For those who don't follow the webmaster's queue, this issue is born out of a heated debate that turned nasty. I'm not going to link to it because this post is an attempt to break free of it and accomplish something positive. When I'm done writing this issue, I will make a post about it on Planet Drupal so all those affected by the decision are aware of it. Please help pass the word.
We have over time formed some guidelines that are listed here: http://drupal.org/about/drupal-planet . These guidelines were created in the issue queue by site maintainers which, while public, is off the normal beaten path for the average Drupal user. These guidelines are not set in stone and can be changed once a consensus is reached.
Why do we need guidelines at all? To make sure all site maintainers are on the same page. Any site maintainer can add or remove a feed. Without guidelines, this is done based on the best judgment of the maintainer. Generally we try to get at least a couple other maintainers to agree before making any changes but that's still putting the decision in the hands of 3 people out of 100+ who happen to be paying attention to the queue at that time and not taking into account opinions of the greater community. This results in uneven handling of the feeds, potentially rejecting a request that another maintainer might have approved and vice versa.
So let's get together in the spirit of finding out what is best for Planet and the people who use it and come up with a plan of how to make it the best and most useful feed we can. We can use the existing guidelines as a conversation starter but whole fresh proposals are welcome as well. Let's just please keep this conversation civil. We all want what's best for the community and we need to work together as a community to figure out what that is.
Michelle
Comments
Comment #1
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commentedTo get this rolling:
I propose that the "What Is Not Welcome" section of http://drupal.org/about/drupal-planet be replaced with the text included below - please edit away, or make alternative suggestions.
Comment #2
catchbonobo's text looks fine.
I stopped reading planet for about a year because there was so much crap on there - posts informing us that someone was going to a conference, where neither the conference nor the post had anything directly to do with Drupal, posts along the lines of "how to post a node" in 200 words, and others that were pretty much indistinguishable from spam comments. Some of these were bad enough to post or update webmasters issues about since people just don't deserve having that inflicted on them.
Since the dashboard widget appeared with the redesign I've started scanning the feed a bit again, and less things have jumped out as particularly annoying (well there was one annoying post this week but it prompted an interesting discussion), but it is better to have some basic expectations laid out somewhere public, than have to start from scratch every time something obviously mis-placed (or more rarely just in bad faith) appears.
Comment #3
laura s CreditAttribution: laura s commentedOne of the areas of disagreement is over the part of prohibiting job announcements and hiring announcements. I'm of mixed mind on this.
When the Drupal community was much smaller, and Planet Drupal was much smaller, the occasional job announcement on Planet Drupal seemed fine to me. There were only a handful of shops posting such notices, and then only occasionally, and these shops were contributing to Drupal in many significant ways — it was all part of a community sharing.
However, the Drupal community has grown immensely since then, with well over 500k "active" users, over a million posts, and many more feeds on Planet Drupal. What's more, the Drupal ecosystem is growing, with many more new companies entering the marketplace and contributing to the community, and thus rightly wanting to have their chance at sharing with the community on Planet Drupal. That's great!
The problem with job postings, however, is that they can get spammy very quickly. Look at how groups.drupal.org has lost favor with many because of the spammy job posts cross-posted in dozens of groups. New policies have changed that, and it seems the job spam has gotten this a bit under control. But you don't have to look far to see how job spam has ruined other "communities" such as LinkedIn.
So do we want to allow job postings in the main Planet Drupal feed? Or do we want to push job listings — which do have interest for many in the community — to a separate feed, to a "jobs board" area on g.d.o, or some other option?
So in summary, while I don't see job postings as problematic yet, I do see this as the camel's nose under the tent. Others have expressed great opposition to including jobs in the main Planet Drupal feed.
So for now, I'm +1 on bonobo's proposed text (and still open to rewordings), but feel we do need to find a place for community job announcements. My preference there is to do it in a feed channel "Planet Drupal Jobs" (for which there is a ticket that could be reopened). That way the listings remain in control of the companies hiring, and we aren't taking on management of an entirely new business, a jobs board, which I believe would require a crapload of work to maintain.
Comment #4
laura s CreditAttribution: laura s commentedThat jobs feed channel ticket is #953668: Create new aggregator category "Drupal Jobs Announcements". If someone else agrees that that idea might be a good one, please reopen it.
Comment #5
Dave ReidBeen a while since I've been on this topic because I haven't wanted to speak up.
I'm all for a much better job board on Drupal.org, but until we can get that implemented, I feel like it's going to be more trouble creating separate feeds that have to be maintained, rather than just not limiting content on the Planet. So I'm +1 for removing the explicit restrictions first, then working on improving the text examples on what is good content and what is not great content.
Comment #6
mherchelI see your point. You don't want it filled with crap. That being said, I like to see it update throughout the day... and more the better.
I don't mind seeing announcements, drupal specific offers, trainings, etc. It is easy to skip over the crap when it exists.
I personally don't mind it the way that it is.
Comment #7
mherchelYeah, the job board could be better (if only there was software to easily develop this).
But, more importantly, it needs better visibility and a listing under http://drupal.org/community
Comment #8
jpstrikesback CreditAttribution: jpstrikesback commented+1 to Bonobo's text, seems to catch the most important things I personally don't want to read (cause they can be found elsewhere), and removes the trademark thing which puts weight on authors when it's likely unnecessary up front.
I'd personally rather the lack of a better job board drive the building of it (instead of accommodating until it's built)...and there's always:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Acraigslist.ca+drupal
:P
Comment #9
Gerhard Killesreiter CreditAttribution: Gerhard Killesreiter commented"the way that it is." is that job postings are "discouraged", ie you may find your feed got removed after you post one. :P
I think the whole debate is at least partially due to the arcane nature of the core aggregator module that we use.
I would like to see a group of respected community members to develop a plan on how the aggregator can be improved by using alternative modules and stuff like voting. I would also consider to introduce a dedicated subsite for this, e.g. planet.drupal.org, if the proposed solution becomes too complicated to keep on d.o.
But as long as this or something else has happened, I do not want to litter the feed with jop postings. So +1 for keeping the status quo and I am also ok with Bonobo's text.
Comment #10
lisarex CreditAttribution: lisarex commented+1 to bonobo's suggestions.
A weekly 'roundup' list of jobs posted to g.d.o. could be useful to the Planet, esp if there's a way to automate this.
Comment #11
Grayside CreditAttribution: Grayside commented#1 is good, except sometimes those posts are more than they seem. Showcasing the doings of high-profile Drupal developers is actually relevant. Providing a snapshot of the personalities and enthusiasm within Drupal from across the net is part of Drupal's marketing. Some press releases and cheerleading posts reach a Drupal significance level that are good to have.
#9 makes sense. Add categories to planet posts, and you can create dedicated subchannels.
Is Planet only for developers? Only two years ago I found it an invaluable resource just to learn about site building. I have since moved beyond the need for site-building tutorials, and now they are mostly noise. The same tracks you see at DrupalCon are relevant to the
Planet Feed.
Comment #12
mike stewart CreditAttribution: mike stewart commented+1 to #1
Comment #13
btopro CreditAttribution: btopro commentedas someone yelled at for posting low quality content or release announcements I think have guidelines in place and then posting issues directed at the owners of the feed who violate the planet policy (like #1) works. Then just have something for violating the policy more then once or something.
Comment #14
Mediacurrent CreditAttribution: Mediacurrent commentedHi All,
Looks like I am in the definite minority here, but I am in favor of keeping Planet status quo and allowing job postings. There have been opinions expressed about too much “junk, spam, clutter, inappropriate subject matter, etc.” but I have yet to see it in excess. To me, some sporadic posts that are outside of scope seems to go with the territory of an aggregator. What is the real harm as well – from a usability standpoint, we are talking about having to scroll your eyes down further on the page if you see something that is not of interest. If you don't like the post, ignore it, and move on to the next one.
Eliminating job announcements is particularly perplexing. Why would we not want to promote and highlight the fact that Drupal ecosystem is growing (and hiring) - that next job posting may be filled by a future core contributor. Also, there is seemingly negative unemployment for top Drupal talent, but history and supply/demand economics tells us that this may not always be the case. IMO, we should make it as welcoming as possible for those included in the Planet feed and help provide exposure for their job opening.
Cheers,
Dave
Comment #15
mikey_p CreditAttribution: mikey_p commentedHow about simple a policy discouraging frequent job postings in a single feed, or posts that have no content other than job postings?
I see nothing wrong with including hiring information in a related post about a technology or subject, or infrequent job postings (i.e. once every 2-3 months).
Comment #16
heather CreditAttribution: heather commentedI read pretty much *every* title on the Planet, even if I don't read every article. I've watched discussions here on the web master's queue regarding getting feeds added, and getting new organizations listed on the planet. Seems like Michelle is asking for anyone's 2 cents. Looks like totally dodgy territory, but here goes...
"We have over time formed some guidelines that are listed here: http://drupal.org/about/drupal-planet . These guidelines were created in the issue queue by site maintainers which, while public, is off the normal beaten path for the average Drupal user. "
Bonobo's revision is by far in a better spirit.
"Why do we need guidelines at all?"
I think written, agreed upon guidelines in this area is a step in the right direction, (regardless of the tone, verbiage and content to be determined). Changes to policy, however, need to be clearly advertised, and the information easily accessible.
Any infractions should be responded to first with the "Assume Good Faith" approach, giving someone the time to amend or correct before deletion or banning, etc. The process of reporting and responding to these guidelines needs to be explicitly outlined and sensitively carried out.
Vague, implicit, social and potentially political reasons behind decision making which can allow or exclude participation is an outright hindrance to diversity and participation.
I do think overall, that explicit guidelines in this area are an improvement to the process, can help increase the quality of the content on the planet, and help new participants understand the spirit of and goals of the Planet Drupal service.
Likewise, if more explicit "rules of engagement" are clearly communicated, I believe this will make a more level playing field for growing a more diverse Drupal community. I would like to see more explicit guidelines in other areas as well.
+ 1!
Comment #17
christefano CreditAttribution: christefano commented+1 for a planet.drupal.org.
I agree with everything in #9. Job announcements make up part of the lifeblood of our community, however, and I'd prefer to see a "firehose" feed (much like Planet is today) and separate category-specific feeds so that community members can subscribe just to what they want.
Comment #18
pivica CreditAttribution: pivica commented+1 for this issue and #1. I also don't want to see job post and other non relevant/boring stuff on Drupal Planet. I was tracking Drupal Planet for a long time but last couple of month I loose interest - mostly because there are lot of post that are really just noise more or less.
Drupal Radar 'On The Radar' monthly posts helped me a lot because it filtered most of the stuff and showed only posts of top interest, that saved lot of mine time.... To bad they stopped to maintain site, anybody know why?
And like for catch, dashboard widget helped a little bit so last month I started to track some post, and also I have impression that there is more quality post on planet and less noise, but I strongly vote for having good 'Planet Drupal guidelines'.
Comment #19
arianek CreditAttribution: arianek commentedsubscribe
Comment #20
xmacinfoI vote for the statu quo. Everything is fine now and I look at the planet daily. In fact, Drupal Planet is way more focused on Drupal than Mozilla Planet, where I often see travel pictures next to new Firefox Interface proposition.
Job postings are as much important as any tips or tricks. This is a Planet aggretator, not a tips and tricks aggregator.
I find the Planet fine. I did not see any abuse.
Comment #21
sunCan we change
into
?
Several reasons for that:
Comment #22
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commentedRE:
This is not an issue that can be fixed by the Planet. People who work together will (ideally) review one another's work. A review will be worthwhile or not depending on the quality/integrity of the reviewer.
Comment #23
tgeller CreditAttribution: tgeller commentedsun proposes:
This opens a can of worms. What is "high-profile"? What is a "contributor"? Neither Acquia CEO Tom Erickson nor Vice President Jay Batson has contributed a line of code or documentation (AFAICT), but I think we'd all agree that their career moves comprise important information for the community.
Comment #24
gddI am in favor of the loosest possible moderation of planet to be honest, and my feeling is that anything that isn't blatantly abusive should just be let through. My one exception would be feeds with very low Drupal content, but as Larry pointed out in one of the other threads, he has a long series going on right now that is 'of Drupal interest' but not necessarily Drupal-centric, so even that is a bit of a judgment call. I am also in favor of a more positively termed paragraph rather than a negative one. Something along the lines of
'Drupal Planet loves this type of content
- Drupal tips and tricks
- Case studies
- Success stories
-
Feeds that consistently lack Drupal content will be warned and may be removed.'
And that is it. I don't really understand what all the problem is with Planet or why people are so passionate about it becoming a cesspool. To be dead honest, the most irritating content on there for me is Dries' common blog posts about yet another high profile site running Drupal but I'm not going to sit around and suggest he shouldn't post them. An aggregator of over 200 feeds is never going to be everything for everyone, and shouldn't try to be.
That said I think a dedicated site with voting and / or community tagging would be a great addition to the .drupal.org universe. It could be done pretty easily with Managing News right out of the box (I've considered doing this myself on many occasions) or with a pretty simple Drupal build. So my biggest +1 is to killes in #9.
Comment #25
laura s CreditAttribution: laura s commentedThere's currently an approximately 2:1 preference voiced so far here to keep the prohibition of job postings in the main Planet Drupal feed. However, that said, many of that majority (and some whose positions aren't quite as clear) are expressing a desire for jobs to have a place somewhere in the *.d.o landscape.
Let's put this into context: As I type this, there are 385 feeds from companies and individual blogs being pulled into Planet Drupal. And that number is only going to go up and up. We didn't even have 385 people at conferences 4 years ago.
Given how job spam has killed other communities like LinkedIn, I don't want to see Planet Drupal start to feel that way too, because once it does it will be too late and awfully difficult to clean up. Therefore I'm now feeling that it will be just easier for us as a community, with limited resources, to provide a separate place for job postings, whether as an aggregated "Planet Drupal Jobs" (my preference) or some kind of job board built on g.d.o or somewhere else, rather than try to play some balancing act over what's a "tasteful" job posting vs. a "spammy" job posting.
+1 for bonobo's #1 wording, and +1 for Gerhard's idea to find a way to move to a solution other than the core aggregator module, if feasible. (That's really an infrastructure team question, I believe.)
Comment #26
christefano CreditAttribution: christefano commentedComment #27
Dries CreditAttribution: Dries commentedI don't find myself aligned with bonobo's proposal. For example, I think it is good to keep job postings (we need to grow more Drupal talent), and I also think press releases are often good to have (it would be sad to miss out on important announcements).
Comment #28
MichelleSince I started reading Planet in a feed reader, I don't really have a problem with the content. When you're presented with just a list of titles, it's quite easy to skim through and just read the interesting ones. Up until fairly recently, though, I was reading Planet on the page: http://drupal.org/planet and it is a lot more painful to scroll through tons of questionable posts when you are there. So I wonder, for those who object to things like job postings, where are you reading Planet? Would splitting up the page while leaving the original feed intact work? Or is this a problem for feed readers as well?
Michelle
Comment #29
GregoryHeller CreditAttribution: GregoryHeller commentedI like heyrocker's proposal in #24. Frame it as a positive, with loose guidelines. The other thing that would be nice, though, is to in some way limit the length of each post to something more uniform, rather than just leave it to the feeds themselves. Some feeds show entire article, while others show just a very short teaser.
Comment #30
jpstrikesback CreditAttribution: jpstrikesback commented@Michelle, I read my planet feed via the dashboard. If there was a way to sort posts in my dashboard I wouldn't care what was posted (aside from obviously crappy crap), cause I could find the things I care about. I agree with all the reasons for having Job/Hire/Press Releases, I just don't want to read them (ok Drupal PR's are pretty darned good usually), I want to read news/opinions affecting Drupal the code/community and how to build something awesome(r) :)
Which means it comes down to personal feed preferences and hopefully becomes an infrastructure thing...as someone once said "if only there was software to easily develop this" ;)
Comment #31
mlncn CreditAttribution: mlncn commentedIn favor of #24 and not disallowing job or hiring or available for work announcements. Consistent no-added-value gets you warned, and ultimately kicked. After categories and an infrastructure for them are created we can see about helping people filter for the categories that interest them, but to restrict now is premature.
Comment #32
crea CreditAttribution: crea commentedIn my opinion, there's too much marketing/promotion in the Drupal Planet. Some people also post only promo posts without any valueable info. My opinion is simple: if you are making money with Drupal, and your post contains only advertising, do us a favor and buy advertising on special pages.
I think the information itself is not a problem, but the lack of structuring is. We may need separate channels for promos, Drupal news, blogposts with useful technical information (the last one is what keeps me reading the planet).
Comment #33
zzolo CreditAttribution: zzolo commentedI would like to reiterate some points that have been said above. I think @heyrocker's #24 is the way to go. Simply say that post need to be relevant to Drupal and of significant quality. The audience of the Drupal Planet is extremely wide an varied, trying to be subjective about censorship will only create situations like this again and again.
Also, I am overall against hiring/jobs info in the Planet, but not as a strict rule or because I don't think the audience of the Planet wants it (I can't speak for everyone). But Drupal has a very big job board at http://groups.drupal.org/jobs, this is where people should go for jobs. More work should be focused on making that space more obvious and more user friendly.
I would really suggest moving away from trying to define what is "quality" aka guideline, and focus on how to leverage community actions to assign value to content. Any moves that can be made to make the Drupal Planet more valuable, such as voting, will easily create a more rich experience for users. A simple voting system would easily provide users with knowledge on what posts and sources are quality.
Comment #34
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commentedI'm with #24 as well- there aren't any good reasons that I can think of why the planet policies need to be placed in a negative context. In regards to issues with the planet, the only thing that (sort of) annoys me are the daily "Learn to use X module, part 34" posts, but I don't have any problems skip them and it seems far better to err on the side of "this might be useful to some folks" rather than "this is annoying, I don't want it on the feed again."
Question: do we have any useful stats for the Planet? I'd love to know the average # of posts per day & per month, as well as the averages for each blog. If anyone's curious, the job postings are currently no occurring at any sort of regular rate. From another thread:
Also, as a point of procedure, I'm a bit confused as to what will be considered a "consensus" here? 50% +1? A super-majority (2/3)?
Comment #35
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commentedIn regards to Michelle's comment about usage of the planet page in #28, there's this one for post length: #887366: RSS and notifications block on groups.drupal.org should not be cached
This is OT, but I think creating a "feed reader" on that page would be potentially useful for newbies, and could definitely display Drupal's awesome ability to create readers (we've made a couple of them, they can be awesome).
Comment #36
Damien Tournoud CreditAttribution: Damien Tournoud commentedI am aligned with #1 and in favor of creating a separate job feed. Everyone is hiring, job advertisement only increases the noise level. There are way better tools then the planet to promote those.
Comment #37
Arnold Leung CreditAttribution: Arnold Leung commentedI am in favor with #24 and #27 that job postings should be allowed on Drupal planet. I just dont see how it will hurt for people to see it. I mean people can see the post and choose to skip it. This takes 1-2 seconds of their time. It's not like they will need to read the whole post before they find that it is irrelevant for them.
The more job postings out there, the easiest it is for people to reach out to developers and further enhance the ecosystem.
Also Alex @ # 35 pointed out the important point that we currently dont have any rule on what majority means in the making this kind of decision.
Do we make a poll with a voting time? Do we set a time limit and just count number of +1? This is important as this issue is the reason why a lot of other issues are left there and never get resolved. A lot of times there are 2 +1, then 1 person puts in a -1 then the whole issue sites there. This is a separate issue, but we need to decide how the "voting" works.
Arnold
Comment #38
sunTo clarify my earlier statement:
Comment #39
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commented-1 for job postings. As @laura s indicates in #25, job postings have done a good job removing any usefulness that LinkedIn ever had.
+1 for giving the g.d.o job board greater prominence by aggregating that feed on to d.o, and making that block (like the planet) a dashboard option.
RE the stats in #34, they don't really mean much given the growth of the planet/community over the last two years. The fact that there have only been two job posts since the policy has been implemented seems indicate that people have been following the policy, and/or didn't see the use of pushing job posts onto the planet, and that they didn't have much of an issue with it.
RE @heyrocker 's rewording in #24, and the subsequent +1's there, the page already contains a set of positive statements, to which heyrocker's simplification is an improvement.
So, how about replacing the first two sections with:
Comment #40
robertDouglass CreditAttribution: robertDouglass commentedWhy are we discussing ways to ban people from communicating what they want to communicate instead of focusing on helping people filter the information in the way they want to???
The whole "this post not welcome here" pisses me off. I want to decide for myself what I don't want to read, thank you.
Comment #41
Michelle@robertDouglass: No one is banning anyone from communicating nor stopping you from reading what you want to read. The only thing at issue here is what should be broadcast into the Planet feed. To use an extreme example, what if I want to read spam? Should we allow spammers in? Yes, that's a silly example, but the point is that the line needs to be drawn somewhere because we can't just open up Planet for anyone to put anything they like no matter what it is. The point of this issue is deciding where the line is.
Michelle
Comment #42
Gerhard Killesreiter CreditAttribution: Gerhard Killesreiter commented@robert: then you are welcome to set up your own aggregator. :p
Comment #43
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commentedRE:
No one is proposing banning anyone from saying anything. People can say whatever they want, whenever they want.
The only question is what makes sense for inclusion on the planet. The planet has value for the community because it contains useful, relevant information about doing more with Drupal.
Job postings, PR, hiring announcements, etc, all have their place, but it would be silly to pretend that people don't try and spam under the guise of job postings and PR. We've been through that.
If d.o is going to try and make money from selling ads, it seems counterproductive to have the planet undercut that goal. It both works against the interests of the project, and it dilutes the value of the planet as a valuable community resource.
My post above in comment 39 has a concrete proposal that simplifies the criteria for inclusion (per @heyrocker's suggestion in #24) and eliminates the onerous list of "DO NOTS" in the current page.
Any and all edits/rewordings/alternate suggestions welcome.
Comment #44
tgeller CreditAttribution: tgeller commentedSlightly off-topic (but not really):
What d.o and g.d.o really need are easy ways for people to tag content, and documentation projects that encourage people to do so. I read every title on Planet, and would be happy to add a few tags a day that would allow us all to select what we want. (Viz: Slashdot.)
I'm sure I'm not alone; with a few people (or a few dozen) doing so, and someone to groom the tags once in a while, we'd have pretty consistent categorization.
That requires some technical work on d.o sites. It would solve this problem and make all of d.o a lot more useful.
I'm willing to work with others to make this happen, although I don't have access to do it myself. If any of you d.o webmasters are interested, create an issue and send me a note to go there.
Comment #45
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commentedRE tgeller's comment in 44, some version of his proposed solution is definitely the ideal.
However, there is a lot of work to get from where we are now to that ideal.
In the meantime, we need to get the issue in this ticket settled.
FWIW, I'd be glad to work on getting that ideal in place. I actually see it as a separate site - planet.drupal.org
Perhaps we can get consensus on this issue as a stopgap, and work toward scoping/building planet.drupal.org in Chicago?
If that sounds good, we should probably create a group on g.d.o to centralize the work and not hijack this thread.
Comment #46
tgeller CreditAttribution: tgeller commentedThanks for your comments; it wasn't my intention to hijack the thread. Back to the matter at hand....
Seeing how diverse the opinions have been on this issue, I don't believe we're going to get consensus. The fallback position is to stay with the current situation -- the status quo.
I wasn't privy to the "heated debate that turned nasty", so the status quo seems pretty good to me. It might actually be beneficial to link to that debate, so I (and others) can see what's driving this issue.
I think the composition (and rules) of Planet is something we're going to have to face, and the sooner the better. But based only on this issue's discussion, I don't get the sense of urgency.
Comment #47
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commentedAs a point of process, here's the current breakdown of the "voting" (sorry if I got anyone's wrong):
Don't enact explicit restrictions on Planet posts - 15 people
mherchel
Grayside
Mediacurrent
mikey_p
christefano
xmacinfo
heyrocker
Dries
GregoryHeller
mlncn
zzolo
Alex UA
Arnold Leung
robertDouglass
tgeller
Enact explicit restrictions on Planet posts - 11 people
bonobo
catch
laura s
Dave Reid
jpstrikesback
lisarex
mike stewart
btopro
heather
pivica
Damien Tournoud
Unsure (the person posting, or myself) - 4 people
Gerhard Killesreiter
sun
Michelle
crea
Even if the four people mentioned as "unsure" sided with those looking to restrict business postings on the planet there wouldn't even be a majority, let alone a consensus, so...?
Are those who are with #1 willing to put off your proposed changes for now? As was suggested in the other threads, we should revisit this once we have a better marketplace on d.o. and/or better tools for segregating/tagging the feed.
Comment #48
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commentedI'm about 99% sure, that the following would be accepted by the majority (even a super majority) here, if it included something saying along the lines of:
Comment #49
Damien Tournoud CreditAttribution: Damien Tournoud commented@Alex UA: you are misrepresenting the debate. Several people you list on "Don't enact explicit restrictions on Planet posts" are for the status quo, meaning to keep the current restrictions in place.
Comment #50
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commented@Damien: well, I don't see it that way, and neither do others in this thread. The decision to restrict the planet was made by a couple of webmasters, was challenged immediately after enforcement of these "policies" began, since that's the only time non-webmasters were likely to even know there was a debate on such restrictions. Anyway, here are some examples:
@Mediacurrent in #14:
@xmacinfo in #20:
@Dries in #27 (implying the current rule is that job postings are allowed):
@robertDogoulass in #40 (the implication being we are not currently telling planet posters what they cannot post):
@tgeller in #46:
So, where you see a mistake in perception on my part, I see a mistake on the part of those who claim that the restrictions are the current rule, and not a misappropriate usage of "the power of the page" on d.o. (i.e. just because you can create a policy page, and lock it via "bumping the input format" from non-webmasters/admins, doesn't make it an actual policy). This thread should be seen as the attempt to create the policy, not an attempt to overturn one (shoot first, ask questions later, isn't a good way to create policy in an Open Source community).
@tgeller, the main issue that this resulted from is located here: #928092: Update and clarify Planet Drupal guidelines
Comment #51
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commentedBTW, I have several threads in the Groups.Drupal.org "drupal.org policies" group that attempt to get some clarity for the issues raised here, including concern about posting rules as official policy, and what rights those without admin/webmaster level privileges should expect when dealing with items where these permissions are necessary for enacting policies.
Comment #52
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commentedAlex - given that the only substantive difference between what you posted in #48 and what I posted in #39 is whether or not jobs and press releases (aka, free advertising) should be included in the planet, what is the rationale for including these items in the planet when it creates a direct conflict with the advertising that is sold on d.o?
If we aggregate the jobs feed from g.d.o onto d.o, the jobs posts would have more prominence than they currently do, and they would be of greater benefit to more of the community because anyone can post a job there.
Also, the "count" in #47 is pretty flawed. In this thread, several people express opinions that are in the grey area, or that include logical contradictions. For example, zzolo says "I am overall against hiring/jobs info in the Planet, but not as a strict rule" - Yet, in your count, zzolo is included in the "Don't enact restrictions" column. In reality, zzolo's opinions (and the opinions of several others included in the "No" column) seem more nuanced than can be expressed in a simple yes/no vote.
In reading through this thread, it seems that the greatest consensus is for a better aggregator. Toward that end, I propose:
1. Adopt the language in #39 as a stopgap.
2. In Chicago, interested stakeholders can meet in a BoF where we spec out (and ideally build) this new aggregator.
We've done a lot of work with Aggregation, and would be glad to help with this. Much of the initial build could probably be done with existing code, and some theming work.
Comment #53
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commented@tgeller - more background leading to this issue: #958318: Remove text about "what is not welcome on Planet Drupal" from /about/drupal-planet
Comment #54
MichelleI'm not "unsure" -- I simply have no preference. I did at one point, when I was reading via the website. But using a feed reader makes skimming easy so I'm neither for nor against job postings being allowed. Given that Drupal is a hobby to me, I'm neither hiring nor looking to be hired and just skip over job postings.
My interest in this topic is as a site maintainer, not as a reader. When an issue is filed to add or remove a feed from Planet, I want concrete guidelines to compare against when making the decision.
Michelle
Comment #55
Dave ReidHrm I'm not sure how my comment above with "So I'm +1 for removing the explicit restrictions first" is voting for explicit restrictions??
Comment #56
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commented@bonobo- I think there are ultimately two differences: whether we should have the "Drupal Business" postings listed explicitly as allowed, and whether we define these rules without the "don't write about A, B, or C" language. I'd be fine with tabling the first, but not the second, of these two issues. So, I'd be fine with #39 minus the last two sentences, so long as it's agreed that the planet will not be policed for the "Drupal Business" items listed under the items I'd like to see explicitly allowed. This was my exact proposal in the issue #958318: Remove text about "what is not welcome on Planet Drupal" from /about/drupal-planet, although I obviously could have expressed it better, since I was not advocating we "abandon quality controls for the Planet", but rather "continue to allow the community to determine quality and value" and "define the rules for the Planet in positive terms, along the lines of the DCoC".
In regards to the list being inaccurate, that's why I apologized in advance for potentially getting it wrong. If zzolo wants to correct my assessment of his opinion, I'll happily change it, and will change "Unsure" to "Unsure/No Opinion" the next time I compile the list in regards to @Michelle's comment. I don't think there's enough misinterpretation in there to bring us any closer to a consensus on restricting the Planet, but since we haven't defined what a consensus would even look like, that's still up for debate.
Comment #57
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commented@Dave, sorry for the misunderstanding. Given that the restrictions are not yet official rules (as far as I know, just posting a page on d.o. doesn't make it an "official" policy), since neither the community at large nor even the webmasters agree on the issue, how would you characterize your +1?
Also- I know you mentioned in one of the other threads that you got your current job from one of those job postings (congrats again on that!), so why do you now find the job postings to be problematic (other than the fact that you no longer are looking for work)? Sorry if that's off-topic, but I'm honestly confused as to where the hostility to business postings on the planet are coming from.
Comment #58
Arnold Leung CreditAttribution: Arnold Leung commentedSo as to re-emphasize my point. Right now there is no concensus on this issue, and the reason why we dont know the exact number of people on what side of the issue is that we have no process that defines what majority is and how decisions get made.
This is important in getting anything done, otherwise, any issue will just go forever without reaching a final decision. Imagine the US congress debate an issue forever without the voting process the defines how a final decision is made.
If we dont know how to decide on things, then talking about it will unfortunately be a waste of time.
Comment #59
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commented@Alex UA - given the complete innaccuracy of your attempt to quantify the discussion in #47, and the tenor of your participation in related threads over the last several months, I doubt that you have the objectivity or motivation to perform a count/summary of the discussion without letting your personal biases get in the way. You'll probably read this as an ad hominem attack, but really, it's just an observation about how you have interacted with community members over this issue in the last several months.
This thread is not about "enacting explicit restrictions on planet posts." It's about sorting out how to document the needs of the planet in a way that represents the will of the (impossibly hard to define) community, while maintaining (impossibly hard to define) quality standards for the planet.
In short, this feels like a non-issue. The drupal-related infrastructure already has places to do all of the things people are talking about cramming into the planet.
1. Post a job at http://groups.drupal.org/jobs - possibly, cross post to the consulting list.
2. Make a general announcement (aka, a press release) on your own blog, and/or cross post in the News and Announcements forum.
3. If you want a broader reach for your press release or company, advertise on d.o.
4. If you are a contributing member of the community, and want to share back useful information, have a Drupal-specific feed aggregated to the planet.
For reasons why job postings/service announcements should not be dropped into the planet without greater thought and consideration, and the ability to quickly demote low-quality content (at either the user or the siteadmin level) we need to look no further than the debacle that was the hosting forum and the paid services forum.
If no other venues existed for posting Drupal-related jobs, or press releases, etc, then it would be a different situation. But these other venues exist, and we should advertise how to use them more effectively.
Comment #60
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commentedSo, getting back to a concrete proposal
1. I propose this language as a stopgap until we can move forward with the one thing we actually do appear to agree on: building a better aggregation solution for the planet.
2. In Chicago, we scope and build that better aggregator. This will involve some work/input from infra, but the actual build could be pretty straightforward.
Comment #61
zzolo CreditAttribution: zzolo commentedI support @bonobo's #60.
I do want to reiterate that "building a better aggregator" should be focused on allowing the community to determine, easily, what is relevant and quality. Sites like Digg, Slashdot, and Reddit have solved these issues many years ago.
Comment #62
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commentedRE:
Yup. Amen to that.
Comment #63
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commented@bonobo-
How do you figure? Given that you've put a qualifier in the last sentence, which could "generally" be ignored if the posting party thinks it's valuable to the larger community, it seems to me that you did understand what I was saying and that we're (sensibly) moving away from explicitly restricting business content. I'd still like to see those restrictions left out of the official policy completely, but with these changes I'd be happy to move that debate to Chicago unless someone else wants to keep this going.
Which is to say +1 to the first item in #60.
Comment #64
sun@bonobo: TBH, my impression is that what you've mentioned to @Alex UA also applies to yourself — your summary in #59 also tries to pretend an agreement on issues where no agreement exists yet.
However, let's not get personal here. It looks like we have different perspectives here, and it would be beneficial to discuss arguments on the subject, disregarding personal opinions.
To me, it almost looks like there could be an agreement on the revised proposal in #60 by removing the suffix about press releases, job postings, and announcements? If that is true, then I think we'd already be a step forward.
Comment #65
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commented@Alex UA - yes, the point of the qualifier ("Press releases and job postings generally should not be aggregated into the Planet") is to provide a general guideline, which is all I think we should ever really have anyways. This provides webmasters some guidelines without removing the ability of people to actually use judgment. It also provides a level of recourse if/when someone abuses these guidelines.
IMO, a better aggregator will make this a non-issue, and would allow for greater inclusion of more content, and would render this whole thread unnecessary.
@sun - I'm definitely not trying to pretend that there is any agreement here, with one exception: the current aggregation solution has been outgrown by the needs expressed in this thread. I get the very clear sense that most people are not satisfied with the current crop of tools that are available to populate and maintain the planet.
If I am incorrect in this, and people feel that the current aggregation solution for the planet is adequate for the task, then yes, I have completely misread this thread.
Comment #66
xmacinfoIf “enacting explicit restrictions on planet posts” is out of the question, I like very much bonobo proposition in #60. I prefer freedom over policies.
I trust all planet contributors as much as I trust all documentation contributors (remember that last year we opened documentation revisions, with a few exceptions, to everyone, although revisions are acting as a gatekeeper).
Comment #67
WorldFallz CreditAttribution: WorldFallz commentedAs someone who finds alex_ua's recent anti webmaster/site maintainer crusade offensive, uncalled for, and personally insulting, I still find myself wondering what's the problem with a few job posts? I'm much more irritated by planet postings that don't make use of a teaser break (and scroll on forever and ever), or that are clearly nothing more than a pathetic attempt at link spam for a paid product or service, than I am with the occasional job post.
however, that said, I also share laura's concern about the planet dying a horrible spam death. I just don't see why there needs to be such a formal set of rules at this exact moment. There's nothing set in stone. If people start abusing the planet (in any way, not just hiring spam) we can deal with it the way we always do-- on a case by case basis.
Sorry-- but this strikes me much more like a battle of the wills then it does a debate about drupal.org policy.
In any case, lest my 'vote' be mischaracterized-- I'm in favor of #60 but with a caveat that says something more like:
"While job postings and press releases are not 'planet loves' they are also not prohibited at the present time time. As with anything else on drupal.org, we reserve the right to revisit this decision at any time and anyone found abusing the planet feed, regardless of the nature of the abuse, will be handled accordingly."
Comment #68
Arnold Leung CreditAttribution: Arnold Leung commentedI think that #67 is the way to go for now too.
Comment #69
catchI agree with this, I think the issue is that it's much easier to specify "no job postings" than it is to say "no pathetic attempts at link spam for a paid product or service", and it's also a lot easier to enforce. And it's much easier to fight against thinly disguised link-spam if you also have a policy against job listings, since people can't say "ohh but you allow job listings blah blah blah".
Comment #70
apadernoI am with bonobo's #60, and in general, I am pro Planet Drupal restrictions.
I agree with what catch said on #69; it's much easier to say job postings are not welcome.
As side note:
Comment #71
dddave CreditAttribution: dddave commented#60+67
+1
Spoken from a pure Planet consumer standpoint.
Comment #72
laura s CreditAttribution: laura s commentedI think #60 could be a start. However, I agree with #69, that there's still a lot of gray area around what might be deemed inappropriate. That sets up more confusion and conflict down the line.
@WorldFalz - " If people start abusing the planet (in any way, not just hiring spam) we can deal with it the way we always do-- on a case by case basis." -- This unfortunately does not work well, because ultimately it comes down to individual judgments with no clear guidelines to follow. This is what we had, with general "understood" policies that were largely undocumented, which led to conflicts like the drama surrounding this meta-issue. With clear guidelines, everyone knows what's generally accepted and when actions are taken, there's something to reference for how to take action (if any) and how to remedy the situation.
@kiamlaluno writes: "We are not enacting; It doesn't result we are part of a Congress." These are not carved in stone, they are working guidelines for people who actually do the work. We are unfair to the feed owners who should have guidelines that are clear enough they can have reasonable expectations of no problems with republishing on Planet, and unnfair to the webmasters who should have guidlines that are clear enough that they don't get pilloried for their volunteer work.
Maybe "a better aggregator" can help, but I don't sense from this discussion what the goals of such aggregator would be. That's another issue, but let's not view a potential bionic aggregator with undefined goals, features, benefits or purpose as the superhero to answer concerns expressed in this and related issues.
Comment #73
sunFWIW, @bonobo's #60 with the revised suffix of @WorldFallz in #67 makes most sense to me.
In addition, we should enforce a limit on the teaser/summary length of posts — isn't that a module configuration setting even? If not:
Comment #74
apaderno@laura s: My point was that the metaphor of the governance activity started from Alex UA in the previous report, and continued in this one doesn't describe what the activity of Drupal.org webmasters is, and should be avoided.
He started saying that Drupal.org webmasters are like the executive branch of a government, and they should just apply the regulations that somebody else approves (the legislative branch of Drupal.org). Now he is saying that we are enacting, keeping (I guess) the same metaphor he started before.
I totally agree that we need rules to be sure every site maintainer applies the same criteria when reviewing any requests to add a feed to Planet Drupal, and I agree the rules are beneficial for any users who want their feed added to Planet Drupal.
Comment #75
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commented@WorldFallz- you say tomato, I say "this is about creating openness, accountability, and fairness within a process/role that has extraordinary power wrt resources that many would probably consider community resources." I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
@kiam- your misrepresentations and/or misunderstanding of my arguments (which, for anyone who is interested, are on Groups.Drupal.org: http://groups.drupal.org/drupalorg-policies ) are as consistent as they are revealing.
At the moment it is true that the webmasters serve as the defacto *legislative* body for policies on Drupal.org, as well as the enforcers of said policies. I'll leave it at that, and anyone who wants to complain more about me, this is not the right venue, so please either open another ticket, send me an e-mail (or talk to me in person), or keep it to yourself.
Comment #76
apaderno@Alex UA: That's right; you keep using those argumentations, and nobody else can use them.
I will keep it for myself if you keep it for yourself.
It doesn't result that Drupal.org is a govern. If you want to use such metaphor, then why don't you consider drupal.org a department? After all there are groups.drupal.org, api.drupal.org, localize.drupal.org, which can be considered departments of the Drupal.org site.
Comment #77
jcfiala CreditAttribution: jcfiala commentedConsidering the large number of feeds that are being streamed together now (almost 400?) and how that number is likely to grow, as well as the contention over what it should contain, do we really need to continue to have a drupal planet?
I suspect most of the folks reading this are going to say that we do, but I thought I'd bring it up as an option. I hardly read it these days, because there's so much stuff in there it's hard to follow.
Comment #78
Anonymous (not verified) CreditAttribution: Anonymous commentedYou could add categories in Planet Drupal and give each a subheading in the guidelines. That could solve some of the points raised in the topic. Just a rough sketch:
Job Postings
- International
- Per country
Tutorials
- Module development
- Theme development
Press releases
- New sites
- etc
You could also do target audiences for example in a sidebar:
- Themer
- Programmer
- Manager
- HR Department
etc
If people add a predefined term in their article you could filter automatically on this. Possibly improving the usability as the amounts of users grow. Also possibly reaching the target audience more effectively.
Comment #79
robertDouglass CreditAttribution: robertDouglass commented@design_dolphin has the perfect solution. 100% support for this idea.
Comment #80
Dave ReidSo yes, that would be great, and I'm all for improving what we have, but that requires drastic change, time to develop, and new modules on d.org as aggregator module doesn't handle that. I'm thinking more and more that a planet.drupal.org is the perfect place where we could experiment with that. We still have to come to an agreement with our *current* Drupal Planet.
Comment #81
mherchelI think having a http://planet.drupal.org with separate categories and feeds would be awesome.
Comment #82
sun@Dave Reid is right; recent follow-ups are off-topic for this issue at hand. Please move discussion about those topics to
Comment #83
arianek CreditAttribution: arianek commentedfyi - semi-related issue (re: job posts on g.d.o) from early december #994230: Move job postings out of g.d.o sounds like it should maybe be will-not-fixed based on the direction this is going...
Comment #84
Gerard McGarry CreditAttribution: Gerard McGarry commentedI've been referred here by a commenter on my blog who feels this post is in breach of Planet guidelines. I've read through this discussion and can't see anything that excludes the kind of post that I wrote yesterday.
Who is Felipe? Is he a Drupal Planet policeman? Am I going Drupal jail?
But having read the discussion, can I just say that I consume Planet in Google Reader. There's definitely a lot of garbage in there, not just job posts but endless talk about DrupalCons. That said, I tune into Planet for ideas and tips for developing with Drupal (NodeOne's development series' have been amazing). Using a reader makes it much easier to skip the irrelevant stuff and focus on what interests me. And also, I appreciate Dries' regular "who uses Drupal" posts, because it provides people like me with confidence that Drupal is in mainstream use and has big-name adopters.
Comment #85
silverwing CreditAttribution: silverwing commented@Gerard, like that Felipe (don't know who that is) said, the Planet isn't a support channel. AFAIK, this is the first time a "Help me!" Planet posts has been brought to our attention, but it doesn't fit into the content requirements on http://drupal.org/about/drupal-planet
I would say that support requests aren't appropriate for the Planet.
And I doubt the Planet Police will be coming after you.
Comment #86
MichelleI'd have to agree that support posts on Planet set a bad precedent but he could have addressed it much nicer. There are no Planet police. Just a group of people trying to come together and sort out how best to manage a resource used by thousands of people so everyone can benefit from it.
Michelle
Comment #87
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commentedGetting to a consensus about the guidelines is of course great, but very little in this discussion has been about the the process site owners goes through when submitting their feeds to the planet.
As heather points out in #16
I submitted my new site, #1012642: drupalmill.com on the Planet, to be included on January 2nd and are still trying to get it on. I have also looked at other applications and it seems that the process of being added is often taking weeks, if not months. Often the site owner has to have both patience and determination not giving up being added.
In my case, I at first got a few pointers about what needed to be changed for it to be included, then when I asked for a new review I got stunned by:
That quickly followed by two -1 and a "closed (won't fix)".
When I asked for a clarification of reasons why my site was branded as a "competitor" to drupal.org I got this explanation:
That to me simply doesn't make sense when looking at the current guidelines on http://drupal.org/about/drupal-planet, nor with what is discussed here, including comments by the same people that rejected my application.
In a later reply I then got this new explanation about the rejection:
Still don't make sense to me based on the guidelines. Nor does it give me a good explanation to the reasons how my site can be a competitor to d.o when in fact it is devoted to fostering the use of Drupal and will drive tons of traffic to d.o.
So, discussing these guidelines is fine, but please also consider the process of adding new feeds. It is not particularly funny to get accusations like this, practically branded unwanted, when I have spent a lot of time on both the site concept and creating content thinking I was doing something good for the community.
Please note, I am not trying to hijack this discussion, just pointing out my own experience submitting my feed and trying to comply to the very guidelines that are being discussed here. I believe the vetting process is equally important to discuss as the guidelines.
For what its worth:
-1 for job post for reasons many has pointed out
+1 for #1
+1 for #60
+1 for hiring announcements, but only if contributions includes all forms of contributions, not only code.
Comment #88
MichelleThat's why we need guidelines, so all applications to be added are considered under the same set of rules.
Michelle
Comment #89
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commented@Michelle
Yes, I agree but there are already guidelines in place. This whole discussion has only been about rewording them, not how new feeds are added or how the guidelines are enforced (except about the job posts if they are to be included) for existing feeds not complying with them.
Comment #90
laura s CreditAttribution: laura s commented@tsvenson
It's important to remember that all of this work is done by volunteers who have plenty of other things in their lives to do, other places they could be. They (we) are not getting paid to do this. So complaints about languishing applications are to the point of this issue, but only because it illustrates how vague guidelines don't help. There will always be edge cases, but when the guidelines themselves make many or most potential sites edge cases (e.g., job posts are okay if "tasteful"), it makes the work harder, it makes evaluating each site more difficult, and it can end up discouraging webmasters from acting. ("Well this one's not clear to me, so I'll let someone else decide.")
And the issue queue grows.
"Well, why not include everything?" some have asked (or demanded). From what I've seen, more liberal inclusion practices years ago were working fine when the community was small, but as the community grew and more sites were added, more complaints started coming in to the webmasters. "Why is this crappy post on the Planet?" "This blog post is not Planet worthy!" (I paraphrase.) So as complaints came in from the community the informal ad hoc guidelines that webmasters worked from started to evolve. The Planet-specific tag became a requirement, for example. The documentation page with the guidelines discussed in this issue is a result of that. It's not final, it never will be as long as this community lives on. We as a community may change our minds over the months and years as technology changes, as Drupal changes, as we change.
The current exclusion of job announcements and press releases is not because a "secret cabal" of webmasters decided so, but because the community expressed objections to such things in issues, in IRC, in person at events.
The wording is blunt because the volunteer *.d.o site maintainers who take time away from their day to do the work of addressing webmaster issues including Planet Drupal inclusion need clear guidelines. There's a lot of volume. With clear guidelines it's easier to evaluate additions, as well as review of alleged posts that violate the guidelines, where clear guidelines are even more important.
Comment #91
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commented@laura s
I do understand and appreciate all the volunteering work people do in the community. I also point it out quite often in my blog post and other places when I notice it is important to remind people about it.
But if you look through old, as well as active, applications for the planet you will see that it is not seldom there are 20-30 comments in there, with many from d.o webmasters and it is not difficult to notice the frustration some site owners have with this.
I had a bit of a thinking about how this can be improved as well as simplify the whole process once new guidelines are in place. The main difference is having one person being responsible for managing it. That person will then deal with new submissions as well as dealing with issues with existing feeds on the list.
That person will then take the decision to include or remove feeds based on the guidelines. If a feed owner is not happy with that, they can file a complaint about it. This complaint is then dealt with by a 3-5 people complaint panel, Planet Manager included, who can vote on a decision.
Basically the tasks for the Planet Manage would be:
As a backup to the Planet Manager, when that person wont be able to perform these tasks for a period of time, such as holiday, illness etc, one of the people in the complaint panel can temporarily step in.
I think something like this would improve things and making it more manageable even if a large number of feeds will be added in the future.
I would be happy to volunteer to take on that role responsibility since it would fit very well with a lot of other things I already do, including already subscribing and browsing over almost everything on the planet. It would also be a great way for me to contribute back to the community.
My goals for the planet would be to welcome new feeds that contains content that is to the benefit of the community and all levels of users. Handling new applications from a positive point of view and, if needed, have a friendly dialogue with the submitter about any changes needed for it to be included. If any feed wanders of the guidelines, I would initially assume it is a mistake and kindly point that out.
If my offer is of interest to the Drupal community, I would start with going over all the existing feeds, once the new guidelines are in place, to make sure they are in line with them.
Comment #92
MichelleI've mentioned before that we need to have a "go to" person for various areas and never had much luck getting it to go anywhere. Here's another area where this is being tried: http://drupal.org/node/317519 . I think it's a great idea but, well, good luck with making it happen. :(
Michelle
Comment #93
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commented@Michelle
I completely agree that there needs to be a "go to" person as you say for many more things on d.o. Planet Drupal is such a place and with a good guideline it would be a quite straightforward task for that person to perform. If these roles are complemented with an appeal panel that can sort out issues that will occur it would make a more streamlined organisation.
I don't see that this would clash very much with the do-ocracy and collaboration work either.
Comment #94
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commentedI have rewritten both the sidebar text and the guidelines based on what has been discussed here and my proposal for a Planet Manager/Administrator in #91.
In this process I have also changed a few words, such as blog to content. All issue links now have default form items.
I also added recommendation for the size of the feed content in the create feed section since that seems to be a popular wish from many Planet readers (me included).
Hopefully this new version can be used as a draft for the new guidelines.
New sidebar text on drupal.org/planet:
Planet Drupal aggregates broadly appealing, Drupal-related blog posts and articles pertaining to the community at large. If you would like your content to be included in the Planet, see What is Planet Drupal and how do I get added?.
New guidelines page - drupal.org/about/drupal-planet:
What is Planet Drupal and how do I get added?Planet Drupal is an aggregated list of feeds about Drupal from all over the web. It uses Drupal core's Aggregator module. Planet Drupal is focused only on Drupal content and does not contain all posts, regardless of topic, as some other planet-style project feeds do.
Content Guidelines:
The Planet Loves:
Content to the Planet should not include
The goal of the planet is to provide a central place for people to share useful and relevant knowledge about their work with and use of Drupal. Posts that are aggregated on the planet should help others learn details about Drupal that they might not otherwise encounter.
Please have in mind that Planet Drupal contains hundreds of feeds. Content such as "How to enable module X" is normally considered low quality and should not be posted to it. If you are writing a multi part series you should generally only include the first part, as an introduction to the series. Drupal Planet readers will appreciate this.
How to deal with inappropriate content on the Planet:
If you come across a post on Planet Drupal that you feel is inappropriate or in violation of the content requirements above, please create an issue for it in the webmasters queue. Please do not leave comments on the article itself telling the author that his/her post is not welcome on Planet Drupal. The Planed administrator will then look into it and appropriate action will be taken.
How to get your feed to the Planet:
If you have content fitting the requirements above, then here are the next steps.
If you are not using Drupal, you will need to make sure your site can create a feed just for your Planet content.
Default feeds settings on the Planet:
Feeds will be removed or temporary suspended from the Planet if:
Note, suspensions and removals should always have a 'Planet Drupal' webmasters issue created so we can log what action was taken, when, and by whom.
Appeal rejection, suspension or removal
Feed owners can appeal these decisions by creating a webmasters issue.
The appeal will be discussed and voted on by the webmasters. Their decision will be final.
Comment #95
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commentedI do not want the webmasters to act as the arbiters of who or what does and does not get onto the planet, since the behavior in the issue you created to get added is far too common. For now at least, the webmasters have to add feeds to the planet on d.o. But the webmasters should not be acting as an editorial board: although I do think it might make sense to form such a body, the attitude towards new applicants is often dismissive, disinterested, or down right hostile. The way you're being treated in that issue is disgraceful, and is a perfect (and typical) example of the capricious rule making that currently infects this process.
Also, I will continue to fight against us creating "thou shalt not" types of rules for the planet. Create positive guidelines (Here's what we want) and then deal with obvious abuse of the system in a much less hostile fashion.
Comment #96
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commentedSeems like the discussion about this has died out without leading to any changes. I think it would be a shame if we can't find a consensus about a new guideline as well as administration of Planet Drupal, especially considering how it is handled now.
Planet Drupal is a great way of discovering good content about Drupal, but currently it seems to be different opinions about including sites on it if they, for some odd reason, are deemed to "compete" with d.o. Personally I found that strange since any good content about Drupal can only benefit the community as a whole, no matter if it is on d.o or any other site as long as it is freely available for anyone.
I also believe it is important that we find a solution to how new Planet applications are handled so that they don't have to go through what I, and many others, had to go through to be added. The community should embrace anyone that wants to share their Drupal knowledge the way they prefer, not as it is now. If a feed turns out to fall outside the guidelines it can always be dealt with when so happens. This is especially important now since Drupal 7 is going to bring a many new kinds of users. Users that we want to make feel that they are welcomed into out community.
My offer to take main responsibility for administrating Planet Drupal still stands as mentioned in previous comments.
Comment #97
xmacinfo@tsvenson: Looks like you already did a lot of changes, if I read correctly all the work you put in #94. Which is very good, by the way, and easy to read and understand.
Somewhat after those changes, this discussion cooled down quickly. So we might have reach some consensus by then. ☺
As for my point of view, I think it should be easier to be on the planet. I have not seen any abuse yet. We could even use a flag to identify the posts that would warrant a review by a webmaster.
The Drupal community grows fast and the planet should grow fast as well. If energy is spent to keep the planet small, well then it's not a planet anymore. So a new planet aggregator somewhere might rise up to take the task.
Comment #98
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commented@xmacinfo: Glad if my input into this have made some changes, but it doesn't make me less confused about how to proceed after this.
Who takes the decision to make the amendments to the pages based on #94?
Who makes the decision if my proposal in #91 should be used from now on?
Who appoints the person to take that role as well as those who will be part of the review panel (from those that hopefully volunteer to the task)?
My guess is that this is up to the Drupal Association to do, but I'm not sure about that.
So, how do we get this going without loosing more time?
Comment #99
Dave Reid@tsvenson Will you be at DrupalCon? I'm planning a 'Drupal Planet' BOF about how we can agree on how to move forward with our content requirements and current infrastructure on d.org, and what our ideal Drupal Planet would be.
http://chicago2011.drupal.org/forum/planet-drupal-bof
Comment #100
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commented@Dave Reid: Wish I could attend, but I live in Spain and simply can't afford to attend it this time. I'm planning to go to London though, but that's no help here :).
I have a few more ideas, besides the ones I already presented here, on how Drupal Planet can be improved as well as be a greater resource for the community, both regarding knowledge and helping to spread Drupal.
If your interested I can write them down and maybe they can be of some use at the BOF. What would be the best way and place to submit it for me?
Comment #101
laura s CreditAttribution: laura s commentedRe #98, this is not in the Drupal Association's mission.
My own personal feeling as a member of the community is that we don't want a single Planet Drupal czar.
Re #97, the issue is not keeping Planet Drupal small. With nearly 400 feeds on the Planet already, I think it's safe to say we're beyond "small." The issue is just what kind of content do we want to republish on Planet Drupal, with the main differences seeming to revolve around job postings and press releases.
Comment #102
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commented@laura s: If its not the Drupal Association, then how are these things handled on d.o? Is there any page that describes these processes?
I understand that d.o is a sort of do-ocracy where users with the right permission chip in and do things when they have time for it, but I believe that it is time to look into if some changes aren't needed to be more efficient in administrating, consistency and keeping d.o updated better based on the growth Drupal is having (and I would be surprised if it slows down any time soon).
I'm not talking about a czar with veto right, simply someone, or a small group, that has volunteered to take responsibility for certain tasks/sections based on guidelines. That way they can focus on a subsection and be more responsive as well as more consistent in decisions needed to be made.
From time to time, I have tried to get more involved in pitching in, but quickly lost interest because people here often seem more interested in endless discussions, often from a negative point of view regarding changes, than actually getting somewhere. Personally I see this as bad for the future of Drupal and a hinder for adapting to the new situations with more and new kinds of users discovering it. In my view, d.o hasn't really changed much the two years I have been a member, but the awareness of Drupal on the market has grown and that needs to be adapted to.
Drupal Planet is not small, 400 feeds is quite a lot. Among those there are most like quite a few that has changed and maybe not fit in any more, but are not looked at. From this discussion it is also quite clear that having only one feed is not enough. Maybe a complete revamp of Planet Drupal with a fresh look and better presentation of entries on it the solution. The feed should still be there, but maybe it needs to be complemented with a few more, such as one for press releases, one for new sites launched on Drupal, one for case studies. Not to sure about the job posting though, there are probably better places for that.
Done right Planet Drupal could be a fantastic showcase of just how big Drupal is and how many different resources that are available outside d.o. This would also show decision makers in organisations looking for a platform that Drupal is much more than d.o and thus make their decisions easier.
I got a few ideas about this, but need to structure them a bit more before I post them here.
Comment #103
MichelleSame here. My push for having one or a select few "in charge" of Planet and other areas of drupal.org wasn't to create a dictator but to have someone who had final responsibility for handling requests and issues to ensure that no one languished in indecisive hell forever because no one with the perms wanted to take responsibility for the decision.
Michelle
Comment #104
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commentedRE:
Um, yeah. It's almost like we should have a group of people called, I don't know, maybe webmasters. Someone could become a webmaster by participating in the community for a bit, showing their willingness to work with others, their ability to understand community needs, and their willingness to set aside their personal biases as they help implement projects and proposals that are in the best interests of the community. We could get a process in place where someone becomes a webmaster by creating an issue in the queue, and having other people discuss the pros and cons of the webmaster request.
All kidding aside, much of this structure is already in place. A pain point (one of many) is that when a webmaster does something that someone disagrees with, there are folks who seem far to willing to launch ad hominem attacks against the person.
@Dave Reid - thanks for putting together the BoF. Looking forward to it.
Comment #105
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commented@bonobo I'm sure much of the structure is in place. However, from my point of view, the structure dates back many years to a situation when Drupal was much less known, the community much smaller and the members of it much less diversified. Since then a lot has happened. My UID is around 350,000, I joined just under 2.5 years ago, now the next user will get an UID over 1,000,000.
The webmasters on d.o does a fantastic job, no doubt about that. But clearly they don't have time for everything. For me the redesign should be seen as the starting point of restructuring the site and the organisation that administrate and work on it. For example, in you comment you only mention that the webmasters "help implement projects and proposals". That is their natural role, but you don't mention anything about how content as well as features such as Planet Drupal shall be managed after it is implemented.
Implementing features and administrating them requires completely different skill sets. Since d.o is based on a volunteering basis, most people only do what they want. Of course it is more fun to implement new features, than administrating how they are used. It the same as if you look at developing and documentation.
I don't have enough skills to be involved in the hands on implementation of new features on d.o, but I have enough skills and experience when it comes to administrating those features. I do also have skills when it comes to looking at a problem and finding a solution, including making a proposal for its functionality, discuss it with those that will implement it and together come up with a solution.
D.o is getting so big and important that we really need to look into how the current organisation and structure needs to be changed to more efficient serve the community as well as making sure that new users feels welcomed to it and quickly find what they are looking for.
Comment #106
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commentedRE:
People have been saying this for as long as I have been involved in the community. There have been a lot of changes and improvements in that time, and this change has been implemented and administered by members of the community.
What these discussions frequently boil down to is less "things don't work" and more "the things I care about don't work exactly the way I want them to."
We need to fix the things that fall into the first category. There aren't many tools at our disposal to address the complaints that fall into the second.
Comment #107
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commentedThere are two problems here (three if we count a basic misunderstanding of latin phrases):
1- There is no consensus on what is *not welcome* on the Planet
2- There is no working definition of what consitutes a "consensus," who gets a say (@bonobo believes the webmasters should get the votes, but who even knows how any of them got that permission?), what procedures would be used to vote/tally votes, or really any way to determine what a consensus is
At the moment #1 is stalled because of #2, and yet if you looked at the Planet Rules page you'd assume that #1 was a finalized consensus, which is to say @tsvenson is right: the current rule making is broken, ruled by connected insiders (those who have either been here longer, or are able to afford to go to conferences, where @bonobo suggests that these decisions should be made). The rule making around drupal.org needs to be opened up, and this is but the first step towards a more open/responsible/accountable process.
Comment #108
bonobo CreditAttribution: bonobo commentedRE:
Part of what complicates the process is when people waste other people's time with complete mischaracterisations of what people say.
@Alex UA - I have several attempts to put language together *in this very thread*. No conference needed.
Try looking at the complete issue, not just the selected points that happen to support whatever point you happen to be trying to make at that minute.
Comment #109
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commentedProposal for major restructure of Planet Drupal
I have now, after correct suggestion from @laura_s, moved to http://chicago2011.drupal.org/forum/planet-drupal-bof#comment-2104
Comment #110
laura s CreditAttribution: laura s commented@tsvenson I suggest you move that proposal to a new issue, as it's really OT to the question here, which relates to policy given the current technical architecture available (with perhaps low-hanging technical solutions). And it deserves its own discussion.
In fact, this really should go in the BOF thread itself, imho. http://chicago2011.drupal.org/forum/planet-drupal-bof
If this issue node ends up covering 2 or 3 different issues, progress can be hindered on all efforts.
Comment #111
codi CreditAttribution: codi commentedsooo.... you guys figure it out or what?
Comment #112
MichelleIf we had, this would be "fixed".
Michelle
Comment #113
codi CreditAttribution: codi commentedhehe, sorry. i realize this is a touchy subject and i shouldn't be joking around.
so for real...
Was there any discussion in Chicago in regards to a re-structuring of the planet? Or any further discussion on a potential move to something like managing news?
Would middle ground be found by opening up planet drupal to a wider swath of content while making more categorization and filtering available for people who know what they want out of the planet?
Comment #114
MichelleI haven't heard anything... It's been nearly a year. I guess folks have lost interest.
Michelle
Comment #115
tsvenson CreditAttribution: tsvenson commentedI sure have, so my old offer to help improving and administrating the planet is officially withdrawn for now.
Comment #116
MichelleDoes this need to be open anymore? I'm afraid I haven't been following the d.o related initiatives for the last 6ish months. Is this still an issue?
Michelle
Comment #117
Alex UA CreditAttribution: Alex UA commentedGiven that the text on the Planet guidelines still contains the non-consensus items that are under debate here and is locked from non-webmasters to change, this is still an issue.
Comment #118
MichelleOk... Guess we'll keep it open, then. Just ran into it when searching for something else and was wondering if it was still needed.
Comment #119
eaton CreditAttribution: eaton commentedJust wanted to post a quick update for those who've followed this issue. As part of my work on the Association's Drupal.org Content Working Group, I've been going over the history and have been working on a proposed update that takes the discussions into account. It's up for review now, at #2089285: For Review: Updated Drupal Planet guidelines.
Comment #120
dddave CreditAttribution: dddave commented