There's been a few conversations recently about the need for some kind of Drupal Australia showcase website outside of GDO...
The basic idea is to use Drupal.org.au (Cheers to Simon Hobbs for the offer of using this) as a hub where a comprehensive overview of projects using Drupal in Australia, broken down by industry category that anyone can upload to for free.
Ultimately, everyone benefits from potential clients being able to see the breadth of Drupal use in the country, and the confidence that provides them to start using Drupal on their own projects. It's also good for the community at a national level to see what everyone's up to and the great stuff being produced out there.
Additional features might be a more formal Drupal AU services directory (freelancers, companies, hosting etc.), events listings for meetups, training, etc. so there's an easy way for people to come in and find what they're after.
The site would ideally be under the banner of "Drupal Australia" at a more national level than local meetups, be non-profit (but might ultimately be a source of funding for the local community in some way), and be collaboratively developed by any individuals or companies interested in seeing something like this come to fruition.
Good idea? Crap idea? Interested in all your community feedback before anything concrete is put into play...
Comments
Side project
I've been working on something along these lines as one of my side projects and had intended to get some feedback on it when it was a bit more ready for review.
In some regards, I am somewhat conflicted though because I think there is a danger in moving away from GDO. Much of the work that has gone into the new d.o redesign is to add support for all of these features in a way that is consistent with the broader community/website. (There are only a couple of issues holding back the new design from being deployed to GDO btw)
There are also already several places to put existing case studies (which usually are easy to filter by location and other factors), so I'm again hesitant to go off on our own too much instead of leveraging existing resources. I've been toying with a few ideas that would make it more valuable and unique, so would be interested in hearing other people's ideas on how we might build something that would be different to what already exists.
For what its worth, there has historically been talk of creating a drupal-au site for quite awhile to get around some of the limitations here and wiser folks than I seem to consistently point out the need eat our own dog food and to avoid fragmenting community channels (which is also somewhat the argument against city-level groups here) and I have come to feel this is an important aspect of the Drupal project - a strong positive differentiator in many ways when looking looking for information in other projects like Joomla or even WP.
Also, my understanding was that Simon has drupal.org.au registered as part of Linux Australia and that its generally held that all the country level (drupal.org.###) are redirected back to the main d.o site rather than being used for local purposes - has any of that changed?
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
Reference
For reference, here was some discussion from back in 2009 http://groups.drupal.org/node/22297 - i'm sure there are others.
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
Showcase
Excellent idea as far as I am concerned. As a relative newcomer I am somewhat bemused by the way ardent drupalers straightjacket themselves inside rules of what should and what should not be where. I agree communication related to Drupal and its development should be inside the existing drupal domains, but only drupalers go there.
I believe what is being proposed here is a site that is aimed squarely at the public, i.e. potential customers, potential users, potential developers, etc. etc. These people do not necessarily go to the drupal.org labyrinths (sorry guys) and it is doubtful they would be able to locate anything like that in there anyway. Personally I would love to see a place where I can tout my skills and achievements, but I gather from recent discussions that using GDO for that is frowned upon due to its perceived commercial nature.
In other words, a wholehearted yes from me, and more than happy to help build something like that.
i agree with bagz
absolutely agree
at the end of the day most people are either using drupal to make money - either in a job or their own business, or are looking for someone who can assist them
potential customers etc come to gdo because there is no other place to come
a portfolio type site - with examples from all drupalers - outside of gdo - would achieve what is clearly missing on gdo, a centralised showcase of work, capabilities, availability of training courses, consulting etc
this doesnt exclude gdo from continuing as it is, but it creates a shiny place for customers to go to!
im in!
+1 for @Bagz
Great idea @owenlansbury, and thanks to Sime for offering the use of drupal.org.au. A site aimed at both users & developers interested in exploring Drupal would be v. welcome.
It would be good to see a distinction between community efforts & commercial initiatives though. Can the site focus on events, camps, conferences etc. With clear guidelines on how/what is showcased; with community-generated & community-curated content. Listing/ads/commercial activities probably belong elsewhere e.g. drupal.com.au?
I'm not sure...
This could be a fantastic resource, especially for us regional developers who are far removed from the hurly-burly. I also like the idea of having a place to pull together the strings of the Australian Drupal industry.
Any news on whether http://groups.drupal.org/australia is getting a revamp anytime soon? Surely just a different side of the same coin.
cheers
ruben
I agree on having a showcase site
I just did some random search to see how other countries were doing it, and the only country I could find that has a custom site is Spain:
Not even Belguim (where Dries was born) has a redirect. All other countries I tested where just not available.
http://drupal.org.es/
Custom site
http://drupal.org.ar/
Custom Drupal Site last updated on 2009.
https://drupal.org.be/
Login to a virtual environment
http://drupal.org.au/ <-- That's us. Currently redirects to http://groups.drupal.org/australia
I would suggest having the showcase website and having a button somewhere at the top called: "Developers" and links to the Groups site.
We also need to figure out who will moderate this showcase site. We wouldn't want it to fill up with spam, or with sites that are not worth showing. Like someone installing Drupal with the default Garland theme.
cheers,
Danno
http://www.danieltome.com
nice
Great! Groups is designed to serve our needs, that's the end of that discussion, in my humble opinion.
For clarification: Thanks for thanking me, but to be clear I don't claim ownership of drupal.org.au, it just happens to be registered in an account of mine. The Drupal Association don't have an entity to control it and I'm safekeeping it until then and for want of a better entity (Linux Australia are the closest thing to a an "owner" if push comes to shove). In this case, I feel the right people are asking for me to update the DNS for this domain, and I will be notifying the Drupal Association as a matter of course, but I don't think there will be any problems.
Cheers
Simon
Showing Drupal in Australia to Corporates, Govt and NFPs
WTF is GDO? You guys fail to communicate when you use too much jargon and code speak.
I would not want my clients coming to any blog/web site that is dominated by DrupalSpeak!
But I agree there is a need for a site where existing and prospective Drupal clients could get a flavour of the richness of the Drupal community and how Drupal is being used by organizations right here in Australia. Think of it as a "marketing" space or sub-directory!
I have just gone through the whole process of introducing a Client to Drupal and persuading them to embark on the beginning of a jhourning with Drupal that will see them invest $20k to $150k in the next 2 years. The information requirements of a client who is non-technical but who has a need for quality information that will make him feel comfortable about investing big $$$ in something he has never heard of before is quite a challenge.
The role of the site I envisage is marketing oriented, written in a language that will allow non-IT literate senior decision makers in commercial, govt and not-for-profit to make the decision to include Drupal as a major element of their business strategy to improve the performance of their organization.
As a marketing and business type, who also has almost 30 years working in a variety of customer facing roles with organizations like CAD/CAM suppliers, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, World.net, OzEmail, AAPT and Telstra Wholesale I would be happy to work in a team with other people who have a passion for spreading the word more widely about open source software and doing things smarter and better via the Internet.
John Young
Yindi Systems
web: www.yindi.net
twitter: @yindisystems
Perfect case in point, GDO is
Perfect case in point, GDO is for knowledge-domain-specific user groups. All specialist domains have their own language and Drupal is no exception. GDO is not a good place to send clients... it's only barely a good place to send recruiters.
Groups Drupal Org :> it got
Groups
Drupal
Org
:> it got me the 1st time I stumbled here too LOL, C ur URL
Good good good
We like the idea here in Perth! We've seen the fast switch in the last few months in people's mind. Our clients are really craving for information about Drupal and cases studies. We would be happy to help building a platform that is end-users orientated with a pinch of technical information for all the IT managers that run corporate companies and have never heard of Drupal...
Geraldine Rey
bouncingorange
digital agency
Will post soon
As a starting point for discussion, I can post what I have already built in the next couple days (probably this weekend).
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
that would be great Ryan
that would be great Ryan
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
Got lost a little in the
Got lost a little in the discussion, but would love to have a place to showcase Drupal site from Australia, don't really mind where and how it's represented.
One thought is to allow different collaborators tag themselves on sites maybe?
For example, I'm currently working at The Australian Conservation Foundation, PreviousNext are doing the development but I've been heavily involved in planning and consultation, it would be good to allow multiple participants in a project 'add' themselves to it.
Me done
allow different collaborators tag themselves ...
Yes I can see this. If drupal.org.au is to be a showcase/portfolio site. Perhaps a lead developer or a customer could add their 'site profile' to the portfolio and the developers could attach themselves to the 'site profile' with a description of how they contributed. It would be great to have it working within the drupal.org environment somehow.
This would give potential customers and head hunters with a clear idea of which devs did what and how the overall project came together. Perhaps like a prettier version of http://drupal.org/cases
cheers
ruben
I really like this idea of
I really like this idea of being able to associate different people with a site, describing their role in creating it. Big sites are team efforts involving clients, providers... it could be really educational for a lot of people to see behind the curtain on what's involved.
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
What do you guys mean that
What do you guys mean that Drupal sites are showcased on groups.d.o.>?
We are showcasing sites on the home page of Drupal.org and would really like to build a better showcase/case studies section on drupal.org
==================================
http://about.me/lisarex
Services Directory
I am not sure about a services directory as how would people be validated and also what kind of questions or information would they need to put up etc? We have had this discussion in the community in Australia a couple of times now and we seem to go back to the point of building GDO. This was before you where a member of Drupal.org Owen so you may not have the full history of how many times this has been discussed.
It seems we revisit this yearly and get to the same conclusion, build Drupal.org showcases http://drupal.org/cases It would seem silly for an Australian only site as for clients or customers etc looking at harnessing the power of Drupal the drupal.org showcase gives a much more broader view of what can be done and covers larger sites then we have in Australia ie on user/node count ie the grammys, economist etc
anyways just food for thought
Yes, we need an aussie showcase
I haven't engaged with this thread yet, even though I had a great conversation with Owen about it before he posted. I was disappointed by the nay-sayers to the idea and thought - oh well, that's not going to happen. But I've done some more thinking on this, and just re-read the thread, and I think we do need an Australian Drupal Showcase & Directory.
Here's my thoughts on why.
Recently I wanted to pull together a list of Victorian based Drupal sites and @jaymiejones86 called for contributions to build a list of QLD sites.
http://drupal.org/cases is inadequate. Seems there's no way to search or filter... there are some arbitrary categories of types of sites, but no geographic sorting that I can see.
I'd argue the reason this issue keeps coming up is not an argument we shouldn't do it, but rather that we should, because the issue is not resolved.
A local site could link to
- http://drupal.org/cases
- http://www.drupalsites.net/
- http://buytaert.net/tag/drupal-sites
and any others that are useful
But our site would be unashamedly local.
And I also agree with those who note that drupal.org and groups.drupal.org are primarily community resources - they are not ideal references for potential clients, government representatives, educators... etc Nor should they be. They are great resources for us, and we don't want to dilute that.
Of course our site could still link through to D.O and G.D.O with context on what those sites are, and how central they are to the Drupal codebase and community.
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
Here here.
A local website where clients can see what is drupal and who is doing it would be great.
http://drupal.org/node/100656
http://drupal.org/node/1006562
I think we should build what we need into drupal.org/cases so other countries can use it to.
I'd rather send clients to drupal.org/cases/australia
drupal.org/cases/australia
Using the pre-existing d.o/cases/australia/ does seem to be a sensible option.
If only because the use case is already laid out leaving less for the community to argue over. If we are to build a separate site there are so many issues to be ironed out that I am afraid it would just become a giant pissing contest (am I allowed to say that?).
cheers
ruben
FWIW I'm proposing that the
FWIW I'm proposing that the features mentioned by KatteKrab be added to the Drupal cases, eg country searching, filtering etc etc. These would then benefit us as well as other country-based groups, but the end results should be that /cases/australia knows we want to filter to Australian sites.
Aussie marketing site
I realise I'm not a very vocal member of the community, but my 2 cents:
I agree with kattekrab: if it keeps being raised every year, something still needs doing.
My own experience is both a webdev for our small family part-time business, but also a business analyst and strategic project manager (for the last few years working for Victorian government agencies).
In the last couple of years I have had 4 reasonable sized website projects under assessment for semi-gov (Vic government funded) organisations. In each case, assessing the relative merits of drupal against the project requirements is relatively simple - but selling that as a recommendation to senior management who have not heard of it, is very difficult. They are not looking for technical details - they would not understand them anyway - but they are looking for recognisable brand names, and they are looking for demonstrable reference sites (industry relevant reference sites) - because these guys are risk averse (even if risks are perceived, not real), and DO NOT want to be the first to do anything.
I have put together my own presentation packs of Australian government drupal sites, making it as relative as possible.
My stakeholders are far more impressed by Vic state library, or pm.org.au, than they are by the grammys or sonyBMG.
Any localised content, particularly with case studies (from a business perspective - not developer!) would be a fantastic reference tool to drive Drupal deeper and wider into gov and semi-gov circles.
As a web builder, I believe my business would be more enhanced by having a business-centric case study site, rather than a self-promotion page where I stick my hand up and say "I worked on that!". My clients are FIRST choosing the product, THEN choosing the services/service provider. If as a community we can assist Drupal to win the first battle - then I'll be happy to let my own marketing/reputation(and tender submissions!) take care of the second.
I also agree we dont want to detract from the fantastic work at drupal.org - but that's what hyperlinks are for isn't it?
I dont see a problem as long as it's not replicating function that is available on D.O.
Just my thoughts anyway...
As much as I am all for a
As much as I am all for a site that I can post up my creations too (yeh for more links!) I'm not sure that a site like this is going to help in any way. Having been in this situation so many times before with government projects or any client with this mentality is you're not going to change their minds. When I have been able to get drupal though as a viable platform its been when there hasn't been management micro managing and interference.
The problem most of us face in this space at the moment is that digital is now taking over a larger and larger portion of peoples communication portfolios and there are a lot of senior management and exec level staff who have only been educated and worked in an era mass media which everyone at this point with half a brain can admit is now well and truly over. I encounter projects on a daily basis where projects are being micromanaged into the ground and so far have only found two ways to work around this.
If wholesale reform of the way your internal organisation doesn't work isn't happening or going to happen then I have two options for you.
The first is to let them bash around in the dark for 12 months, let them hand it off internally to their internal .net developer, wait for it to go no where for 12 months until they get really annoyed and come back to you.
The second is do everything you can under the radar, this works well for smaller projects and then use the smaller projects to build up to bigger projects. This has worked brilliantly where I work, we had a smaller project which cost 50K last year using Community Engine and cost $400 this year with a few internal people and Drupal. We had 6 months to do the project and finished the core KPI requirements 3 months in. We spent the next 3 months value adding (Solr Search, UI and functionality expansion). We are now at the point where the questions coming back aren't about what we are doing but why every other project we have hasn't been as good as this one.
As much as I'm all for more links back to my projects I don't think this is going to help those of us in or consulting for organisations stuck in the 90's.
I hear you Dale. And I agree
I hear you Dale.
And I agree with your assessment of these "stuck in the past" management layers, for the most part.
However speaking as someone who is usually inside these organisations, for the longer term (2-3 years) trying to effect cultural change right across the IT spectrum, any additional ammunition I can get, I'll take :) Doesn't mean it will work in every battle, and anyway Sun Tzu has taught me to only fight the battles I can win...
And sometimes your "small site first" example is also applicable to people - I have had success by converting lower mid managers first, and then getting them to evangelise to the senior managers. And in these cases too, some readily accessible localised reference material exposing the virtues of Drupal would be used by these evangelists to further the cause.
Marketing Drupal technology in Australia
Drupalistas
Can I provide an outsiders comment on this discussion, from a marketing point of view, please?
I think there needs to be agreement on what you are trying to achieve with all this healthy debate about show case sites, etc.
In Systems Thinking 101 years ago I was taught to clearing define the Objectives of a project right up front, then Analysis, and only when these stages were completed to start jumping into the fun creative stage of Creating Solutions to the Problem.
I think the OBJECTIVES of this project are something like this:
THOUGHTS ABOUT THE SOLUTION
- a Drupal Showcase of the type already being discussed
- a register of designers/developers who each organisation completes a template form to describe their skill set, specialities, locations, plus a link list of 5 - 10 projects that they would like to showcase their work
- an awards scheme (like the Oscars) where members of the Drupal Australia nominate the best projects - by client type, etc - which is run at state and national level, in association with the next Drupal Down Under event, Jan 2012
MOVING FORWARD
Ciao for now
John Young
Yindi Systems
web: www.yindi.net
twitter: @yindisystems
John, I think 1 (d.o
John,
I think 1 (d.o showcase) and 2 (list of developers etc/showcase of skills) can be combined, there are plans afoot to redesign the issue queue and make d.o more social. Earmarked features include 'following' other developers, user profiles etc etc - see https://disambiguity.notableapp.com/posts/32e7789aec8ffc42207b5044ecc1ca... http://drupal.org/node/1080550 and http://groups.drupal.org/prairie-initiative
Some really cool stuff being proposed - you can here Leisa talk about it here: http://www.lullabot.com/podcasts/drupal-voices-188-leisa-reichelt-on-red...
Cross posting link regarding
Cross posting link regarding the 'redesign d.o profiles'
Have cross linked to our comments from there
http://groups.drupal.org/node/144594
"I have put together my own
"I have put together my own presentation packs of Australian government drupal sites, making it as relative as possible.
My stakeholders are far more impressed by Vic state library, or pm.org.au, than they are by the grammys or sonyBMG."
This was exactly what was in my mind.
It's not about jingo-ism - it's about relevance.
We all know about the high profile international sites - it's hard to uncover the low-profile local sites - and that's why I'd like to see somewhere we can filter for them - rather than trawling the websites of local drupal shops and hoping they have a decent portfolio online. I don't really care too much if it's on a site developed by the aussie drupal community, or it's available on Drupal.org - but it's needed.
My one concern about going with D.O is there will be some arbitrary rules about what can be added to the listing - which will disqualify smaller local sites from being listed.
Eg: http://drupal.org/node/948062#comment-4225650
Somehow makes me think of wikipedia and 'notability'.
I was putting together a one page document for govt to apply for funding for DDU and wanted to showcase Victorian sites... I'm almost offended by some people's suggestion that this makes me some kind of rabid national socialist. ;)
Would slv.org.au extranet.vic.gov.au brotherhoodbooks.org.au mdhs.unimelb.edu.au visitgreatoceanroad.org.au toylab.com.au businessspectator.com.au tribalfootball.com make the grade of acceptable showcase sites on D.O?
Drupal is global. Absolutely, but it empowers local communities and local industries who have a need to communicate amongst each other with non-technical stakeholders. The most elegant, technically advanced solution isn't necessarily useful in these contexts, but local sites for local purposes is.
I agree this would be useful for all communities worldwide - so it would be great to have this on D.O - but if our local sites for local people don't meet the criteria, then the problem isn't solved.
thanks to @sime keeping it real here - talk is indeed silver - thank you
and @jaimekristene - for seeing the grey area and acknowledging there's no reason we can't do both.
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
brotherhoodbooks?
BrotherhoodBooks.org.au was originally written in Zend Framework and now it uses ASP.NET - so no it wouldn't be in the showcase.
brotherhoodbooks?
Oops! my bad. I thought you said it was a Drupal site - and I didn't actually check.
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
Define Australian
I've been watching this thread for a while. I'm left with one question - what do we mean by Australian Drupal projects?
For example I am based in Australia, but most of my work is working on large scale projects for businesses overseas. Al Jazeera isn't an Australian site, but I have had significant involvement in some of their Drupal stuff. Can I put Al Jazeera in the show case?
Another example, the The Greens sites are overwhelming Drupal based, but most of the work done on them is done by Kiwis across the ditch. Do we include such sites in the showcase?
An Australian shop lands a large Drupal project from a household name, they do most of the architecture and supervise the coding, but most of the hacking occurs offshore. Does that qualify?
An international student, who isn't an Australian citizen, is building small Drupal sites for local client to cover their living expenses - it is safer than driving cabs and pays better than hospitality. Some would say the student isn't Australian, so are they eligible to add their work to the showcase?
This is the problem I always have when trying to decide what is Australian, especially when it comes to tech stuff, "Australian" isn't a very well defined category. Fresh produce is easy, was it grown here? Most Drupal sites make extensive use of contrib so there is already a very level of non Australian code in the sites.
If we limit it to Australian shops, then Al Jazeera is in, The Greens are out and we have a long debate about the out sourced project and the student. If we limit it to Australian organisations' sites, Al Jazeera is out, The Greens, the outsourced project and the student's sites are in. If we limit it to Australian sites built by Australian shops we really restrict the sites that can be listed and how much of the code has to be new and developed here?
/me leaves the can of worms in the corner
Another example, the The
Man are the Australian Greens screwed if that ever gets out
Looking into can of worms from skwashd :)
Hello skwashd,
I think you are splitting too many hairs here. We are not talking about code and what quantifies Contrib code, Core code, GPL, etc. We are talking about a showcase to "real" people. So already this is missing the mark and the intent of what I believe is trying to be done.
A showcase that highlights relevant Australian sites is something that is sorely missing. When an Australian government agency is looking to switch to Drupal, Al Jazeera is most likely not relevant. Nor is Sony, Nike, whatever that might be built with Drupal. But the State of Victoria or Australian War Memorial using Drupal is relevant. When a small Australian shop wants to develop an online presence with e-commerce, they want to see other showcase sites that they can build confidence in.
I don't think anyone has brought up Australian citizenship as a prerequisite so not sure where you are going with that angle.
And Australia actually is a well defined category, it is a country for goodness sake. It is full of amazing Drupal shops and Drupal talent. They are very real people living in a very real place. If they happen to outsource some of their work so what?
Ultimately an Australian showcase site is needed. I get your point about what that constitutes, so I will throw my hat into the ring and say that it has to be a site / project that was developed by an Australian based individual / shop (with or without external help). The Drupal community building this showcase site then can vote on showcases they like best and the site itself will naturally promote content up the chain.
So who is Australian based? This can be determined from someone's d.o profile page. They have asked the info and it is cut and dry.
When a showcase is added it is tagged to appropriate sectors (Government, Sport, Entertainment, TV, whatever) along with a bit of tech detail (what version of Drupal, size of team, etc). This will make it easy to mix and match tags to get just the showcases someone is interested in. I could visit the site and see Government sites built with Drupal 7 launched from last year and with more then 2 votes.
Cheers,
David
A showcase that highlights
So then based on that criteria, you have contradicted your claim that Al Jazeera isn't relevant, as some of their new Drupal is being designed and developed in Australia by an individual, who just so happens to be contracting with a US based Drupal shop. Based on your criteria The Greens would be out. I think that you'll find that some in the Australian media industry would find what Al Jazeera is doing very interesting and relevant. I'm not so sure yet another government website is very interesting for a lot of people.
I wasn't saying Australia isn't well defined, I was demonstrating that "Australian" isn't clearly defined. Despite your contradiction I think you've gone some way to defining what the criteria for inclusion could be.
@skwashd: So then based on
You will notice that I said that Al Jazeera wasn't "relavent" for two examples I gave. I made no mention of excluding it from an Australian showcase site, it could very much be highlighted if you wanted to. In my original post I was careful to word what I said as to make sure there was no contradiction.
From a marketing perspective,
From a marketing perspective, why would you send anyone to http://drupal.org/cases ? Its a wall of text peppered with a small number of external links and no great big list with screenshots of all the lovely Drupal sites out there.
http://www.drupalsites.net is a much, much better place to send people to see what has been done in Drupal, regardless of what country it is from. Purely because it has something you can SEE.
Agree 100%
Agree 100%
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
simple answer to complex question
if you want to showcase your work build your own portfolio to showcase it. (says me with a crappy almost nonexistent showcase...)
Haha I have one of those too,
Haha I have one of those too, but we're talking showcasing (Australian) Drupal sites rather than just one business' sites. Most webdesign shops have a portfolio on their site.
I'm thinking someone who wants to use Drupal and an Australian firm and would like to be able to pick through a list of what's been done and goes "ooh, I like that one, ah, its by XYZ firm, I'll give them a call".
Drupalsites.net is new to me,
Drupalsites.net is new to me, and seem's like a good option. I notice a couple of Australian firms have already put up there main site. Might do the same in a few weeks from now.
Announcing the Drupal Australia "Oscar" Awards
Boys and Girls
How about implementing a nation wide recognition process for developers and designers using Drupal in Australia?
WHY HAVE AN AUSTRALIAN AWARD SYSTEM?
1) to draw attention to Drupal as the pre-eminent CMS environment in Australia
2) increase the opportunities for all members of the Australian Drupal community to generate more business opportunities for themselves
HOW COULD IT BE ORGANIZED?
Drop me an email if you would like to be part of a team to develop this idea into a serious proposal that can be put to the whole Drupal community in Australia.
Ciao for now
John Young
Internet Architect
YINDI SYSTEMS
e: john.young@yindi.net
m: +61 407 940 943
twitter: yindisystems
John Young
Yindi Systems
web: www.yindi.net
twitter: @yindisystems
Hello John, I kinda like
Hello John,
I kinda like this, it could tie into Drupal Downunder which is now being held annually. The upcoming one is in Melbourne and will be in Jan 2012. DDU 2012 would award the winner from Drupal sites launched in 2011.
Cheers,
David
Love this idea! +++++
Love this idea!
+++++
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
I have been reading this now
I have been reading this now long enough, and it seems so frickin argumentative and more complicated than it ought to be. Why can this not be just plain simple Australian sites. I would submit my few if there were something like this. My thoughts are the sites are "Created by Australians for Australians in Australia". Sorry but it can not be more clear cut than that. That is what I call Australian. This is what my clients would be looking for.
Why so complicated
This is complicated because the web doesn't have borders. If Facebook was founded and built in Australia it wouldn't fit your bill as it is not for Australians, its for the world. Also I am a Brit who is now an Australian resident and was part of building the WA Museum website in Drupal so would that be be OK to go in the showcase?
I feel people want is a resource where people can point there bosses/clients/colleagues to and say look what these Australian companies are doing with Drupal. They want to be able to prove it's a serious, secure, professional platform to build the future of their/the clients company/organisation.
As a designer who came from bulding simple sites in Wordpress to now using Drupal we need examples to say look, you can do simple sites with Drupal but you can also harness the power of Drupal and make website that will run the White House or IMF. Working for the WA Museum having a showcase where we can promote the use of Drupal to other WA Government agencies/external clients would be a great idea. Also showing people how Drupal can make some of Museum's Databases accessible might make others feel that Drupal would be the right solution for them.
D
Perhaps I should have been
Perhaps I should have been more clear.. I meant Built for Australians (Built for an Australian Business) Not Australian Boundaries... It seems fairly simple. If a client wants to see a broader spectrum, they have drupalsites.com.
Very few of my Drupal sites
Very few of my Drupal sites would count as built by Australians for Australians (except maybe that freebie I knocked up in a few hours, but that may be functional but it isn't showcase-worthy ... and our business site but that's an about page with a contact form) so I'd have nothing to contribute.
My Drupal sites that I'd be inclined to showcase are made by an Australian for a world-wide audience.
I wasn't very clear in my
I wasn't very clear in my first comment. There is an initiative to build better Showcases on Drupal.org: http://drupal.org/node/948062
http://www.drupalsites.net may look nicer and have rating functionality, but the content seems lacking to me. There's a couple sentences or paragraphs of "summary"... nothing about how the site was built, challenges they face etc. which is the type of info we have in the existing d.o. showcases/case studies.
==================================
http://about.me/lisarex
Thanks Lisa Have posted a
Thanks Lisa
Have posted a brief summary of our points here:
http://drupal.org/node/948062#comment-4501814
and cross referenced the issue here:
http://drupal.org/node/1080550
+1
I'm with Lisa on this one.
There should be one place for showcasing Drupal to the world. My experience with pitching Drupal to clients isn't pointing to Australian sites that convinces them, it is pointing them to relevant sites. For example if your pitching to government whitehouse.gov, NY State, House of Reps, pm.gov.au are all useful examples - where as a brochure-ware site I threw together for a local small business ins't. Similarly for the education sector, you'd point to Yale, Harvard, Victoria Uni or Charles Darwin would be useful. Having a geographic limitation would give people a blinkered view of Drupal.
I support @larowlan's suggestion on the issue of adding a geographic tag in the show case on d.o so people can filter by country or region if they wish to do so, but the default should be to show the best - regardless of location.
+1 reads like the reply I
+1
reads like the reply I wrote this morning and then changed my mind about posting.
For those who are 'followers' they'll want to know that other AU firms are using Drupal before they make the jump.
Leaders will recognise a good thing regardless of what their contemporaries in AU are doing.
I can't see why we shouldn't
I can't see why we shouldn't just have both and group them into two categories. It seems pretty clear from the above comments that Drupal sites built by Aussies and ones with an Australian context are both relevant to our local Drupalsphere. Australian owned and Australian grown perhaps?? I agree that "owned" and "grown" is something special, so give these sites a gold star, higher prominence in the site, hall of fame, double points! :)
At the end of the day I think we'd be crazy to simply dismiss Australian "grown" sites, do we really want to send a message to the rest of the world that Australian Drupal is just about building Australian sites? Do we only want to attract a local market??? What do we gain by being so selective? What might we lose? We would also be failing to recognise and display the hard work of some Australian Drupal shops and devs.
I would think its better just to pool together the best Drupal showcase we can that demonstrates both the adoption and availability of Drupal in Australia (The aus greens website built by NZ) and the hard-work and talent of Australian Drupal companies and individuals, whether for local or overseas entities.
I say take lisarex's advice
I say take lisarex's advice and focus your energy on helping d.o get a better showcase.
My 2c
My goodness, this has turned
My goodness, this has turned out quite ridiculous.. Someone starts to comment let's look at making an Australian showcase of sites built right here in Australia. The argument then turns to "What makes the site Australian?"... so it seems it has had some clarity... Then we get someone opposed to the idea... So what who cares, that person can go post their site on a worldwide site. You cannot accommodate everyone's taste, however not everyone has taste. So to the killjoys that do not like the idea of making a home grown "Australianism", go whinge on another topic. I support the idea 100% for Australian for Australian for Australia. Next we should be asked to not make comment to wish someone Merry Christmas because it is not Politically correct. Fair Dinkum, then we will be asked not to celebrate Easter because it goes against other foreign ideas. Stiff biscuits!! Make a frickin Australian sector to Drupal so we can show off "Home grown for the Australian appetite"... Marketing of "Made in Australia" or "Australian Owned and Australian Run" goes very long distances....
I am shocked at some killjoys in here that love to stir things up, stir emotions, and generally try to squash out great ideas, thus making them more complex than need be. Something called "Australian Approved" comes to mind... Oh wait... that is already taken as a Business name.... (Hmm... I already own that Business Name)... oh well.
It seems people not born as Australians can never understand how proud we are as Australians, and how we like to show what we do for other Australians...
I see no reason we couldn't make a few filters or tags of: 1) Australian Grown for the Australian market; 2) Australian Grown for the International market. (Oh, but this would be too simple)
My 2c
"It seems people not born as
"It seems people not born as Australians can never understand how proud we are as Australians, and how we like to show what we do for otherAustralians..."
Invoking Godwin's Law in 3.. 2.. 1..
Strewth!
By jingos, by crikey! Did you get Pauline Hanson or someone in a pub in Cronulla to proof read it for you? It is this attitude that makes me not identify as Australian. For the record I was born here.
Calling people killjoys or whingers because they don't support your position is unlikely to convince of the merits of your argument.
If you feel so strongly about your nationalism you really should check out an Australian made CMS such as MySource Matrix by Squiz.
I agree with the person who messaged me this on IRC "the thread is the best, and most accurate, showcase of australian drupal developers that I could hope for".
Strewth allright
Wow that comment above is scary sorry I am whole heartly behind skwashd and lisarex on this one and please this is Drupal we have a community of acceptance can we please keep the slurs off the thread? ac not sure what you mean but i think it is best ignored by everyone!
You are not sure what I mean
You are not sure what I mean but you think it should be ignored? I think that is the definition of ignorance.
If you read the thread you would see that the person whose comment I replied to made a fairly outrageous claim and I am simply stating it is a matter of seconds until Godwin's Law occurs in this thread.
Lighten up
Re
ac I meant re godwins law but what I was getting at is the same comment that @skwsd was saying as in the above comment makes me feel I'll at ease, sorry but it does I hold dual citizenship and I don't identify with those comments that's all :) re lighten up I'm only 50kg I can't get lighter :D
I am sorry you don't
I am sorry you don't understand comedy or grammar.
lol
lol
I'd like to see a better d.o before creating a local derivative
I've seen this discussion evolve at the same time as following some twitter conversations between randyfay and lisarex about improvements to d.o content architecture and I think there's an opportunity to take some of the energy around this discussion and put it towards making a better showcase on Drupal's official internet home.
I've submitted sites to d.o/cases before and it's been very helpful to receive attention and feedback from the global Drupal community. If there was an alternative such as drupal.org.au/cases I would either be repeating the content or I would choose to post my case-study to the site where it would receive the greatest attention. The first option is duplicating content, the second option is cannibalizing my audience.
@owenlansbury: in your initial post you talk about this showcase being part of a bigger organisation that would also facilitate things like a services directory and fundraising for local (Australian) Drupal stuff. Do you see this as a Drupal-Association-like organisation or the Australian arm of the Drupal Association? This idea seems to be the more significant suggestion in the original post.
I think there's an
My sentiments exactly - and this would further promote the credibility of the Australian community.
Yes, lets not lose sight of that.
A lot of meta-talk here, and
A lot of meta-talk here, and that's fine by me. Just remember that this is where "talk is silver" comes from. What actually happens in the real world has nothing to do with what you/we perceive to have been decided on this thread.
Hi y'all, I like both
Hi y'all, I like both project ideas. I can see the merit of doing both. I'm willing to contribute to both. Let me know where the ongoing productive discussions (maybe some todo items in a ticketing/bug system?) will be and how I can help out, I'm a PHP coder mostly. I reckon who ever is actually going to do the work can choose which they spend their time on next, rather than other people trying dictate this. You can also choose which site you'll put your work on, I'd bet, like me, you'd like to see your accomplishments on both sites. Jaime.
New feature request at d.o
http://drupal.org/node/1166686
See
See http://drupal.org/node/948062 for the background
sorry about the dupe!
thanks @larowlan
100 % Australian
I would suggest the only content management system that is 100% Australian - by Australians and for Australians - are Aboriginal songlines, rock art and the didgeridoo... its the only form of communication that's uniquely Australian (assuming your cut off is that last ice age, which seems like a reasonable place to start)
Drupal is a global product, Dries is Euro-American, many of the coders are European or American (though there is a solid Aussie contingent doing deep and hard work on dev i.e. skwashd and mig5 come to mind)
MySource Matrix is big with the Aussie Fed, so too is Canberra, which clearly is also a big mistake
Aussie jingoism has become a sickening and stupid factor in Australian life over the last 30 years, since the 88 bicentenary and those coins that Hawke bribed every kid in Australia with, and then many years of Howard's nonsense.. etc etc ad naueseam
I would suggest, the pure, nativist pride should go back under a rock and we should be a bit more pragmatic
how about Aussie sites can be one of these criteria;
-.com.au domains
-Australian end clients
-Australian developers
-largely (75% plus) Australian involvement
I know of a Drupal shop that does work for the CSIRO and they (did, maybe still do?) outsource all their Drupal work to India... is a CSIRO website done by Indians using Drupal not Australian ?
how many of you drive Japanese cars? watch American TV ? eat tomatos or potatoes (American plants) or wattle seeds?? what language do you speak (English or Koorie?)?
http://www.asauthors.org/lib/ASA_Papers/ASA_Australian_Copyright_vs_Indi...
ps: I was born in Sydney (to 4th generation free Irish Australian's), I have lived in Hong Kong, London, Sydney, Newcastle, Berkeley, and spent time in Sweden, Denmark, England, Scotland, Spain and France. I use Drupal, and I think like Einstein, "nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind"
have a close look at the ownership and production of a Holden, your News Corp daily newspaper or any other "Australian" product and see how pure you can be
Would you prefer 100% sold out?
Hi niccolo,
There is something that really troubles me about your reply, not the drupal part, more the comments about nationalism. On re-reading you have summarised both parts of the problem. Nationalism has been subverted into something which can only be seen in derisive way and the corporations which influence so much of our daily lives have absolutely no interest in what is beneficial to Australia.
The interesting thing is that the targets of the jingoism (would that make them jingoees?) are the ones which both sides of politics are bending over backwards to please. They actually need to be acting in a truly nationalistic fashion and educating the jingoees that "the enemies are NOT arriving by boat at Christmas Island, they are arriving by private Gulfstream, wearing Ralph Lauren and carrying briefcases with takeover paperwork in them"
I guess I just wanted to agree that the Aussie brand has gone off track but disagree on what to do to fix it. Lets just blame Owen for this little mess.
Cheers
Bernie
Kingswood Driver
So decission made then grow drupal.org
niccolo thank you for your comments, I have stated and others many times that there are those of us who feel we belong to a community and do not believe an open source community should have geographic borders, Drupal Groups is great for organizing local meet-ups sharing local news and having a chat or new local people to ask for help, but I myself become a member of all Drupal groups for a country when I am visiting etc
Also what would happen when someone like waako comes to Australia and works on a Drupal project would he list it under Drupal London claim it as a London site? food for thought
Looks like discussion is over no Australian only site and we build Drupal.org and put our suggestions into that, if by all means someone wants to do a side project I dont think anyone can control or is trying to control what people do I think the consensus is that it will be an individual attempt and not reflective of the Drupal community as a whole.
If anyone feels I am wrong or misguided please state how otherwise I see once again the discussion as closed for another year at least ;)
@amaree - Huh? Where did you
@amaree - Huh? Where did you draw your conclusions from? You must be reading a different thread then me. Yes, there are a few people who want drupal.org to be the place, but an even greater majority want something tailored to highlight Australian "BUILT" sites by Australian individuals / companies.
Please refer to http://groups.drupal.org/node/147949#comment-502644 above. Did you read the issue on drupal.org: http://drupal.org/node/948062#comment-4225650. They want LESS showcase sites, not more. Please read that link. So there is no way in hell that on a global showcase site a small/medium sized company is going to get any exposure.
And please, we are talking about exposure to get "more" business for Australian based Drupal devs. There need not be any nationalistic jibber jabber. An Australian site will most likely have more relevance. That is all.
So an Australian Drupal showcase site would provide Australian based (according to their selected country on their D.O profile) individuals and companies to increase their exposure in Australia and the rest of the world. The best of the best from this site could then be pushed up to D.O showcases. Last I heard search engines actually index sites from across the web so we are not fragmenting here, just creating a natural chain of progression.
This statement is exactly what is wrong with this whole argument. Closed for another year... Come on, how long does a decision take? Let us be decisive and do something. I am happy to start building a site. I will put speak with code.
Policy
Ok so tell me how it would work policy wise we know how it would work code wise everyone here can create one that's not the question, the question is what is right for drupal.org and what is right for the community. So if you feel this is the right thing to do for the community then create a policy which governs how things are done and sites are listed and people are stated for work involved, in a. True open source fashion put the policy under creative commons and get everyone to comment etc. However if you do go ahead you would need a disclaimer that this in no way reflects the whole drupal community or all drupal developers residing in australia or is it affiliated with drupal.org. Personally I would say if businesses are finding it hard to showcase on drupal.org build up your own portfolio most of my work comes directly from people reading my portfolio, once again just food for thought... I fail to see any valid reason why I would want my work on such a showcase or direct clients to it? But that's my opinion :) keen to see your proposal or policy as to how it would be governed
Do I win a prize for sparking
Do I win a prize for sparking the most heated discussion on GDO/AU? At least there's lots of passion out there - let's just hold off from it getting personal or political when it doesn't need to go anywhere in that direction.
I'm still digesting all this feedback (and having a good chuckle along the way), but there's definitely more threads of consensus in here than dissent.
Do I win a prize for sparking
Do I win a prize for sparking the most heated discussion on GDO/AU? At least there's lots of passion out there - let's just hold off from it getting personal or political when it doesn't need to go anywhere in that direction.
I'm still digesting all this feedback (and having a good chuckle along the way), but there's definitely more threads of consensus in here than dissent.
I think you might. Hold on while we reach consensus what that is
I think we've become our own worst client here - instead of taking a functionality/features first approach, let's consider an objectives-lead/user-centric approach?
Objectives already put forward:
draw attention to existing and potential new Clients just how much really impressive Drupal development is being done in Australia, or for Australian organizations
generate some revenue opportunities for developers and graphics designers who make up the Drupal community here in Australia
My 2 btc regarding objectives:
Raise awareness re Drupal in the Aussie marketplace
Outreach to potential Drupal contributors (developers, site builders, documenters)
I feel pretty strongly commercial activities do not belong on this site - raising revenues, self promotion, etc belong elsewhere. If you were involved in a showcased site, that speaks for itself. Deciding on whether advertising, job listings, etc live here can be parked for later, once we've agreed on objectives & audience.
Which implies the primary audience group is:
and secondary audience group:
So. What are your thoughts on these objectives and target audiences?
It has to be a political discussion
Any discussion like this by its very nature is a political one. Like it or not, the selection criteria is driven by politics. As we have already seen in this thread well intentioned "support Australian businesses" nationalism it not very far away from the xenophobic nationalism which drives things like the Cronulla riots and our immigration policy.
Supporting Australian businesses
The selection criteria does not have to be driven by politics. Anyone who is based in Australia and offering Drupal services can submit showcases. No politics.
Huh? So supporting Australian business has now been linked to Cronulla riots? I just can't believe this sort of logic... So does Whitepages / Yellowpages also create a sort of nationalism? They are a local listing that only shows Australian content. Last time I checked I found them quite useful and no riots. Let us get this straight... this thread was started to promote Drupal in Australia by showcasing relevant Drupal (and yes locally developed) sites.
This creates new opportunities for people to make money and to do what they are passionate about -- work with Drupal. By linking in more with the web we can create new opportunities that no one can plan for. If we shrink away from this all that is happening is lost opportunity and making ourselves harder to discover. Let's not make potential clients cross reference linkedin, twitter, drupal.org, case tracker, issue queues and commits to find out what we do.
Australian businesses (and yes, any international business) every day are exploring the wide world of CMS systems and some are deciding that Drupal is the way to go, why not make it easier for them? Why not make it easier for them to discover Drupal developers? Many businesses who are looking to build medium to large scale web projects want a local team to work with. A showcase site will help them get the lay of the land and zero in on the individuals / companies that best suit their project.
not necessarily
Hi Dave, I don't agree. I was trying to say above but possibly not very clearly that there is a middle ground, support for Australia is a good thing, and that the extreme point of view only exists because of a lack of solid information and leadership. Dismissing it as wrong without addressing the misinformation is only serving to perpetuate the problem.
As far as the original question goes, I agree with @larowlan that the way forward is in improving the presentation options for DO in general and the establishment of guidelines which will help to keep things non-political.
Bernie
Well, I, for one, am
Well, I, for one, am outraged.
Maybe this is a bit like searching for drupal modules,maybe not.
To find drupal modules to suit a task I have in mind I search google for "drupal modules" and I find the following,
http://drupalmodules.com/
followed by
http://drupal.org/project/Modules
I find the drupalmodules site more useful for finding a module that is likely to provide the functions that I need and so do lots of other people it would seem since it is top on the search return. I had a read of http://drupalmodules.com/about and the guy explains that he put the site together because he thought there was a need. He explains,
So even though lots of drupal users wanted the features he was thinking of providing these features didn't get built into drupal.org he just made a separate website and got on with it.
In the same way it may be easier for a few us to build a site independant of drupal.org assuming we have enough of us with the same objectives for a showcase site. That way we avoid the obvious problems of what is and isn't appropriate on a drupal.org site. It may not have the drupal.org.au web address but I don't think that is problem.
Why is my email suddenly full
Why is my email suddenly full of complete trash like this ?
@skwashd can i send you an invoice for wasting my time with this bullocks?
Can we just decide on one or many different selection criteria's and list them accordingly?
http://dgtlmoon.com
Back to the original thread, I agree that this is a great idea
Back to the original thread, I agree that this is a great idea and look forward to seeing it come together in reality. Happy to help out in anyway I can (services, hosting etc).
Agileware, Australian Drupal Developers
http://agileware.com.au
Guys and girls, can we please
Guys and girls, can we please keep this on track.
Our conduct is on show to the whole community here.
FWIW I've raised the concerns noted here over keeping the drupal.org/cases too controlled on the issue here: http://drupal.org/node/948062#comment-4511480 as well as made some suggestions regarding ensuring quality of listings by requiring certain information here: http://drupal.org/node/948062#comment-4511400
For the record I have no objection with the 'have your cake and eat it approach' where we have both a local site and improve the drupal.org/cases functionality.
People were trying to keep
People were trying to keep the thread on track until it got swamped under a tide of racial prejudice.
Not one solution is a perfect solution
So I also agree that is totally to have presence at Drupal.org and on a additional site
If one of the objectives is to promote the professionalism of the Drupal community, some of the comments here are going in the opposite direction so please focus on the common goals and remember that online communication is the easiest path to misunderstandings
I get all my business leads from people that know my work and in my expeience not many clients are googling for Drupal Australia sites or anything like that and if they do, there are already a few sites where you can find that. Still a good idea I think
I also agree forming 2 focus groups to work out the details of each approach is a good idea
Please stay on topic, don't take things personally and remember how great Drupal is and how it adds to each of our lives. No community is perfect but if we stay true to the values behind an open source project we will always find solutions.
Raul Caceres
www.simsolutions.net.au
Governece
Raul, so my question previous regarding governece and policy of how it would be governed also how would a dispute be handled re what if someone built the site but they hacked core and the community is aware should that be recorded on the site? Also rebuilding a site what happens when a development house develops a website and them a team of drupal developers bring it in-house and rebuild it under a government agency or private company? Not just development houses build sites individuals do and he's there are legalities etc around how that information is presented? Also how do we stop it from excluding people as from the above threads there look to be people already excluded and I don't want to see the same football club mentality that keeps so many new users and developers away from contributing more to the community. I am upset to see reasonable ideas like aka how would it be driven policy wise that other people have ignored yet they seem to attack skwsd on what are reasonable use case scenario questions?
Policies
I think that is why it will be good to divide the group in two. One for the people that want to explore using a space at d.o. including any logistics, rules etc and another group to do the same for a showcase site. I am happy to post my sites in both places and people that want to post in only one is also fine. Having 2 sites instead of one is not going to do any damage to anyone. Not sure I will have a lot of time to help taking action for either.
Everyone I have met in the Drupal community is awesome so I am sure that things can be worked out.
If people agree on creating the 2 streams then we will just need a facilitator for each and then we can take each discussion to a new thread.
Let's remember that we are trying to work on a positive image of Drupal Australia and that the first thing that comes in Google when you search for "Drupal Australia" or "Drupal sites Australia" is this group so we should show the public how professional we are.
Raul Caceres
www.simsolutions.net.au
interesting meta
Everyone believes that what they say is relevant to the thread. Either we think we can clarify things by transcribing our own (apparently) clear thoughts on the matter, or we perceive attack and are defending ourselves.
So ask yourself how is it that the right intentions can apparently lead to the wrong outcome? It's all in the judgement. Me, I haven't worked out how to unsubscribe so I'm just going for the ride. :)
Visit
Visit http://groups.drupal.org/user/$your_uid/notifications/subscriptions and make the Australia Discussion subscription inactive.
It's what I just did. :-)
Progress update
Please see http://drupal.org/node/948062#comment-4517150 for a progress update on the d.o half of this thread.
Development for this project
Development for this project moved from content.redesign.devdrupal.org to http://showcase-drupal.redesign.devdrupal.org - let me know if you want access and I'll reset your password. Hoping to get some more time for it later in the week.
anyone willing to help out by
anyone willing to help out by posting some dummy showcase sites so I can start the views theming and node theming, please contact me via my contact form, on irc or on this thread: http://drupal.org/node/948062
http://showcase.acquia.com
http://showcase.acquia.com has just launched, which solves most of what everyone seems to have been wanting.
Just sign in and start adding showcase sites. Quite a lot have been added for AU already (thanks JJackson whoever you are), so just double check before you dive in http://showcase.acquia.com/search/node/australia
duplicate entry deleted
duplicate entry deleted
Good news all, this has been
Good news all, this has been deployed to drupal.org - see drupal.org/case-studies.
Now we need help to migrate the old book pages and load/create content.
Please see http://drupal.org/node/1487734 for process for migration.
Edit: fixed the url and added the details for migration.