Submit and vote on your Drupal.org ideas!

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

Two of the Drupal Association's 2012 priorities are to make Drupal.org awesome: both for site builders and for developers. We want to hear from you about what improvements you'd most like to see on Drupal.org.

Please let us know your thoughts at http://drupal-association.ideascale.com/. You can propose new ideas, vote on existing ideas, and also leave comments. When we have the more discrete list of things we plan to cover in 2012 and when, we'll share it with the community for feedback.

Important things to note:

  1. Please don't limit yourself only to big things. The more high-impact, "low hanging fruit" we can fix, the better! :) All suggestions must have a correlating URL on *.drupal.org with more information.
  2. Voting on an idea here does **not** necessarily mean it will get implemented, even if it's one of the highest (or even *the* highest) thing in the list. We are using this tool as a barometer to find out more about what our contributor community thinks is important, so we can factor this into our prioritization process.
  3. That prioritization process will include needs of the Drupal Association itself (e.g. DrupalCon & membership-related tasks so we can perform our other necessary functions), the needs of the Drupal.org infrastructure team (keeps the servers humming), and the needs of the DA's sponsors (keeps the money flowing so we can fund more improvements!).
  4. Unfortunately, no, this is not a Drupal site. If this fact appalls you, there is an idea in there that you can up-vote. :) It does allow data export capabilities though, so yay!

HUGE kudos to tvn for a tremendous amount of research on existing ideas that are out there, and jredding and kattekrab for several hours of brainstorming. :)

Comments

Not loading from here

JamesOakley's picture

The ideascale.com main site is up, but the d-a. subdomain doesn't load. I'll try again later, as I like the idea of this!

... and it's working now

JamesOakley's picture

Phew!

Howto Join

gh2012's picture

I posted a comment on how to join below ... I'm replying to the first comment to make it more visible.

Link (it's a long way down):
http://groups.drupal.org/node/213898#comment-705053

...

Raf's picture

Registered. Those Ideascale messages sure are epilepsy-inducing (not to mention hard to read between all the blinking and flashing). Is that Ideascale thing a Drupal thing, or an external service provider? (I should've asked this first, so I'd know to register with a real address or one I use to register to sites that'll probably sell the address to spammers)

Unfortunately, no, this is

tvn's picture

"Unfortunately, no, this is not a Drupal site. If this fact appalls you, there is an idea in there that you can up-vote. :)"

Ideascale is third-party service. You can up-vote idea for building our own ideation tool here: http://drupal-association.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Create-a-Drupal-powered-id...

...

Raf's picture

Oops, missed that! Just goes to show that I should read instead of skim over ;)

It seems that the Drupal

linclark's picture

It seems that the Drupal community (or even the relatively small percentage that have started voting) is just too much for ideascale. It's hanging on 2/3 page loads for me now.

Ironic

JamesOakley's picture

Ironic, given the name of the site.

Yeah, I can't sign in or do anything

xjm's picture

This looks like a really great tool, though.

The Drupal Community has crashed the site!

travelertt's picture

So many people with Ideas that we have crashed the Site. Always a sign of a large, active, community!

While it's great to capture

lisarex's picture

While it's great to capture what is relevant to the community now, there's a ton of ideas in the issue queues (Webmasters, Redesign, Drupalorg Customizations) and on the relevant Groups such as Prairie and Drupal.org Improvements.

It would be great to either update the related issues at the end of this exercise, either to indicate they're active or to mark them inactive.

http://drupal.org/project/issues/webmasters
http://drupal.org/project/issues/drupalorg
http://drupal.org/project/issues/redesign
http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation

As a sidenote, I fear that only those with time right now will participate in the Ideascale. What is the deadline for feedback on Ideascale?

==================================
http://about.me/lisarex

I need to present a plan to

webchick's picture

I need to present a plan to the board at DrupalCon on March 22. So probably the latest I'll be looking at the site will be the Friday before DrupalCon (March 16). So about two weeks, which should hopefully allow plenty of time for people to get their votes in.

I really did try and do a comprehensive overview of all of the Drupal.org initiatives that looked like they had community traction in the ideas list, but of course with our 11 billion issue queues I obviously could've missed some. :) There have also been additional proposals added by people that weren't/aren't in those queues, yet.

Also, just to point out...

webchick's picture

Just because something doesn't rank in this voting exercise doesn't mean it isn't still important and doesn't mean it won't get done. It just might not get done by the DA.

But we absolutely want to enable the community to drive forward changes on d.o they'd like to see, regardless of the DA's priority list. We're hoping to set up some sort of "office hours" kind of construct to allow people who want to improve Drupal.org to work in their issues/sandboxes as normal, and have dedicated feedback/review time from the deployment team to ensure their changes get looked at. I'll have more details about this in an upcoming post. For now, just trying to gauge what the community thinks are the most critical things.

Sounds like a good plan. And

lisarex's picture

Sounds like a good plan. And I saw you'd created a bunch of things for folks to vote on. Thank you :)

==================================
http://about.me/lisarex

Thank you

g76's picture

Just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to get involved and all the hard work on this and everything else you do. It is so much appreciated.

Jen

You should consider removing

Sborsody's picture

You should consider removing the required related .drupal.org issue/discussion. I have an idea but don't know of any related discussion/issue. Having to make one first in order to create an idea on IdeaScale is kind of annoying too.

Sorry for the annoyance but

webchick's picture

Sorry for the annoyance but that's very much by design. :) It's really important that the actual discussion around implementation, etc. of all of these ideas happens here on Drupal.org. This tool should only be used for "meta" discussion around how these ideas should fit into the DA's priority list.

Sorry for what might be a

millaraj's picture

Sorry for what might be a very obvious question...but where's the correct place on *.drupal.org to kick off a discussion about an idea? Have an idea but it's not really related to any bugs in Drupal so probably not suited to the issue queue. Should I be creating a new group for this?

Not necessarily new group,

tvn's picture

Not necessarily new group, you can post an idea in one of the many existing groups. Depends what idea is about. For example, if the idea is related to improving drupal.org, there is: http://groups.drupal.org/drupalorg-improvements

I've been trying to get into

ghazlewood's picture

I've been trying to get into the http://drupal-association.ideascale.com site for the last hour and it's timing out, even though the main IdeaScale site is working.

Use GDO vote up-down instead?

mradcliffe's picture

Make each top-level comment an idea and let people vote for them?

I prefer not having to sign up for yet another site although the same could be said about a non-community member that has to sign-up at D.O to vote. Argh.

Yeah, but comments aren't

webchick's picture

Yeah, but comments aren't sorted here by rating. :\

Also, there is no vote up/down on issues on d.o: http://drupal.org/node/42232

Also, the Drupal Ideation module doesn't actually let you vote: http://drupal.org/node/1440580

Trust me, guys, I really did try and exhaust all avenues for doing this on *.d.o before ahead of using a third-party service. :) Hopefully by next time we do this, someone will have come along and fixed all of our problems. :D

I didn't realize sorting by

mradcliffe's picture

I didn't realize sorting by rating was a requirement. :)

Sounds like an idea. :)

Sborsody's picture

Sounds like an idea. :)

issues

stevepurkiss's picture

I think the thing is knowing that someone's going to do something, and if we have issues with Drupal being able to do it then we need to work out some way of notifying people before we just go out and use a third party - I really believe this is harming the view of Drupal - first we had the where do you want the next DrupalCon Europe not using Drupal, now this. Facebook wouldn't consider using anything but Facebook functionality to do something similar - we have all the functionality to do this in Drupal and giving up so quickly just tells everyone, IMHO, "Drupal is too hard".

If you need resources to sort issues out then please can we find out before the decision is made to use a third party service? I'd happily donate some time to help ensure we do as much as we can using the wonderful software we spend all day and night evangelising about how good it is ;)

ta

Basically, it's a chicken and

webchick's picture

Basically, it's a chicken and egg problem. The reason we can't do it on Drupal.org is because the tools on Drupal.org are (currently) substandard. The reason we're doing this voting exercise in the first place is so that we can raise funds in order to make Drupal.org better.

I've linked the associated issues that blocked me, so if you care to work on any of them, go nuts!

I really don't think drupal

redndahead's picture

I really don't think drupal has to do everything on d.o. or g.d.o. We are not a company like facebook, we are a software project. Zend uses phpbb for their forums. phpbb is not a zend project, but zend has decided to focus their energies in the places they can provide the most impact to zend. Why screw with getting something like ideascale setup in drupal when a decent tool already exists. Let's focus on making drupal better in the most important areas. Heck the idea for an ideascale type site on d.o. isn't even in the top 20.

I was on the Drupal

linclark's picture

I was on the Drupal Association town hall meeting yesterday and they pointed out that anyone can start taking on items that they think are important. If I understood correctly, they plan to introduce an office hours where implementers can talk with the new Drupal.org webmaster team.

In the end, each of these super-duper critical items needs a champion. If you think this is the most important thing and want to champion this item, then how about mentioning it in the related issue.

I think the thing is knowing that someone's going to do something

The community is simply too big to have everyone alerted to everything that is happening. The discussion of the ideation tool was going on for a few days in early Feb and then didn't move forward. We can't put a block on everyone's productivity just so that we can have full consensus from everyone on everything at all times.

.

Michelle's picture

I'm very much in favor of using our own software for things and would be disappointed if using a 3rd party site ends up being a long term solution. But sometimes you just gotta use what's there when you need something that works Right Now and then you have the leisure of working on something of your own without the immediate pressing need breathing down your neck.

Redefining "Right Now"

stevepurkiss's picture

OK, I'm tired, I need to rest, it's late here and I've been trying to sort out the apparent lack of available Drupal talent issue all day with numerous people.

My mobile number is +44(0)7535 709658. If you ever feel the need to resort to a third party application about something you know I don't already know about then ring me, I'll even reimburse your call fee if you like. This is for stuff coming from the Drupal Association, not every little thing in the world, but we need to sort out our own house first.

This is basic marketing 101 stuff, I cannot believe you guys don't seem to understand, and sorry if I come across terse but we need to sort this out, I am doing my best but I need people to help too, not just diss the idea.

thanks ;)

Reasoning...

stevepurkiss's picture

I guess what I'm saying is we shouldn't be having these issues with the resources I know that are available to help us, we just don't have the right tools to solve them with at the moment, and by going to third parties we're not moving any closer to solving them. If we started to solve them at this level so we get to use our own software even more and it gets better in the process.

We don't have to delay proceedings long to start doing this - I've given you my details and I am ready to spend time ensuring this gets resolved. I'm not sure what else I can do!

I'm not sure who you are

linclark's picture

I'm not sure who you are directing this to when you say "I've given you my details". Maybe webchick?

Championing means taking the lead and pushing a project forward. Webchick is a mighty strong champion, but she can't be in charge of every initiative.

As far as I can see, the biggest challenge with this issue (and with so many seemingly easy fixes for Drupal) is organizational resource... someone being able to find the requirements and keep this project moving along. If you have the organizational resource to put towards this and can take the lead, it's time to start kicking A!! :) Otherwise, what else you can do is find someone who has the time and ability to champion the project.

maybe stevepurkiss needs a break too:)

g76's picture

Hey, I am not directing this to linclark or anyone at all really and actually more for myself, I just replied here to keep things in context. I just thought maybe Steve could use a break too, sounds like he's having a rough day, we all have those don't we? I agree that it is appropriate and most helpful to be part of the solution and webchick does more than could probably be expressed and I don't think she or anyone should be criticized for doing a great and wonderful thing, and maybe things could be said in a different way, but we all are human. I think that if we can all get past the emotion of things(which is not the easiest to do:) - yet possible), there are some pretty great things that could be happening, especially if Steve has an abundance of resources at his disposal for Drupal and the passion that goes along with it.

Thanks but no rough day!

stevepurkiss's picture

Thanks, and sorry if it sounds like I'm having a rough day - I'm not, I just want the best for Drupal and when I see all the effort put into making such an awesome thing it's just a shame to see the little things which can be sorted but aren't.

But I guess it's a long time now since I realised Drupal is only how you see it, it's just no-one listened to me much before, and to be honest I didn't say much either. Guess that's changed now ;)

So, what can I do to help? ETA for dropfund.org is end April I reckon so we still have a couple of months to cross before we have a mechanism in place which makes it easy. In the meantime do tell all your friends about WeCanGoDutch.com as they are funding development ;)

I'm going to be rebuilding http://open4.org soon once I figure out why drush 5 is f*cking up my build and putting all my features in random folders, we can use that for anything we need and I for one am happy to sponsor and find sponsors as this is the sort of thing I think any self-respecting drupal shop would be happy to support and see happen.

The last comment from tvn

linclark's picture

The last comment from tvn is:

Seeing that a lot of discussions should happen before idea about ideas (!) will take its final shape and possible overlap with other efforts, I decided to concentrate on another project for d.o for the time being.

I would say the project needs someone to fill tvn's shoes. A chat with her might help figuring out next steps. There is also an issue on Commons to do something similar, and lisarex has been quite active, so checking in on that issue would be a good thing.

Mainly, the task seems to be sorting out what exists, what needs to exist, and coordinating tasks to move things forward.

There are some other folks who are taking coordination roles on other projects. For example, tsvenson does a lot of coordinating around Media module to help push things forward, and eliza411 probably has a lot of tips from the git migration. And, of course, webchick probably has a multitude of cat-herding strategies that she'd be willing to share ;)

So go make it happen.The

kattekrab's picture

So go make it happen.

The problem here is not that Drupal can't do something like ideascale. It's that our infrastructure can't do something like ideascale.

If using ideascale proves to be a useful way to gather and rate the ideas of the community - then we should totally do it.

As a once off, to kickstart the No1 2012 goal of making drupal.org more awesome - I think it's totally fine to use a 3rd party tool.

Our volunteer attention, energy and effort is finite. I support @webchick's decision, in this case, to go forward with a 3rd party tool.

We used Drupal for the elections, even though there are much better, more mature online voting tools out there... so we do eat our own dogfood too.

@stevepurkiss - I take your point on the marketing implications - but in this particular case, I don't think it's a problem.

Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab

Give webchick a break

g76's picture

Look, I am not a developer or even a member of anything noteworthy, I have no super sites to showcase, just a solo site builder who loves Drupal. I am not trying to offend anyone, but could we give webchick a break and show her some grace? If you want/need to get something up quickly, sometimes you just do what you have to do. I understand and agree that eventually everything should be run on Drupal, but as it is there would be months of discussion and brainstorming on how to build the system to get input before anything was enacted. And maybe using outside systems and have drupalers see how they like it or don't can give a good perspective on how Drupal can improve and grow as well. Personally, I like the ideaspace site, and think drupal could do it better, but let's just start somewhere.

You are officially my new

webchick's picture

You are officially my new favourite person. :D Thank you very much for your support.

no prob, anytime:)

g76's picture

thanks:) I just strongly dislike seeing people get hammered just for trying to do something that's good that selflessly helps other people. Keep in mind I am not intending to come across as self-righteous, if anyone had any idea about all my past and present character flaws it would certainly be laughable(my husbands nickname for me is "mouthpiece" - it's our joke). I just think we all need to work together and not against each other. I also see so many times where there are disagreements and criticisms that people actually may agree more than they think, it is all in how it is conveyed.

The wonders of communication by text...

stevepurkiss's picture

Look, this isn't a gripe about anyone at all, I know how much effort people put into Drupal - I put 23:59 per day in and am still in awe of contributors such as webchick - I just don't know where they get the hours from!

All I'm trying to do is improve the situation in the long term, and to do that we have to start somewhere. I don't think everything has to be on drupal.org, but I do think we need to be using Drupal more when communicating with the external world. If we use a third party system for something as simple as a multiple choice form, the sad fact is people's first thought is going to be "oh I see they didn't use Drupal for that" or they simply won't know that Drupal does that.

I'm currently working on a site http://dropfund.org so we can post and fund ideas for marketing efforts, modules, patches, etc. but in the mean time what I'm saying is perhaps if we are to do stuff like this, with such high profile as this (i.e. coming directly from Drupal Association Directors), then if not notification then just ask me direct - I am in contact with many companies who have funds they would like to contribute to Drupal but don't have an avenue they are happy with to do so at the moment because they simply don't know where their money will go.

So all I'm saying is, before you use a third party system, mail me and I'll see what I can do as personally I see it continuing to perpetuate the image that Drupal is too hard which it isn't, we just need to connect more quickly and easily with the resources and knowledge we need.

/my2p

Direct Funding of Drupal-aiding Initiatives

mlncn's picture

Agree that there is space for people and companies collaboratively funding things to meet their needs in Drupal, from documentation sprints to whole distributions (such as for musicians). An open, neutral, Drupal-centric collaboration space (it's not just about raising dollars and other resources, but bringing the right people together) would also help avoid needless duplication of effort. And on that note...

There have been a couple sprints for the Snowball Initiative "to get Drupal projects rolling". We don't have a lot of code yet, but we've taken several great (and well-attended) discussions at DrupalCons and DrupalCamps and turned them into a focused proposed web application. And we have a U.S. based 501c3 not-for-profit, Visions Unite / People Who Give a Damn, Inc., which could be a great asset if we can work out exactly what the vetting requirements are for crowd-funded projects to be tax deductible.

Learning how to cooperate on the sorts of small and big things Drupal needs will bring many of the same skills and tools into focus that we need for we the people to shape together most everything else that matters in life. That's the vision, contact me at Agaric if there's a chance of working together to build it.

benjamin, agaric

drigg does exactly what ideascale does

yeti22's picture

http://drupal.org/node/331244 or drigg does exactly what ideascale does. So if this module is installed like drupal org's other modules the same thing can be done much better here.

What I am Doing

gh2012's picture

I am a complete newbie but I've been looking at drupal for years (first looked at the code about 4.7). I am presently building 3 sites, the first of which I plan to complete this weekend. That one is a rebuild of an existing site. The other two have been in the queue for several years.

I am documenting everything I'm doing in ReST and when I'm done I will post them on d.o

I am terminal oriented. I switched to using CRTs from punch cards in 1980/81 ;-).

I tried to use drush but it broke. So I've written 3 tools in perl to do what I need. I have done some things that drush doesn't do and I will try to get those changes into drush because it does things that can't be done in perl ... at least not until Parrot is a bit more mature.

I must get back to work now.

Howto Join

gh2012's picture

I've managed to get my stuff posted.

Summary:
- join the group: drupal.org improvements
- post your idea
- follow the ideascale link and go to their home page and create account
- go back to the drupal discussion at ideascale and look for the 'join community' link in the black bar at the top
- post your idea, linking it back to your drupal.org improvements post

Now, I'm really done for a couple of days, at least.

I am too stupid to post at ideascale

gh2012's picture

I clicked. It said to sign up.
I signed up. It said to register with the community.
Can't find any place to do that. Submitted a help request at ideascale.

Registration

jthorson's picture

Top right hand side of the page ... hidden in the 'invisible' black bar.

I had to ask how too. ;)

tqvm

gh2012's picture

tqvm

Great initiative ! (but UX issue)

Liaz's picture

Great initiative ! Thank you !
Could be a problem that the ux is incomprehensible for log in and register ... I managed by clicking on "submit new idea" that link to the log in page where one can register. Too bad this link to log in/ register doesn't appear when clicking on "I agree" or "I disagree".
I still hope a lot of people will vote, great idea !

Fund through target grants?

webdesignrees's picture

what exactly does 'Fund through target grants' mean?

no good idea now

RochelleBr's picture

Only local images are allowed.Only local images are allowed.If I think of a constructive idea, I will submit

Documentation!

arianek's picture

So, I've been procrastinating posting on Ideascale, partly because I don't want to sign up there, but also because I feel like saying "DOCS DOCS OMG DOCS" really never gets heard. There is SO much already documented as plans for the Documentation infrastructure of D.o, some of this has been posted into the 'voting system', but it'd be quite the task to distill it all into new posts there. This may be too late, but anyhow...

Documentation has clearly been the #1 area of desired improvement in surveys done over the past year, and it's so needed - if not just for a morale and activity boost for the docs team. It's hard to stay motivated when making progress has been so difficult, and resources never seem to come this way.

See page 21 of Dries' 2011 state of Drupal survey - Q 13. What are your top desired Drupal.org improvements? #1 answer "Better documentation"
- From Dries' State of Drupal survey results

See "What areas need the most contributors" and associated tag cloud - clearly Documentation!
- From "Getting Involved in the Drupal Community: Survey Results"

I'd love to see a portion of the resources be committed to improving the Documentation infrastructure, particularly the curated docs based on all of this existing "evidence". It's one of the single most effective ways we'll be able to improve our ability to onboard new users and community members, and make Drupal easier for everyone to learn.

I totally agree

jessehs's picture

I've been following this thread lacksidasically, so...

I may be missing previous conversations, but I totally agree with this post. I, for one, did not really understand the importance of api.drupal.org for waaaay too long. How can we bridge the gap between the documentation that implicitly exists IN THE CODE with a way to hook (;-) the community into understanding how Drupal works? Okay, maybe this is not exactly your idea of Documentation in regards to the amount of support going into README documentations, but I think that there needs to be more support for everyday programmers to begin to understand "the Drupal way," the way people like us that have been doing it for awhile know about.

On a sidenote, what BoF talks, or Drupalcon presentations would you recommend people attend to contribute to this front in Denver?

The Draft funding plan is

arianek's picture

The Draft funding plan is here now: http://groups.drupal.org/node/217939 - no specific funding for docs projects.

Under "Developer Improvements" it says: "Turn project pages into groups to do per-project documentation, events, announcements, etc."

But this doesn't have any relation to the existing long term plans from Docs Team to build the Better Help System and Curated Docs, though it's probably something that can be worked with/around, of course.

I refuse to believe that there is not enough need for better Documentation Infrastructure to warrant some major support from the community leadership and DA...

The Docs Team may have dissipated due to the difficulty working with our existing structure, but I am 100% confident, they're waiting in the wings and will be ready to do what they love when there's an infrastructure to properly support it!

Ha!

Drave Robber's picture

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are privileged to inform you that Online Global Lottery and Grant Awards Program
(...)

+1 for better spam control. :)

Video training subsite for d.o

mitchell's picture

https://drupal.org/node/302106

A community run ~drupalize.me on d.o mentioned in https://drupal.org/node/394420