This conversation started out in #1239326: Update the support forums structure according to the current needs

We recently had an issue about making a place for core talk and, while I initially felt that would be a good place for contrib as well, I've changed my mind. This is why:

We hear a lot about support for newbs being lacking and I won't argue that we have a numbers problem there with the supportees outnumbering the supporters. But there's also a ton of already made help out there for newbies if they search and a lot of their questions could be answered by spending some time with Google. Once you get past the beginner stuff, though, it gets a lot harder, especially if you're trying to be on the cutting edge of new Drupal. If you are doing work for a client, you can hire someone to help you with the advanced bits you don't grok. But what if you're working in contrib?

If I get stuck on something in my forum work, which I do for the community for free, I'm not going to hire someone to help me. Luckily, in my case, I have enough karma to get on IRC and get some help. But IRC isn't always the best place for in depth questions, not everyone is able to use IRC, and there are many contrib maintainers who are giving back to the community but are quiet enough that their karma isn't instantly known if they show up out of the blue on IRC.

More and more, I think we need some sort of discussion area for people doing contrib. I'm focusing on modules and themes, here, for the most part. I know there are other ways of contributing to Drupal but I think mixing in people doing docs with people writing code isn't the best fit, unless the doc writer is looking for help on a page that involves code.

So why not just include them in the core list? Numbers again. There are something like 7K modules. I don't know how many maintainers that works out to but, say, half, puts us at 3.5K. That's a lot of people potentially looking for help on non-trivial issues. Enough to overwhelm the core work if it gets popular.

So why not just use the forums? Because, by the time a contrib maintainer gets stuck enough to need to ask for help, the amount of people able to help is drastically reduced. And those people, in general, don't use the forums. For this space to really work, we need the more advanced Drupal users to at least have it on their radar and answer things when they are able. Obviously, the advanced users are busy people and can't sit there for hours doing support. But, if there is a place that's focused on helping those who are giving to the community and they know their help will be furthering work on Drupal, not going to someone just working on their own site, I'm hoping at least some will give it whatever attention they can spare.

So, I'm proposing we have a mirror list to core for contrib, whether mailing list or group, or whatever people think is best. Just some sort of space for the kinds of questions that get lost in the forums to help out the people who are giving their time to the Drupal project.

Michelle

Comments

juan_g’s picture

juan_g CreditAttribution: juan_g commented

I think Michelle's issue is a good proposal. A place where project maintainers could support each other (for contributed modules, themes, distributions...) would have advantages like the following:

  1. Being separate from other support places would prevent the overflow of support requests from users who are developing custom modules, themes, etc.
  2. Project maintainers and core developers would be more willing to support if they knew they are going to help other developers who are also contributing to the community.
  3. More developers would become contributors and project maintainers if they knew they are going to obtain support for the rough spots.
  4. Contributed development and bug fixing would greatly speed up.
  5. Modules, themes, etc., would get major version upgrades more quickly, for example from D6 to D7.
  6. Very promising new projects in development that will be ready "maybe next year", would instead have an earlier release.
  7. Having a place where all discussions and answers are stored will be useful for much more Drupal contributors than using irc or email to support just one.

As just an idea to start brainstorming, a possible structure in that place could be for example four mailing lists, or groups, or forums, like these:

  • Contributor Support
    • Module project maintenance
    • Theme project maintenance
    • Distribution development
    • Core development

With descriptions like:

Contributor Support
For developers contributing modules, themes, distributions, and core patches, to the community.
Module project maintenance
For maintainers of contributed module projects.
Theme project maintenance
For maintainers of contributed theme projects.
Distribution development
To create Drupal distributions and develop their features.
Core development
For questions on developing contributed core patches.

They would be support places ("how do I do this?") rather than workplaces ("let's do this") such as the new invite-only Core group discussed in #1236280: We need a central place for core contributors broadcast their business. For example, developers occasionally contributing core patches would get assistance in Contributor Support.

As said, this is just a first possible idea to start this discussion.

I think the initial logical questions to discuss would be if having that support place for Drupal contributors, proposed by Michelle in this issue, is a good idea and, if it is, what kind of place would be more suitable: mailing lists, groups, forums, other...?

juan_g’s picture

juan_g CreditAttribution: juan_g commented

A couple of recent articles that show how important supporting contributors is (for contributed modules, core patches, etc.):

Michelle’s picture

Michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
CreditAttribution: Michelle commented

@juan_g: Thanks for your follow up. I appreciate it. At this point, I don't have the time to beat against the hive-lacking-a-hive-mind that is the Drupal community and make this happen. If someone else wants to take up the fight, that's awesome. In the mean time, the FR is here and hopefully something will come of it eventually. :)

Michelle

juan_g’s picture

juan_g CreditAttribution: juan_g commented

Three months... It looks like this is going to take a long time. I would suggest to forget about mailing list or forum for now, and just open a group called "Contributor support", or "Module project maintenance", or "Contributed module maintenance", for example.

juan_g’s picture

juan_g CreditAttribution: juan_g commented

About the possible new group for contributor support, some other complementary groups with different but related topics are Prairie Initiative, Peer Review, and Contributed Module Ideas.

juan_g’s picture

juan_g CreditAttribution: juan_g commented

Five months... Or, you know, as Francis Bacon wrote, "If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill." A good number of Drupal developers are now at Stack Exchange's Drupal Answers. At least until there is a similar technical Q&A system at support.drupal.org that attracts them, or/and forums are improved with tags, voting, updated structure, etc., SE is a good place for contributors to get help from other developers, while at the same time they can also help there, and at drupal.org support forums, irc, etc.

Michelle’s picture

Michelle
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Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
CreditAttribution: Michelle commented

SE is not what I had in mind but I'm in no position to be proactive with this FR so maybe we should just won't fix it.

Michelle

juan_g’s picture

juan_g CreditAttribution: juan_g commented

Many issues take years... Sometimes, a catalyst suddenly appears, such as intense conversations at DrupalCons, etc., or people just doing the fix, and issues are solved.

Michelle’s picture

Michelle
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Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
CreditAttribution: Michelle commented

Yeah, you never know. All I know is that I don't want this to turn into another "let's move to SE" thread.

Michelle

juan_g’s picture

juan_g CreditAttribution: juan_g commented

Well, apart from workarounds such as SE, this issue is about creating a support place specifically for Drupal contributors (module maintainers, etc.). This surely is a great idea to help advance Drupal.

For this kind of improvements, webchick commented a how-to on a related support issue:

The primary reason not to do this seems to be that we're a bunch of web developers who don't know how to make changes to our own bleeping website. If so, let's fix that problem. Please, please read http://drupal.org/make-drupalorg-awesome. It is possible to make change on Drupal.org. Really! We are in a completely different situation now than we were before DrupalCon Chicago, as evidenced by API change nodes and issue summaries, among other incremental improvements rolled out in the past few months by people *not* on the infrastructure team.

About this, an interesting detailed procedure from webchick is How YOU (yes, you!) can help make Drupal.org awesome.

Michelle’s picture

Michelle
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Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
CreditAttribution: Michelle commented

I know what it's about; I created it. ;) Unfortunately, I posted a feature request without any offering of putting work in to back it up and I know how well that fares in a do-ocracy. Not whining; I knew that when I posted it. I just put it out there in the hopes that "someone" would like the idea and run with it. Never know. :)

Michelle

mlhess’s picture

mlhess CreditAttribution: mlhess as a volunteer commented
Status: Active » Closed (outdated)

Given how hold this issue is,I am marking it closed, please reopen if you feel this should still be done.

Michelle’s picture

Michelle
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Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
CreditAttribution: Michelle at Mediacurrent commented

Still think it's worthwhile but it's been nearly 6 years and nothing ever came of it so I'm fine with it being closed.