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

[Michael Phipps <mphipps1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is very interesting stuff, at least to me. :-)

The website is one of the places where we really want to do better. The 
main issue is that it also needs to be self-maintainable. It isn't that 
we have chosen Railfrog and therefore we will wait for it. It is more 
"we haven't found a CMS that suits us, and Railfrog is the most 
promising". The only alternative is self-developed, which is far from 
ideal for many reasons.

Honestly, I don't think that there are a whole lot of people out there 
who are dedicated to contributing who are not doing so right now. 
Everyone who wants to can. Is it as easy as possible, well, maybe, maybe 
not. But it is far from impossible, depending, of course, on what you 
want to do. Trying the software and registering bugs isn't all that 
hard. Bugzilla could be easier, but it isn't some nightmare, either. 
Translating isn't impossible, just getting it onto our site, ATM, is.

Honestly, my experience is that the people who really want to pitch in 
do and those who want to make a good impression without a lot of work 
complain. I know that is harsh, but after 4 years of people telling me 
what they can't do because we don't have this or that set up, and when I 
bust my hump to set it up, they disappear, I have a pretty good idea of 
who will help and who won't, I think.

I agree that we need to communicate better. That is the major focus of 
any website and our current one was an order of magnitude better than 
the previous one and the new one will hopefully be another order better 
than this one. But I don't see a good way to get from where we are to 
where we want to go with any of the packages that I have played with so 
far. :-/ I wish it were otherwise - I honestly don't want to have this 
be a show stopper with us any more...



Jorge G. Mare (a.k.a. Koki) wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-06-11 at 17:44 +0200, Charlie Clark wrote:
> > On 2006-06-10 at 18:33:54 [+0200], "Jorge G. Mare (a.k.a. Koki)" 
> > <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > And since there is no "official voice",
> > > people ask the same question 100 times, and you have to repeat yourself
> > > as many times. This simply becomes unmanageable, not matter how much
> > > effort you put into it.
> > This is simply not true. All of Haiku is volunteer based and works 
> > according to the principle - if you want to get involved then pick up a 
> > task. This is the same for the web-team. A discussion started on the main 
> > list where it quickly became off-topic and it was moved off by those who 
> > were prepared to do something. Haven't seen many offers of help since then.
>
> Because it is volunteer-based, it does not mean that it cannot be
> organized for better efficiency, or that it cannot become more
> articulate in order to attract more talent, or that it cannot be better
> organized to capture potential contributions. As someone John Drinkwater
> nicely put it: "People *are* trying to help, we're just not making it
> easy for them." Your chronic lack of resources will likely not go away
> unless you do something about the "high learning curve" that Haiku
> currently has as a project.
>
> > > With specific regards to the website, also things considered, I am
> > > thinking that it may be better to go back to the drawing board and
> > > compromise on a temporary solution using a CMS package that can be
> > > implemented now.
> > Haiku isn't an organisation and communication among developers works pretty 
> > well. It's not that visible but that IMO is not a bad thing. The S:N on the 
> > main list often leaves a lot to be desired. Over the last four years we've 
> > seen some tremendous progress in Haiku from a very small group of committed 
> > developers.
>
> I am not questioning whether Haiku has made progress or not, nor am I
> underestimating the dedication of the small group of devs. If you are
> just happy to cater to this small group of established devs, then fine.
> But if after all these years everybody is still crying "we need more
> devs!", then it is obvious that the current principle is not working,
> and that something needs to be change.
>
> Because this is a software project, it does not mean that all you need
> are devs. There are many functions in a project that are better left to
> non-devs. People with various skill sets can do things in various areas
> better than engineers/programmers, and their contribution allows devs to
> focus on coding instead of having to take "side projects" that divert
> precious resources from their main competency. My question is: what are
> you going to find these people with special skill sets? It is a bit
> naive to think that they will just come knock your door, and low
> visibility will not help either.
>
> > I would like to think that BeGeistert has played a part in 
> > building relationships among developers.
>
> BeGeistert is great, and you can take all the credit. :-) However, I am
> not sure what it has to do with this discussion...
>
> Lastly, I do want to let it be clear that I make my observations because
> I would like to see Haiku succeed, and I do not mean to diminish anyway
> the effort being made by everyone so far.
>
> Koki
>
>
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