[documentation] Contributors to docs need more public recognition

Tue May 27 23:07:57 UTC 2008

You continue to put inaccurate conclusion to my words and I find this
annoying.  At no point did I say anonymous users were bad.  I find it
aggravating that several people have jumped to this conclusion and
attribute a hostility that isn't there.

My focus is on the active contributing Drupal user community.  I do
not view anonymous viewers of the website as members of my community.
I do not view them as the enemy either.  I am just not interested in
them.  Many people are and they are welcome to write documentation,
opinion pieces, work on install packages to ease those users
transition.  Of course, they need an account.

I have written most of the stuff I contributed to introduce many of
these new users to Drupal.  As a way to encourage them to join, help,
participate.

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 2:19 PM, Shai Gluskin <shai at content2zero.com> wrote:
> @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.

And that's an interesting interpretation.  I don't quite disagree with
it, but don't see it's relevance here nor agree with your conclusion.

> @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.

Define end user better.  However, have you read the study?  It was
eight users.  There are a lot of things people are saying to justify
their position based on that study (which I think is important) but it
cannot be a single reason for every proposed change.  It was eight
users in a very difficult task situation.  The people who put together
that study also learned a lot.  We need to evaluate and make measured
changes based on it, but it was a study on the usability and
configuration of Drupal.  Not Drupal.org.  Valuable information was
learned about Drupal.org at the time but I do not think adding
INFORMATION OVERLOAD will help new users.

New users are already already are at a disadvantage.  It's why the
Getting Started book is structured the way it is.  A guided
introduction to Drupal, the important aspects of the community and how
to install core.

Several times in this thread people mentioned 'no one can figure out
how to help' already but I have received no response to the fact that
it is the very first paragraph on the /handbooks page and how to make
that more visible.

> 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.

If you or anyone else continues to claim I said or think end users are
bad I will get really irritated.  I said I wasn't interested in people
who did not participate in our community.  I'm not.  I write
documentation that will help them.  I write it from the perspective of
a new user.  This should help them.

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

I think my reason is good.  You don't.

> 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.
>
If you are evaluating Drupal why would you not create an account?
Let's say you are a university professor trying to evaluate Drupal,
you see the create account button on the website and create an
account.......  unattributed scenarios are just that.

> 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.
>
One assumes ... trying to hide secrets?  Why on earth would you ever
assume that?  What a horrible way to live.  It also assume facts not
in evidence.  No user I have chatted with in real life or irc has ever
mentioned that they thought that some mysterious 'we' were trying to
hide secrets.  Also, why would you not create an account if you were
evaluating whether or not you were going to invest time in teaching
something?

> 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
>

The revision tab is not about 'secrets'.  It is about change in
content.  I find the initial base assumption that it's about secrets
some what horrifying to contemplate.  Drupal is not now nor has it
ever been a vast conspiracy to hide things.  It is a community.  I
don't see any evidence to suggest that enabling revisions further for
anonymous users would be a benefit.  There are other implications that
would need to be addressed as well as it is across all node types,
etc.

I strongly disagree with some of the foundations of your argument as
justification for change.

There were several other things on the initial list this thread
generated.  Let's look at those first and come back to this later
because at this point I am not going to change that one features
behavior based on this justification.

Steven

>
> 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/
>
>
> --
> Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
> List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
>