The "Community" group keeps getting posts that are Drupal community related but really nothing to do with building community sites. So I started out thinking a name change was in order. But there's also the fact that we have a group for Social Networking Sites. While these groups aren't identical, there is quite a bit of overlap. So I was thinking they could be merged into a new group. Some possible names: "Building community sites" or just "Building communities". With OG Panels and taxonomy, we could still keep some distinction between the human aspect of building communities and the tools (Drupal modules) for building the sites. Anyone building a community site is likely to want to read both, anyway, so having them in the same group makes sense.
Any thoughts?
Michelle
Comments
The proposal makes sense for
The proposal makes sense for me.
"Building community sites"
"Building community sites" makes the most sense to me.
Bumping
I had forgotten all about this and wrote http://groups.drupal.org/node/189659 about cleaning up the Community group. I'm bumping this up so it shows as new for the Social Networking group as well to see if people still think a merger is a good idea a year later.
Michelle
My blog, mostly about Drupal: Shell Multimedia
actually, no
I think that the audiences and expectation for the two a different enough to warrant separate groups.
When I think "Social Networking" you think Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. When I think "Community Sites" I think of a site dedicated to a specific region that I can hop in my car and go to.
I'd actually consider rebranding/renaming things - Change "Community" to "Building Community Sites" like Kirk said, or some-such. "Social Networking Sites" could probably be "Social Networking Tools" or something along those lines.
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Now that's narrowing the focus of this group. "Community" doesn't necessarily mean regional. There are plenty of community sites based around, for example, Doctor Who.
There are really two concepts here:
1) Building and managing communities on Drupal sites. (That is, sites made with Drupal, not necessarily Drupal related). That's the less technical end of things, dealing with actual people and community. This can be subdivided further by community type. "Regional" would be a type, "Special Interest" would be type, etc. This actually doesn't have anything to do with Drupal other than the artificial limitation of asking people to discuss it in the context of sites built with Drupal because we are on g.d.o. The concept is really CMS-agnostic.
2) Making the infrastructure out of Drupal. This is focused on the tools that are used and technical questions like "Should I use Activity or Heartbeat".
1 is what the Community group is more focused on. #2 is what the Social Networking Sites is more focused on. So it's not totally unreasonable to have the two groups. But they are very related. You use #2 to build the infrastructure for #1. So, to me, it makes sense to have the broad "Building Community Sites" group that is further subdivided into "Dealing with people" and "Using tools" sections rather than keeping them totally separate groups with lots of crossposting between.
Michelle
My blog, mostly about Drupal: Shell Multimedia
I have spent the last three
I have spent the last three months creating a social network site for a community.
The Community is not regional but is distinct and global in nature, all will be revealed at launch. For actual practical purposes the functionality for a Social Network built in Drupal and a Community built in Drupal is pretty similar, similar enough that discussion of the key modules and concepts for both types of site would be relevant to both. Where a concept is specific taxonomy would differentiate enough imho.
I therefore support the merger so Drupallers have a one stop shop. "Building Community Sites" seems a fine name.
Tim