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Snowman is a proposed installation profile intended for inclusion in Drupal 8. Its intent is to provide a ready-to-use Drupal site tailored for a specific use case, rather than a generic starting point for general site building. If you have questions, would like to help, or find yourself angry at the very idea, come here first!

What is Snowman?
Snowman is a proposed installation profile intended for inclusion in Drupal 8. Its intent is to provide a ready-to-use Drupal site tailored for a specific use case, rather than a generic starting point for general site building.
Why call it 'Snowman?'
Building a snowman is a group activity -- gathering friends and family, arguing about the design, packing the snow, and decorating the snowman are all about collaboration, fun, and the occasional snowball fight. Snowmen also engage passers-by: they are meant to be seen by others!
What use case is Snowman intended for?
While the specifics of Snowman will certainly evolve over the coming months, it intended for small groups of individuals who are collaborating on a project and want to communicate with each other, tell the world about what they're doing, and attract other people who are interested in helping. Imagine a small open source project, a local community group seeking to renovate a park, or a club that needs to keep in touch between meetings and attract new members.
How did you decide on that use case?
We examined the functionality available in Drupal Core, and asked what type of site could would use as much of that functionality as possible without requiring additional contrib modules. Like an episode of Iron Chef, the goal is to produce a fantastic meal inside of those constraints.
Won't focusing on one use case disenfranchise others?
Ideally, Drupal would include simple installation profiles tailored to the needs of several use cases. Snowman is simply an attempt to make the first one. If additional "Out of box core profiles" are being developed for other use cases, we'd love to collaborate. We do, however, want to avoid the trap of making a single monolithic "better for everyone" profile. See the next question.
Why is Snowman needed?
Drupal's current default install profile is an evolving compromise between the following three needs: a starting point for experienced site builders, a demonstration of Drupal's capabilities for exploratory site builders, and a useful tool for people who simply need a web site. All are important, but trying to satisfy all three needs in one installation profile is very, very difficult.
Should Snowman be Drupal's default installation profile?
This question is premature until Snowman development progresses, and can be evaluated by other members of the community. Our goal is to make Snowman worthy of being the first glimpse new users get at Drupal.
What is Snowman NOT?
The goal of Snowman is not to "dumb Drupal down" or to determine what the "true" audience for Drupal is. Snowman will be implemented as an installation profile that configures already-existing Core functionality for a particular use case, not a set of sweeping changes to Drupal's core functionality.
How can I help?
Currently, interested parties are working on the details of Snowman's use case. If you know individuals who regularly build sites like those described above, know site owners who maintain and use sites like the ones described above, or if you ARE one of those people, jump into the Personas discussion.
What if I want to build stuff or code, right now?
If you're a general Drupal site builder looking to flex your muscles, try experimenting with Drupal 7 Core, building out some test sites that you think would match the description above. What features and capabilities make sense? What combinations of content types do you think would be valuable? If you're a developer interested in helping, try to identify low-impact patches to Drupal Core that would make life easier for installation profiles. If you'd like to connect with other people working on the Snowman project in realtime, join the #drupal-snowman IRC channel on the Freenode network.

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