I'd like to clarify a bit what I mean by "Facebook-ifying Drupal.org": with the Facebook API and their Apps, a large proportion of the "FB experience" is created by 3rd parties and simply available through facebook.com. If d.o were to enable people to create, contribute, load and run mini-modules that simply implement blocks for the user's d.o profile - THAT RIGHT THERE becomes the essence and "killer app" of the future of drupal support. To demonstrate some API or module feature - there's a mini-module-block with working logic. When someone has a support issue, they post a mini-module-block containing the paired down working logic of just their issue. When someone has an idea for a better rating/flagging/commenting system for d.o, they contribute a mini-module-block to d.o that implements it, where people can try it, learn from it, modify it themselves, and use it for their comments on d.o. Every API page has operating mini-module-blocks demonstrating how that API function works. 

Yes, not every support issue nor every API or module feature can be demonstrated in a mini-module-block, but a huge proportion of them can, and their availability will remove an exponential amount of the new-to-drupal support issues. 

I'm not thinking we'd get "MySpace"... I'm thinking we'd get "MySlashdotGeekbook" because the d.o community has broken it's learning into mini-digestible nuggets, enabling anyone curious about web development to play in our rich API sandbox, and we're all about making and showing each other how to make. 

Yes, some people's profiles will be an eyesore nightmare like the worst of MySpace - but that's good because that person made it that way, and they could, and they learned from doing so. 

I also think that if d.o were to do this, there's a possibility of the game developer community invading. Wanna have lot's of fun? Attract the game developer geeks to drupal. That's actually where I come from. (I was on both the 3DO and the PlayStation OS teams.) Drupal's already got everything necessary... and it's not like game developers like giving Facebook a huge chunk of their revenue. 

On Mar 19, 2011, at 9:55 PM, William Smith wrote:



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"

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."

As someone once said "everything matters", how we deal with "everything" will eventually determine the outcome of drupal and whether our community thrives.




On 3/19/2011 9:34 PM, Randy Fay wrote:
I agree that drupal.org becoming "facebook", where both real-time and support interactions would be welcome and managed well would be fantastic.

And we could do that with subsites that don't need such careful supervision.

Why couldn't we let members of the community launch subsites like support.drupal.org and make of them what they could? Or launch a chat site specifically for support that had far more sophisticated features than IRC?

IMO this is good thinking.

-Randy