Getting Back In The Game, Again

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/

...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

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.

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

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 -

• Dojo Project Goals and Desired Outcomes - while this was hashed out with a more ambitious website in mind, the key points of platform, curriculum, and how we can benefit the project and economy should still hold water.
• The Dojo Code - a mission, rules of the road...something seems needed inso we don't get sucked back into endless debate.

Dealing with content creation and production -

• Drupal Dojo Lesson Ideas and Interactive workshop wiki - borrowing heavily from recent DrupalCons and Camps, I've listed out some potential ideas for lessons, sessions, tasks, projects and collaborative workshops.
• Create Dojo video "standard" - A good framework already laid out for producing high quality materials.

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

I've been giving some thought about how to best give back to the Drupal community based on what I heard and learned at Drupal Camp Philly a few weeks ago.

The area I am most interested in is the Dojo. I've been doing technology (system analysis, documentation, info architecture, web design, php, etc. for 8 years), education (I spent the past 3 or 4 years in a role that combined development and instructional design) and project management (I am a full time PM for DLC Solutions and worked for the Project Management Institute for 3 years prior to joining on here) for 15 years (my entire career) and I think the focus of the Dojo is consistent with my own passions.

While I am not new to volunteer based organizations, having worked in a professional membership association for a while, I am new to Drupal only having worked with it for the past year or so. So my questions are two-fold:

Does the Dojo effort need someone like me?

If Yes, how would I go about getting involved? If not, any place else throughout the Drupal world where I may be able to pitch in?

I'd appreciate any help, ideas or suggestions.

Dave Sabol
DLC Solutions

Gus,

Thanks for responding. And yes, sign me up. Here is my challenge. I am a bit short on pure creativity and not so short on initiative, enthusiasm and bandwidth. So, I am definitely more like BASF - we don't make things, we make things better - than like IDEO the creative firm. That said, I think I have plenty to contribute regardless. Actually what you suggested above sounds like a perfect course of action. PM'ing the rebuild/recreation/revival of the Dojo would be great as it would expose me to a lot of great info and more importantly people, like you, that would be pivotal in helping shape my growth, development and advancement in the Drupal world. I think taking on the PM role and then moving into a more general role would be great.

So, if the Dojo needs a PM, sign me up and let me know who I need to chat with first.

Dave Sabol
DLC Solutions

Hi Gus,

Great to be part of drupal.org.. this is pretty much my first post.

Dave Sabol introduced me to the dojo recently. I work with Dave at DLC Solutions. I am a full-time project manager but I also do design and production work on drupal theming. I would like to be a design adviser and possibly a theme adviser. I have advanced expertise in front-end development. I also work part-time as a freelancer web designer.

I'd like to learn more about the role of the advisers since I'm not ready to be a mentor and I think I may be over qualified to be an apprentice (not sure).

Thanks!

Matt Hunt
http://dlc-solutions.com

Awesome, maybe I just wont have time right now to be a mentor.. Man, December is a busy month! I've been theming Drupal sites for about 2.5 months now.. I'll be happy to help out.. I want to learn more about configuring drupal as well.

Signature("http://mhuntdesign.com" , "http://dlc-solutions.com");

Chx mentioned he'd be interested in doing a fields in core overview later this month. I have a feeling that more and more people will be coming in to teach, demo something, or collaborate on a sprint. We also have some signs of life in the group discussions and the IRC.

That being the case, it's really important that we check off the final 2 bits of the list -

Setting up the g.d.o panels pages to really be effective

We could definitely improve how our g.d.o. site is structured. We also need to sift through the content and make sections like this are current - http://groups.drupal.org/node/2191/howto

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

At the bare minimum, we need to make sure the site contains all the content the Dojo is producing. Secondly, an easy way for people to submit lesson and session ideas.

This is a recent site that was built rather quickly and has a lot of functionality we're looking for - http://sandcamp.org/ - possibly there might be some elements we could reuse and improve.

Whatever the case, this shouldn't be a huge job for a few skilled people. Once the bare-bones site is up, we can continue developing and working in new features.

So who's interested/available to get this done over the next few weeks?

Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions

I'd like to step up and design the new site. Its a new challenge. I'ts been 4 months since I started theming drupal sites so I can help with the css and jquery as well.

I noticed that there are some drupal people, some graphic art on a slide show currently, not sure what that's about but I think we can do some cool things with those (possibly) Do we have larger versions of that art work?

The current site is very hard to use, hard to understand and terribly hard to follow. We should have a real homepage and clear navigation among other things. Maybe a new logo?

I need some real info about the dojo and its mission, history etc.. I haven't read through everything here, but I am interested in helping out.

-Matt

Signature("http://mhuntdesign.com" , "http://dlc-solutions.com");

It's really great to see more and more new folks jumping in. Shouldn't be surprising since the group has grown to almost 1800 members(!!) even though the we were a bit stagnant in '08. Just wait 'till the community realizes that the Dojo is back and better than ever.

@Dave Really good to see you back in the fold - like many folks before you, a leadership role in the Dojo usually leads to more business and opportunities. Having an experienced project manager involved will help us lay the groundwork for this and all future Dojo tasks and projects.

Seems like we have a well rounded team - we just need to figure out the best place to pick things back up and get rolling again.

@Josh/Joel - any thoughts on next steps?

Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions