Article Plans and Ideas for Jan 2012

[Peter]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to get an idea of what people will be writing in Jan 2012
to see if we can tie a few articles together, have a general theme of
a few articles or anything we want to push in the new year like Joomla
2.5

Peter

[Paul Orwig]

Thanks for bringing this up Peter! It would be great to pick a theme for the January issue if we want to, and to brainstorm in general about article ideas for the January issue. Dianne and Alice and I encourage everyone to join in this discussion!

As a point of JCM history, we used to have an email thread and a spreadsheet just for those purposes, along with a soft deadline of submitting articles by the 23rd of the month. But over time we couldn't get everyone's continued participation in those processes, and we chose to not make it a rigid requirement. If we want to make a committment to re-start those processes, Dianne and Alice and I would be delighted.

Many of our new team members don't have assigned roles yet, and that's okay for now. Everyone should know that all JCM team members are always invited and encouraged to submit articles on any topic about Joomla that they are interested in. We also accept articles submitted from members of the Joomla community.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet that spreadsheet I mentioned above. It lists all current JCM topics and has rows for JCM team members to add their article ideas. Everyone on this list should have write access to that spreadsheet (let me know if you don't).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApF_oBHf6OIKdFQxc3VyZVloT2NzQ21hMGx4UWFVSGc

Thanks again Peter for starting this thread. Let's work together and make the January issue a great one!

paul
with Dianne and Alice



For the benefit of our new team members, anyone is welcome to write an article about a subject that interests them.

[Rita Lewis]

Do you have a place for extension reviews? There are so many different types of extensions doing similar things it might be interesting to provide a monthly overview of new or upgraded extensions, what they do, and to compare and contrast approaches to such things as sliders, slide shows, photo galleries, calendars, etc. Also, I know that I have a series of favorite extensions and companies that make them, such as Easy Blog, Kunena, Akeeba, JCE, etc. it might be interesting to discuss what makes a piece of software popular or successful. Also, where are the "holes" in Joomla! 1.7 extensions or what's missing, such as a good commenting component.

I see that you have a slot for Web Site case studies, but seem to be missing an area for add-ons. 

Just a suggestion for topics.

Thanks for listening.

Rita

************

Web Design & Content Strategy

301.738.2286 | 301.646.6665 (c)

rita...@wordstweb.net | www.wordstoweb.net

Twitter: @ixchup | AIM: udzipl | Skype: mayanscaper

I want this iPad soo bad!!! Click 'SHARE' to help me win

http://www.joomlart.com/ipad2/

[Alice Grevet]

Dear Rita,

I would find that kind of article interesting too. I think the tricky thing with that is when we get into articles that could be showing more favor to one developer over another, or promoting commercial extensions which is not the purpose of the magazine. But the extensions are such an important part of what makes Joomla so fantastic. The TeamEase group in the early days of the mag did some very detailed, comparative articles that were hugely popular. Can someone refresh me on the guidelines for this kind of thing?

Best,

Alice

[Paul Orwig]

Hi Rita,

Thanks for taking a look at that spreadsheet, and that's a great insight you came up with about the JCM's lack of structured extension coverage! As Alice mentioned, we used to have team EaSE (for Extensions and Services Evaluations I think), and their mission was to cover and compare extensions and frameworks. Team EaSE ended after a while. It was a lot of work and took a lot of different skilled volunteers. When they ended, we couldn't find anyone who was willing to try and re-start that team. That's why there's nothing listed about extensions in that spreadsheet

If you go to the JCM site,  then click on the main "Topics" link in the horizontal navigation, and then click on the "Extensions and Services Evaluation" link, you can browse those articles and see all of the outstanding content produced by that team. Or you can just click on this link:
http://magazine.joomla.org/Extensions-Services-Evaluations

Sully was on EaSE and is still on the JCM team. Sully, can you share more details about the guidelines, philosophy, process, etc. that EaSE followed in those articles?

Thanks,

paul

[Rita Lewis]

I would love to participate on a revamped version of the EaSE because one of the problems I constantly run into with clients is figuring out the best extension to meet requirements that aren't truly defined until I've gone and bought something that then turns out to not quite fit my needs. With more and more extensions no longer free (and I can totally understand why this is the case), it is getting very difficult to judge features vs. ease of use vs. design to see which one will work best for each purpose. I think it is critical now more than ever to do the monthly work. I'd be glad to lead the endeavor or participate. I'm very oriented towards off-the-shelf solutions (for that matter, I don't know if anyone has ever written about the dichotomy of custom extensions vs off-the-shelf and when each is appropriate). 

Anyway, I'll study the link to EaSE, but I'd love to sink my teeth and writing into reviews. I think you are right to worry about appearing to favor one extension over another. That careful planning of how to review extensions would be one of the fun parts of setting up a new EaSE.

Regards,

Rita

Alice

************

<wordstoweb_logo-sm.jpg>

Web Design & Content Strategy

301.738.2286 | 301.646.6665 (c)

rita...@wordstweb.net | www.wordstoweb.net

Twitter: @ixchup | AIM: udzipl | Skype: mayanscaper

I want this iPad soo bad!!! Click 'SHARE' to help me win

http://www.joomlart.com/ipad2/

***********

301-646-6665 (c) • 301-738-2286 (h) mayan...@gmail.com • ixc...@wordstoweb.net • www.wordstoweb.net

[Brian P Sullivan]

The point of Team EaSE was to offer an unbiased, well-researched view of application choices and how to evaluate them. We covered template frameworks, backup components, e-Commerce and more in our short history, and offered a sidebar article on related topics each month. Typically this involved setting evaluation criteria, choosing extensions to review, testing each extension on a live website, writing up our evaluation, conducting an interview of the developers (sometimes as a podcast), forming all of that into an article, and then managing the inevitable complaints of how we didn’t consider or overlooked or were wrong about x.

 

It was awesome content, but very hard to keep going. To do an in-depth article series like that we need a pretty diverse group:

 

-          People with strong application development skills—javascript and PHP especially.

-          Expert Joomla webmasters/site admins

-          People with interviewing skills

-          People with writing skills

-          People with audio/video skills

 

Team EaSE took between three and five hours per volunteer member per month. That may sound excessive, but when you start to evaluate extensions and templates you’re into dealing with peoples’ livelihoods and doing anything less than impartial and thorough reviews just invites trouble. I’d be happy to reconstitute the team, it was a lot of fun. To make it work we’ll need six to eight team members with that mix of talents who can commit that amount of time, and that was really hard to compose. I could not find enough people with the right background once we started to lose some folks who couldn’t keep up that commitment.  

 

Future topics that were planned were social network republishing, system requirements and webhosting for Joomla! , and content editors.

 

Hope that’s helpful. I’m up for reconstituting Team EaSE if you are, Rita. Let’s talk.

Best,

Sully

[Rita Lewis]

My background is in proposal writing which gave me the interviewing, organizing (I was a proposal manager for eight long years and later as a content manager acted as a managing editor sort of for web development) would help in the areas of setting criteria, interviewing developers and writing the resulting review. I've also been creating and managing Joomla!sites for about six years, including some customization of code but mostly on the design and graphics side as well as usability. I'm very user-oriented. You can check out my writing and site portfolio on my website, www.wordstoweb.net. 

Sully, it would be hard work and fascinating to dig into extensions the way you describe. I'd love to try and bring back EaSE. My Skype name is mayanscaper. I work out of my home so am pretty flexible. I'm on the east coast, USA. I'd love to talk further. I've never done the type of structured analysis you describe but I'd love to help as I have done the individual tasks involved and I learn quickly. 

Please tell me a good time that we can talk. I'm looking forward to it. 

Regards,

Rita

________________________

Sent from my iPad:

Wordstoweb.net | Words To Web, Inc.

web design & content strategy

301.738.2286 | rita...@wordstoweb.net

Alice

 

************

<image001.jpg>

Web Design & Content Strategy

[Brian P Sullivan]

Greetings from Rockville. I’ve sent you a Skype request, we can continue this there.

[Paul Orwig]

Sully, thanks for sharing what EaSE did, how you did it, and some of the challenges you encountered!

If anyone else on the JCM team is interested in participating in a new EaSE, please feel free to either say so here or follow up directly with Rita or Sully. One suggestion for those who are interested in that would be to discuss whether the vision/mission of a new EaSE should match the original one, or if some changes might be considered given some of the challenges faced with the original EaSE.

Rita, if you want to write some extension related articles right away, you might consider the JCM's existing "Did you know...?" topic. The main purpose for that topic is to highlight specific solutions to specific problems. So for example, you could take the angle that "Extension XYZ is a good choice if you need to accomplish ABC on your website. Here's how you would implement that...".

Here are 12 ideas for a January theme. Any other ideas?

• Mobile
• Freelancers
• Non-profits
• HTML5
• Accessibility
• Frameworks
• E-Commerce
• Community
• International
• Collaboration
• Extensions
• My Joomla! story
  

Here are 12 ideas for January articles. Any takers? Any other ideas?

• Feature stories: Joomla! 2.5: Explaining the version number jump and the release strategy.
• Feature stories: Joomla! 2.5: What's new
• Developers: Joomla! Platform 11.3: What's new, how to learn more and get involved
• Feature stories or Developers: GitHub-Why it's good for Joomla!
  
• Events: Report on how the December 10 Pizza and bug squashing events went.
• Feature stories: Analysis of the project's 2012 goals
• Designers: Start a series on how to build a 2.5 template from scratch
• Designers or Developers: What Joomla is/isn't/should be doing to better address the mobile device challenge
• Administrators: Digging deeper into 2.5 ACL
• Feature stories: What Joomla is/isn't/should be doing to improve connections with our international communities
• Feature stories or Designers or Developers or Administrators: Challenges of a Freelancer
• Feature stories or Developers: Bringing Joomla to higher education
  

[Hagen Graf]

I would love to do the "What's new in 2.5 article"
Hagen

My background is in proposal writing which gave me the interviewing, organizing (I was a proposal manager for eight long years and later as a content manager acted as a managing editor sort of for web development) would help in the areas of setting criteria, interviewing developers and writing the resulting review. I've also been creating and managing Joomla!sites for about six years, including some customization of code but mostly on the design and graphics side as well as usability. I'm very user-oriented. You can check out my writing and site portfolio on my website, www.wordstoweb.net.�

Sully, it would be hard work and fascinating to dig into extensions the way you describe. I'd love to try and bring back EaSE. My Skype name is mayanscaper. I work out of my home so am pretty flexible. I'm on the east coast, USA. I'd love to talk further. I've never done the type of structured analysis you describe but I'd love to help as I have done the individual tasks involved and I learn quickly.�

Please tell me a good time that we can talk. I'm looking forward to it.�

Regards,

Rita

________________________

Sent from my iPad:

Wordstoweb.net | Words To Web, Inc.

web design & content strategy

301.738.2286 | rita...@wordstoweb.net

On Dec 9, 2011, at 4:52 AM, "Brian P Sullivan" <su...@terracemediagroup.com> wrote:

The point of Team EaSE was to offer an unbiased, well-researched view of application choices and how to evaluate them. We covered template frameworks, backup components, e-Commerce and more in our short history, and offered a sidebar article on related topics each month. Typically this involved setting evaluation criteria, choosing extensions to review, testing each extension on a live website, writing up our evaluation, conducting an interview of the developers (sometimes as a podcast), forming all of that into an article, and then managing the inevitable complaints of how we didn�t consider or overlooked or were wrong about x.

�

It was awesome content, but very hard to keep going. To do an in-depth article series like that we need a pretty diverse group:

�

-��������� People with strong application development skills�javascript and PHP especially.

-��������� Expert Joomla webmasters/site admins

-��������� People with interviewing skills

-��������� People with writing skills

-��������� People with audio/video skills

�

Team EaSE took between three and five hours per volunteer member per month. That may sound excessive, but when you start to evaluate extensions and templates you�re into dealing with peoples� livelihoods and doing anything less than impartial and thorough reviews just invites trouble. I�d be happy to reconstitute the team, it was a lot of fun. To make it work we�ll need six to eight team members with that mix of talents who can commit that amount of time, and that was really hard to compose. I could not find enough people with the right background once we started to lose some folks who couldn�t keep up that commitment. �

�

Future topics that were planned were social network republishing, system requirements and webhosting for Joomla! , and content editors.

�

Hope that�s helpful. I�m up for reconstituting Team EaSE if you are, Rita. Let�s talk.

Best,

Sully

�

From: joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com [mailto:joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Paul Orwig
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2011 10:02 PM
To: joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [JCM] Article Plans and Ideas for Jan 2012

�

Hi Rita,

Thanks for taking a look at that spreadsheet, and that's a great insight you came up with about the JCM's lack of structured extension coverage! As Alice mentioned, we used to have team EaSE (for Extensions and Services Evaluations I think), and their mission was to cover and compare extensions and frameworks. Team EaSE ended after a while. It was a lot of work and took a lot of different skilled volunteers. When they ended, we couldn't find anyone who was willing to try and re-start that team. That's why there's nothing listed about extensions in that spreadsheet

If you go to the JCM site,� then click on the main "Topics" link in the horizontal navigation, and then click on the "Extensions and Services Evaluation" link, you can browse those articles and see all of the outstanding content produced by that team. Or you can just click on this link:

http://magazine.joomla.org/Extensions-Services-Evaluations

Sully was on EaSE and is still on the JCM team. Sully, can you share more details about the guidelines, philosophy, process, etc. that EaSE followed in those articles?

Thanks,

paul

On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Alice Grevet <agr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Rita,

�

I would find that kind of article interesting too. I think the tricky thing with that is when we get into articles that could be showing more favor to one developer over another, or promoting commercial extensions which is not the purpose of the magazine. But the extensions are such an important part of what makes Joomla so fantastic. The TeamEase group in the early days of the mag did some very detailed, comparative articles that were hugely popular. Can someone refresh me on the guidelines for this kind of thing?

�

Best,

Alice

�

On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Rita Lewis <rita...@wordstoweb.net> wrote:

Do you have a place for extension reviews? There are so many different types of extensions doing similar things it might be interesting to provide a monthly overview of new or upgraded extensions, what they do, and to compare and contrast approaches to such things as sliders, slide shows, photo galleries, calendars, etc. Also, I know that I have a series of favorite extensions and companies that make them, such as Easy Blog, Kunena, Akeeba, JCE, etc. it might be interesting to discuss what makes a piece of software popular or successful. Also, where are the "holes" in Joomla! 1.7 extensions or what's missing, such as a good commenting component.

�

I see that you have a slot for Web Site case studies, but seem to be missing an area for add-ons.�

�

Just a suggestion for topics.

�

Thanks for listening.

�

Rita

�

On Dec 8, 2011, at 9:01 PM, Paul Orwig wrote:

Thanks for bringing this up Peter! It would be great to pick a theme for the January issue if we want to, and to brainstorm in general about article ideas for the January issue. Dianne and Alice and I encourage everyone to join in this discussion!

As a point of JCM history, we used to have an email thread and a spreadsheet just for those purposes, along with a soft deadline of submitting articles by the 23rd of the month. But over time we couldn't get everyone's continued participation in those processes, and we chose to not make it a rigid requirement. If we want to make a committment to re-start those processes, Dianne and Alice and I would be delighted.

Many of our new team members don't have assigned roles yet, and that's okay for now. Everyone should know that all JCM team members are always invited and encouraged to submit articles on any topic about Joomla that they are interested in. We also accept articles submitted from members of the Joomla community.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet that spreadsheet I mentioned above. It lists all current JCM topics and has rows for JCM team members to add their article ideas. Everyone on this list should have write access to that spreadsheet (let me know if you don't).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApF_oBHf6OIKdFQxc3VyZVloT2NzQ21hMGx4UWFVSGc

Thanks again Peter for starting this thread. Let's work together and make the January issue a great one!

paul
with Dianne and Alice



For the benefit of our new team members, anyone is welcome to write an article about a subject that interests them.

On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 4:45 PM, Peter <buip...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to get an idea of what people will be writing in Jan 2012
to see if we can tie a few articles together, have a general theme of
a few articles or anything we want to push in the new year like Joomla
2.5

Peter

�

�

************

<image001.jpg>

Web Design & Content Strategy

301.738.2286 |�301.646.6665 (c)

rita...@wordstweb.net | www.wordstoweb.net

Twitter:�@ixchup |�AIM:�udzipl |�Skype:�mayanscaper

I want this iPad soo bad!!! Click 'SHARE' to help me win

http://www.joomlart.com/ipad2/

�

�

�

-- 
Hagen Graf
cocoate.com
32 rue du Pla :: 11510 Fitou :: France
phone: +33 970 44 51 10
skype: cocoate
email: info@cocoa​te.com
web: http://coc​oate.com
about me: http://about.me/hagengraf

Pour le respect de l'environnement, merci de r�fl�chir � l'utilit� d'imprimer cet email.

[Jen Kramer]

I've written the article on the release strategy and numbering scheme
about 6 different times in different locations. If you need another
one, I can do that pretty quickly.

I can also cover ACL, but I think it's best to stick with 1.7 ACL for
January. We can talk about 2.5 ACL in February.

Jen

On Dec 9, 11:38 am, Paul Orwig <paul.or...@community.joomla.org>
wrote:

> Sully, thanks for sharing what EaSE did, how you did it, and some of the
> challenges you encountered!
>
> If anyone else on the JCM team is interested in participating in a new
> EaSE, please feel free to either say so here or follow up directly with
> Rita or Sully. One suggestion for those who are interested in that would be
> to discuss whether the vision/mission of a new EaSE should match the
> original one, or if some changes might be considered given some of the
> challenges faced with the original EaSE.
>
> Rita, if you want to write some extension related articles right away, you
> might consider the JCM's existing "Did you know...?" topic. The main
> purpose for that topic is to highlight specific solutions to specific
> problems. So for example, you could take the angle that "Extension XYZ is a
> good choice if you need to accomplish ABC on your website. Here's how you
> would implement that...".
>
> Here are 12 ideas for a January theme. Any other ideas?
>

>    - Mobile
>    - Freelancers
>    - Non-profits
>    - HTML5
>    - Accessibility
>    - Frameworks
>    - E-Commerce
>    - Community
>    - International
>    - Collaboration
>    - Extensions
>    - My Joomla! story

>
> Here are 12 ideas for January articles. Any takers? Any other ideas?
>

>    - Feature stories: Joomla! 2.5: Explaining the version number jump and
>    the release strategy.
>    - Feature stories: Joomla! 2.5: What's new
>    - Developers: Joomla! Platform 11.3: What's new, how to learn more and
>    get involved
>    - Feature stories or Developers: GitHub-Why it's good for Joomla!
>    - Events: Report on how the December 10 Pizza and bug squashing events
>    went.
>    - Feature stories: Analysis of the project's 2012 goals
>    - Designers: Start a series on how to build a 2.5 template from scratch
>    - Designers or Developers: What Joomla is/isn't/should be doing to

>    better address the mobile device challenge

>    - Administrators: Digging deeper into 2.5 ACL
>    - Feature stories: What Joomla is/isn't/should be doing to improve

>    connections with our international communities

>    - Feature stories or Designers or Developers or Administrators:
>    Challenges of a Freelancer
>    - Feature stories or Developers: Bringing Joomla to higher education

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 6:39 AM, Rita Lewis <ritale...@wordstoweb.net> wrote:
> > My background is in proposal writing which gave me the interviewing,
> > organizing (I was a proposal manager for eight long years and later as a
> > content manager acted as a managing editor sort of for web development)
> > would help in the areas of setting criteria, interviewing developers and
> > writing the resulting review. I've also been creating and managing
> > Joomla!sites for about six years, including some customization of code but
> > mostly on the design and graphics side as well as usability. I'm very
> > user-oriented. You can check out my writing and site portfolio on my
> > website,www.wordstoweb.net.
>
> > Sully, it would be hard work and fascinating to dig into extensions the
> > way you describe. I'd love to try and bring back EaSE. My Skype name is
> > mayanscaper. I work out of my home so am pretty flexible. I'm on the east
> > coast, USA. I'd love to talk further. I've never done the type of
> > structured analysis you describe but I'd love to help as I have done the
> > individual tasks involved and I learn quickly.
>
> > Please tell me a good time that we can talk. I'm looking forward to it.
>
> > Regards,
> > Rita
>
> > ________________________
> > Sent from my iPad:
> > Wordstoweb.net | Words To Web, Inc.
> > web design & content strategy

> > 301.738.2286 | ritale...@wordstoweb.net

>
> > On Dec 9, 2011, at 4:52 AM, "Brian P Sullivan" <
> > su...@terracemediagroup.com> wrote:
>
> > The point of Team EaSE was to offer an unbiased, well-researched view of
> > application choices and how to evaluate them. We covered template
> > frameworks, backup components, e-Commerce and more in our short history,
> > and offered a sidebar article on related topics each month. Typically this
> > involved setting evaluation criteria, choosing extensions to review,
> > testing each extension on a live website, writing up our evaluation,
> > conducting an interview of the developers (sometimes as a podcast), forming
> > all of that into an article, and then managing the inevitable complaints of

> > how we didn’t consider or overlooked or were wrong about x.****
>
> > ** **

>
> > It was awesome content, but very hard to keep going. To do an in-depth

> > article series like that we need a pretty diverse group:****
>
> > ** **

>
> > -          People with strong application development skills—javascript

> > and PHP especially.****
>
> > -          Expert Joomla webmasters/site admins****
>
> > -          People with interviewing skills****
>
> > -          People with writing skills****
>
> > -          People with audio/video skills****
>
> > ** **

>
> > Team EaSE took between three and five hours per volunteer member per
> > month. That may sound excessive, but when you start to evaluate extensions
> > and templates you’re into dealing with peoples’ livelihoods and doing
> > anything less than impartial and thorough reviews just invites trouble. I’d
> > be happy to reconstitute the team, it was a lot of fun. To make it work
> > we’ll need six to eight team members with that mix of talents who can
> > commit that amount of time, and that was really hard to compose. I could
> > not find enough people with the right background once we started to lose

> > some folks who couldn’t keep up that commitment.  ****
>
> > ** **

>
> > Future topics that were planned were social network republishing, system

> > requirements and webhosting for Joomla! , and content editors.****
>
> > ** **

>
> > Hope that’s helpful. I’m up for reconstituting Team EaSE if you are, Rita.

> > Let’s talk.****
>
> > Best,****
>
> > Sully****
>
> > ** **
>
> > *From:* joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com [mailto:
> > joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Paul Orwig
> > *Sent:* Thursday, December 08, 2011 10:02 PM
> > *To:* joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com
> > *Subject:* Re: [JCM] Article Plans and Ideas for Jan 2012****
>
> > ** **

>
> > Hi Rita,
>
> > Thanks for taking a look at that spreadsheet, and that's a great insight
> > you came up with about the JCM's lack of structured extension coverage! As
> > Alice mentioned, we used to have team EaSE (for Extensions and Services
> > Evaluations I think), and their mission was to cover and compare extensions
> > and frameworks. Team EaSE ended after a while. It was a lot of work and
> > took a lot of different skilled volunteers. When they ended, we couldn't
> > find anyone who was willing to try and re-start that team. That's why
> > there's nothing listed about extensions in that spreadsheet
>
> > If you go to the JCM site,  then click on the main "Topics" link in the
> > horizontal navigation, and then click on the "Extensions and Services
> > Evaluation" link, you can browse those articles and see all of the
> > outstanding content produced by that team. Or you can just click on this
> > link:
> >http://magazine.joomla.org/Extensions-Services-Evaluations
>
> > Sully was on EaSE and is still on the JCM team. Sully, can you share more
> > details about the guidelines, philosophy, process, etc. that EaSE followed
> > in those articles?
>
> > Thanks,
>

> > paul****
>
> > On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Alice Grevet <agre...@gmail.com> wrote:***
> > *
>
> > Dear Rita,****
>
> > ** **

>
> > I would find that kind of article interesting too. I think the tricky
> > thing with that is when we get into articles that could be showing more
> > favor to one developer over another, or promoting commercial extensions
> > which is not the purpose of the magazine. But the extensions are such an
> > important part of what makes Joomla so fantastic. The TeamEase group in the
> > early days of the mag did some very detailed, comparative articles that
> > were hugely popular. Can someone refresh me on the guidelines for this kind

> > of thing?****
>
> > ** **
>
> > Best,****
>
> > Alice****
>
> > ** **
>
> > On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Rita Lewis <ritale...@wordstoweb.net>
> > wrote:****

>
> > Do you have a place for extension reviews? There are so many different
> > types of extensions doing similar things it might be interesting to provide
> > a monthly overview of new or upgraded extensions, what they do, and to
> > compare and contrast approaches to such things as sliders, slide shows,
> > photo galleries, calendars, etc. Also, I know that I have a series of
> > favorite extensions and companies that make them, such as Easy Blog,
> > Kunena, Akeeba, JCE, etc. it might be interesting to discuss what makes a
> > piece of software popular or successful. Also, where are the "holes" in
> > Joomla! 1.7 extensions or what's missing, such as a good commenting

> > component.****
>
> > ** **

>
> > I see that you have a slot for Web Site case studies, but seem to be

> > missing an area for add-ons. ****
>
> > ** **
>
> > Just a suggestion for topics.****
>
> > ** **
>
> > Thanks for listening.****
>
> > ** **
>
> > Rita****
>
> > ** **
>
> > On Dec 8, 2011, at 9:01 PM, Paul Orwig wrote:****
>
> > ****

>
> > Thanks for bringing this up Peter! It would be great to pick a theme for
> > the January issue if we want to, and to brainstorm in general about article
> > ideas for the January issue. Dianne and Alice and I encourage everyone to
> > join in this discussion!
>
> > As a point of JCM history, we used to have an email thread and a
> > spreadsheet just for those purposes, along with a soft deadline of
> > submitting articles by the 23rd of the month. But over time we couldn't get
> > everyone's continued participation in those processes, and we chose to not
> > make it a rigid requirement. If we want to make a committment to re-start
> > those processes, Dianne and Alice and I would be delighted.
>
> > Many of our new team members don't have assigned roles yet, and that's
> > okay for now. Everyone should know that all JCM team members are always
> > invited and encouraged to submit articles on any topic about Joomla that
> > they are interested in. We also accept articles submitted from
>

> ...
>
> read more »

[Paul Orwig]

@Hagen - Thanks, consider that subject yours!

@Jen - Thanks! I don't know if we *need* another article on the release strategy or not. What do you think? Good repetition or overkill or...? If you think a 2.5 ACL article would be better saved for February, that sounds fine to me. Do you want to plan on that?

paul

[Milena Mitova]

Adding an idea about an SEO2 article:)). Thanks!

 

With Best Regards,

 

Milena Mitova | 

---

From: Paul Orwig <paul....@community.joomla.org>
To: joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2011 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: [JCM] Re: Article Plans and Ideas for Jan 2012

[Paul Orwig]

Thanks Milena, that's a great article idea! Do you want to write it?

paul

[Milena Mitova]

yes:). Thank you, Paul.

Best,

Milena

---

From: Paul Orwig <paul....@community.joomla.org>
To: joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Friday, December 9, 2011 2:12 PM

[Jen Kramer]

I don't think we need another article covering versions and releases
necessarily. There are several out there, but none on joomla.org
(except buried way in the developer site). Time might be better spent
making it easy to find Joomla's release cycle and versioning under the
"About" section of joomla.org, but that's beyond the scope of this
discussion.

As for ACL, that will take several articles to cover. I can do some
basics for January (the basics will apply to 1.7 and 2.5). I don't
think ACL is fundamentally changing for 2.5, so whatever is covered
for 1.7 should apply to 2.5.

Jen

On Dec 9, 12:38 pm, Paul Orwig <paul.or...@community.joomla.org>
wrote:

> ...
>
> read more »

[Paul Orwig]

Thanks Jen, that sounds great!

paul

[Guillermo Willin Bravo]

Hi Team!

OMG... Is so awsome see that people is working so hard in this team, is so fantastic :)

In the welcome email says I'm belong to this project, Project News Team... I need to know who else is in that team, if there is something else... Also if there is some kind of guidelines or something to where learn and to know the goal of the new project, objetives... So, if there is not, then begin building the guidelines :)I'm ready to start just when you decide...

Kind Regards...

Guillermo "Willin" Bravo.

P.S. Sorry for my english ;)

[Paul Orwig]

Hi all,

These are the current JCM topics that we don't have any articles yet for the January JCM. Any ideas or takers for these topics?

• Book reviews
  
• Website Case Studies
• Administrator's toolkit
• Designer's studio
• Developer's toolkit

Also, are there any more potential theme ideas for the January issue?

Here is the lineup of articles that we have so far for the January 1 issue:

• Hagen: What's new in 2.5 (Feature stories)
• Jon: Report on December 10 pizza and bug squashing party (Events)
• Rita/Shina: Tutorial about how to add a video to Joomla 1.7 (Did you know...?)
• Milena: SEO2 (Feature stories)
• Jen: ACL Basics (Did you know...? or Feature stories)

Thanks,

paul

[Hagen Graf]

I will be ready with the English Joomla Development Beginner's Book hopefully before Christmas so I can write an article about the story behind on that.
http://cocoate.com/jdev
Hagen

On Dec 9, 12:38�pm, Paul Orwig <paul.or...@community.joomla.org>

> > > � �- Mobile
> > > � �- Freelancers
> > > � �- Non-profits
> > > � �- HTML5
> > > � �- Accessibility
> > > � �- Frameworks
> > > � �- E-Commerce
> > > � �- Community
> > > � �- International
> > > � �- Collaboration
> > > � �- Extensions
> > > � �- My Joomla! story

>
> > > Here are 12 ideas for January articles. Any takers? Any other ideas?
>

> > > � �- Feature stories: Joomla! 2.5: Explaining the version number jump and
> > > � �the release strategy.
> > > � �- Feature stories: Joomla! 2.5: What's new
> > > � �- Developers: Joomla! Platform 11.3: What's new, how to learn more and
> > > � �get involved
> > > � �- Feature stories or Developers: GitHub-Why it's good for Joomla!
> > > � �- Events: Report on how the December 10 Pizza and bug squashing events
> > > � �went.
> > > � �- Feature stories: Analysis of the project's 2012 goals
> > > � �- Designers: Start a series on how to build a 2.5 template from
> > scratch
> > > � �- Designers or Developers: What Joomla is/isn't/should be doing to
> > > � �better address the mobile device challenge
> > > � �- Administrators: Digging deeper into 2.5 ACL
> > > � �- Feature stories: What Joomla is/isn't/should be doing to improve
> > > � �connections with our international communities
> > > � �- Feature stories or Designers or Developers or Administrators:
> > > � �Challenges of a Freelancer
> > > � �- Feature stories or Developers: Bringing Joomla to higher education

> > > > how we didn�t consider or overlooked or were wrong about x.****

>
> > > > ** **
>
> > > > It was awesome content, but very hard to keep going. To do an in-depth
> > > > article series like that we need a pretty diverse group:****
>
> > > > ** **
>

> > > > - � � � � �People with strong application development skills�javascript
> > > > and PHP especially.****
>
> > > > - � � � � �Expert Joomla webmasters/site admins****
>
> > > > - � � � � �People with interviewing skills****
>
> > > > - � � � � �People with writing skills****
>
> > > > - � � � � �People with audio/video skills****

>
> > > > ** **
>
> > > > Team EaSE took between three and five hours per volunteer member per
> > > > month. That may sound excessive, but when you start to evaluate
> > extensions

> > > > and templates you�re into dealing with peoples� livelihoods and doing

> > > > anything less than impartial and thorough reviews just invites

> > trouble. I�d

> > > > be happy to reconstitute the team, it was a lot of fun. To make it work

> > > > we�ll need six to eight team members with that mix of talents who can

> > > > commit that amount of time, and that was really hard to compose. I
> > could
> > > > not find enough people with the right background once we started to
> > lose

> > > > some folks who couldn�t keep up that commitment. �****

>
> > > > ** **
>
> > > > Future topics that were planned were social network republishing,
> > system
> > > > requirements and webhosting for Joomla! , and content editors.****
>
> > > > ** **
>

> > > > Hope that�s helpful. I�m up for reconstituting Team EaSE if you are,
> > Rita.
> > > > Let�s talk.****

>
> > > > Best,****
>
> > > > Sully****
>
> > > > ** **
>
> > > > *From:* joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com [mailto:
> > > > joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Paul Orwig
> > > > *Sent:* Thursday, December 08, 2011 10:02 PM
> > > > *To:* joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com
> > > > *Subject:* Re: [JCM] Article Plans and Ideas for Jan 2012****
>
> > > > ** **
>
> > > > Hi Rita,
>
> > > > Thanks for taking a look at that spreadsheet, and that's a great
> > insight
> > > > you came up with about the JCM's lack of structured extension
> > coverage! As
> > > > Alice mentioned, we used to have team EaSE (for Extensions and Services
> > > > Evaluations I think), and their mission was to cover and compare
> > extensions
> > > > and frameworks. Team EaSE ended after a while. It was a lot of work and
> > > > took a lot of different skilled volunteers. When they ended, we
> > couldn't
> > > > find anyone who was willing to try and re-start that team. That's why
> > > > there's nothing listed about extensions in that spreadsheet
>

> > > > If you go to the JCM site, �then click on the main "Topics" link in the

> ...
>
> read more �

[Paul Orwig]

Thanks Hagen that's great, that takes care of the "Joomla books" topic for January!

We've got four open topics remaining. Do we have any ideas or takers for:

• Website Case Studies-This can be an opportunity to highlight a nice Joomla client site you've worked on recently, or one of a colleague.
  
• Administrator's toolkit-Jen, maybe we could put your ACL series here?
  
• Designer's studio-Peter, help us out!
  
• Developer's toolkit-Arlen, Olivier, or does any one else have an idea for a developer oriented article (the Joomla Platform just had a new release!), or do you want to reach out to a friend that you think would like to write that type of article?
  

paul

On Dec 9, 12:38 pm, Paul Orwig <paul.or...@community.joomla.org>

> > >    - Mobile
> > >    - Freelancers
> > >    - Non-profits
> > >    - HTML5
> > >    - Accessibility
> > >    - Frameworks
> > >    - E-Commerce
> > >    - Community
> > >    - International
> > >    - Collaboration
> > >    - Extensions

> > >    - My Joomla! story
>
> > > Here are 12 ideas for January articles. Any takers? Any other ideas?
>

> > >    - Feature stories: Joomla! 2.5: Explaining the version number jump and

> > >    the release strategy.

> > >    - Feature stories: Joomla! 2.5: What's new

> > >    - Developers: Joomla! Platform 11.3: What's new, how to learn more and

> > >    get involved

> > >    - Feature stories or Developers: GitHub-Why it's good for Joomla!

> > >    - Events: Report on how the December 10 Pizza and bug squashing events

> > >    went.

> > >    - Feature stories: Analysis of the project's 2012 goals

> > >    - Designers: Start a series on how to build a 2.5 template from
> > scratch

> > >    - Designers or Developers: What Joomla is/isn't/should be doing to

> > >    better address the mobile device challenge

> > >    - Administrators: Digging deeper into 2.5 ACL

> > >    - Feature stories: What Joomla is/isn't/should be doing to improve

> > >    connections with our international communities

> > >    - Feature stories or Designers or Developers or Administrators:

> > >    Challenges of a Freelancer

> > > > how we didn’t consider or overlooked or were wrong about x.****

>
> > > > ** **
>
> > > > It was awesome content, but very hard to keep going. To do an in-depth
> > > > article series like that we need a pretty diverse group:****
>
> > > > ** **
>

> > > > -          People with strong application development skills—javascript
> > > > and PHP especially.****
>
> > > > -          Expert Joomla webmasters/site admins****
>
> > > > -          People with interviewing skills****
>
> > > > -          People with writing skills****
>
> > > > -          People with audio/video skills****

>
> > > > ** **
>
> > > > Team EaSE took between three and five hours per volunteer member per
> > > > month. That may sound excessive, but when you start to evaluate
> > extensions

> > > > and templates you’re into dealing with peoples’ livelihoods and doing

> > > > anything less than impartial and thorough reviews just invites

> > trouble. I’d

> > > > be happy to reconstitute the team, it was a lot of fun. To make it work

> > > > we’ll need six to eight team members with that mix of talents who can

> > > > commit that amount of time, and that was really hard to compose. I
> > could
> > > > not find enough people with the right background once we started to
> > lose

> > > > some folks who couldn’t keep up that commitment.  ****

>
> > > > ** **
>
> > > > Future topics that were planned were social network republishing,
> > system
> > > > requirements and webhosting for Joomla! , and content editors.****
>
> > > > ** **
>

> > > > Hope that’s helpful. I’m up for reconstituting Team EaSE if you are,
> > Rita.
> > > > Let’s talk.****

>
> > > > Best,****
>
> > > > Sully****
>
> > > > ** **
>
> > > > *From:* joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com [mailto:
> > > > joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Paul Orwig
> > > > *Sent:* Thursday, December 08, 2011 10:02 PM
> > > > *To:* joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com
> > > > *Subject:* Re: [JCM] Article Plans and Ideas for Jan 2012****
>
> > > > ** **
>
> > > > Hi Rita,
>
> > > > Thanks for taking a look at that spreadsheet, and that's a great
> > insight
> > > > you came up with about the JCM's lack of structured extension
> > coverage! As
> > > > Alice mentioned, we used to have team EaSE (for Extensions and Services
> > > > Evaluations I think), and their mission was to cover and compare
> > extensions
> > > > and frameworks. Team EaSE ended after a while. It was a lot of work and
> > > > took a lot of different skilled volunteers. When they ended, we
> > couldn't
> > > > find anyone who was willing to try and re-start that team. That's why
> > > > there's nothing listed about extensions in that spreadsheet
>

> > > > If you go to the JCM site,  then click on the main "Topics" link in the

> ...
>
> read more »

-- 
Hagen Graf
cocoate.com
32 rue du Pla :: 11510 Fitou :: France
phone: +33 970 44 51 10
skype: cocoate
email: info@cocoa​te.com
web: http://coc​oate.com
about me: http://about.me/hagengraf

Pour le respect de l'environnement, merci de réfléchir à l'utilité d'imprimer cet email.

[Ryan Meravi]

I would love to write about a web site case study.  Being new I would just need to know the rules about getting consent from one of our clients.

 

Ryan

 

From: joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com [mailto:joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Paul Orwig

Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 6:16 PM
To: joomla-commu...@googlegroups.com

[Rita Lewis]

Can the book review be negative?  I bought a joomla! Book I was very disappointed in. But I have written computer books so I'm rather picky. I will give my reasons for unhappiness. 

I'll email you about the book and if we can work out a strategy such as comparisons with others, I'd like to review it. 

Rita

***************

"Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." -- The sayings of Lazaras Long (Robert Heinlein)

Words To Web, Inc. www.wordstoweb.net | 301.646.6665

[Paul Orwig]

@Ryan - Great thanks! These are the JCM guidelines that would apply to a case like this:

1. The website should be a good example of what can be done with Joomla.
2. The content shouldn't be considered to be offensive to anyone in the Joomla community.
3. If the website was a client of yours, you need to disclose that in the article. It can simply be a sentence in the introduction.

We don't have a rigid format for website case studies, and JCM author and website owner should agree on any areas to exclude from the article. You might want to browse through some previous website case studies to get a feel for the approach, length, level of detail, etc.:
http://magazine.joomla.org/website-case-study

@Rita - Great question! We want to be honest about everything we write. At the same time, the JCM isn't considered a "hard news" or investigative-oriented type of publication. By that I mean as an "official project resource" we're really trying to focus on positive things that are happening in the Joomla community. That doesn't mean we can't tactfully write about aspects of the project where we have opportunities to improve, or potentially let people know about poorly written Joomla books. 

In a case like you brought up, first we might see if you could find some honest positives about the book that would somewhat balance the negatives, or we might just decide to not do an article about it in the JCM. But if you felt the book really misrepresented things or was unprofessionally written and we owed it to the community to let them know about it, then after talking about it we might consider publishing an article along those lines.

Just as you suggested, an email with more specifics where we can discuss it further privately is probably a good next step.

Thanks,

paul

[Mark W Bender]

I'm going to write a Recap of the Joomla! Day LA which took place on
12/3/2011, so that can be added to the events section of January.

Mark

>    - Events: Report on how the December 10 Pizza and bug squashing events
>    went.

[Paul Orwig]

Hi all,

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas if you celebrate that holiday. Our new January JCM issue will launch sometime this Sunday. I hope everyone will continue working on those articles that have been mentioned in this thread. Please let us know if you have any questions or if you need help.

Thanks to these authors who have already submitted articles for the January JCM issue:

• Ryan Meravi - Website Case Study: Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center
• Anh Tuan Bui - Shining up your website with five stunning and free Joomla photo galleries
• Ryan - CloudAccess.net: A New Company on the Bay
• Mark W. Bender - Joomla! in the Press/Media - January 2012
• Jen Kramer - Joomla 1.6, 1.7, and 2.5: ACL Concepts Overview

Best regards,

paul
with Dianne and Alice