Apoint 2-3 maintainers for the Drupal services list

Here is a summary of the situation in the last 10 issues of your list of "active" items.

I don't think a big list of issues points to a problem per se. Drupal core has a big list of issues - does that mean our process is broken? After investigating each issue specifically we can see a clear record here of people failing to respond to requests for more information or trying to get listed even though they aren't truly committed to the project. There was one case where a person with a legitimate claim didn't get listed. I've given the issue a +1 (which you could also have done) which is probably all it needs to get listed.

Also, complaints without a stated plan of action to fix the problem are just noise. How should we improve this?

11. http://drupal.org/node/247654 - Apr 17, 2008 - User continually ignored community principles in a variety of realms and has since left the project.
12. http://drupal.org/node/244807 - Apr 10, 2008 - Never got a review - case for inclusion is not particularly strong, but decent.
13. http://drupal.org/node/234261 - Mar 14, 2008 - Never responded to request for more details.
14. http://drupal.org/node/190476 - Nov 9th, 2008 - Never responded to request for more details. Ultimately added after providing multiple detailed case studies.

15. http://drupal.org/node/209907 - Drupal services needs review - general complaint about the process citing nodes from before the process. Not a request for inclusion.

16. http://drupal.org/node/208875 - Jan 11th, 2008 - Never responded to request for more details.
17. http://drupal.org/node/200145 - Dec 12, 2007 - Never responded to request for more details.
18. http://drupal.org/node/184621 - Oct 18, 2007 - Don't meet requirements.
19. http://drupal.org/node/180976 - Oct 5, 2007 - never responded to request for more details.
20. http://drupal.org/node/177772 - Sept 22, 2007 - user with zero patches, modules, docs, etc. Responded now to clarify.

1 http://drupal.org/node/306112 - Sept 9, 2007 tripped up in complex procedure

Workhabit, closed by requester and never re-opened.

2 http://drupal.org/node/131073 - March 26, 2007

Can't take them serious as a Drupal company, not even a custom theme.

3 http://drupal.org/node/303854 - Sept 2, 2008

More info requested, no answer from submitter.

4 http://drupal.org/node/301407 - Aug 19, 2008

Invited him to create the page already

5 http://drupal.org/node/294294 - Aug 12, 2008

info requested, not forthcoming, closing

6 http://drupal.org/node/281834 - July 13, 2008

Linnovate was added.

7 http://drupal.org/node/281207 - July 11, 2008

Info requested, not forthcoming, closing.

8 http://drupal.org/node/276163 - June 29, 2008

Mediacurrent, seems a bit weak to me. Don't know them well enough

9 http://drupal.org/node/204386 - Dec 28, 2007

no merit, asked for more info

10 http://drupal.org/node/272577 - June 19th, 2008

unworthy, closed.

I also want to point out that there is no right to be added to that list in a timely manner (or at all). This site is community run and the provisions of the GPL that apply to our code also apply in spirit to the website:

NO WARRANTY

11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

It seems to me like many of the most contentious issues have to do with questions about what constitutes a sufficient level of community contribution in order to be listed in the directory. While the services page provides examples of what kinds of contributions are considered as part of a company's application and what factors may weigh for against inclusion, there's no clear objective standard. The consensus-driven approach currently employed has worked for the most part, but not without some hurt feelings on the part of those whose applications were not immediately accepted, which I think is Amazon's primary concern.

As a community, I think we need to decide what the role of the services directory should be, and develop some objective criteria for what companies are and are not included in it. For example, I would have no objection with requiring that a company be an current organizational member of the Drupal Association to be included in the directory; the DA spends a lot of money supporting Drupal.org, and I don't think it's too much to ask that if you're getting free advertising on the site, you at least meet and maintain that minimum level of support. Companies already listed in the directory that are not DA members or who have allowed their membership to lapse would be told of the policy and granted a reasonable grace period (say 30 days) before they were dropped from the directory.

I do think there should also be some more concrete definitions of what level of community involvement is required. Should we require that at least one representative of the company have maintained an active Drupal.org account for at least one year, and have made at least five contributions in whatever form (code, theme, documentation, showcase post, etc.) for example?

Another question is whether we want to continue to include freelancers or one-person shops in the directory; if Amazon's numbers are accurate, this could lead to the directory becoming very large indeed. If we do decide to only allow companies, I unreasonable that they be established as a legal entity in whatever country they're based in order to be in the directory, though I wouldn't want the site maintainers to be in a position where they had to verify each company's status.

I think there should probably also be some language about how inclusion in the directory doesn't necessarily mean that the Drupal community or the Drupal Association is endorsing them or vouching for them in any way. Just about all the companies that are listed right now are ones with very good reputations for good business practices, but you wouldn't want someone trying to hold the DA accountable if they found someone through the directory and things didn't work out for some reason.

@gdemet , sole proprietorships are blatantly easy to get in many countries and those are legal companies too...

Absolutely true, and I wasn't suggesting that sole proprietorships shouldn't be included on those grounds. My point is that regardless of whether we include sole proprietorships or just multi-person companies, a requirement that they have some kind of legal status isn't an unreasonable one IMO.

Also it must be noted that this is a reward for what you are doing to the community. So if you are doing a lot of volunteer work and not a company and has no money for a DA membership then we exclude you? that was me like four years ago. We must tread here carefully to exclude the asian sweatshop that does lip service to the community and to include the student who works his ass off. Whatever rules you create, said sweatshop will do token work to met them, I tell you.

Please do not create more workload for the webmasters. Requiring them to check that the "company" actually has a legal status is a bad idea.

see #5.

We do not strive to be a listing of all Drupal companies. We list those that have made the project what it is now.

Right, and my question is whether or not it should be the role of the d.o site maintainers to make subjective decisions about whether or not a particular applicant is a hardworking student or a sweatshop.

Personally speaking, I'd love it if drupal.org only listed those folks who had made valuable contributions to the community, but my concern is that as the community grows in size, it's going to become more and more difficult to make that judgment. I think at some point it's going to be necessary to either say, "okay, here's the objective criteria we're using to decide whether you go in the directory or not" and risk including some riff-raff along with the good community members, or else we're going to have to close down the directory completely.

And while we've been careful to state all along that being in the directory is a *privilege*, not a right, some might argue that the subjective inclusion of some individuals/companies over others is arbitrarily discriminatory. And because being in the directory can provide a boost to one's business prospects, that could be a problem down the road, especially if the folks making the decision include people who work for or own competing companies. If there are clear objective standards, that's much less of a problem.

So while I agree with your concern, I'm not sure we can prevent it forever.

@killes - I agree completely; my point there was by asking those included the directory to be legal entities, we could potentially head off including riff-raff in the directory, but I think chx's point that it's trivial for anyone to gain legal status as a business is a good one. If it was something we asked for, it would certainly not be something that we'd check unless absolutely necessary.

I also agree completely with the principle of "no warranty" you expressed in #5, as I said in #6, the problem is that while it's true in spirit, we don't explicitly state it for the services directory, or as part of a Web site terms of service.

@gdemet: I do think it is difficult to find a truly "objective" list of criteria. If I were to make such a list, most companies on the list would have to
be removed. ;) However, if you want to try your hands at it, I'll gladly review it. One proviso, though: it should only affect things that are visible on drupal.org. "i have this great set of Drupal tutorials on my company's website" should IMO not count, even if the tutorials are really great.

Also, I wouldn#t have objections to make the "no warranty" clause the first part of our non-existing ToS.

Amazon pointed out that one "solution" we have developed to problems like this is coming up with 2-3 people to be in charge of that particular area of the site. They can review and update the guidelines based on community feedback and provide a more even hand in processing the applications. That makes sense to me and has been successful in the various places we've implemented it (books page, paid services forum, hosting forum).

I think that we're doing a pretty good job in managing that page under the current structure. Killes and my research into the 20 "stalled" issues shows about a 90% success rate. But I think the communications could be done in a more consistent, professional way.

Anyone particularly want to take on that role? gdemet, you wouldn't have some spare time to help with this, would you?

I'm at a ballgame right now, but I'm definitely interested. I'll follow up later this week.

while I am slowly receding from webmaster issues (the only reason i have not stepped down yesterday is that this way I can help people in IRC with their projects) I would be glad to help here.

I'd be really opposed to 'legal status as a company' - I freelance / contract and in the UK there's absolutely no reason for me to register as a company - sole proprietor works just fine - but I could register as a company for between $30-100 if I needed to for the sole purpose of jumping through hoops, which means nothing at all.

edit: also, as discussed on irc. In terms of criteria for listing on that page, sponsorship of events gets you listed for that event (Drupalcon website, conference tables etc.), I don't see why in and of itself it should also get you free advertising on Drupal.org. Obviously it's not a bad thing to do, but there's a tangible return from sponsorship which makes it quite different from other kinds of contribution (employees having time to contribute, donating infrastructure etc.).

This is how I would change the text and these are the principles I would follow if I would be chosen one of the maintainers:

The Drupal services directory is a special privilege given to those few who constantly do extraordinary work to further the software, the ecosystem, the community. As there are many facets of contribution there are no set criteria to get into the directory.

If you occasionally visit the forums and answer a question or two, that’s not much. If it’s hard to find a topic in a given forum without your name in it, now that’s what we are talking of.

If you maintain a module or two that are used on five sites, well, we have thousands of those. If your module is constantly mentioned in books, forums and Drupalcons, wow! Of course, it might but that you are not the maintainer but the guy who is constantly watching the issue queue for support issues and answers them to offload said maintainer. Or fills the issue queue with quality bug reports.

If you have written a handbook page, great, but... have you seen how many others did that? If you are constantly rollling comments back into the book pages, then you got the fame we are looking for.

In short: if you want to be included in the in the services directory, write up what's "wow" about your work. If you are able to put up a list of 10-20 pages / issues where you made an impression please do not bother.

Oh and to add: there will be three maintainers and there needs to be an unanimous vote for inclusion. Everyone is reviewed yearly and removed if necessary -- people drift away from the project, after all.

I'm going to be the odd girl out here... If we're going under the assumption that those listed in the directory are not being endorsed in any way by drupal.org or any related entitties and all that, why are we putting such effort into making sure they are endorsable? Why not simply make a business listing directory where any Drupal service provider is allowed to give a brief bio as well as list their contributions to the project. Let those looking to hire them do the judging of their credentials.

If I'm wrong and we're actually setting up an area of endorsed companies, then I agree we need strict requirements and a team to review them.

Michelle

I also think classification of service provider e.g those providing full service, themeing, training, documentation, etc and size of their drupal team (on their regular full-time payroll) would also help.

Michelle, we are not endorsing but imagine what the price would be if this would be paid advertising (targeted ads on such a high traffic site). So we are using it as an award. There are few ways we can actually give back something of value to the volunteers who pour countless hours into the project and this is one of them.

@roshan, first, you barely got away from being banned, so do not even dream of being there. Two, we will (obviously?) let people edit their own entries and include whatever they want. There is no point in slicing up the services directory into "small shops" "big shops" "translation services" as there will be very few of them...

@chx: If it was opened up to everyone, the value of it for advertising would diminish. By keeping it a select few, yes, it has a high value for advertising. But it also looks suspiciously like endorsing if those on the list are hand picked using a non-concrete set of criteria.

All I'm saying is we should pick one or the other. 99% of my Drupal work is for free so I have no interest in being on the list. Just looking at it as an interested 3rd party.

Michelle

We currently have several different listings at different levels

• Everyone can get into http://drupal.org/profile/drupal-services
• Select people can get into http://drupal.org/drupal-services
• Local groups have created directory wikis that are open: Florida, http://groups.drupal.org/node/15907 Seattle, http://groups.drupal.org/node/7596 and Colorado http://groups.drupal.org/node/15685
• CiviCRM managed by the Drupal association has a list which I think is public, but I don't know the URL
• At some point http://drupal.com/ provides a potential home for businesses/advertising

I see each list providing separate purposes and recognizing different kinds of businesses/service providers. Being added to drupal-services, in my mind, is an endorsement of community involvement but not of business quality.

@chx - No where did I say in this thread that I want to be added. Keep them coming. This is another post where you are targeting me for no reason. My input here is to add another suggestion which I can do anyway.
@all - While there is good discussion going on in the thread to finalize the entry criteria, I think there also needs to be a very very solid, transparent criteria for exit and removing anyone from the list. Just like stock markets where one could fall in love with stocks which were good when one bought it but hard to dispose off when they are penny stocks/go down in value either because of sentiments or thinking they are going to appreciate in value. Similarly an exit criteria / rules when someone is not continuously contributing, adding value can be considered for removal with a uniform transparent process.

I also have no interest today to be on the list and it doesn't even matter to me being there or not today http://drupal.org/node/283273#comment-1790554 - but I certainly will try and provide suggestions for improvements.

i notice this today. chx - a to my knowledge a person who is mentally and phisically fit will not laugh with out a reason - you are not getting in intelligent debate. take your grudge elsewhere. as indian, i feel offended.

So in thinking about this further, it seems like the next step is for a couple of us to get together and hash something out that incorporates the feedback here and elsewhere, then bring it back to the community for open discussion and consensus-based approval. After discussion with Crell and others on the best way to do this, I've gone ahead and created an informal "Drupal.org policies" group on g.d.o for this purpose; if you're interested in being a member, let me know.

@gdemet, I have requested addition.

I prefer to keep such discussions on the Drupal.org webmasters queue. An informal group you need to join? No thanks.

While I don't mind discussions going on via mail and irc (as long as these are backed up by issues), the primary place is d.o. and in the open.

To me, the next logical step is getting the following separate issues clear:

- What is the purpose of the Services / Training / Whatever page
- Do we want to keep it?
- How do we organize additions?
- How does it tie-in to the redesign project

Perhaps we should create a few new issues? Or directly switch to proposal mode?

@Heine, I also agree with you. Having discussions on webmaster queue is much better because a wider audience can participate and bring a different viewpoint which may have been not thought of.

There's certainly nothing preventing anyone from discussing these issues here in the queue, on IRC, or elsewhere; in fact, that should be encouraged. The idea behind the group is just to have a place where a few of us can get together, filter through all the community feedback and use that to draft policy proposals that would then be submitted back to the community for review and further discussion before implementation.

Had put some suggestions here http://drupal.org/node/515722. Would appreciate if they are considered during policy formation. Also waiting for approval to policy group so I can provide inputs.

A year later and there's a bunch of requests still languishing in the issue queue. Just giving this a little bump.

Michelle

I think the issue is that the current system, which was created back in the days when there only a couple dozen Drupal services companies, doesn't work today, when there are literally hundreds of companies who could all make valid claims for inclusion in the directory.

About a year back, we had some good discussion about this issue both in this thread and in the drupal.org policies group, but didn't reach any immediate consensus about what criteria (if any) should be used to evaluate service directory requests. Since then, these requests have continued to languish.

I'm still interested in being part of a group to help formulate some roles, responsibilities, and guidelines for how companies can get added to the service directory, but I'm personally not comfortable evaluating companies for inclusion in the absence of any objective criteria.

Same trouble here. I recognize there's a problem and bumped this to try and get some help but I don't feel comfortable making the decision of who gets to be listed. I really think we need to just set up a place where people can advertise their services and maybe use rating or something to sort them rather than having a couple people decide whether they're worthy for listing. If you look at http://groups.drupal.org/available-for-hire you can see that the number of Drupal companies out there wanting to make themselves known is just exploding.

Michelle

Following & retagging this issue.

Subscribing.

This is a non issue. If there is doubt, you clearly do not belong there, what's so difficult? http://drupal.org/node/1023368 this is what happens when someone belongs. It took the whole of ninety minutes to get nedjo listed.

I am not against at all to create a place where ppl can advertise. That's not this place however. This is where we reward our top contributors. Note that nedjo's contributions are an excellent list of why any criteria is worthless -- how many of us are advisors of the DA? Fill in secretary? There are too many forms of contributions to list any.

It's great to see that nedjo got listed quickly and the processed worked out well in this case.

However, I think the issue is that we do not have a solid process for seeing who gets listed and how people get listed.

Take Morning Time as an example: http://drupal.org/node/969226

This user has 2 +1 from webmasters, and then he got a -1. The problem is that right now we dont know what happens if there are 2 +1 (the requirement for adding a service provider) then another person adds a -1.

Does that make it a net 1 and thus the user will need another user to get a +2?
Or does the -1 not count when 2 +1 are already in place?
What happens when there is a -1, then 2 +1, do we add that user?

It is cases like this that causes major delays and sometimes road blocks as people dont know what to do.

The bottom line is we need a more defined process that includes cases like this.

@arnold

as people dont know what to do.

I think the answer is, in fact, quite clear: Continue doing awesome work contributing to the Drupal project and community.

Closing old issues. Please re-open if needed.