At Wed, 26 May 2010 10:49:11 +0800, Dean Michael Berris wrote:
Step 1: Move static and not-so-static content over to Wordpress MU [0]
Yay. Consider also whether you want to go a little further, to buddypress. Also consider that WP 3.0 is imminent and it is supposed to include all the MU functionality natively.
The current boost.org website is composed of mostly static content that says things about the submission-review process, the guidelines for libraries, what the goal of the project is, and the like. These pages can be ported to Wordpress MU manually either by copy-pasting the content into the WYSIWYG editor or typing the content in (and editing it in the process).
The WYSIWYG editor has an “HTML face,” so there's no need to retype anything.
This step will include the establishment of who would be the administrators and the eventual maintainers of the boost.org facade. All the information regarding the Boost Community and the maintaining of the content that's specific to the boost.org website would be written, article submissions curated, and copy-edited by the administrators.
I have personally volunteered to be one of these administrators who would basically act as an editor for the site. I would take on the responsibility of achieving the following (measurable) goals:
1. Establishing a "Feedback" button that allows anybody visiting the site to post feedback on whatever they think. I would prefer to use a service called Get Satisfaction [1] to gather and manage the feedback, as well as responding to feedback posted through that service.
Awesome.
2. Incorporating a DisQus [2] discussion system to manage comments on pages. There is already a Wordpress plugin for this and comment moderation would mostly be handled initially by me and other administrators interested in helping out in this effort.
My only reservation is that I tried a similar plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/intensedebate/) and I found it put my site at the mercy of intensedebate's server speed and availability. It tended to slow everything down. Maybe DisQus is better; I guess we'll find out.
3. Integrating and publishing regularly the Google Analytics and Wordpress MU stats on the whole site. Regularly can mean either monthly or weekly depending on who often the community wants information about the site.
[0] http://mu.wordpress.org/ [1] http://getsatisfaction.com/ [2] http://disqus.com/
Step 2: Make it easy to jump from Wordpress MU to Trac for the Wiki, Tickets, and Source Viewer
This would mean adding links to the appropriate pages in Trac, and in these pages a way to jump back to the boost.org website. This will require some changes in the Trac site which should be easy to pull off.
The measurable outcome for this would be to see the actual integration done in a satisfactory manner. Satisfactory of course means, that it works. ;)
If my plans go well, we'll have each project in a separate Git repo soon. The consequences are not all known, but one reasonably likely scenario is that we'll want to switch from Trac to something else (e.g. Redmine), so be wary about investing *too* much effort in trac-related stuff too early.
Step 3: Set up blogs for individual libraries (who want it, or at least for library maintainers/volunteers who want to manage it)
Ideally this should be done for all the libraries. Each sub-site would include (at the minimum):
* A blog -- where only the maintainers and those nominated by the maintainers to have blog posting access can communicate what's happening, what's coming, whether they need help, or whether there are any nasty bugs that need attention (as well as just some general updates or cool findings regarding the library).
* Static Pages -- typically there would be pages like "About", "History", "Examples", and "FAQs" which generally are mostly static. These can be edited by the maintainers and those nominated by the maintainers who would have access to these pages.
* Support Information -- this would be a special static page which would point to Trac, or other places where the development and support system of the library is hosted. I am not excluding the possibility of having libraries developed in github/gitorious/sourceforge. Links to things like the mailing list on which the discussion happens, whether there's a web-based forum, or whether there's a number/company to call for support would generally go here too.
* Online documentation -- as an absolute minimum there should be a page on documentation for each library in Boost accessible from the boost.org website. It would be a good thing to integrate the generated library documentation into the wordpress system itself, but at the minimum links to the generated library docs that are statically served (just like now) would be acceptable.
My personal vision for boost.org would be to become the hub over which the Boost C++ community and the surrounding ecosystem of companies can join in on the action.
I would even go so far as say that we should encourage and allow industry players that offer support for Boost libraries or who use Boost libraries to place advertising on the site to help with shouldering the cost of BoostCon, or other things that the Free Software Conservancy would deem necessary to spend money on.
I also would like to see it be the face of the Boost community, and really a means to get users to start using boost, get excited about it, and eventually contribute back to the cause.
Users who are already passionate about providing support for a wider audience of Boost users could also contribute to the cause not as library developers but people who publicize and liberally put links to the boost.org site on their blogs, on their email correspondence, and in stackoverflow.com answers.
Ultimately I would personally want to see boost.org be able to handle the growth of the Boost C++ Library, and allow for more communities (not just one community) to through the site. I don't want it to replace the mailing list for Internet old timers like me who like this feel of email conversation, but for things like announcements and communicating to the wider audience I think the website should do that job superbly.
I think web forums like BBPress support a mailing-list-like experience, don't they? I'd really like to see lightweight subscribable discussion topic areas.
Thanks for reading this far, comments, suggestions, reactions, and pledges to help would be greatly appreciated.
I'll am focused on the ryppl side of things, but I hope we'll coordinate and cooperate. -- Dave Abrahams Meet me at BoostCon: http://www.boostcon.com BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com