[dokuwiki] Re: plugins, and their 'activity' / 'maintenance'

  • From: "Tobias Eigen" <tobiaseigen@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: dokuwiki@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 09:36:23 -0800

Hi Jay, Jason and everyone -

I'm glad this conversation is going on, and happened to start just as
I joined this list. :-)

> I'm beginning to get a little worried.

I also vote for some way of noting activity and development of plugins.
If there was a way to get a bug tracker for each plugin (maybe something
like Esther has for her plugins on her site, or some other specially
designed bug/feature tracker), that would be great too.  I found it very
confusing to try to parse through the plethora of comments at the bottom
of each plugin page, each comment possibly including snippets of code
and replies and replies to replies.

I'd like to add that I've had similar experiences with plugins, and
have to say I have most confidence in Esther's plugins simply because
her website is so well designed and appears to be very up to date.
Kudos to her for that!

The idea of an issue tracker is good. I would like to also suggest
that rather than creating a bunch of new infrastructure (custom web
database etc) that you instead follow the example of Joomla, which has
a very active forum at http://www.joomla.org where you can ask
questions and discuss common issues with plugins. I like having a
mailing list, esp for devs that need to be in more immediate contact,
but for users trying to follow issues and resolutions with specific
plugins and features, especially when you're jumping into a
conversation and are looking to solve problems that have already been
dealt with... a forum is simply amazing.

Joomla btw also has a review system which is tremendously confusing -
many developers of joomla plugins have asked to have their plugins
removed from the list because it turned into a huge mess of
complaints, confusing tech support queries, old comments about old
versions that had serious bugs that were resolved, etc. The forums are
good because they create a history, like the mailing list archives but
searchable etc, which clearly shows the level of activity and
questions/problem solving around certain issues.

Cheers,

Tobias

--
Tobias Eigen
Co-Executive Director

Kabissa - Space for Change in Africa
http://www.kabissa.org
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