[documentation] Contributors to docs need more public recognition

Tue May 27 21:19:40 UTC 2008

@steve-p,

Why are "random outsiders" presumed to be bad? Random outsiders are future
adopters of Drupal.

Drupal does not exist for the sake of the Drupal community.

At Yahoo in 3/07 Dries said, "The purpose of Drupal is to put web developers
out-of-work." And he made reference to that statement in his Boston, 2008
talk. I think one could write a book on that statement. I think there may be
a bit of a wink-wink/nod-nod in that statement. I actually think he's saying
something like "our goal is to increase the impact of web developers on the
way people get and exchange information." I think he is trying to get people
to think about what they are doing in terms of affecting society and not
just building web sites. I think Dries is trying to point us to something
that is bigger than this community.

@steve-p: "I believe we should be accountable to the community which is each
other."

I believe Dries said something totally counter to that at Drupalcon, 2008.
It was in the part of the talk about the problems that were revealed at
University of Minnesota usability testing. He said that we are accountable
to the end user, and that we have failed.

There was nothing negative about the affect of his statement at all. This
communicates that Dries is not about spin. He wants to leverage the
excitement of the community (he's not worried that saying "we have failed"
will get anyone less excited) to challenge us to make Drupal better.

Part of the power of web 2.0 is that it presumes that people are not bad,
while at the same time developing code that creates secure sites in ways
that aren't blunt. Typical security works like this: punish everyone because
we know a few people are bad apples. Web 2.0 does not work that way.

Why hold back anything if there is not a good reason?

Let's say I am a university administrator trying to teach myself about what
is the best CMS to use for professor or department web sites. I'm looking *at
*the Drupal community, I'm evaluating it. I come to a node and see the
revisions tab. Wow, I think -- this community is transparent. This community
is willing to reveal its process. This is open source at its best.

Part of the stress of evaluating any product or group is that one assumes
that the group/product being evaluated will be trying to hide its secrets.
So when someone sees that the evolution of the d.o. handbook is open for all
to see, it communicates that this group is not about hiding its secrets. The
result is to lower the anxiety of the person doing the evaluation. It makes
it more appealing for someone to choose Drupal.

The "Revision Tab" to anon users would communicate a lot about Drupal's
desire to grow, welcome new blood, but most importantly, it would
communicate that the Drupal community does not have secrets it is trying to
hide.

Shai

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 4:22 PM, Steven Peck <sepeck at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's not a reward it's a tool.  I am not about 'increasing registered
> users'  I am about increasing contributors.
>
> One of the goals many people at Drupal.org is to garner more
> participation in the community.  This is not about being elitist
> thankyouverymuch.  This is not about with holding 'goodies'.  I am not
> really all that worried about 'transparency' to random non-involved
> people.  If they can't be bothered to be involved then they can make
> use of Drupal as they will and best of luck to them.  If they choose
> to get involved at the most basic of levels by having an account, then
> they reap the benefits of that information.
>
> I believe we should be accountable to the community which is each
> other, not random outsiders who can't be bothered to participate.  I
> am aware that some may not share this view but it has been mine for
> quite some time.  I am a true believer in our communities meritocracy.
>  I believe that it has served us well for quite some time.
>
> I will also point out that this is still a very open discussion and I
> am trying to catch up/filter through things to get to some solid ideas
> but unless Dries over rides me, the end decision will be mine to make.
>  I will also mention that I do not always move quickly.
>
> Do not mistake random user on the Internet with the Drupal community.
> In my mind the two are different and I care about the people who are
> involved in the community.
>
> Steven
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Shai Gluskin <shai at content2zero.com>
> wrote:
> > Steve P. wrote:
> >>
> >> This is not a performance question as far as I am concerned, this is a
> >> benefit of
> >> joining the community.
> >
> > @steve-p I disagree with this assertion. It suggests that one of the
> goals
> > of Drupal.org is to try to get people to join the community via
> registering
> > at the site. It suggests that drupal.org withholds goodies in order to
> get
> > them to register.
> >
> > There are many legitimate reasons to hold back various functionalities
> from
> > anonymous users (e.g. security, system resources etc.), but I don't
> believe
> > that restricting project transparency for the sake of increasing the
> number
> > of registered users at Drupal.org is a valid reason.
> >
> > I have been really impressed with transparency in the Drupal project. The
> > proceedings of the project are available for public review. I find that
> > inspiring. That kind of transparency is rare in the worlds of government,
> > business, and sadly, non-profits as well. Leaders are typically concerned
> > with message, spin, and control. I haven't seen much of that in Drupal.
> (I'm
> > user/50259, joined in 2/06 and have gotten steadily more involved over
> > time.)
> >
> > I often need to explain to people that open-source does not mean
> > "egalitarian" -- we are not all equal in the project. And Dries as
> project
> > leader has the final say on many things, especially as regards to core.
> It
> > isn't a democracy. But the success of the project does rely on highly
> > motivated people becoming involved. I believe that the significant
> > transparency of this project is one of the motivating factors for people
> to
> > become involved.
> >
> > The Revisions Tab is a small part of Drupal's transparency profile. But
> it
> > worries me, even in this little arena, to think of access to certain
> > information being used as a reward for registration. That feels
> controlling
> > to me. It feels counter to Drupal's open approach.
> >
> > Shai
> >
> > On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Steven Peck <sepeck at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> We are not enabling revisions for anonymous users.  This is not a
> >> performance question as far as I am concerned, this is a benefit of
> >> joining the community.
> >>
> >> On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 2:12 PM, catch <catch56 at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >> > On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 6:10 PM, Peter Wolanin
> >> >  wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Regarding making revisions available to anonymous users - you'd
> better
> >> >> talk to Gerhard and Narayan (and other infra people).  The
> scalability
> >> >> problem might be that you've essentially doubled the number of
> >> >> handbook pages that will be spidered.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > If we excluded *revisions* in robots.txt we could probably avoid the
> >> > spidering. That's probably one post subdomain-split anyway.
> >> >
> >> > http://drupal.org/handbook/updates was exactly the page I meant,
> >> > couldn't
> >> > place it when I typed the e-mail. Ta!
> >> >
> >> > Nat
> >> > --
> >> > Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
> >> > List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
> >> >
> >> --
> >> Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
> >> List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
> >
> >
> > --
> > Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
> > List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
> >
> --
> Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
> List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
>
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