Getting Back In The Game, Again
Fellow Dojo enthusiasts,
It's been a while. I won't waste too many bits apologizing for being an absentee over the past year, but I will say that I miss y'all, and I want to spend more time in the Dojo. To be totally honest, it's taken until now for me to really start feeling confident about my Drupal 6 skills, and that plus a pretty hectic work schedule growing my consultancy has kept me on the sidelines for most of 2008.
But that's about to change. There are a number of factors combining to bring me back into the scene:
- Really loving working with Drupal 6 and wanting more people to feel the buzz
- Seeing all the ambitious proposals that are coming out about the future of Drupal learning
- Knowing that Acquia is going to launch a certification program soon, and wanting a lot of people all over the world to be able to pass their tests
- The return of Squidgy! (and drupaldojo.com with him)
- Add1sun taking on a huge new role w/documentation team and the coming d.o redesign
Basically, the time is now for the Dojo to start providing value to the community again. We're at a major tipping point I think. In the spirit of do-ocracy, to me this means three things:
- Reading and responding to group posts on a daily basis
- Teaching / creating screencasts at least twice a month starting in November
- Setting up the g.d.o panels pages to really be effective
- Archiving the existing dd.com site (anyone who wants can get a copy) and putting up a much simpler page there aimed at drupal newcomers: just presenting video content
More details below the fold.
Challenges
The third point above is potentially controversial given that there are a number of other ideas out there. My position is that dd.com should be useful, and right now the best way I can see that happening is if it does less: acting as a simple library for content and a host for our VNC sharing system.
Also, as I said above, I'm ready and willing to make a complete copy of the existing codebase and mysql to anyone who wants to carry any of the work there forward. Should an amazing new website emerge, I think we of the dojo can look at it, approve it, and have a wonderful re-launch.
But in the mean-time, I'll make something less ambitious happen there, and it should help.
Opportunities
I believe Drupal is going to start going through another major growth spurt. As the cream of the contribs crop mature and Acquia begins ramping up in earnest, the stage is set for another round of exponential expansion. I really want the Dojo to do for 6.0 what it did for 5.0 in the sense of helping newcomers ramp-up quickly. That means producing content.
Also, with add1sun starting up as head of the Doc team, we've got a chance to "get it right" in terms of how we get content back onto d.o, which is hugely important for the Dojo to realize it's full potential.
Finally, there's a very real way in which we can take lessons learned from the past two years and focus a bit better. I really think we can do something extraordinary here, and show the world how a community can bootstrap new expertise.
How To Help
I'm putting this out in the spirit of do-ocracy, and with the hope that people understand the value of this sort of practical plan of action. If you want to help out, here are the things that I would love to see happen:
- Get a design comp together for the ultra-simple relaunch of dd.com
- Some sysadmin support to make sure webavant's VNC work is ready to work
- Helping to cull through all the content here on the group to create some definative "how to" docs for joining live sessions, hosting sessions, recording screen-capture, producing casts, and uploading
- Some other people to volunteer to record a screencast! It doesn't even need to be a live lesson. Just getting some other quality content in the pipeline would be huge
Talk is Silver, Code is Gold
At the end of the day, what makes this all happen is people who decide to do it, to pull together the documentation, draw new designs, convert the designs to XHTML/CSS, bang out the theme, set up the site, test the screencast, teach the lesson, process the video, upload it online, and so on and so forth. In the spirit of do-ocracy, I'd like to invite everyone -- whether they want to help out w/my suggestions here, or pursue their own -- to step up and start actually making it happen for the Drupal project.
This is my plan, and while I'm open to suggestions and I really want feedback (even if it's just "+1") from the community here, I'm most of all interested in doing it.
Ok! Who's with me? :)
$count_me_in++
I'll be available to help out with anything involving servers, hosting, SVN repos, the works. I have all the info and pathing from the existing site memorized.
______________________________
Senpai (my d.o account)
~ Build a better WorkHabit ~
Awesomesauce
Great. My back-of-hand agenda would be:
1) Upgrade to D6
2) Convert lesson view to something that's more like a simple catalog: tabular list with some common-sense sorts/filters
3) Review other (static) pages
4) Cut out anything not 100% necessary
5) Put on a clean and simple theme from contribs (any suggestions)
http://www.chapterthreellc.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com
Yikes! I am not sure a clean
Yikes! I am not sure a clean contrib theme exists, I would happily contribute a theme specific to the Dojo, or something which we could contribute back after its been created if it makes sense to re-use it
Tj Holowaychuk
Vision Media - Victoria BC Web Design
Victoria British Columbia Web Design School
There are plenty
There are many if you don't want to do anything too fancy. There's even on called "clean"! :)
http://drupal.org/project/clean
My point is, if all we're implementing is a simple list of videos and a few info pages, we can pick something very lightweight and focus on getting the must-have stuff nailed, rather than biting off bigger problems and getting stuck.
http://www.chapterthreellc.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com
haha nice!! well either way
haha nice!! well either way I am open to creating a quick theme, just let me know when things are ready and i will whip one up and have it ready a day or two later
Tj Holowaychuk
Vision Media - Victoria BC Web Design
Victoria British Columbia Web Design School
nice to hear,,, don't know
nice to hear,,, don't know if we talked at BADcamp - but I was surrounded with so many chapter three folk at lunch on Saturday the whole thing turned into a blur. :)
but, I'll be along for the ride too. think i can also help with a lot of the infrastructure, and coordinating, etc. probably count me in for a session or two, too
LA Drupal will try to help
LA Drupal may be able to work on some of these initiatives along with. Cheers!
Wireframe idea(s)
Totally in the spirit of the Drupal.org redesign project and call-to-arms, I produced these two wire frames on a whim.
Ultra-simple edition (pre 2.0 launch design): http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrischarlton/2938877327/
...and for fun a 2.0 concept wire: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrischarlton/2938877475/
Yeah!
The ultra-simple is very much along the lines of what I'm thinking. I don't think we have much for Druapl 4.x, but breaking it out by 5 vs 6 might be a smart start.
http://www.chapterthreellc.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com
don't forget unstable
put room for 7. some of us are already working with that... ;)
Aaron Winborn
Drupal Multimedia (book, in October!)
AaronWinborn.com (blog)
Advomatic (work)
Any CSS volunteers?
Any theme/CSS volunteers for the ultra-simple Drupal Dojo quick site theme? Any zen-sub-themers interested?
@joshk - what version of Drupal will the temp site run on? Got any must-use module(s) to pull it off, like CCK?
zen-sub-theme
I can lend a hand making a zen sub theme, ideally as part of a group. Have not used zen in 6 yet, so that would be good if that is the version used. Anyone care to work together on this?
Count this Zen Zealot in
I can certainly help out with the theming part of things. A zen sub-theme would be great and I think we could get it put together in no time. :) Any other design mockups or are we in agreement on Chris' clean mockup? :D
On another note I'd love to do some sessions on theming, module development, or just anything else that is in demand in the community. :)
In the spirit of doing...
...we can just point to some lively discussions happening here and here for all to reference (which also is a tabbed section on the Dojo group). We have some good thoughts on how to improve the current site, and pretty much a consensus on priorities for both a redesign and more importantly what we need in terms of facilitating both the production and distribution of content. There are many ways we can reach these goals, and as long as we're open and allow innovation, we can create a lot of value for the Drupal project.
Regarding Josh's call to action, we already have issues and even progress for each -
1) Get a design comp together for the ultra-simple relaunch of dd.com
With squiddy back in the scene, I'd love to see some of his ninja art represented in any design. New art for every lesson might be a bit too much but there's probably already some good source material to work with.
2) Some sysadmin support to make sure webavant's VNC work is ready to work
We have some good options to evaluate and a few people (including webavant and some others already talking on this thread) interested and having the mad skillz to tackle this.
http://drupal.org/node/203815#comment-1028648
3) Helping to cull through all the content here on the group to create some definative "how to" docs for joining live sessions, hosting sessions, recording screen-capture, producing casts, and uploading
The was a good deal of work done on this already and we have a new Dojo documenter who will further cull and ensure that the docs are represented in the proper channels.
http://drupal.org/node/201890
http://drupal.org/node/203813
http://drupal.org/node/205647
http://drupal.org/node/203810
4) Some other people to volunteer to record a screencast! It doesn't even need to be a live lesson. Just getting some other quality content in the pipeline would be huge
This will be much easier after we tackle items #2 and 3 - Additionally, we've tried to add a bit of structure to this list of lesson ideas - http://groups.drupal.org/node/2433
All in all, I don't think there's anything controversial - we can take the necessary steps to quickly get the Dojo working again and make sure that it doesn't go away.
Cheers!
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Regarding point #2
What if we moved the VNC onto our WorkHabit server, thus making it an all-in-one-place type of thing? Since we already run a 24/7 support infra, Making sure that the dojo replicast system was up and running wouldn't be too hard, and we have the resources of 25 people to help cover the vacation bases vs. relying on Webavant to never go on vacation and always be out of bed at 8am. ;-)
Sound like a plan? If so, I'll hit up the hosting gurus and devise a structure.
(BTW Gus, does DimDim work as a self-hosted solution?)
______________________________
Senpai (my d.o account)
~ Build a better WorkHabit ~
Yes!
I think I already did some work along these lines "back in the day." Maybe we can look into the guts of what's on the server this weekend?
http://www.chapterthree.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com
DimDim offers an open-source self-hosted VMware image!
http://www.dimdim.com/opensource/dimdim_open_source_community_edition.ht...
______________________________
Senpai ~ Want a better WorkHabit? ~
Can WH host?
Could we get the WH peeps to host that? I'm only familiar w/Xen and less with VMware...
http://www.chapterthree.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com
I opened an internal request
I opened a request with the server gurus. I'll report on their findings and response.
______________________________
Senpai ~ Want a better WorkHabit? ~
Dimdim has potential
Dimdim is a potential great fit on many different levels -
Their hosted solution would enable us to share your desktop, show slides, collaborate, chat, talk and broadcast via webcam with absolutely no download required for attendees (full features here). Their would be a cost involved, but possibly the Dimdim folks might be interested in donating a copy in exchange for sponsor credit and/or integration into Drupal (related thread here).
They also provide an open source edition which has all the features of the Enterprise version and can be downloaded and installed on your servers immediately.
So I think we have good options - possibly the 'evaluating' of Dimdim could be a good Dojo session.
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
hmmm
It's a 12gb download, but I'd still like to try and check it out...
http://www.chapterthree.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com
Trimmed down site spec.
Here's a scaled down site spec. derived from the more ambitious phase II project - I've plugged in the names of people in this thread and others who have shown interest in the project. Consider me down with helping in any non-programming way I can.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg9292rd_261hfmhjmwj
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
This is great news... I
This is great news... I kinda missed all the dojo stuff... and I always found even this site/group very confusingly organized. Lessons? How-tos? How to find stuff, more like it!
A dedicated site with a new design would be a great boon to helping people find the materials that already exist. And it can make a path to contribution better. Just putting some crazy ideas down here for some bottom-up development:
I'd like to see a "mini-lesson request" list, and a voting/rating for the requests, to see what is in demand. (As in, how the heck do you do X). I'd also like to see what others are working on. So along with a request list (like an issue queue) I'd like to be able to "assign" the task to myself, and start developing it. Being able to see who is filling a request can limit duplicated efforts. Also, letting people file an issue, we can facilitate searching (where it is possible they can't locate something that does exist).
Regarding this 2.0 design by Chris Charlton: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrischarlton/2938877327/
I love the simple, plain white, clear/clean concept! I also like being able to easily see fresh/new videos.
But what is crucial is being able to see the taxonomy terms/categories- and also filter those by Drupal version.
I think vocabularies have to be developed to facilitate finding, discover-ability, and serendipity.
Difficulty ratings: I'd like to see a "white belt, yellow belt, black belt" system. With white belt being things you can do with existing modules and the admin interface; and yellow belt with customisation; and black belt being custom module development, form building, etc. As a new user, or non-coder I think it would be good to see those lessons geared towards my level of expertise/interest. Same goes for the black belt.
Community tagging: Beyond the tags the lesson developer puts on, a community tagging vocabulary can help fill in the gaps left by the lesson developer- this can distribute the work load. (e.g., http://drupaldojo.com/lesson/using-og_panels-on-groups.drupal.org isn't marked with "panels" as of this posting)
Tag index: Now on the Dojo site, you have lessons tagged by term, these are listed at the bottom of each post. Great, so I can easily find "more like this"... what if I am looking for something that is not like anything on the front page? I go to http://drupaldojo.com/lessons/ and I am presented with a blank field. Now what if I don't even know the taxonomy term that might be used. (e.g., what if I want to see lessons on "images", there are no lessons? No, they are just tagged a different way). Being able to see the tags listed and grouped, as an "index" would be so great.
In response to number 4) Content:
I'm planning 2 videos for the 15th of November, as part of a local event here in Ireland. They will be part of my presentations. One is: setting up a basic Drupal site and all the fun stuff you can get done with Core. The other is: two ways to use imagefield. Hmm... that could be two videos in fact. To make them work for the Dojo, I just need to add audio.
Excellent Suggestions
This is a really good idea. The assignment part is probably out of scope for what we're trying to do quickly, but if I can come up with some ultra-simple way for people to suggest/rate-up lession concepts, that would be good. Does anyone know if there's a web service that does this? It would be ideal just to drop something in to see if people use it...
I think your suggestions on taxonomy are right-on.
Those would be GREAT! Especially the first one. There's a huge missed opportunity right now in producing videos that basically describe how to configure core (or core plus a few common contribs) to get Drupal to do amazing things. My own interest has always been more enginner-ish, but the potential audience for lessons targeted at people who are using Drupal as a tool to build a site is orders of magnitude bigger.
http://www.chapterthree.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com
Always ready to help...
I'll do what I can - I'm curious though; is there no danger of this being eclipsed by Dmitri's work on the proposed DLRC? http://groups.drupal.org/node/14760
However, Gus and I made a lot of effort in suggesting and discussing ideas "way back" and I'd still like to see some of those ideas implemented :)
Web Development in Nottingham, UK by Kineta Systems
Not building a site
The goal here is not to build a site. The goal is to make the group and domain useful again to the community in an ultra-simple way, and much more importantly to get people motivated around creating content again.
We're going back to what worked for us originally: sharing expertise. If a DLRC or other project creates a great resource for that, we'll use it, but we don't need a cool website to provide enormous value back to Drupal.
http://www.chapterthree.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com
Content, curriculum = Dojo success
Josh's plan to get the Dojo to the point of usefulness is exactly what we need. Even before 'any' website improvements a better teaching/collaboration platform and a well structured groups site should get things rolling in a big way. I'd really like to see if we can hash this all out even sooner than the couple weeks Josh has set a goal for.
This does not mean we're giving up on some of the more lofty goals and issues that still may need to be sorted out for the Dojo to finally live up to it's initial promise. While a lot of these plans/ideas are compiled elsewhere, it may help to bring key points into this discussion.
Relevant to our immediate goals -
Dealing with content creation and production -
In addition to this, there is an effort well underway in which we're picking up Addison, Nik, Dmitri, myself, and others left off. As Josh has already stated, it will be up to the community to decide whether it will become the 'new' Dojo site... regardless of where it ends up, there will be many ways this will benefit the Dojo and the Drupal project.
All in all, we're already making steps to bring this back to life.
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Here to help
I'm throwing myself to help. I'm a designer by no means, if someone was to jump in with a design and ideas, I'd be happy to work and help make things functional and "fashionable".
Here to help, what can I do?