[development] Drupal Answers: A Stackoverflow/StackExchange site proposal
Victor Kane
victorkane at gmail.com
Tue Feb 1 17:07:20 UTC 2011
On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 1:38 PM, larry at garfieldtech.com <
larry at garfieldtech.com> wrote:
> Uh, Victor, you are aware that Wikipedia has a "team" of editors who
> correct, prune, and curate content far more actively than anyone on
> Drupal.org, right?
>
>
Well, that is a relatively recent development, isn't it? Their initial
success at least was due to crowdsourcing, wasn't it? Can you prove they are
doing better as a result?
Victor
> And you are also aware that Drupal core has appointed "leads" who are
> extremely picky about what they allow in?
>
> And that PHP itself has about 1000 committers who don't have to talk to
> each other before committing, and the result is an utter trainwreck of
> inconsistency and people committing things in the middle of the night just
> to avoid the fact that everyone else already said no to an idea? (True
> story.)
>
> Just making sure about that...
>
> --Larry Garfield
>
>
> On 2/1/11 6:37 AM, Victor Kane wrote:
>
>> I won't be able to go to DrupalCon this year, so I'll give my feedback
>> here.
>>
>> One thing that's clear from the success of many open documentation sites
>> (wikipedia, stack overflow) is that they avoid top down governance, they
>> let the meritocracy form on the basis of what actually happens.
>>
>> I firmly believe that the existence of "document leads" and other forms
>> of control have done more harm than good, despite heroic efforts from
>> these individuals, since all that has happened over the last few years
>> is a constant moving around of a hierarchical structure.
>>
>> Why wouldn't a freer, wiki like approach work?
>>
>> Victor Kane
>> http://awebfactory.com.ar
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 8:37 PM, Randy Fay <randy at randyfay.com
>> <mailto:randy at randyfay.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I don't think we can delegate any part of Drupal to something we
>> don't control; I think that's just a non-starter.
>>
>> So for me, the issue is what we can learn from StackOverflow and
>> friends - they do great stuff and end up with great content. And
>> yes, I think we should build something on that.
>>
>> Who is signing up to build it? I think it's an easy sell.
>>
>> -Randy
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 4:25 PM, Dan Horning
>> <dan.horning at planetnoc.com <mailto:dan.horning at planetnoc.com>> wrote:
>>
>> i have to ask ... what would we actually gain by doing this -
>> cleanup the various methods for finding info about a given
>> module or theme or bug a little and we far surpass this
>> suggested tool
>>
>> it seems that stackoverflow is driven very highly on userpoints
>> to control access - which while a good thing - doesn't really
>> fit the development model we have here. there are existing
>> processes that would have to change to fit the suggested model.
>> I for one am more for peer reviews and leadership staff
>> assigning access than a points system that someone could rack up
>> points and just get access ... what's that really do for the
>> community - seems that would be great if we were just a tech
>> help forum - awarding points for the users that help and giving
>> them more access - but what's that do for drupal and it's
>> community? (i know there is a potential for this to help ...)
>>
>> another area of issue to me is - another login ? or would it use
>> SSO?
>> do the drupal leadership users and dries have admin level
>> control...?
>>
>> mostly here i just don't get what adding yet another resource
>> (like has been said before) would do to help the lead devs,
>> module + theme devs and just supporting drupal. if i had say -=-
>> i'd vote against this idea
>>
>> --
>> Dan Horning
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> > From: "Victor Kane" <victorkane at gmail.com
>> <mailto:victorkane at gmail.com>>
>> > To: development at drupal.org <mailto:development at drupal.org>
>> > Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 6:01:55 PM
>> > Subject: Re: [development] Drupal Answers: A
>> Stackoverflow/StackExchange site proposal
>> > I guess this is a good place to start:
>> > http://area51.stackexchange.com/faq
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 8:00 PM, Victor Kane <
>> victorkane at gmail.com <mailto:victorkane at gmail.com> >
>>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 6:57 PM, Josh Koenig <
>> josh at getpantheon.com <mailto:josh at getpantheon.com> >
>>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Stew,
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks for starting this thread. This is important stuff:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2978/drupal-answers
>> >
>> > I want to put my support behind this proposal and explain my
>> thinking
>> > in doing so.
>> >
>> >
>> > The Drupal community is already growing faster than Drupal's
>> > infrastructure can easily support. With the release of D7 and
>> all the
>> > other associated projects getting off the ground, drupal.org
>> <http://drupal.org> is
>>
>> > increasingly often a bottleneck or blocker. We have wonderful
>> hosts
>> > from OSUOSL, but the human resources needed to develop,
>> maintain and
>> > manage our own infrastructure (which is a 24x7x365 job) are
>> limited.
>> >
>> >
>> > We have to pick our battles. I much would rather see energy,
>> effort,
>> > attention and money poured into continuing to improve our git
>> and
>> > module infrastructure — which is much more deeply intrinsic
>> to the
>> > health and future of the project — and accept that even though
>> we
>> > *can* build our own StackOverflow (@eaton proved this
>> already) that
>> > doesn't necessarily mean it's the best use of limited
>> resources, or
>> > the best thing for the project.
>> >
>> >
>> > Drupal can theoretically/technically solve a lot of its own
>> problems,
>> > but I think we often suffer from a "not built here" prejudice
>> as a
>> > result. In the realm of getting good quality answers to Drupal
>> > questions out to the most people possible, I can't see how a
>> > StackExchange site would do anything but help. I would love
>> to see the
>> > community embrace something really cool and useful from the
>> wider
>> > Internet as a way to promote the project.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > You make a convincing argument Josh; my own gut feeling has
>> been,
>> > reading this thread, "how can we delegate something so
>> important to
>> > the Drupal Community as its own documentation to another
>> party who may
>> > or may not exist in the near/medium/long term".
>> >
>> >
>> > Can someone inform somewhat on who these guys are? And why
>> there and
>> > not someplace else?
>> >
>> >
>> > Victor
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Finally, I should say that I *do not* think a StackExchange
>> answers
>> > site replaces anything. It's not an issue queue, and it's not a
>> > replacement for the dialogue that exist in the forums. I
>> would say
>> > it's a new resource, something that can help the 10s of 1000s of
>> > people who will be trying to wrap their mind around Drupal in
>> the
>> > coming year.
>> >
>> >
>> > Cheers
>> > -josh
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Randy Fay
>> Drupal Module and Site Development
>> randy at randyfay.com <mailto:randy at randyfay.com>
>> +1 970.462.7450
>>
>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/attachments/20110201/c89914e9/attachment-0001.html
More information about the development
mailing list