites crop up to help with the load, whose going to be the
main repository, drupal or the subsite if that's where everyone
starts to go. Social networking is great for some, but I have seen
many sites come and go. In the end it all boils down to the
individual, what they want, how they learn, and whether they are
willing to give back to the community, even if its only to say "Hey
you might want to give drupal a shot."<br>
<br>
As someone once said "everything matters", how we deal with
"everything" will eventually determine the outcome of drupal and
whether our community thrives.<div class="im"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 3/19/2011 9:34 PM, Randy Fay wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">I agree that <a href="http://drupal.org" target="_blank">drupal.org</a> becoming "facebook",
where both real-time and support interactions would be welcome and
managed well would be fantastic.<br>
<br>
And we could do that with subsites that don't need such careful
supervision.<br>
<br>
Why couldn't we let members of the community launch subsites like
<a href="http://support.drupal.org" target="_blank">support.drupal.org</a>
and make of them what they could? Or launch a chat site
specifically for support that had far more sophisticated features
than IRC? <br>
<br>
IMO this is good thinking.<br>
<br>
-Randy<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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