Drupal adoption and use, and the community around it, are growing more and more. For example, there are good possibilities to celebrate the first DrupalCon Latino soon, probably the fourth quarter of this year 2012, in Brazil this first time.
There is another group for the DrupalCon Latin America organizers, while the Latin America group is more for the users of this and other community activities (drupalcamps, etc.).
I'm the current admin for the Drupal's Latin America group. This has been a really easy job, or almost no-job, since this group works well and there is very little need for moderation. However, my relationship with Latin America is mainly work-related, and I believe it's time to pass the admin permissions to people with more involvement in the Latin American Drupal community. I've proposed it before to some remarkable members of the community, who thought they were too busy. Hopefully this is a better time, and I'm making it clear that this is a really easy task, because in fact the excellent Latin American community is always self-moderating itself. But of course if you have some time you can help with Drupal information for the community, etc.
A team of two or more admins from different countries is suitable for this international group. It would be advisable to have admins (also called moderators or group organizers) from Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries. That is, including Brazil, the country with the largest Drupal community in Latin America. I would suggest for example Drupal event organizers like Nick Vidal from Brazil, Joaquin Bravo from Mexico, and others such as Drupal group moderators, or people willing to help the community. I can also be in the team for a time if people wish, just in case any assistance is needed.
So, if you are available to help as admin/moderator of the Latin America group, please say it here to see after some days or a few weeks if there is consensus about the most suitable people for this team.
Thank you / gracias / obrigado,
Juan
Comments
Volunteer
Dear Juan,
First of all, thank you for all your hard work. I've enjoyed how you have organized and aggregated much valuable information regarding Drupal in Latin America.
Second, I'm quite honored that you have suggested my name and I look forward to joining the group of moderators if the community feels it's appropriate.
Please e-mail me to work out the details.
Kind regards,
Nick
I agree with Juan for nick
I agree with Juan for nick vidal for brazil.
Count with me if you need...
Regards,
Pedro Faria de Miranda Pinto
Blog - http://eusouopedro.com
PHPAvançado - http://www.phpavancado.net
IRC - irc://irc.freenode.net:6667/drupal-br
Hello Juan Count with me I
Hello Juan
Count with me I can help you with any task or position.
I live in Central America / Costa Rica.
Regards,
enzo
enzo - Eduardo Garcia
Great candidates
Thank you, Nick, Pedro, and Eduardo. Very good candidates, with an excellent community implication. So, we can still wait a few days for more community feedback, or begin the team with you, and later you can maybe add other people that can help, if needed. What do you think?
Hi, Juan
Hi, Juan
Thanks for all your great work. The community would not be what it is today without it.
You can count with me if you need. I would be happy to collaborate.
I'm member and organizer of the Costa Rican group.
Best Regards
Pablo Aviles
Co-founder | CTO.
4Koodi, CRC
Site: http://4Koodi.com
blog: http://paviles.net
Hello Juan,
Hello, Juan
Gracias Juan :D
You can count with me if you need.
I'm organizer of the Guatemalan group.
Best Regards.
Hi Juan, It would a pleasure
Hi Juan,
It would a pleasure to help you.
I'm the co founder and organizer of the Drupal Bolivia Group. I've also co organized the 2 last Drupal Summit Latino.
Best regards
KarimB - Read the blog Le blog en français
Volunteer
Hi im Carlos Bernal from Guadalajara, México.
Im in! its a pleasure, thanks, great job.
Carlos Bernal.
thank you very much
Hi Juan,
thank you very much on the proposal. I would feel very honored to join the group of moderators.
I know Nick, Pedro, Enzo, Kaasi and Karim personally and believe they are exceptional people and I would vouch for them. Can't believe DevelCuy isn't on this thread yet =P. I'll ping him.
Carlos, I can't believe we haven't met =P we are both from Guadalajara. Let's get together on the next drupal meetup =).
Hi Jack!
Agree! i can´t believe it too! both of us in Guadalajara, i think work is absorbing me, anyway, im glad to know someone who use drupal like you, ill be in touch!
Initial team?
Thank you to all the 8 candidates for volunteering to help on anything needed by the Latin American Drupal community. For example, there are different Drupal groups, many technical, while the international Latin America group is more about community activities, similarly to the local groups. Probably we can think now about an initial team for this group.
@jackbravo: Also, you and them have experience organizing international activities and events, such as DrupalCamp Foz, DrupalSummit Latino, DrupalCamp CentroAmerica... and the next DrupalCon in Latin America.
I would propose the following initial team of group organizers:
Later, you can add other people if needed. For example, -enzo- and paviles have also experience with Drupal community activities in their country. And they, tachitomio, and others can also help in the group without need to do admin tasks.
As I said, I could be in the admin team for a little more time if any assistance was needed. However, most people in the proposed team have experience as group admins as well, so probably this transition time is not needed and I can be a normal non-admin group member again from now on. ;)
I think surely he will come. He is a more general coordinator of groups, who can give group manager permissions to other admins.
You know, among the admins/moderators of a group, one of them is the manager, with the same or very similar permissions to other admins, and the difference that managers and admins can add/remove admins but can't add/remove managers. People like develCuy or greggles can decide who is the manager among the admins of a group.
In my opinion, a person involved in international community activities such as the organization of the next DrupalCon in Latin America would be a suitable group manager. As you know, there is another group for organizers of the DrupalCon, while the Latin America group can also help to inform users of this and other events and activities.
Is this a good plan? We could also start a poll, but possibly this is not necessary, if there is sufficient consensus about the initial group organizers. I think it would be a great team.
[EDITED: Currently, managers and admins can add/remove admins but can't add/remove managers; see the permissions page]
Sounds good
Hi Juan,
Sounds good to me!
Kind regards,
Nick
Welcome to the new Latin America group organizers
All right, after almost a week, there seems to be consensus and no objection. Therefore, it's done. Welcome to the new Latin America group organizers: nickvidal, pedrofaria, kaasi, KarimB, and jackbravo.
Naturally, you can adjust this later. For example, jackbravo has just added -enzo- to his list of suggestions. Now it's the time of the new admins, and they will decide if it's better a team of five or six members.
So, develCuy or one of the groups.drupal.org admins, like greggles, please give group manager permissions to one of the new team members (for example, nickvidal is part of the committee working for the next DrupalCon in Latin America), and make me back into a mere mortal, or normal group member. Thanks. :)
BTW, Nick is among the ten candidates in the now open 2012 Drupal Association elections for two at large directors. It's a difficult 2/10 election, but may the force be with you. ;) Good luck.
And good luck to the new Latin America group organizers, in your work for the wonderful open-source Drupal community, to make a positive difference in human society.
Elections
Thank you Juan! May the force be with us all! :)
Great
Thanks a lot Juan!
So what should we do about Enzo, who also Karim proposes? One more vote (3 out of 5 current group organizers) and we promote him?
And what about paviles and tachitomio? Should we make them moderators?
I think I don't completely understand the difference between group organizer and moderator. I mean technically, on g.d.o, how can I make someone a moderator?
Moderator vs Organizer
To clarify the concept:
So, for Latin America we have 4 moderators: develCuy, KarimB, tunic y NITEMAN, this team takes care of the content, that means that they take care of addressing the technical content to Spanish group.
Then, for Latin America we now have 5 organizers: nickvidal, jackbravo, kaasi, pedrofaria and KarimB(read my previous comment). You should take care of the community, I mean the audience of users that come to this channel to discover what is happening here and expects relevant activity: events, proposals, calls for action, etc.
Hope this answers the question.
--
[develCuy](http://steemit.com/@develcuy) on steemit
Moderators, organizers, admins, managers...
"Organizer", "moderator", and "admin" are often used as synonyms, even by myself, but I've just seen here that develCuy proposes to distinguish between community "organizers" and content "moderators", at least for the groups in Spanish (develCuy coordinates them). I think that's because there are community or geographical groups by city, country, etc. such as Mexico, Spain, or Latin America, and technical content groups by language such as Spanish.
Brasil and Portugal are a mix of community and technical, and probably it would be useful to create an international Portuguese group similar to the Spanish one for technical topics in that language, to increase cooperation and efficiency.
On a comment in this thread, if I understand correctly, develCuy also seems to suggest that if a person is admin in two international groups -such as Latin America and Spanish- as both community organizer and content moderator, it would be better that this admin chose one of the two roles. Not sure about this, I imagine he proposes it for some efficiency or organizational reasons.
Additionaly, in groups.drupal.org, there are the "manager" and "admin" names, used technically in the group member lists, but also called "group organizers" in a block of the group pages. I've edited another comment that I wrote in this thread, to correct a detail about managers and admins: currently, they both can add/remove admins but can't add/remove managers.
Well, that should be decided by the current admins/organizers.
The same, you decide. However, maybe you can wait to see if more help is needed; in my opinion, five or six organizers is a good number even for an international group, and normal group members can also help without being admins.
Click on "174 members" (currently) and then "List". Naturally, when there is consensus about new admins. ;)
Speaking as an outsider but
Speaking as an outsider but as a fellow community organizer and webmaster, I think this is a natural milestone that groups reach when they grow to a certain size. We've had a similar "manager" vs. "organizer" vs. "moderator" quandary in the Los Angeles Drupal group:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/69908#comment-555294
As it currently stands, the user interface provided by groups.drupal.org is somewhat limited and isn't flexible enough to accommodate the granularity needed by large groups. There's a discussion about this and allowing individual groups to customize the "group organizers" block in the groups.drupal.org issue queue:
http://drupal.org/node/1235206
First of all, thanks to all
First of all, thanks to all volunteers and to Juan. We are all very familiar and we met in several opportunities in Drupal Summits or Drupal Camps! So I believe the team would work together without any problem. As @jackbravo proposed, I would also include @enzo in this group.
BTW, I’m still missing @develcuy in this conversation and hope he will join it as soon as possible.
Now it’s our turn to put in practice all our dreams about a great Drupal Latin American Group. We made it before with the ALCE group, with the Latino Summits and other Camps, so let's put our experience on the next step: Building a strong and open Drupal Latin American Community !
Best wishes!!
KarimB - Read the blog Le blog en français
Well managed!
Just returned back from vacations and had to answer hundreds of emails before seeing this thread. Thanks for missing me ;)
@juan_g, thanks for passing the ball to new organizers! You are now a mortal human being again ;) I really thank you a lot for your contributions, don't forget that this group is alive because you decided to volunteer when nobody else wanted, that is remarkable for our history.
Now, we need to differentiate 2 concepts: Moderator and Organizer
So, the Organizers take care of the community because they are the local organizers, they are the leaders or connect with them, in an special group like Latin America the local community is the audience of the whole geographical region: Latin America and The Caribbean (including Central America) and the content is related to initiatives that impact the whole or part of this community.
There is another special point in consideration: content in Portuguese and English has no moderators in this group yet, is a task for the organizers then. So it is great to have people from Brazil in the organizers team.
That said, the only thing I would like to fix is to not have people with both hats in this group, if somebody is going to be Organizer of Latin America should not be a Moderator already, that will avoid issues in the future. This has nothing to do with moderators that are organizers of another local group like Costa Rica, Bolivia or Peru, I'm talking about Latin America only, which is an special case.
Do you agree guys?
--
[develCuy](http://steemit.com/@develcuy) on steemit
GREAT!
@juan_g thanks for this opportunity...
@jackbravo, thanks for your words :)
IMHO, I really like the @develCuy explanations and I agree with him...
Pedro Faria de Miranda Pinto
Blog - http://eusouopedro.com
PHPAvançado - http://www.phpavancado.net
IRC - irc://irc.freenode.net:6667/drupal-br