Re: The Drupal Overview

Oh, and of course, being a noob - some of the stuff I wrote may not actually be accurate (I gave it my best go). Any technical editing feedback is greatly appreciated.

My thought is that this overview is useful as a conceptual onramp for people who are trying to do a first pass at getting their head around Drupal. It would be useful in at least a couple of key spots in the overall Drupal Experience. The first spot is somewhere up front as part of a set of things someone could easy notice in their first visit to D.O. This is for the person who has heard of Drupal, and is wanting to look into it and see if it's a fit for their project. They're not digging into the labyrinthine bowels of the handbooks, or reading through long PDFs, they just need a preliminary understanding of What is this Drupal thing? How does it approach the task of getting stuff done? How is it different than XYZ CMS? Additionally, by injecting this framework of understanding into their thinking, everything else they read could jump up significantly in value because they have the 'legend key' to read the maps. Anyway, this level is in the Marketing/Communications arena where the focus is on connection and conversion of the "Drupal curious" to the "Drupal user".

The other spot is in the beginning of the documentation, where someone has presumably made a decision to at least try Drupal. Here, it would not just tell them how to set up a site and configure settings, but give them clarity on the conceptual underpinnings that drive being good at working with Drupal. Then, when they read the blow-by-blow setup/config walkthrough, and the tasty breakouts on some of the other concepts (as provided by Eaton and others in the new manual you were pulling together), there's an overarching context that helps them digest those things more quickly and fully and be thinking about how to move forward. The "Deprecated" Lullabot podcast kind of hits this issue - where it becomes evident halfway in that there is a mind-shift happening towards more abstracted tools, and away from more specialized way of doing things. That way of looking at Drupal is not immediately evident just by looking at things like core, modules, etc. It's an interpretational overlay. An overlay like that turns knowledge into understanding. It's my hope this overview could take a whack at providing that for prospective and actual users in order to click them in to the right way of looking at everything.

As I recall, the spot I had thought would be best was the place where the pdf you had made had the Content Management Framework thing called out - somewhere in the first couple of pages – so it laid groundwork before they read anything else.

Html and gif image attached (what is the preferred format that preserves semantic bolds, italics, and image placement?)

Wasn't this supposed to go through technical editing with Add1sun or Webchick? Surely I didn't generate a spot-on accurate piece in my first go? I thought for sure there were bits that needed hammering yet.

Lee,

I would agree. Is the term "whitepaper" used anywhere else in the Drupal communications world? Using the term would help click in with business communication standards. Are there other existing things that would group together under that umbrella? It would certainly help call this sort of material out for people in that decision-making mode.

Hey - sweet. I was just thinking about this. If you guys need anything, email me.

I feel like I'm in an old Schoolhouse Rock episode, and my bill is about to become a law :)

Per the decisiosn made on this, I went ahead and dropped the page in here:

http://drupal.org/node/265726

Add1sun was kind enough to assist on the weighting.