Could I please get a development site and SSH access.

This is to follow up on this long running issue and specifically this comment by webchick.

My goal is to implement the Answers module for providing support.

I plan to start with two use cases:

  1. A general support request entered in a general support page (akin to how drupal.stackexchange.com works)
  2. A support request entered into a module's project page (to replace support issues in the issues queue)

My intention is that these would be interchangeable. Questions entered one place would, when appropriate, show up in the other.

I plan to start this way:

Given the controversy over point systems, I do not plan to implement the Answers Userpoints module at the start. (This module provides a point system integrated with Userpoints and with Rules. It doesn't hurt that the D7 version is not ready b/c of some dependencies.)

Comments

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented
Assigned: Unassigned » webchick

Woohoo! on it.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented
Status: Needs review » Fixed

Woohoo! Here you go: http://support-drupal.redesign.devdrupal.org/

You should be all set. Now you can follow steps 3-5 on http://drupal.org/node/1018084 to get started. :)

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

Ah, super! Thanks for getting to this so quickly. Will plow ahead.

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

A question (not sure if this is the right place for it). I am having trouble logging into the server.

As mentioned in http://drupal.org/node/1018084, I tried logging into stagingvm.drupal.org. Here's what I did:

  1. I used PuTTY on a windows machine.
  2. I was asked for my username.
  3. I entered "chipcleary".
  4. I was asked for my password. I typed my usual drupal password (the one that I use to login to do).
  5. I was told "Access Denied" and asked for my password again.

Is there someplace I should go to get advice? (If only I could post a question :-) ).

Thanks.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented

Ha. :)

You need Pageant http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html to load your public key on the machine. Then you shouldn't get asked for a password when you log in (unless your key has one).

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

Sorry for being slow on this, but I am still having troubles.

Pageant is running. However, I realized I didn't have the right key loaded into it previously. I have now created a new key (lost the info on the old one) and loaded it into Pageant and associated it with my drupal.org username.

This much seemed to have worked. For example, I am able to use the new private key successfully when I commit changes to the Answers project.

However, I am still unable to log into stagingvm.drupal.org. The steps I follow and results I get are still the same as in comment #4 above. Could this be because I am using a new key I have created after the http://support-drupal.redesign.devdrupal.org/ site was created?

Any thoughts on next steps? Thx.

drumm’s picture

drumm
he/him
Location NY, US
commented

SSH keys are not automatically synced to this server, I just added your new key. Please try again.

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

Ah, thanks @drumm! Yep, that works. I'm now good to go.

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented
Title: I want a drupal.org development site for implementing Answers as a mechanism for providing support » I want to help improve support options on Drupal.org
Status: Closed (fixed) » Active

Re-opening and re-titling, since #1460738: [meta] Issues for improving support options on d.o. was recently marked fixed.

If you'd like to help code stuff, please leave a follow-up here and Neil or I can hook you up with access to support-drupal.redesign.devdrupal.org,

coderintherye’s picture

coderintherye commented

Access please. Looking forward to discussing this stuff more at Drupalcon.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented

Awesome!

However, you have two SSH keys listed at http://drupal.org/user/297478/ssh-keys. Which one is best to use?

coderintherye’s picture

coderintherye commented

The first one please "ssh-rsa". Thanks :)

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented

Ok, great. I think you should be all set. :)

Instructions are at http://drupal.org/node/1018084 from #3 on down. Our docs still need work, so feel free to fill them out with new and interesting things you discover. :)

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented

*cough* I meant, now you should be all set. ;) /me should not try and add redesign users at 1am :P

coderintherye’s picture

coderintherye commented

Hehe, thanks, now it works.

I went in and went ahead and gave my user admin and downloaded answers and all its dependencies and enabled them as well as best_answer.

Going to break for a bit to ensure I'm not stepping on any toes, but assuming not I can start working on getting a question block on module pages (along with generating some test questions).

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

Hi @coderintherye, I'm guessing that it may be my toes you're worried about. If so, no worries ... rather, thanks for jumping in! I've been a lot slower to get to this than I had hoped and I welcome extra hands.

The steps you are taking sound great.

During the coming weekend, I can draft a set of further steps we might take ... and I welcome your thoughts on that too. Maybe we can proceed simply by saying when we each pick the next one off the top to work on.

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

Hi @coderintherye (and others). Here's my suggestion for how we proceed. I'm very open to thoughts on this.

http://support-drupal.redesign.devdrupal.org/node/1413731

What do you think?

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Is it a good idea to be putting that content on a development site? I don't know how this particular one is set up but, generally, dev sites are scratch and can be rebuilt at any time.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented

Yeah, definitely don't put content on that site that isn't archived anywhere else. These development environments get blown away periodically as volunteers slip away into other things or when they need a fresh dump from Drupal.org to complete what they're working on.

chip, how about use #1460738: [meta] Issues for improving support options on d.o. for planning specific features?

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

Got it. At this point, it's really only a checklist of work-to-be-done in getting a pilot running, which I'm keeping locally and updating on the dev site. Making decent progress (although not too much is visible yet).

If anyone wants a quick peek:

http://support-drupal.redesign.devdrupal.org/questions/term/63917

I've updated the public log to show progress.

coderintherye’s picture

coderintherye commented

I like that there is a plan, that's helpful. Thanks very much chipcleary.

Do we have a BoF for this? Anyone want to get together in the coding lounge sometime today, after the party tonight, or tomorrow and get moving on this? Better to have a couple people I think to help make some of these early decisions.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented

There's a sprint on Friday around this: http://denver2012.drupal.org/sprints But if you want to hack on it before then I'm sure that would be extremely welcome!!

coderintherye’s picture

coderintherye commented

Never mind on this, we are discussing it at Drupalcon now.

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

Hi, I also will not be there this Friday, but in case it is helpful, here is an update on the progress I've made.

I've been using this dev site. Here are some links that might be helpful:

To capture the work, I ended up creating two new modules:

While these are kind of in-progress-messy, maybe they will give a leg up on the work.

drumm’s picture

drumm
he/him
Location NY, US
commented

Please update the issue summary here instead of posting content on the dev site. That will keep everyone updated here, and we won't lose when the dev site is rebuilt.

coderintherye’s picture

coderintherye commented

Two thoughts

For taxonomy: How about taking all the taxonomy from drupal.stackexchange.com and importing it in, I can give that a try...as I believe the data is freely exportable from Stackexchange

The question/answer process seemed somewhat intuitive, but it isn't clear yet where to go to ask Questions.

Also, I'm wondering how much of this is better exposing this new support option, whether from the home page or from the Community & Support Section.

I think the best starting point here is adding a menu item for "Questions" to the Community & Support menu, sadly though I'm not seeing that menu to add it myself, seeing if I can find it...

klonos’s picture

klonos
he/him
Primary language English
Location 90% Melbourne, Australia - 10% Larissa, Greece
commented

I wanted to stress that since we are building this Q&A system from scratch now, we should make sure we don't "carry along" any flaws from the current forum/issue system we have. To that end, we should seriously consider implementing a solution to prevent (as best as we can) duplicate questions from being asked (#1128044: Consider deploying uniqueness.module on drupal.org (to help prevent duplicate issues before they're submitted), #19386: Automatically search for duplicate issues/questions before submitting new issue/question)

A way to have mostly asked questions (or viewed answers if you like) "bubble up" the list of recently asked questions would help as well. So, there should be a way for people to follow unanswered questions the way we can subscribe/follow unsolved issues. A "I'm having this problem too" button along with a "x people are having this problem" counter perhaps?

Has anyone thought of these things before? Should separate issues be filed (specifically for this Q&A initiative) so that these ideas don't get lost along the way? I don't see them being mentioned in the Workplan. I'm not saying that these should be blockers, but they should at the very least be listed in the "postponed" section of this Workplan.

coderintherye’s picture

coderintherye commented

@klonos That is definitely a feature that was defined as needed.

Perhaps we should create a Feature list, which we can then fold into the Roadmap.

It should break down into the things that would need to be in place before launching vs. the things that we could incrementally add later. I think if we really want to get this off the ground, it would be better off to get an imperfect solution together and launch it and incrementally improve on it based on feedback rather than try to come up with something perfect from the start.

klonos’s picture

klonos
he/him
Primary language English
Location 90% Melbourne, Australia - 10% Larissa, Greece
commented

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. It's just that I'm lost as to where these ideas we propose should be recorded. I mean is there a (meta)-issue serving as a roadmap where we keep track of these ideas? Is #1460738: [meta] Issues for improving support options on d.o. the right place for all that? I am specifically looking for an issue dedicated at launching a support.drupal.org Q&A site.

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

Hi @klonos and @coderintherye,

I can offer one option. If the group wants to use the Answers module as a basis for the Q&A, these ideas can be entered as feature requests for it. Now, if that's not the path, this approach won't make much sense.

For example, the uniqueness idea (which I'm a fan of) is #1387456: Add testing for already asked questions on question form (replace start_ask/continue_ask workflow).

Separately, awhile back, I tried to identify a reasonably complete set of features which Answers might implement over time. This originally came out of offering to do some homework as part of the discussion you mention (#1460738: [meta] Issues for improving support options on d.o.). So, for example, the idea of "most viewed" questions and, a bit more loosely defined, "hot" questions, are listed on it. You can see the comparison here.

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

Do now - Minimum Viable Product

  1. [DONE] Define places to capture the work we do
    1. [DONE (although new work will go into it)] Create an "Answers DO" module to capture whatever we do specifically for DO support.
    2. [DONE (although some new work may go into it)] Create an "Answers Taxonomy" module for generic taxonomy functionality.
  2. Install Answers
    1. [IN PROGRESS ... I FINISHED A SET OF UPDATES ... WILL WAIT TWO WEEKS FOR VALIDATION, THEN CREATE A RELEASE] Create a release for recent updates to Answers (it's been a long time ... and some of the updates are useful)
    2. [DONE] Create a release for recent updates to Best Answers (again, been a long time and there's now a little better UI)
    3. [POSTPONED FOR TWO WEEKS (UNTIL MAR 18)] Update the answers module
    4. [CODERINTHERYE: CAN YOU DO THIS? (I DON'T SEEM TO HAVE PERMISSION TO UPDATE THE BEST_ANSWER DIRECTORY) Update the best answers module here
    5. [DONE] Give authenticated users permission to 'create question content' and 'create answer content'
    6. Expose the search box in standard question pages
  3. [DONE] Enable Answers to use a taxonomy (Create an "Answers Taxonomy" module)
    1. [SHORTCUT: SPECIFIED THE 'ANSWERS' VOCABULARY] Allow developers to specify a taxonomy to use to manage questions (must be a preexisting taxonomy)
    2. [DONE questions/term/%tid. I've added options all | resolved | unresolved | unanswered] Allow a path that contains a taxonomy term ... find questions with that term
    3. [DONE (comes for free) with taxonomy] Allow users to create new terms
    4. [DONE 'manage answers vocabulary'(using VPPR module (Vocabulary Permissions Per Role)] Limit the users who can create new terms to those with a role 'manage answers taxonomy'
    5. [DONE] Prevent normal taxonomy terms from showing in links and instead have links include taxonomy terms which link to question term views
    6. [DONE] Fix empty text for "all" question term view
    7. [DONE] Allow users to search for questions in page views
  4. [DONE] Apply the Taxonomy capability - (Create an "Answers DO" module)
    1. [DONE] Add terms to the 'answers' vocabulary for existing projects
    2. [DONE] Add terms for the support forums to be replaced
    3. [DONE] Add terms for the drupal versions (D6, D7, D8)
    4. [DONE] Automatically create a new term for each project when the project is created (and delete a term when it is deleted)
    5. [DONE] Allow users when looking at a questions/term page to return to a project (if the term refers to a project)
    6. [DONE] Create a block that will retrieve a subset of answers for a given term or set of terms (use Relevant Answers for a model)
  5. [DONE] Apply the Taxonomy capability - (manual actions ... can these be saved as Feature settings in 'answers_do'?)
    1. [DONE] Assign the "answers" vocabulary to be used to manage questions
    2. [DONE] Allow "vote up" on questions and answers but not "vote down"
  6. [DONE] Integrate with Projects
    1. [DONE: BUT BY EDITING A CORE FILE] Eliminate the "support request" category of issues (I edited the module "project_issue" changing the file "issue.inc" in to redefine the function "project_issue_category"
    2. [DONE: By editing an administrative setting] Add guide text on the issues listing explaining that "support requests" should be made as questions ... and provide a link to create a new one (I edited http://support-drupal.redesign.devdrupal.org/admin/project/project-issue...)
    3. [DONE] Add the Answers_DO blocks to the project page
  7. Integrate with the Community page
    1. [DONE: BY EDITING THE FORUM TAXONOMY. MOVED THE OLD ONES UNDER "DEPRECATED"]Remove the "support" forums (but not the others)
    2. [DONE] Edit the "contribute to support page" to mention Q&A
    3. [DONE] Edit the "/support" page to replace forums with questions
    4. [not done ... unclear how to edit the '/community' page] Add links to equivalent question pages that replace the existing support forums
  8. Improve the UI
    1. [STUCK!!! I can't figure out how to do this.] Change the site search to allow users to search specifically for questions (just like they can for, e.g., modules)
    2. When users search for questions, allow them to ask new ones
    3. Provide decent theming
  9. [DONE] Improve Question Management
    1. [DONE] Create a new role 'Support Manager'
    2. [DONE] Allow users with that role to edit / delete questions and answers
  10. Create a demo-able site
    1. Create some sample users (a couple of experts and a novice)
    2. Create sample content for a project ('cck')
    3. Create sample content for a forum area ('installation') ('cck')
    4. Create a short guide for people taking a look

Postpone

  1. Enable Answers to use a taxonomy (Create an "Answers Taxonomy" module)
    1. On uninstalling the module, uninstall the vocabulary (after asking the administrator)
    2. Add number of views to tables
    3. Allow users to follow terms
  2. Integrated with Projects
    1. Enable an issue be converted into a question
    2. Enable a question be converted into an issue
  3. Enable Answers to use a taxonomy (Create an "Answers Taxonomy" module)
    1. Integrate with Forums
    1. Convert existing forum content to questions (Not sure whether this is worth it or how to do it. What might be good is to take a sort of "best hits" approach
  4. Improve the UI
    1. Allow "similar" questions to come up dynamically while a user is typing in a new question
  5. Enable Answers UserPoints
    1. Install AUP (I'm holding off on this b/c it seems controversial)
  6. Other features
    1. Implement flags
klonos’s picture

klonos
he/him
Primary language English
Location 90% Melbourne, Australia - 10% Larissa, Greece
commented

Hey Chip, thanx for the time and effort you're putting in making this happen!

One thing though: this issue was originally filed under d.o infra and the OS component. It was about granting access to a dev site. That task was done, so we should perhaps close this issue as fixed and open a new (meta)issue in order to track progress. Alternatively, we can change this issue's title to reflect what we're actually doing here.

The post you keep editing is really long and it gets hard to remember what was there and what's recently changed. So, could you please keep this information in the issue's summary? This way we'll be able to keep up with changes by looking at the summary revisions' diffs.

Whatever you choose, thanx in advance ;)

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented
Status: Active » Fixed

Yep, point well taken. Here's what I've done.

The workplan is in this google doc. Anyone can edit. If you want to pitch in on the work, you can update what you've done there.

The code being created is in the sandbox module Answers DO. If you want to suggest features, you can post them as feature requests there.

I'll mark this issue as fixed ... I agree, it's strayed far from the original purpose.

klonos’s picture

klonos
he/him
Primary language English
Location 90% Melbourne, Australia - 10% Larissa, Greece
commented

Thanx, but I really think having this information as a d.o issue allows us to:

  • "follow" this issue and get notifications on status updates.
  • track what has changed over time with ease simply by taking a look at the revisions diffs.
  • have links be actual links to issues/reference material/projects etc.
  • file follow-up issues in the form of [#issue-number] so that we can see their status at a glance

So, I went on and filed #1514876: Roadmap/status of Answers DO. I can file separate issues for each point you seem to be stuck. Let me know.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented

Ok, so should #1460738: [meta] Issues for improving support options on d.o. be closed in favour of that new issue, or..? We definitely don't need three issues to track this. :)

klonos’s picture

klonos
he/him
Primary language English
Location 90% Melbourne, Australia - 10% Larissa, Greece
commented

Well, this one here was about getting a dev site up and assigning proper permissions. That task was done, this issue is marked as fixed and if we leave it without any more comments for a couple of weeks, it will be auto-closed. So, it's not three issues at all - only two that are clearly about different things:

#1460738: [meta] Issues for improving support options on d.o. aims to be (as its title denotes) a meta issue/general discussion - not focused on a single specific task. From its summary I see that there are still things to be done (follow-up issues collected from #1236290: Decide on a course of action for improving support options on Drupal.org that was closed). I've never seen meta-issues being closed unless all sub-issues got resolved or if the idea as a whole was dropped. OTOH, the summary clearly says:

Spinning off from http://drupal.org/node/1236290 because the course of action is clear. If anyone thinks this is out of place feel free to move or delete.

#1514876: Roadmap/status of Answers DO is about getting a specific solution suggested in the previously mentioned issues implemented and then deployed in d.o.

Hope this summary make it clear(er) as to which issue(s) can/should be closed ;)

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.

tvn’s picture

tvn commented
Status: Closed (fixed) » Active

Is this development site still needed? Last access was on April 16.
We are looking for more space on our server for D7 development sites. So if this one is not used right now, please back up your work, we'll destroy the site and rebuild it later if needed.

coderintherye’s picture

coderintherye commented

I'm not sure, there's more work to do here, but I don't have a clear idea of what the work left to do is. So lacking in information, I'd say close it unless webchick or klonos could update with a list of things left to do.

chipcleary’s picture

chipcleary commented

For my two bits, this can be closed. I have the work backed up ... but I have also not put time into it for a long time.

I got as far as integrating Answers into the project pages, but got stymied on integrating it into the community pages and search.

http://drupal.org/node/1514876

coderintherye’s picture

coderintherye commented

I'd be up for keeping this open and tackling the community pages and search integration then, assuming I can still log in.

tvn’s picture

tvn commented

Since Drupal.org upgrade to Drupal 7 is currently in progress, I'd advise you not to spend more time on the D6 development site, because you'll have to re-do it later on Drupal 7. What would be a good thing to spend time on though is some planning and design - how exactly will this work, how exactly will it look. Best place for such discussions is http://groups.drupal.org/support-infrastructure. Ideally in the end we have something like this: http://groups.drupal.org/node/144584 - mock-up and detailed description how the page(s) should work. So that once on D7 we could jump straight to implementation.

cweagans’s picture

cweagans
He/Him
Primary language English
Location Boise, ID, USA
commented

For people that were working on this, this may be of some interest: https://twitter.com/cweagans/status/350076910086266881

mgifford’s picture

mgifford
he/him
Primary language English
commented
Issue summary: View changes

Now the upgrade has happened, maybe we can implement some of these ideas...

mgifford’s picture

mgifford
he/him
Primary language English
commented
Title: I want to help improve support options on Drupal.org » Implement the Answers module for providing better support on Drupal.org
Component: Operating system » Blocked IPs
Issue summary: View changes

I'm updating the summary a bit. Did @chipcleary's work get anywhere?

All of the modules mentioned in the summary have stable D7 releases.

I'd like to see the title improved to something that is reflective of more than the request for a sandbox environment for d.o experimentation. I've improved it a bit, but it probably needs more help.

@cweagans did your project setting get implemented in the end? I just saw the screenshot, not a update.

Mixologic’s picture

Mixologic
He/Him/His
Primary language English
Location Portland, OR
commented
Project: Drupal.org infrastructure » Drupal.org customizations
Version: » 7.x-3.x-dev
Component: Blocked IPs » User interface

Doing a little issue queue maintenance. Moving to the customizations queue, where all the d.o. feature requests/projects/initiatives go. And its definitely not related to blocked ips.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented
Assigned: webchick » Unassigned
yesct’s picture

yesct commented
Related issues: +#1236290: Decide on a course of action for improving support options on Drupal.org