Feedback - Social Networking Site

[Brad Baker]

Just looking for some feedback from those of you who are a member of this list and work closely with the community.

For perhaps at least a year, some of us have been trying to visualise how a more interactive/social style site might fit into our infrastructure. Louis and Sam in particular have been mulling over the technical details for a while together. I think in terms of seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, today, we finally saw how this might be made a reality. I'm excited.

So, the feedback I'm looking for is this: 

Would something like this be best integrated with community.joomla.org or rather be a separate user generated content site? Sam came up with people.joomla.org as an alternative separate location for something like this. I'm looking for arguments both ways. Content could be pulled onto community.joomla.org from this site in a module etc, but it would be clearly evident the separation between the user generated/Social site, and the more official community.joomla.org site. Or, we could just turn community.joomla.org into this more user generated socially interactive site, keeping the current parts we still want as well.

Any specific feedback on the comments above?

For now, please can we just make that the focus, rather than the myriad of other questions me putting an idea like this out there bring up.

Thanks.

-----

Brad Baker

Twitter @xyzulu
The Joomla Community: community.joomla.org

[Wendy Robinson]

I'd like to see them as two separate sites.

When I see what community.joomla.org has evolved into it really is more
of an 'official' news type of site. While community is discussed there
in blog posts and event announcements, there's really very little actual
community involvement aside from blog comments.

Hopefullly this new idea of a social style site will promote more
activity and involvement from members of the community. It should be a
venture started to do as such, and so to encourage folks there I think
it would be good have a clean slate, so to speak, with a brand new place
for people to go participate and essentially 'own'. I think that
putting on the community site could be confusing to people as to what
its purpose is.

Wendy

> Twitter @xyzulu <http://twitter.com/xyzulu>
> The Joomla Community: community.joomla.org
>
>

[Jen Kramer]

Brad,

I think you definitely want a separate site for social networking.
Some of the items under community.joomla.org could be moved over to
the social networking site (blog feeds, twitter stuff, RSS, etc.).
However, there is great benefit to the project to keep some official
communications channels. If you have a single site that covers social
networking and everything on the current community site, I think
information about Joomla events, user groups, and the magazine would
be buried. The community site should also be used to recruit more
people to help on the project. You maintain control over the message
and how it's delivered -- something you surely lose in a social
networking context.

Please be sure, however, to think through all of the ramifications of
having social networking on joomla.org. The initial problem that comes
to mind for me is how a newbie differentiates between the forum and
social networking. People are likely to ask for support in the social
networking area, not get it, and get frustrated.

Second, there are a ridiculous number of Joomla communications
channels now, both official and unofficial, some for social networking
and some for official communications. We have a big Twitter community,
Facebook fan page, many Google groups, the Joomla forums, IRC, Skype,
and probably more I'm not aware of. While it's clear to those heavily
involved with Joomla which channels serve which purpose, I'm not sure
it's clear to the vast majority of the Joomla community. I would like
to see Joomla think about social networking in light of so many
channels and come up with a better strategy for managing those, rather
than opening another channel.

Third, we have a showcase site on Joomla and a resources site. Are
those standing alone, or do they combine with the social networking?
Joomla.org is starting to feel large and cumbersome, and it's feeling
like it's hard to find things as it is. Do we have big personal
profiles on people.joomla.org, i.e. here's Jen, her bio and photo,
sites she's launched, company profile, links to extensions she's
written, her Joomla user group, events she's planning, what kind of
sponsor she is, what teams she serves on within Joomla, how she's
contributing to the project now, RSS feed to her blog, etc? Do we
combine those profiles with the forums? Some of this information
becomes redundant within the site now, and it's certainly
disconnected. I don't have a problem with my company profile in the
Resources directory being disconnected from my profile in the forums,
but why can't my company profile be connected to my showcase sites?

And finally, although I think you were specifically alluding to this
when you asked to focus on your initial question, you need to consider
ATAAW. I know you say you've been working on this for at least a year,
and that is longer than ATAAW has been around. However, most people
aren't going to know that. If you roll out social networking features
on Joomla, this looks like Joomla is trying to steamroll what ATAAW
has created. The core team needs to think very carefully about the
politics behind this.

Rolling out social networking as part of Joomla.org needs a lot of
thought on the strategic end as well as on the technical end. Please
don't just throw out new functionality without a solid strategic plan
of how it fits in to the rest of Joomla's site.

Jen

[Jen Kramer]

---

From: joomla-wg...@googlegroups.com [mailto:joomla-wg...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Brad Baker
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 12:47 AM
To: Joomla! Community Working Group Leadership
Subject: Feedback - Social Networking Site

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Joomla! Community Working Group Leadership" group.
To post to this group, send email to joomla-wg...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to joomla-wg-commu...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-wg-community?hl=en.

[Paul Orwig]

Brad,

 

Thanks to you and others for coming up with this idea and advancing it, and now asking for our feedback. 

 

I think Wendy and Jen have made some great points. A few months ago you raised the question about an overall joomla.org redesign. I think some of the points raised by Wendy and Jen in relation to your question about the social networking site reinforce the value of an overall redesign effort which could start with a clean slate and reorganize take a fresh look at what content goes where given in the current state of the project.

 

If that overall redesign idea is not still under consideration, I think that we could make it work by either:

 

1. Create a separate top level site for the social networking site. Hhow about connect.joomla.org instead of people.joomla.org? I know that we've got JoomlaConnect now but I think "Connect" might be a better label for the social networking site than "People" and we could come up with another label for the current JoomlaConnect (how about JoomlaFeeds or JoomlaNews?).

 

2. Redefine the Community site, and make it a true portal for other destinations such as the social networking site, blogs, the magazine, the Forums, JUG/Events, more ways to get people involved, and Resources. Then I think some of the other things that have currently landed on the Community site could get moved to other sites. For example in the current structure: JoomlaConnect -> Home, Translations -> Download, Featured Articles -> Home, Site Showcase -> Home (or maybe it stays within the "Community as a true portal" concept).

 

Thanks,

 

paul

[Brad Baker]

I've heard some other people in private suggest that we have enough
sites to manage and update, hence fitting this into
community.joomla.org would make sense for that reason.
There is even the option of like the magazine, having it in a
subfolder/subdomain of community.joomla.org dunno..
people.community.joomla.org ?

There are other important issues to discuss, some of which Jen raises.
Happy to get to them.. in time.

Thanks.

On Feb 24, 7:11 am, Paul Orwig <paul.or...@community.joomla.org>
wrote:

> >  ------------------------------
> >  *From:* joomla-wg...@googlegroups.com [mailto:
> > joomla-wg...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Brad Baker
> > *Sent:* Tuesday, February 23, 2010 12:47 AM
> > *To:* Joomla! Community Working Group Leadership
> > *Subject:* Feedback - Social Networking Site

>
> >   Just looking for some feedback from those of you who are a member of
> > this list and work closely with the community.
>
> > For perhaps at least a year, some of us have been trying to visualise how a
> > more interactive/social style site might fit into our infrastructure. Louis
> > and Sam in particular have been mulling over the technical details for a
> > while together. I think in terms of seeing some light at the end of the
> > tunnel, today, we finally saw how this might be made a reality. I'm excited.
>
> > So, the feedback I'm looking for is this:
> > Would something like this be best integrated with community.joomla.org or
> > rather be a separate user generated content site? Sam came up with
> > people.joomla.org as an alternative separate location for something like
> > this. I'm looking for arguments both ways. Content could be pulled onto
> > community.joomla.org from this site in a module etc, but it would be
> > clearly evident the separation between the user generated/Social site, and
> > the more official community.joomla.org site. Or, we could just turn
> > community.joomla.org into this more user generated socially interactive
> > site, keeping the current parts we still want as well.
>
> > Any specific feedback on the comments above?
>
> > For now, please can we just make that the focus, rather than the myriad of
> > other questions me putting an idea like this out there bring up.
> > Thanks.
>
> >  -----
> > Brad Baker

> > Twitter @xyzulu <http://twitter.com/xyzulu>

> > The Joomla Community: community.joomla.org
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "Joomla! Community Working Group Leadership" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to joomla-wg...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> > joomla-wg-commu...@googlegroups.com<joomla-wg-community%2Bunsu bsc...@googlegroups.com>

> > .
> > For more options, visit this group at
> >http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-wg-community?hl=en.
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "Joomla! Community Working Group Leadership" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to joomla-wg...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> > joomla-wg-commu...@googlegroups.com<joomla-wg-community%2Bunsu bsc...@googlegroups.com>

[Pierre Gazzola]

Hello Brad !

In my opinion and from user feed back in pm on irc community is
already over crowded and starting to be hard to navigate.

Your point it would be hard to maintain a new site is not that logic
if we need more people to maintain it we just need to call for it

I am sure there many that would be happy to help maintain the site.

Maybe someone as the stats on the community to show which section are
the most to the least use.

From what I know or remember ( bad memory some days) magazine will be
there and also security if this idea still be implemented with the new
joomla.org look.

The danger of a community are as big if not more than forum. If the
community will be open to all member controlling it will be a
nightmare moderating it only will fuels other web site of the strong
harm joomla as taken against them.

The concept is great the implementation will be a hard.

[Brad Baker]

So Pierre, you saying you'd prefer it on a separate site?

We know people will be upset if we don't do it, and if we do it. So,
all we can do is our best, and time will tell if it was good for
Joomla or not.
It's off topic, but I am fully aware of the struggles to implement
this, however, as I posted originally, I think we've come up with a
possible solution to minimise the overheads in management of a site of
this kind.

Anyway.. more on that when we're a little further down this road.

[Pierre Gazzola]

Hello!

Yes a separate site would make it less confusing for new users as we
deal with users less than a year with joomla and they already having
problem navigating the site (or even securing there own site) A
separate entity would work better for all.

And for the challenge that would be the good part of this project :) I
am sure we can work to keep it great.

On the own site also it would give developer and end users a place to
showcase there products ,also be a great place for the group to
recruit new members to help with joomla project.

Looking forward to see it in action and open to help if you need me.

On Feb 23, 1:59 pm, Brad Baker <brad.ba...@community.joomla.org>
wrote:

[elin]

I was thinking ... we have the developer site for the production
working group, we could really use the community site for the
community working group and related items. So we can have things like
how to do a Joomla! Day and blogging about the J! Days like we do now,
How to set up a JUG and I would love to see that whole area of the
site reorganized and more JUG postings, meeting reports, etc. Posting
by the JED, JRD, Showcase and forum teams, and so on. Kind of a mix of
information and project oriented blogs.

(We might also want to think about whether just calling the forums
Forums is descriptive enough. Do new users know from that name that is
the place to go for support?)

Definitely, in general, we need to improve information about how to
find things on our sites and the purpose of each site. So having a
clear purpose for each site might be a place to start :). But more
important a module on the home pages of at least j.org and community
that gives some guidance would be useful. Go to forums for help, go to
community to contribute, go to connect (I like that) to connect with
other people. One of my big issues has been creating affinity/
interest groups (such as Joomla! in education) and how to implement
that and this site would be a good place to house that.

With a huge project like Joomla! with so many different groups of
people with such diverse communication habits, I think it's inevitable
that there will be lots and lots of places to talk Joomla!. I don't
see a problem with that.

Elin

[JM Simonet]

I am in favour of a separate site (easier to maintain and deal with concerning any possible issue) with an url like people.community.joomla.org to show it is part of community and BIG icon to redirect from community.org.

As it is now, community.org is hard to navigate and find stuff and I would welcome a simplification of the navigation there.

My 2 cents.

JM

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Joomla! Community Working Group Leadership" group.
To post to this group, send email to joomla-wg...@googlegroups.com.

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to joomla-wg-commu...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-wg-community?hl=en.

-- 

Please keep the Subject wording in your answers

This e-mail and any attachments may be confidential. You must not disclose or use the information contained in this e-mail if you are not the
intended recipient. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify us immediately and delete the e-mail and all copies.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Jean-Marie Simonet  /  infograf768

Joomla! Translation Coordination Team 

[Brad Baker]

Ok, we're kind of split down the middle on this from what I can see.
Unless someone has some new ideas, looks like we'll just need to make
a call on this and hopefully move forward.

I'm still excited.. stay tuned.

On Feb 24, 6:35 pm, JM Simonet <infograf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am in favour of a separate site (easier to maintain and deal with
> concerning any possible issue) with an url like
> people.community.joomla.org to show it is part of community and BIG
> icon to redirect from community.org.
>
> As it is now, community.org is hard to navigate and find stuff and I
> would welcome a simplification of the navigation there.
>
> My 2 cents.
>
> JM
>
>
>
>
>
> >Just looking for some feedback from those of you who are a member of
> >this list and work closely with the community.
>
> >For perhaps at least a year, some of us have been trying to
> >visualise how a more interactive/social style site might fit into
> >our infrastructure. Louis and Sam in particular have been mulling
> >over the technical details for a while together. I think in terms of
> >seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, today, we finally saw
> >how this might be made a reality. I'm excited.
>
> >So, the feedback I'm looking for is this:
> >Would something like this be best integrated with

> ><http://community.joomla.org>community.joomla.org or rather be a

> >separate user generated content site? Sam came up with

> ><http://people.joomla.org>people.joomla.org as an alternative

> >separate location for something like this. I'm looking for arguments
> >both ways. Content could be pulled onto

> ><http://community.joomla.org>community.joomla.org from this site in

> >a module etc, but it would be clearly evident the separation between
> >the user generated/Social site, and the more official

> ><http://community.joomla.org>community.joomla.org site. Or, we could
> >just turn <http://community.joomla.org>community.joomla.org into

> >this more user generated socially interactive site, keeping the
> >current parts we still want as well.
>
> >Any specific feedback on the comments above?
>
> >For now, please can we just make that the focus, rather than the
> >myriad of other questions me putting an idea like this out there
> >bring up.
> >Thanks.
>
> >-----
> >Brad Baker

> >Twitter @<http://twitter.com/xyzulu>xyzulu
> >The Joomla Community: <http://community.joomla.org>community.joomla.org

[Brad Baker]

So.. if we were to choose: people.joomla.org

.. is there anyone with MAJOR objections to that?

Here's my reasoning.. community.joomla.org is about the community,
it's a narrative, and while everyone can comment, not all things
belong in a stream IMHO on community.joomla.org. A Joomla Community
Magazine certainly belongs as part of community.joomla.org as well.

To me, people.joomla.org is live, about the people.. what is happening
right now, and may not actually be for the entire community, it could
be about business, specific, focused discussions and include whoever
wanted to be included at any given point in time.

I know we can swing this either way.. but.. speak now.

On Feb 28, 2:08 pm, Brad Baker <brad.ba...@community.joomla.org>
wrote:

[Pierre Gazzola]

+1 people.joomla.org

Have a great day Brad

On Feb 28, 10:13 pm, Brad Baker <brad.ba...@community.joomla.org>

[elin]

Fine by me.

Elin

[Jennifer Marriott]

Sounds good to me.

Jenny

On Feb 28, 11:13 pm, Brad Baker <brad.ba...@community.joomla.org>

[Claire Mandville]

I have no major or minor exceptions.
so positive vote from me.

CM

On Mar 1, 5:47 pm, Jennifer Marriott <marpomultime...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Ken Crowder]

Sorry that I am late to the party. I think it is a great idea and an excellent subdomain choice. :)

Kenneth Crowder (aka ChiefGoFor)
Joomla Leadership Team

[Brad Baker]

Well.. in internal testing everything went extremely well.

It's obvious that this idea needs to be integrated with a re-work of
the UI and websites design, but more news on that shortly. I think
Wendy is looking after that, and just waiting on someone else's
approval to share more.

Good stuff everyone!

On Mar 3, 3:49 pm, Ken Crowder <ken.crow...@joomla.org> wrote:
> Sorry that I am late to the party. I think it is a great idea and an
> excellent subdomain choice. :)
>

> > > > > > >joomla-wg-commu...@googlegroups.com<joomla-wg-community%2Buns ubsc...@googlegroups.com>

> > .
> > > > > > >For more options, visit this group at
> > > > > > >http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-wg-community?hl=en.
>
> > > > > > -->Please keep the Subject wording in your answers
>
> > > > > > This e-mail and any attachments may be confidential. You must not
> > > > > > disclose or use the information contained in this e-mail if you are
> > > > > > not the
> > > > > > intended recipient. If you have received this e-mail in error,
> > please
> > > > > > notify us immediately and delete the e-mail and all copies.
> > > > > > -----------------------------------------------------------
> > > > > > Jean-Marie Simonet  /  infograf768
> > > > > > Joomla! Translation Coordination Team
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "Joomla! Community Working Group Leadership" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to joomla-wg...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> > joomla-wg-commu...@googlegroups.com<joomla-wg-community%2Bunsu bsc...@googlegroups.com>

[Brad Baker]

Let the public phase of this process now begin:
http://community.joomla.org/blogs/community/1160-joomla-social-site-rfc.html

On Mar 24, 11:19 am, Brad Baker <brad.ba...@community.joomla.org>
wrote:

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to joomla-wg-commu...@googlegroups.com.