Please add a link to a good example site in the comments below. Point out what you think is effective.
We'll summarize all the good stuff in this here wiki area above!
This research is a part of Discussion of Roadmap: Community/support/getting involved redesign (groups discussion). See related issues Community/Support/Getting-involved Landing pages (initiative page).
Comments
Mozilla Drumbeat- projects at a glance
Drumbeat is an umbrella term for a variety of initiatives to promote "the open web". The corrollary in the Drupal community would be the Prairie initiative which is also an umbrella term. Some are purely volunteer, some have funding and support.
Their project page shows at a glance where you can get involved. Shows the numbers of people involved and recent updates. It's visual and inviting.
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Ubuntu - initiative page
Ubuntu has a variety of ways you can "get involved" - specifically ones which target non technical users.
In this example, the Artwork initiative uses the community-edited wiki.
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Joomla! the way they organize
I do think we need to do more than change the design of the page, it's also about project management. Joomla has a good model. These are sort of like the D8 initiatives, and Docs/UX "community initiatives" that we have in Drupal.
Joomla has Production Working Groups (described in this blog post 13 Sep 11)
Community members can propose one to the The Production Leadership Team (PLT).
The PLT reviews all proposals and approves them.
These become "Production working groups"
Background/announcement: http://developer.joomla.org/news/359-new-production-working-groups.html
Listing: http://docs.joomla.org/Production_Working_Groups
1 Database Working Group
2 Finder integration Working Group
3 Bug Squad
4 Documentation Working Group
5 Joomla Security Strike Team
6 Translations Working Group
7 User Experience Working Group
8 Proposing a new working group
(just adding some notes as I go along!)
This is interesting. Their top level navigation... We see "community" (getting involved + forums) is different from "do more" (support including docs)
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Different sub-domains
They have http://community.joomla.org- This lists events, information about the working groups, and loacl user group info.
but I read this is attracting less attention since http://magazine.joomla.org and http://people.joomla.org/ (this is like our g.d.o)...
For support - They have docs.joomla.org, http://resources.joomla.org/ and they also have http://forum.joomla.org
I completely agree. I'll put
I completely agree. I'll put my thoughts on the Project Management aspect over in http://groups.drupal.org/node/174999
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http://about.me/lisarex
GNOME - Get Involved
The landing page is clean and to-the-point in terms of how you can get involved (much like the Get Involved landing page of Ubuntu), clearly shows the major categories under which one can get involved. The landing page further links to specific spaces for all the categories and these spaces/sub-domains are not as good as compared to the ones on Ubuntu.com.
Vaidik Kapoor
These are all superb
These are all superb examples, and this GNOME example is the type of content/layout I am leaning towards in http://drupal.org/node/1010262
We want to guide people straight into the place they can find a task and immediately get involved.
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http://about.me/lisarex
Gnome Love
Thanks, Vaidik! I hadn't seen that. There's so much good stuff to see... but yeah, I agree the navigation, once you get through begins to get a little confusing.
It's interesting, the page you screenshotted is on Gnome.org: http://www.gnome.org/get-involved/ - But it looks like it's a facade page, pointing to sub-sections on the live.gnome.org site, such as http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/ or http://live.gnome.org/Design/
Now, the the Live site has its own Contribution guide as well: http://live.gnome.org/JoinGnome And interestingly, if you click on "Community" on that site's top level navigation, it takes you back to gnome.org/get-involved.
So for them the call to action = community. See:
Clear points of contact
One thing I live v much about the sub-section pages on the live.gnome.org is clear points of contact of "WHO" you can go to. The community projects are therefore not anonymous, it's personal and accountable.
Each section, while laid out completely differently, always has a "team" section.
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Gnome love
This is REALLY cool idea - http://live.gnome.org/GnomeLove "GNOME Love is the place to learn how to start contributing to GNOME. These pages are full guidance that will help you to become a member of the GNOME community. You can also get help from existing GNOME contributors and find tasks to get started on. "
That is awesome! It's like a mentoring project to help people find clear tasks and get set up as contributors.
Off topic: Also, Gnome 3 is kind of awesome looking. http://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/
Clarity is important!
The points you have mentioned about Gnome.org are ver important. I will add a little to it and will try to present a newbir's point of view.
Clear points of contact
That is actually really great. It makes it easier for new comers to find out who to approach. I don't see that we have anything of that sort on d.o or g.d.o. That makes it reall difficult to find out about core initiative owners. Eventually one ends up finding who is responsible for what part of core but a lot of digging is required fr that.
GNome Love
That's another cool section you noticed. Currently, there is enough boring documentation available on d.o to get a newbie started. But its like asking to go through all that to get started is a little too much. There must be easier ways to get a new comer make contributions.
Also, I am not sure about this but I have never seen anything for people interesed in contributing in other ways like marketing, publicity, etc. I might be wrong. If there is any, then direct me to it. If there isn't, then we should have something for that as well.
Vaidik Kapoor
Open Hatch - "Find a bite-sized volunteer opportunity"
We've been looking at examples of larger open source projects. And I am seeing a pattern that once you get past some of the first few pages, it can get quite complex.
Open Hatch is a meta-project to help open source projects attract and direct contributors.
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I see some duplication of effort if "every" task needed to be duplicated within two systems. However, I like that there are some clear in-roads for new contributors, and a way to filter/search. When they find a project, the tasks are clear. Here's a Drupal one below.
http://openhatch.org/+projects/Drupal
People can vote it up or down, and add notes. Interesting ideas all over that site, really.
Wordpress.org
I started with google of course, and landed on the codex page for "contributing to wordpress". http://codex.wordpress.org/Contributing_to_WordPress - This page focuses on docs, translation, support (forums), linking back, donation.
However, Wordpress has many local community events, hackathons, etc etc. I went to wordpress.org, and noticed, they don't have "community" in the top level nav. Interesting. So where is everybody?
.
They use blogs more for communication (no surprise! :) - There's more activity from people within the community on these spaces. This also reminds me of Joomla.
The active development cycle blog: wpdevel. http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/
Official announcements blog at wordpress.org. http://wordpress.org/news/
I'm a little bit lost on this site, I can't see how to find local user groups, for example. I have a feeling it's in the forums.
"So if you start a project
"So if you start a project and send email to a bunch of folks and ask them to just jump in and contribute, which group do you think will get going more quickly?"
Interesting read: http://stormyscorner.com/2011/09/does-open-source-exclude-high-context-c...
Also crosslinking the 'Creating topic pages' design discussion here, which is very much designed to help people find a place to connect and start collaborating:
A quick video on how in Prairie we focussed on Profile, Topic and Issue page, trying to align them into a smoother onramping experience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAPu9Xio2kY
From that perspective, a top level 'Getting involved' page would provide a quick overview of the most important topic pages.
Yoroy! That is an awesome
Yoroy! That is an awesome article, thank you :) Fascinating!
I had seen your posts about the topic pages, and before I saw your comment here, I had clipped it to my evernote :)
http://groups.drupal.org/node/144584#comment-587559
There's some great overlap happening right now, and I'm meeting w Lisa and Angie so we can get tapped in and also reduce duplicate effort.
The issue re: "getting involved" topics is on d.o : http://drupal.org/node/1010262 - Looks like we can be using the same list? I'll talk w Lisa about it!
Mozilla Contribute: What do you want to do?
Webchick found this one.
http://www.mozilla.org/contribute/
a) Top level menu:
About Us - about the community
Community Map - Birds eye view of products/projects
Our Projects - Applications, etc
Get Involved - Call to action - http://www.mozilla.org/contribute/
b) Video welcome message from community
c) Get involved menu - Includes "areas of interest" http://www.mozilla.org/contribute/areas.html
-- The "areas of interest" page includes both skills and specific initiatives and projects.
-- Time available lists tasks by A Few Minutes; A Few Hours; A Few Weeks Or More
d) Want to help? Select interest area- get in touch with a person who will help you match to a project in need.
Areas of interest drop-down menu and page list:
* Helping Users
* Localization
* Testing and Quality Assurance
* Coding
* Add-ons
* Marketing and Evangelism
* Developer Documentation
* User Research
* Release Engineering
* Visual Design
* Drumbeat
* Mirror Network
e) Specific tasks or projects highlighted.
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.openoffice.org/ has clean front page with nice way of pointing people in right direction with "I want to.." links.
If you choose "I want to participate" - you get to the page http://contributing.openoffice.org/ which lists all the different ways to participate.