Posted by Shai on March 20, 2008 at 4:15am
For anyone not on the Development list serve, there is a great discussion going on about module duplication, "scratch your itch" versus "control the chaos" approaches.
Less than 24 hours in, there are 30 posts. Really thoughtful stuff.
The first post is at: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/2008-March/029249.html
[In wondering whether to post this to the "usability" group, it made me wonder, "usability for whom?" Clearly the module selection issue is very much a usability issue for anyone setting up a Drupal web site, particularly for newbies. But in scanning this group, it seems like most of the discussion is on a narrower definition of UI. Let me know if this post is out of place.]
Shai
Comments
most important piece of that discussion for folks here...
In my opinion, the most important piece of that discussion as it relates tot he usability group is webchick's email where she directs people to provide feedback for the Drupal.org redesign and the project module.
It sounds like there are lots of really good reasons that we should allow and perhaps even embrace some types of duplication, but the downside of that is that it makes finding modules harder. So...we need to improve the module browsing pages and the best place to provide that feedback is in the drupal.org redesign group.
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Problem solved
To me the problem is already solved. The starting point is the much-discussed and here not mentioned site outside drupal.org, that provides rating and reviews for Modules.
Drupal is a democratic community (with a hopefully benevolent dictator ;) ) so it should be allowed for anyone also in the future to develop their little module and maybe get a CVS account and put it on a project page. But - there should be incentives to do otherwise. Sure it would be much better in many cases in developers teaming up and building one really great module instead of five duplicates.
Well - the incentive is there via rating. Sure developers will be open to fame and success. So it will be the goal of many to be involved in a high-rated and often mentioned module. (hehe, I see sun sitting in the armchair and writing autographs because admin_menu is so popular...)
If there is a chart of top modules and maybe even a "gold star" for especially good and well-maintained modules: some young gun might think about: hmm - if I assist in the development of asset module, this might make me more famous than rolling my own that no one cares about...
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