Zikula Community

• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 21, 2005 - 08:37 AM

  I always wanted a Winnebago.

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 21, 2005 - 10:42 AM

  ..it's better than an underwear shield. :)
  
  ..................... on topic:
  This morning PostNuke was down for a few hours.. somehow I ended up at Mambo.. Did you know they won "Best Open Source Solution" (vs. the likes of RedHat, AMD, Novell..etc) AND "Best of Show" @ the LinuxWorld Conference/Expo ..and "Best Free Software Project of the Year 2004" in the Linux Format awards .. their version 4.5.1 released in december 2004 has received 100,000 Downloads! 100,000 Downloads not available. 4.5.2 has earned a mere 670,000.. hmphf..
  
  I wonder what they attribute their growth to? Certainly not just code.

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 22, 2005 - 09:53 AM

  I dunno. Maybe is ease of use. I see tons of my customers moving to Mambo. I'm cracking the whip on Shawn to get the at module ported to Mambo as the entry level market seems to be moving to Mambo.

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• Slugger
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 22, 2005 - 10:52 AM

  Easier to spell? Cute little hippy-retro flower logo?

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 22, 2005 - 11:16 AM

  .. their docs are awesome.. their teams are laid back and funloving.. they have designers, who have done an incredible job making it sparkle in and out. They've got a bustling community that works together and all of the sites are tied together.. It's working because they've made it fun, they've made it exciting, they involve the community at ALL levels (they've got a community newsletter! not a security list, a "hey, burritos are good and my dog has gas" letter), they've got a documentation team!?! One of the rotating articles on the front page is the Mambo vs. PostNuke benchmark comparison.. the last person posting to the thread it links to is John Cox (aka: niceguyeddie).. they've got everyone on the defense versus substandard code (no abstraction, requires register_globals, poor API) .. I think that's funny. Our code is better, but our application has had a standard look for quite a while now (forgivable), our community has weakened in the last year (while the code has grown), our teams are in need of a restructure and reinforcement, we need designers, we need doc writers (2nd plea to bring BB onboard for doc assitance!), we need more people to decide their not going to let PN turn ghetto. We've got NO advertising! NONE! (if you can believe that?!?, but we're working on that aren't we? Mark's all over the blogger support which will also help considerably.. but there are very key elements missing.. and a serious disconnect in functionality.

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• Slugger
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 22, 2005 - 11:40 AM

  IR, you've pretty much said it all.
  
  I believe the road to 0.8 has been a PR nightmare. Too much was promised too early and PN was labeled...heck labeled by its own community as failing to deliver. These things happen. You take your medicine and move on.
  
  I agree about the strengths of PN. We're a little disjointed in part by trying to move forward by back porting much of 0.8 before it's ever released. I don't think a lot of people appreciate just how much is being/has been done to accomodate as many people as possible while this is taking place.
  
  A lot of your observations and solutions dance around management issues.
  
  Slugger (AKA Slug, AKA Slug-O-Matic)

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 22, 2005 - 04:02 PM

  Slugger

  I believe the road to 0.8 has been a PR nightmare. Too much was promised too early and PN was labeled...heck labeled by its own community as failing to deliver. These things happen. You take your medicine and move on.
  

  
  ..I almost started to reminisce there for a second ;) . I can't remember when I didn't know of the mysterious and elusive .8 .. to metaphorize (is that even a word?) it, it's been the Holy Grail, not just "a" priority, but "the" priority, which put a lot of pressure on the dev team to perform a task now recognized as "significantly larger than assessed" ;) ..
  
  meanwhile: strife and dissonance.. stumbling.. 2 flat tires, rod knock, loose valves, a hole in the exhaust, but turn the radio wayyyy up and you can hardly hear it.
  
  
  

  Slugger

  
  I agree about the strengths of PN. We're a little disjointed in part by trying to move forward by back porting much of 0.8 before it's ever released. I don't think a lot of people appreciate just how much is being/has been done to accomodate as many people as possible while this is taking place.
  

  
  ..the backport is actually what's been called "MarkNuke" :) ..it was entirely unintentional, but he had made such significant improvements to the .750 code base for a personal project, with the markup and the addition of a few .8 mods, that it was deemed sensible to "ween" the public into more "fluent" versions. (I agreed with this decision.)
  
  

  Slugger

  
  A lot of your observations and solutions dance around management issues.
  

  
  ..hahaha.. I thought it was all about management. I know what you mean.. 3 parts inspiration, 1 part trust and a dash of gratitude.. substitute with tequila, triple sec and lime juice.. blend until frothy.

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 23, 2005 - 11:38 AM

  ..did you know we have "marketing materials"? ..out of curiosity, I've sent a request for copies.. no reply yet.

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 23, 2005 - 11:48 AM

  Hi there, just one question :
  
  All theses ideas (marketing, new design team, new doc team....) area about real teams ? Are Postnuke managers looking for new members ? or maybe.... are we just talking about what postnuke should do to grow stronger ?

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 23, 2005 - 11:59 AM

  hey cuervo .. just brainstorming and making suggestions.. to improve the community and product.. I don't think it's "bad", I just think it could be a lot better.

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 23, 2005 - 11:31 PM

  No, it's not bad at all, but I think it's time to do any of these good ideas => One more step for postnuke. Sometimes brainstorming is not enough, we need to move postnuke-world to make it bigger. We all know that our CMS can be (or really is) stronger (faster, very simple to design new themes, very simple to create new modules) than others, but new users know it? I don't think so. Maybe it's time to talk about some suggestions, for example:
  
  - New programming group : this team can do postnuke official modules (stored in NOC) but not included in Postnuke Release
  - New Design team: same as programming group
  - New Documents for Postnuke: New team created for documenting every single part of postnuke in two levels: newbies (install, upgrade, how to post a storie, how to create a poll...) and expert (how to create a new block, how to create a new module, pnRender docs....)
  - Official (certificate) Sites: Postnuke can have 1 or 2 official site for every language, but these sites *MUST* be active sites, so they must translate docs, modules, blocks or even themes to their language, show information about new bugs and release new fixes. For example, I'm spanish (sorry for my bad english ;) ) so, we need a spanish official site dedicated, many times I have thought to create news.dev-postnuke.com to show postnuke.com stories translated to spanish, at this moment we are translating most of block & modules released in postnuke.com to spanish, we are making some programming docs, .... same job as other english communities. But I think it's not enough. With a support (helped by postnuke.com official site) in every language we will have a ver big community.
  - Marketing team - Some contests - Some Banner - ....
  
  Maybe this ideas must be known by management team of postnuke :S or maybe no...
  
  Sorry for my bad english, I hope you can understand all my words, for me it's very hard to write in english.
  
  Regards,
  el_cuervo

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 24, 2005 - 12:10 AM

  I agree.. things can always be better. They are ideas that lack vocal support.. if there were 500 people posting to this thread, I guarantee you would see change.. and some things we can do on our own to make it better. But until deficiencies are recognized and addressed, inferior applications will continue to blow past us in popularity.
  
  

  el_cuervo6

  Sorry for my bad english, I hope you can understand all my words, for me it's very hard to write in english.
  

  
  You've seen my spanish ;) .. no bueno :) yo comprendo.

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• Slugger
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 24, 2005 - 09:27 AM

  It's good not to throw the baby out with the bath water. I appreciate how this is being discussed.
  
  Slugger

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 24, 2005 - 10:40 AM

  ..thanks Slugger..
  
  to get back to el cuervo's last post and points:
  -new programming group: as slugger had mentioned earlier, a sponsorship or certification of standardized modules would be a good idea (XHTML output, templated and well documented being required).. I like how communities have their own development teams and I think that the goal of certified modules would improve conditions and validate their efforts.
  
  -new design team: this is tremendously important. currently vanessa "is" our design team. I'd say we're a bit understaffed for an application and community of this size. I'd suggest vanessa oversee and coordinate with the formation of a design team (3-4 people), development of "core" themes should be overseen by Andreas (strenghts in accessibility and markup) and Larry (Xanthia Zen Guru). The design team should be managed by Vanessa as well. Vanessa (design) and Harry's (marketing) roles as central management make for a very natural union.
  
  -new documents: very important. a 3-4 person doc team overseen by Simon and mhalbrook. I'd recommend BB as the first member to this team and as the supervisor/manager of the doc team.
  
  -official sites: i'm sticking with my original thoughts on this.. we need to protect the namesake AND provide recognition to our international communities. Unity and uniformity.
  
  -marketing team: the marketing team should consist of 3-4 people under the supervision/management of Harry Z. they should be tasked with communicating with every team to prepare progress/press releases, organize events, interviews (including active members of the communities), maintaining advertising and materials.
  
  ..gotta sneak out for dinner now, but I thought I'd address those a little more.

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• craigh
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 24, 2005 - 10:43 AM

  InvalidResponse

  .. their docs are awesome..

  
  
  I believe this to be the biggest weakness of Postnuke. There are docs, but for the most part, they are too technical with a goal of installation and assume the enduser has certain knowledge.
  
  A while back, a push was made to begin a Wiki project to improve the docs, but there was never any managerial follow through.
  
  I think the problem with this and other issues is the GLACIAL pace of change. The code is GREAT and getting better with every release. The dev team is great. The code release tempo is absolutely FINE. Its just everything ELSE that moves so dang slow.
  
  As another example, the Commercial vs non-commercial issue hasn't been resolved and its been years! sure we have postnukepro.com, but that hasn't changed since its unofficial launch either! As another example - the front page has recently changed - for the first time since I started using Postnuke - something like three years ago. I can remember promises that it would change "soon" happening over and over.
  
  Maybe that really is the issue is the integrity of the management. When you say something will happen and it doesn't, then people develop negative attitudes.
  
  before you say "step up to the plate and fix it" - I guess I'm willing to - I volunteered to help in the documentation project linked above. I'd be willing to do more, but nobody takes you up on it.

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