Shall we create a new "Prototype Scriptaculous Users" group?

[T.J. Crowder]

Hi folks,

What say we create a new group to replace this one, perhaps called
"Prototype Scriptaculous Users"? I have four reasons for suggesting
this:

1. Prototype and Scriptaculous have grown far beyond their Ruby-on-
Rails spinoff status, and I'll even venture to say (speaking off the
top of my head, based on no data or research whatsoever) that most
users of Prototype and Scriptaculous don't use Ruby or Rails.

2. People keep posting Ruby questions to the group; hopefully taking
"ruby" out of the name will minimize that.

3. People searching for Prototype help will probably be more likely to
find the group (although I don't think it's currently a massive
problem; I was pretty unusure when I first found it, though).

4. We can turn on new member post moderation and stop the spam; we can
limit page posting to managers only (being fairly liberal with who we
add as managers).

Regarding #4: Moderating posts from new members is a PITA, but I
think there are enough of us who are active enough -- kangax, Fred P.,
JDD, Christophe, RobG, Walter D., and lately myself -- that if we make
all of us managers, new messages will get approved pretty quickly.

Just to reserve the name (don't ask me why), I've created the group
but completely locked it down until/unless we decide to use it. If
so, I'll open it up and add people as managers, and if someone more
appropriate would like to take ownership of the group, I'll happily
set them up.

Thoughts?
--
T.J. Crowder
tj / crowder software / com

[Anders Bjarby]

I agree, we really should create this new group. Brilliant.

/Anders

[T.J. Crowder]

(Thanks Anders!)

> Moderating posts from new members is a PITA, but...

Actually, exploring the features of Google Groups a bit, if it turns
out that moderating messages from new users is too much of a pain,
Groups has a feature where managers can delete messages (e.g. spam)
after the fact (and ban users). Doesn't help the people who subscribe
via email, but...

-- T.J.

[Frederick Polgardy]

It is a good idea.  I wasn't sure I was in the right place at first.  Had to go back to the prototypejs.org site and make sure I didn't somehow click the wrong link. ;-)

-Fred

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 4:51 AM, T.J. Crowder <tjcr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi folks,

What say we create a new group to replace this one, perhaps called
"Prototype Scriptaculous Users"?  I have four reasons for suggesting
this:

--
Science answers questions; philosophy questions answers.

[jdalton]

I think moving the group lists (user and core) is a good idea.
The bug tracking and versioning have already been moved.

- JDD

[kangax]

Sounds good : )
I'm not sure about moving "core" though - it's fine as it is, but
"RoR: Spinoffs" does indeed sound confusing.

- kangax

[jdalton]

Ahh right kangax,
I didn't notice the core was already separate :)

- JDD

[T.J. Crowder]

Well, it sounds like this idea has legs, although we should wait for
comments for a couple more days so the only-on-weekdays folks get a
chance to weigh in.

Assuming we do it, though, here are the settings I recommend:

Who can view?
( ) Only members can view group content
(*) Anybody can view group content
Directory listing
(*) List this group in the Google Groups Directory
( ) Do not list this group
Who can view members?
( ) Only members can view group members list
(*) Only managers can view group members list
Who can join?
(*) Anyone can join
( ) People have to be invited
( ) People can request an invitation to join
Who can create and edit pages?
( ) Managers only
(*) Members only
Who can upload files?
( ) Managers only
(*) Members only
Who can post messages?
( ) Managers only
(*) Members only
( ) Anyone can post
Who can invite new members?
( ) Managers only
(*) Managers and members
Message moderation
( ) All messages are held for moderation
(*) No moderation - messages are delivered directly
[x] Messages from new members are moderated

Originally I was thinking only managers should be able to edit pages
and upload files, but why limit it unless there's a problem, a manager
can always ditch an inappropriate page. (We can't be incredibly
liberal with "manager" status as I'd originally hoped because managers
can remove messages. So figure 5-10 of us will need to volunteer to
be managers and do the new user comment approvals.)

[Walter Lee Davis]

This all sounds great to me. Every time I get SpamSieve trained to
the point that the spam gets eaten, I start losing parts of
legitimate threads. BTW, I'm a mail-only subscriber, not sure that I
would be much help in moderating members if it means you have to stay
on the Web. I've never done that in a Google Group before, so I don't
know how it works in practice.

Walter

[Ryan Gahl]

FYI TJ - I know I have become somewhat of a lurker here, but I read the list every day and respond when I can... I would have no problems keeping up with manager type stuff (moderating, etc...) even though I may not be the most outspoken person on the list.

You can put me down as a volunteer if you want - just let me know.

--
Ryan Gahl
Manager, Senior Software Engineer
Nth Penguin, LLC
http://www.nthpenguin.com
--
WebWidgetry.com / MashupStudio.com
Future Home of the World's First Complete Web Platform
--
Inquire: 1-920-574-2218
Blog: http://www.someElement.com
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ryangahl

[T.J. Crowder]

@Ryan: Great, thanks!

@Walter: You could still read the group via email, but I think to
moderate you'd have to briefly drop by the management interface on the
web. Probably a two-minute task any given day, so if enough of us do
it... (And I could be wrong, there may be a way to do it via email as
well; I've never moderated a Google Group before.)

-- T.J. :-)

[kangax]

TJ,
These seem reasonable.
I'm sure we can simply go with same settings as there are now. Better
name and moderation will be a winner.

- kangax

[Jarkko Laine]

On 16.6.2008, at 1.00, kangax wrote:

>
> TJ,
> These seem reasonable.
> I'm sure we can simply go with same settings as there are now. Better
> name and moderation will be a winner.

One weird thing I've noticed with the "Messages from new members are
moderated" flag is that when a moderator accepts the first message of
a new member, the member is not automatically accepted as an "old
member", and her further messages will be flagged as waiting for
approval as well. A moderator must explicitly go to the members list,
find the new member, and mark her as not new in order to get things
right. This is not a huge deal, just a gotcha and against how I'd
think new member moderation should work. It seems like it's made more
for moderating new members that post stupid questions than for
moderating new members that are spammers.

Cheers,
//jarkko

> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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> To post to this group, send email to rubyonrail...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-spin...@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-spinoffs?hl=en
> -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
>

--
Jarkko Laine
http://jlaine.net
http://dotherightthing.com
http://www.railsecommerce.com
http://odesign.fi

[T.J. Crowder]

Thanks for the head's up.

> This is not a huge deal, just a gotcha and against how I'd
> think new member moderation should work.

Yeah. I mean, I can see approving the first message but not disabling
future moderation, but I'd expect it to be something I could do right
there, e.g.:

< Approve > [x] Stop moderating this user
< Decline > [ ] Ban this user

Well, we'll see how it goes; they do improve things over time.

[glenn.g...@gmail.com]

TJ,

If you are in need of others to do simple message moderation (meaning,
answering the question: "Is this a legitimate question/response about
Prototype and/or Scriptaculous?") I would be happy to help out.

Oh, and I am a long, long time lurker. I basically scan the daily
digest, but helping out in this manner might get me learning more/
helping more.

Thanks,
Glenn

[blechler]

I highly endorse this event or product.

[Chris Chabot]

has my +1 vote

[few1938]

I'm a newbie and would like to see a seperat group for PS. I have an
outstanding question that I would re-post in hopes of an answer by
someone that is a PS guru.
Frank

[Ryan Gahl]

I haven't seen a single nay... but also haven't seen the core team (Tobie and gang) give their thoughts about this... Would this move be supported from a core level (i.e. get the "official" stamp and be put on the protototypejs.org site)? Tobie, Christophe... guys?

@TJ: Did you give out the URL yet to the group page?

On 6/16/08, Chris Chabot <cha...@xs4all.nl> wrote:

has my +1 vote

...

[Christophe Porteneuve]

Ryan Gahl a écrit :

> I haven't seen a single nay... but also haven't seen the core team
> (Tobie and gang) give their thoughts about this... Would this move be
> supported from a core level (i.e. get the "official" stamp and be put on

> the protototypejs.org <http://protototypejs.org/> site)? Tobie,
> Christophe... guys?

I wonder this myself. I haven't had an opportunity to get in touch with
Core lately, but know alread that:

a) Kangax is just about Core (he contributes a lot and hangs out in
Core's CF room these days…)

b) I am Core, and I approve.

c) The only major issue I see with that is that this group's address is
ref'd everywhere as the official support ML for Proto/Scripty. It's
going to take some time for the links to migrate, so we would need to go
the extra mile in directing existing and new users alike to the new
group when officially retiring this one.

d) A lesser issue is that we're going to lose the archives, aren't we?
I mean, we can't port them over to the new group, right? So when people
search the group for past replies, they'll lose on the whole
RoR-Spinoffs history and we'll get even more "this has been answered in
excruciating detail a gazillion times" questions…

e) The major wanko issue I see with that is that I'm going to lose my
all-time message record [1] ;-) Ah well, couldn't last forever!

I'll try and grab Core in CF to ask about this.

[1] http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-spinoffs/about

--
Christophe Porteneuve aka TDD
t...@tddsworld.com

[T.J. Crowder]

Hi Christophe,

Thanks for weighing in!

> c) The only major issue I see with that is that this group's address is

> ref'd everywhere as the official support ML for Proto/Scripty...

This would certainly be a short-term pain, but once we get the links
updated (and we wouldn't want to move over until we did) we should be
okay before too long.

> d) A lesser issue is that we're going to lose the archives, aren't we?

We would. :-( Unless: Is anyone who's currently a 'manager' or
'owner' of this group still involved or contactable? Because rather
than creating a new one, we can just rename this group and change the
settings, but we need someone with manager status to do that. The
downside is that as far as I know, there isn't any redirect or
anything, the old address just becomes invalid fairly abruptly. The
upside is that we keep the archive -- and your all time high
record. ;-)

One of the things I'm keen to include once we do this is a FAQ page,
and of course the first entry if we create a new replacement group
would be along the lines of "Search the archive of the
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-spinoffs group (link); your
question is probably already answered over there."

Of course, if they just do a web search rather than an archive search,
they'll find the answer regardless of which group it's in...

[Diodeus]

I think losing the spammers is beginning to be more valuable than
losing the archive.

A lot of people simply post their question without looking at the
archive anyways. The online PS/SCR documentation has improved vastly
since the early days, so there are more resources available to begin
with.

I do think we should work on a decent FAQ though. The "drag/drop
scrolling div" question has posted enough times by now.

Not being a ROR developer, I've always thought the name of the group
to be a little off. People searching for "Prototype" are more likely
to find the CORE group, and mistakenly post there, only to be sent
elsewhere anyway.

The managers of this group have failed to respond to repeated cries
for help over the spamming, so let's dump it.

[kangax]

I have started on a FAQ some time ago. It's fairly basic, but could be
a good start http://github.com/kangax/protolicious/tree/master/misc/prototype_faq_markdown.txt

- kangax

[T.J. Crowder]

On Jun 16, 7:43 pm, Diodeus <diod...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think losing the spammers is beginning to be more valuable than
> losing the archive.

Yes, I think so too. But if we could do the one without the other,
even better.

-- T.J. :-)

[T.J. Crowder]

> I have started on a FAQ some time ago. It's fairly basic, but could be
> a good start

Great! I'll start a new thread for a FAQ discussion. I was going to
wait until we'd made a decision on the other thing, but there's no
good reason to.

--
T.J. Crowder
tj / crowder software / com

On Jun 16, 8:04 pm, kangax <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have started on a FAQ some time ago. It's fairly basic, but could be

> a good starthttp://github.com/kangax/protolicious/tree/master/misc/prototype_faq_...

[T.J. Crowder]

Hi all,

Just a very brief update on this: Everyone seems to think it's a good
idea, including Tobie and a couple of the other core committers, so
Tobie and I were talking about the mechanics and transition today.
Look for an update soon, but I'm later for dinner. ;-)

Meanwhile, Tobie suggested I start a naming thread over in Core:
http://groups.google.com/group/prototype-core/browse_thread/thread/0e84b315de1bf77d#

[Diodeus]

When do you plan to flip the switch? I think we're all in agreement
that we can make a good go of it.

[T.J. Crowder]

Hi,

On Jun 18, 7:00 pm, Diodeus <diod...@gmail.com> wrote:
> When do you plan to flip the switch? I think we're all in agreement
> that we can make a good go of it.

We are indeed. Tobie's preference is for us to get a FAQ together
first (which will, among other things, point to the correct group),
post it to prototypejs.org, and then start the transition. I'm
working with kangax (I hope) to pull together a FAQ (more in that
thread when I can). Also, we have a line on the current owner of this
group, which even if we decide to replace it (so we can have overlap)
rather than renaming would be helpful in various ways; Tobie's chasing
that up.

I can't wait! Seems like the spam level kicked up as soon as I
suggested it.. ;-)

[Frederick Polgardy]

It does, doesn't it?! :-)

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 1:09 PM, T.J. Crowder <t...@crowdersoftware.com> wrote:

I can't wait!  Seems like the spam level kicked up as soon as I
suggested it.. ;-)

--

[Ryan Gahl]

Spam? Do you mean to say you are content with the current size of your "thingy"? I for one, welcome the helpful messages that those really nice people are spreading for free. Spam, indeed!

[Rick DeNatale]

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 3:01 PM, Ryan Gahl <ryan...@gmail.com> wrote:

Spam? Do you mean to say you are content with the current size of your "thingy"? I for one, welcome the helpful messages that those really nice people are spreading for free. Spam, indeed!

Hey, if I had a nickel for every time my email won a million dollar lottery. I'd be a rich man!

--
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/

[T.J. Crowder]

Hi all,

I've been pursuing this new group thing behind the scenes with Tobie
and the core team. And apparently I'm not the only one who thinks the
spam has gotten just ridiculous. As you may know, we were sort of
holding off moving to the new group until A) We could locate and
contact the owner of this group so we could modify its description
(etc.) to point to the new one, and B) Until we finished and posted a
new FAQ to prototypejs.org which would (among other things) mention
the new group. Frankly, both of them have been holding things up.

But! Good news on both fronts. Tobie has finally succeeded (after
much effort) in contacting an owner/manager of this group (DHH, in
fact), and I've taken kangax's stuff, Tobie's outline, a few of my own
ideas, and gotten together a draft FAQ. No major comments in a week,
so it's now just pending Andrew doing some final edits to it, and then
one of the core team will post it to the site. We already have enough
volunteers to be moderators on the new group (and many, many thanks to
the folks who've come forward) so we can cut way down on spam.

So here's my recommendation:

* 6 July 2008 (or soon thereafter): Post the FAQ.
* 6 July 2008: "Open" the new group (it's currently hidden to avoid
confusion), announce it in a thread here, and allow discussions in
both places while suggesting that new threads get posted to the new
group (but still answering them here if they're posted her). Start
moving any ongoing discussions to the new group.
* 15 July 2008: Stop answering questions here. If someone posts
here, we'll just tell them to repost to the new group (that can mostly
be done by doing a standard footer that goes on all messages). Edit
the description of this group to redirect people to the new group.
* 15 August 2008: Close this group entirely to new posts.

Here are the details of the new group -- we still have time to change
the URL/email address if people want, but as we say here in the UK, it
does what it says on the box:

New group name: Prototype & script.aculo.us
URL: http://groups.google.com/group/prototype-scriptaculous
Email address: prototype-s...@googlegroups.com

All in favor of the above say aye!

--
T.J. Crowder
tj / crowder software / com

On Jun 14, 10:51 am, "T.J. Crowder" <tjcrow...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>

> What say we create anewgroupto replace this one, perhaps called

> "Prototype Scriptaculous Users"?  I have four reasons for suggesting
> this:
>
> 1. Prototype and Scriptaculous have grown far beyond their Ruby-on-
> Rails spinoff status, and I'll even venture to say (speaking off the
> top of my head, based on no data or research whatsoever) that most
> users of Prototype and Scriptaculous don't use Ruby or Rails.
>

> 2. People keep posting Ruby questions to thegroup; hopefully taking

> "ruby" out of the name will minimize that.
>
> 3. People searching for Prototype help will probably be more likely to

> find thegroup(although I don't think it's currently a massive

> problem; I was pretty unusure when I first found it, though).
>

> 4. We can turn onnewmember post moderation and stop the spam; we can

> limit page posting to managers only (being fairly liberal with who we
> add as managers).
>

> Regarding #4:  Moderating posts fromnewmembers is a PITA, but I

> think there are enough of us who are active enough -- kangax, Fred P.,
> JDD, Christophe, RobG, Walter D., and lately myself -- that if we make

> all of us managers,newmessages will get approved pretty quickly.

>
> Just to reserve the name (don't ask me why), I've created thegroup
> but completely locked it down until/unless we decide to use it.  If
> so, I'll open it up and add people as managers, and if someone more

> appropriate would like to take ownership of thegroup, I'll happily

[T.J. Crowder]

Aye! (Obviously)

-- T.J. ;-)

[Ryan Gahl]

Eye

I

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 4:37 PM, T.J. Crowder <t...@crowdersoftware.com> wrote:

Aye!  (Obviously)

-- T.J. ;-)

[Trevan Richins]

Aye!

[Justin Perkins]

I, and aye could help moderate new member posts if needed.

[Walter Lee Davis]

The Rastafarian delegation is recognized...

On Jul 3, 2008, at 5:49 PM, Justin Perkins wrote:

> I, and aye

[Frederick Polgardy]

Aye.

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 4:35 PM, T.J. Crowder <t...@crowdersoftware.com> wrote:

All in favor of the above say aye!
--

[T.J. Crowder]

Hi all,

In retrospect, deep in this thread wasn't the right place to post a
timetable and ask opinions, so I started a thread specifically for
doing so. Sorry about that.

--
T.J. Crowder
tj / crowder software / com