[drupal-docs] New book about Drupal?

[Laura Scott]

Count me in as one more person who sees a cultural revolution happening, 
in which Drupal is playing a part. And I think it would be a shame to 
not look at the possibilities.

But like Jon who just replied as I was writing this, I think "Web 2.0" 
and "Blogging 2.0" are nonsensical -- the former especially, which seems 
more of a marketing strategy by big corps to sell their platforms. To 
me, it's rather ridiculous to try to attach release numbers to the 
continuous evolution of interactivity. And to add a number simply to 
say, "This isn't the web of the '90s," I think is an error. I know a lot 
of web pundits and developers have adopted the terms, but in the end it 
doesn't capture the kaizen of web evolution, and impiies that there 
actually is some sort of stable worldwide web in equilibrium, unchanging 
(and therefore safe to invest in).

/rant

That said, I wonder if the cultural present and the anticipated future 
of interactivity aren't a bit too big for a book ostensibly about Drupal.

On the other hand, to make the book purely for developers I think misses 
the boat. There are aspects of administration that could and shoud be 
included. A discussion of creating and customizing phpTemplate themes I 
think could be one rather large chapter, at least. And then there are 
ways to use Drupal in applications -- as a blog, as a photoblog, as a 
business site, as a community site, as a campaign site, as a software 
distribution site, as a music store, and so on -- all with existing 
real-world examples.

I also would like to submit the idea that -- assuming this is intended 
as a book printed on paper -- that the text then get posted as a wiki, 
so that it can become a living document as new releases come out, new 
hacks are invented, new modules are developed, new interactivity 
patterns of use create new demands on the software, etc.

There seem to be plenty of volunteers. Please add me to the list of 
potential contributors. I could write or co-write on themes, and 
applications of Drupal to various uses.

Laura
pingVision <http://pingv.com>

Liza Sabater wrote:

> On Aug 09 2005, at 05:58, Jeremy Epstein wrote:
>
>> a) be focused towards developers - they're much more likely to be
>> interested in reading it than layman end-users;
>
>
> Completely disagree.
>
> Let me finish writing my notes about the BlogHer conference. If 
> anything BlogHer shows there a lot of smart and sophisticated bloggers 
> out there HUNGRY for technology like Drupal but they don't know it 
> even exists. I am actually saddened that nobody from the community 
> came to BlogHer to talk about Drupal or CivicSpace because, especially 
> in my panel, the product would have been perfect as a topic of 
> discussion.
>
> One more thing : The two most successful blogging companies were 
> co-founded by women. And these women focused on usability and 
> flexibility. Blogger was bought by Google. SixApart is right now the 
> biggest blogging company out there, with the capacity to have gobbled 
> up LiveJournal and spawn poliglot versions of TypePad.
>
> They are great tools for people coming into blogging but people like 
> Dooce [ www.dooce.com ], for example, need Drupal to manage the 
> communities that have evolved around them. She represents a whole 
> group of bloggers "graduating" into blogging 2.0.
>
> Heather told us during my panel that she closed comments and 
> trackbacks because of the trolls and spam attacks she was having. She 
> just could not manage the more than 500 comments a day coming at her. 
> But she has a posse of devoted readers that could have managed trolls 
> and kept house for her at Dooce.com if she had a tool like Drupal. And 
> if she cranked it up a notch with the tools of CivicSpace, she could 
> have "Dooced" maps of people connecting, networking. And this, just 
> for what a lot of you would derisively call a "mommyblog" -- my 
> thoughts about that are here 
> http://www.culturekitchen.com/archives/003210.html
>
> If you think Drupal is just for developers you have no understanding 
> of the cultural revolution that blogging has wrought. That revolution 
> was a metaphor in net art 10 years ago. What we are seeing here in 
> conferences like BlogHer and online in places like DailyKos, is a 
> cultural phenomenon agenced by the technology and changing how we are 
> living and forming communities online and off.
>
> My challenge to you as a developer is to take a step back and think of 
> yourself as the guy chipping flints off a rock in the cave. Think of 
> what that did to the development of humanity. You're the flint 
> chipper, blogs the spearhead. Look how easy and transparent the 
> development of that technology was. That's blogging 1.0. The question 
> now is what does blogging 2.0 look lik. That's what Drupal is poised 
> to be.
>
> Making the book just for developers would be like sticking that spear 
> in your own foot just because you can. Do you really want to hurt 
> yourself and limp around while others are running away with this 
> cultural revolution?
>
> Best,
> Liza Sabater
>
> AIM - cultkitdiva
> SKYPE - lizasabater

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://drupal3.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/attachments/20050809/ddfd5465/attachment.htm