FreeLists / haiku-web / [haiku-web] Re: Trac (reevaluated)

["Jorge G. Mare (a.k.a. Koki)" <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 20:53 +0200, Charlie Clark wrote:
> On 2006-06-09 at 20:36:46 [+0200], "Jorge G. Mare (a.k.a. Koki)" 
> <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Hmmm... Has anyone asked for help? I know several people that would be
> > eager to collaborate in getting support for their languages (ie.,
> > Spanish, Russian, Japanese, etc.) in the HAIKU site, so why not reach
> > out?
> 
> The working language of Haiku's development team is English. The primary 
> aim of the website is to support that. Translation requires co-ordination 
> and there are no resources for that at the moment.

It is obvious that English is the working language, and I know that
resources are needed; resources are needed for everything you do. The
question is: has the project made any attempt to find such resources? If
on the Haiku Wiki (see The "How can I help?" at
http://haiku-os.org/wiki/index.php?title=FAQ) you are going to tell the
world "know a foreign language, you can translate documentation" (sic),
you might as well be prepared to coordinate the potential contributions.
Otherwise people who have the motivation to help but cannot find a way
to do so will just shun away from the project.

I looked around the Haiku site, including the forums and the wiki, but I
could not find information on how the web team is organized. Is there a
team leader? Who are the members and their roles? Is there contact
information or a prominent "Help Wanted" sign where potential
contributors can see? That is the least information that you need to
have if you want to solve your shortage of resources. It does not need
to be elaborate; simple and to the point. It does not matter what tools
you use to create the info or the medium (forum, blog, wiki, etc.).
What's important is the message you convey, and how much impact you have
on your potential audience (the people that would like to help, in this
case).

There is so much more you can do in a collaborative effort! Does it take
resources? Yes. Does it take coordination? Of course! But in a
volunteered-based project such as this, only when you give people a real
opportunity to contribute will they attain the sense of satisfaction
that helps maintain motivation levels that are so important to maintain
and grow the community around the project.

Sorry for the rant. Maybe I am missing something, but in spite of Haiku
being an open source project, I find it to be closed in the sense that
it does not seem to be organized to funnel the motivation of potential
contributors into tangible contributions.

If you really want to grow the community, I think that fixing that
aspect of the organization is much more important for its success than
which CMS packaged is better than which.

Am I the only one who thinks this way?

Koki


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