Site status update

We encourage users to post events happening in the community to the community events group on https://www.drupal.org.
moshe weitzman's picture

The site is coming along. We just enhanced the Recent Posts tab so that shows you unread messages in your subscribed groups. Thats just purrfect.

Note that creation of new groups is limited to just a few beta testers. We are not ready to open up group creation just yet. When we do, groups will be subject to some minimal approval. We don't want duplicates and want to keep tidy our group names, descriptions, etc.

Thanks to everyone for being patient with this site. When I proposed the site last fall, I had no idea the demand would be this great. We're plugging away at the final todo items as time permits.

Comments

New Groups?

vwX's picture

I see new groups being created, yet there doesn't seem to be any announcements that this site is active. I've volunteered to be on the maintence group to help. I have about 2 hours a week I can commit. Would like to get a Columbus Ohio group going.

once again

moshe weitzman's picture

the beta testers are encouraged to create groups as needed ... group creation should open up the public soon. watch the development email list for an announcement.

Initial exerience

Dries's picture

My initial experience with groups.drupal.org:

  1. I hate saying this but it has been a while since I felt this lost on a website. The active group's name should be shown on a prominent spot so I know what my current context is. I also had problems subscribing/unsubscribing to groups. It certainly takes some time getting used to and you certainly feel overwhelmed by the number of groups/posts to check out. Not entirely frustration free. Keep working on it!
  2. Most avatars are nice, but some avatars just get in the way and make things look messy. Too many useless avatars are distracting.
  3. Some group names are confusing, making it unnecessarily hard to figure out what a group is about. Consistency is key for ease of discovery. Is 'GRupal' the Greek Drupal user group? Vancouver League of Drupallers? Is DrupalCAT a reference to Caterpillar? It reminds me of project name battles.
  4. It took me 15 minutes to figure out what a SIG is. Some abbrevations are not readily understood. If I didn't attend DrupalCON Vancouver, I wouldn't know what a DEP is either.
  5. People send me e-mails with URLs that point to protected group nodes. After the third access denied message it is getting highly annoying (especially when you need to wait for approval). I ended up ignoring these e-mails.
  6. What is the deal with event specific groups? What will happen with the LinuxTag 2006 group, after the event is over? LinuxTag takes place next week. What happens with stale groups? Do we have a policy?

Acces denied

vwX's picture

Does not a community make. This is one of the reasons I hate things like yahoo-groups, etc. I think the base content should be open for viewing by all.

It should be dead simple to find a local user group or a subject based group. Also, I think this would help the naming problem. For event based groups, maybe they should become archived after the event is over.

nice list

moshe weitzman's picture

i'm working on many of these issues. thanks for compiling the list.

Feedback

Boris Mann's picture
  1. Another item for a custom theme, I believe.

(Aside: does it matter which group you are in? Or are groups just a way of filtering content?)

  1. I'm not a fan of the "recent subscribers" block and think this should be part of a "subscribers" tab for the group node. However, users ARE going to use all sorts of different avatars. The fact that you don't like them...well, I think it's great for getting an extra level of personalization and feedback. It's fantastic to see a lot of people's faces after getting used to only their usernames.

I think we need a custom theme here, and I think one of the requirements would be great placement/sizing of avatars.

  1. Um. I'm naming my group whatever I want. It's a community thing. You may not like my group name...but you also don't have to join it. In particular, the local group of people here didn't want to be "just another user group". So we came up with a fun, alternate name. I think a group type taxonomy (as moshe is discussing)

  2. I agree that abbrevations that may see general use such as SIG or DEP should either not be used or clearly explained.

In many ways, as per my feedback for #3, think of each group as its own little community. It doesn't have to make sense to people outside the community, necessarily. We'll use slang for local locations (see you at the Cafe!) or other community specific terminology (just tag it with nptech [which is code for "non profit technology"]).

  1. This needs some usability improvement. Probably a login now link or something like that. There are private groups, just like their are private mailing lists.

  2. Stale groups get closed. Every event needs a place to organize around. Unless it is a giant list of CC emails, a group is a good way to do it. Once the event is over, no one posts to it anymore. Do we need a policy? Don't think so...

Good idea Boris

Evan Leeson's picture

When open group creation is available, I'll be founding the Vancouver Island Church of Drupal ;-)

Group names

Dries's picture

3. Um. I'm naming my group whatever I want. It's a community thing. You may not like my group name...but you also don't have to join it. In particular, the local group of people here didn't want to be "just another user group". So we came up with a fun, alternate name. I think a group type taxonomy (as moshe is discussing)

Clear group names help people outside your community. If I can't tell what your group is about, I have to join it to figure it out. In Vancouver you were complaining about poorly chosen project names (eg. I remember the "Acidfree disussion"). IMO, project names aren't any different from group names. Both are 'labels' and poor labels are equivalent to poor usability.

I agree with Dries on this.

adrian's picture

--
The future is so Bryght, I have to wear shades.

Personalized

Boris Mann's picture

What problem are you trying to solve? Finding a group by geographic region is going to be solved by location enabling.

Group names are definitely different than project names. They communicate something about the nature and intent of the group. If I call a group "Serious People Talking about Stuff" vs. "The Gabfest". You're right -- they don't necessarily help tell you what content is in the group -- that is the job, IMHO, of the description field and the welcome message (or browsing the content of a group).

Plus, you don't need to join a group to figure it out...you click through and look at the content, or search (globally) to find the content that is interesting to you.

AFAICT, the purpose of this site is not "make groups so new people can find it", but rather "provide infrastructure so existing groups can have a central place to discuss". New users enter by direct invite (go to our groups URL) or by search (find my local users group, find the group talking about Forms API). Browse is not the typical use case.

browsability

moshe weitzman's picture

i think browsing for a group is a common use case and should be examined. thats what i am improving with the new group taxonomy. see the filter on the new group directory page.

avoiding that click-throug to read about the group is a worthy goal. thus the new, briefer and standardized group names.

replies

moshe weitzman's picture

we've made progress here:

  1. the group name is in the group details block in upper right and in the breadcrumb. should it be elsewhere too? ... i now give a message when you try to unsibscribe from a closed group (thats not allowed)
  2. we deployed new node and comment templates. i also removed the avatar from the group details block. i removed the recent authors block becuase it was not working. i want a "face wall" block and page where you can see all group members. anyone care to mock that up in HTML or point to a site which does this nicely.
  3. group names tidied up, abd all future groups are run through moderation queue.
  4. see #3
  5. the defaults now discourage private nodes.
  6. these groups are now specifically tagged as 'event planning' and we can archive them periodically (like we do with projects). the directory page can now be filtered by group type

Re: avatars

DaveNotik's picture

Regarding avatars (#2), I agree that too many avatars is distracting and unappealing. In this medium, once I've seen somebody's face, I don't need to see it again unless I choose to -- especially as its a static image, and not the live, organic, emotive human being.

My approach and suggestion, therefore, is as follows: Any place there's a username on the site, use a little DHTML and let me roll over it to see a layer pop up with that person's avatar and some other select tidbits from their personal profile. Do it seamlessly, like http://finance.google.com/finance?q=GOOG (under the Management section, mouseover a name). To denote that this effect is possible, give usernames a special, consistent look throughout the site (e.g. put them in a soft box with a colored border, or show a little arrow, ...).

Maybe this isn't for now, but it'd sure be cool and would place a non-intrusive emphasis on the people on the site. I actually plan on doing something like this for some of my own work once I'm able, so whoever does it first... :)

Similarly, maybe denote group names in a special way, and let me mouseover to see some tidbits (when formed, subscribers, manager's avatar maybe...).

Just some thoughts...

Great work, Moshe! This thing is shaping up, and I know this is going to really open things up in the community.

--Dave

http://dave.notik.com

The CSS fix we made to UL

merlinofchaos's picture

The CSS fix we made to UL tags also needs to apply to OL tags (as you can see from the post I'm replying to).

done

moshe weitzman's picture

added to custom stylesheet. thanks

mailing lists

sime's picture

Thanks for the work so far. It is going to help a lot with networking efforts in Australia. I'm not sure this is the right place to post, but...

Seeing the "Image API" and "Forms API" groups and so on, there seems to be the potential for cross-over between the Groups and the existing Mailing Lists (parallel discussions, etc). Is that intentional/transitional? A small sticky summary on the home page would be useful to clear this up.

Adding events

Dries's picture

Here is another example of "frustration" and "confusion". I'm recording it here as some people might run in the same problem.

The main page shows a prominent "events block". I have a number of Drupal presentations lined up that are open to the public. For example, I'll be talking about Drupal at BarCamp Brussels. I spent 10 minutes trying to add an event to the calendar. After 10 minutes I concluded that I can only add events from within a particular group? Is this correct? The UI doesn't confirm this so I'm still not sure that this is true. I don't want to create a BarCamp Brussels group just to add an event. What do I do?

As I said, I hate saying this, but it has been a while since I felt this lost on a website.

The distance between the calendar (when looking at it) and the 'add event' link is too big, and in my case, the link seems non-existing. If there is a restriction, it should be communicated.

thanks

moshe weitzman's picture

Well, I have it configured so that a group is required for all posts. Thats because this is a groups site. A post without a group runs a big risk of not showing up anywhere. This restriction is comunicated on the posting form by the asterisk that shows that Audience is a required field. If you post without an Audience, form api explains the problem. Perhaps the asterisk is too subtle an indicator but I am using the same theme as drupal.org after all. Please let me know if something is not working as I describe.

I'm not sure what one should do to advertise that event. If it doesn't pertain to a group, perhaps it should be posted on drupal.org only. I'm thinking out loud here.

Please file a bug against event.module for the 'add event' link in its block. Also, I have no idea why its special fields appear above the title field on the node form. I think thats an event bug too. i hope folks see this and work a bit on those items.

I'll keep working on the site until the confusion and frustration subside. I hope everyone will continue with me, especially during this alpha/beta period. Some disorientation is inherent in a sprawling groups site, but of course we can do better.

Group specific block glitch

Dries's picture

In one of the group specific blocks I see:

* 12 subscribers (1)

What is the (1)? It is not clear and therefore a usability problem.

It means

adrian's picture

That someone is waiting to be approved. I just approved him.

Which is another thing I wanted to ask. Why are so many groups set to requires approval.
All groups should be open by default, with only a few exceptions (theme competition administration).

Additionally, i think that all posts should be public by default. People don't want to have to register, and join a
group just to read the content. And they shouldn't have to.

This also affects our google ranking, as all the group content can't be indexed.

--
The future is so Bryght, I have to wear shades.

they are open already

moshe weitzman's picture

groups are by default open and all posts are public by default. site editors were different, and had their public checkbox disabled by default. I just changed that for editors ... you'll have to ask those group owners why they want to moderate subscriptions. thats what they chose.

i agree though that we need some better thinking about closed groups here. maybe only admins can create them.

admins only

moshe weitzman's picture

i'll add that this is an admin only feature ... i'm open to suggestions on better ways of communicating this info.

UK Group

Patrick Nelson's picture

Any chance of a UK users group? Or, if you want to split the UK up, how about a Midlands group? (Yes, we have an area of the UK affectionately called 'the Midlands' - it's, er, the middle bit)

Folded comments

rickvug's picture

I love the site but the folded comments are horrible to navigate. Is there an option to change this or is only temporary? Other than that, I think this site is a great thing for organizing everyone involved with Drupal.

Bottom of page

sime's picture

There is an option at the bottom of the page. Ie. you can change the default layout.

Edit: At least it was there yesterday...

More stuff

DaveNotik's picture

1) Does the site notify me via e-mail of new posts in the groups I'm subscribed to? If not, it should, and should let me turn that on/off. I'm personally very interested in getting that working in general, and I know Dries has said before that if done right, something like that could be considered for inclusion in core -- and this site can serve as a showcase of it working. I would devote our Drupal-knowledgable developer to something like this (subscription(s), notifications, ...) if someone offered to mentor him.

2) I had signed up with DaveNotik@drupal.org (distributed auth). Going to my account, I wanted to add my e-mail address (dave@digital202.com), but it said e-mail address in use. Uh, it's in use on drupal.org, but not here I don't believe -- what gives?

3) The site's broken in IE7 beta2, namely the tabs on top are off somewhere and inaccessible (and a bunch of other weird formatting things). drupal.org looks ugly on IE7 beta2 as well, but at least its tabs are accessible, if misplaced. Oh well, forget MS, eh? Firefox guy myself.

4) I think the group name should be distinctly different than posts that fall below it. E.g. http://groups.drupal.org/relationships-site-structuring, the group name looks like a post. I like how the group charters are distinct though.

Ok, that's it for the moment. Effective group sites are a major focus and passion of mine, so I'd like to offer more thoughts and contributions as I'm able.

--Dave

--
http://dave.notik.com

replies

moshe weitzman's picture

1: yes. see 'my subscription' link on a group or the my groups tab off the groups page.

2: the way to figure out whats going on here is to request a new password for dave@digital202.com on this site. that will tell you what username "stole" your email address

3: file issues against drupal.org since i am using its theme with minor css changes. better yet, submit fixes because Steven is not likely to care about IE7

4: true - any suggestion? pleae post some css. just work up a fragment using web developer extension of firefox

group title

merlinofchaos's picture

4: true - any suggestion? pleae post some css. just work up a fragment using web developer extension of firefox

page.tpl.php will probably need a slight modification in order to tag the title for group nodes differently, if we want to change that. I think if we want to leave the group title the same and change the node titles of the group posts, we might be able to do it in pure CSS. Requires thinking.

Quick change

DaveNotik's picture

In style.css, line 139, modify:

#mission {
  margin: 0.5em 10px;
  _margin-bottom: 3em;
  margin-bottom: 30px;
}

Adds a noticable margin below the mission statement area and the content that follows.

After line 474, add:

#content h1.title {
  border-bottom: 1px solid #FFB643;
  color: gray;
}

Makes the title gray and the line below it matching the border of the mission statement to correlate the two.

There's surely a nicer way of doing it, but I think this is better for now...?

(Oh, and I just previewed, and it looks like the stuff in the CODE tags looks funky.)

--Dave

--
http://dave.notik.com

Ehhh

DaveNotik's picture

Taking a second look, you're right -- page.tpl.php or node.tpl.php will have to be modified to make the h1 title for the group name distinct so as to prevent my style changes taking hold on regular a page's h1 title.

See my other post about making the group name distinct wherever it's found on the site.

group title change

moshe weitzman's picture

I think the group title is the one that shouold change. The best I can think of is the move the group title within the yellow Welcome box. That will make the group home page look less like a standard node view which is good IMO. Thoughts? I think I can do this without help if others like the idea.

page title now has node type class

moshe weitzman's picture

see node-type- class on the page title ... everyone is welcome to stylize this better for groups (class=node-type-og).

css help needed

moshe weitzman's picture

anyone care to fool with this and make group title stand out better?

#1

DaveNotik's picture

Cool, wouldn't have noticed it there if you hadn't told me. I hope to share some of my own findings in terms of navigation as I'll be doing a similar setup w/ my own projects.

--D

auto-subscribe

greggles's picture

What do people think about defaulting a subscription to be "mail enabled"? I know several people who assumed that was the case and were suprised when they had to edit the thing. Maybe this is a case where we can't please everyone, but I thought I'd ask for input.

One more idea: maybe "subscribing" to a group should redirect you to the subscription setting page instead of wherever it goes now? That allows people to be aware of the different options without automatically opting people into mail.

--
Growing Venture Solutions
Drupal Implementation and Support in Denver, CO

+1

wundo's picture

+1

+1

DaveNotik's picture

...on it being default.

And FYI, notifications come from groups@weitzman.tejasa.com.

resources

moshe weitzman's picture

i'm not so sure that drupal is ready for mass outbound mailing like that. i'm not sure how OSUOSL has these boxes setup, but I think there is a noticeable delay when you submit something and many meails are generated. i'd be pleased if someone worked on a solution for this.

Walt Esquivel's picture

-1 on default subscription to be "mail enabled". People should be allowed to choose whether or not they want to automatically start receiving a bunch of emails.

+1 on the following:

One more idea: maybe “subscribing” to a group should redirect you to the subscription setting page instead of wherever it goes now? That allows people to be aware of the different options without automatically opting people into mail.


Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA, Captain - U.S. Marine Corps (Veteran)

President, Wellness Corps, LLC

Walt Esquivel, MBA; MA; President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing

non issue

moshe weitzman's picture

i added a 'group notifications' block where peple can learn about mail subscription and the various rss feeds. i think that meets the need.

That’s a good solution -

greggles's picture

That's a good solution - I'm happy with it.

--
Growing Venture Solutions
Drupal Implementation and Support in Denver, CO

Breadcrumb wrong

merlinofchaos's picture

I just noticed: Look at the breadcrumb on this page. It's wrong. This looks like an OG bug to me.

core

moshe weitzman's picture

og does fiddle with breadcrumbs, but i think this is a core bug. every node view has a link to 'content' for me. thats not right.

Maintenance

Group organizers

Group categories

Group notifications

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