[development] New Module Ideas and Announcements

[John]

Hi all,

When a developer has an idea for a module, they are often not the  
only one with that idea. Currently, new modules are mostly invisible  
until they show up as a project. And IDEAS for new modules are / 
completely/ invisible unless they are discussed in the ephemeral IRC.  
As I'm sure you all know, this leads to code dupe.

If we had a central location for announcing modules, we could:
  * Reduce module duplication. We can prevent two independent  
developers from writing separate, duplicate modules.
  * Increase developer collaboration. We can get interested  
developers working together at an early stage of development.
  * Improve module quality. Others can shape and improve the ideas,  
leading to a better module from the beginning (or, at the least, a  
better road map for future development.)

Rather than cluttering up the drupal-devel list with module  
announcements, I created a Drupal Group: http://groups.drupal.org/ 
contributed-module-ideas (the name was chosen to be in-line with the  
contributed-module-status group.)

If we can get enough buy-in to this idea, I think it would be a good  
idea to add a note to the "Maintaining a project on drupal.org" page  
( http://drupal.org/node/7765 ) that modules should be announced on  
the Contributed Module Ideas group, in addition to requesting a CVS  
account. This might also help out CVS Administrators if more eyeballs  
were reviewing the modules associated with new CVS account requests.

What does everyone think? If you have a specific criticisms or  
enhancements, reply to the list. If you simply have "+1" comment, why  
not just subscribe to the group?

  - John

John Wilkins | Albin.Net | nickname: JohnAlbin