[documentation] Contributors to docs need more public recognition

Tue May 27 22:38:04 UTC 2008

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.

Well there are two ways of looking at this tool (I'm referring to the
list of revisions). You can look at it as a tool to track changes to
the document. And/or you can look at it as a recruitment tool.

I argue, and I think Shai as well, that you might be overlooking to
turn the revision list into a recruitment tool for new contributors. I
know you are not an elitist so I'm sure you are all for others joining
the Drupal party.

So that's what I'm asking you to do...to think of the revisions list
as a recruitment tool and how a public display of who contributed will
attract others as well. I've stated my reasons why I think it will
attract more document contributors in the original post so I won't
rehash it here.

But I hope you'll take this into consideration.

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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