My partner and I recently put up a Drupal site, each. He has programming experience, and I have HTML and CSS experience. He turned me on to Drupal, and convinced me to use it. But Drupal made me cry. After falling for its features and the functionality it would give my site, I began to install and configure. Greg pledged to help with coding and modules and I set out to take my new site design and work it into a theme.
That's when I cried. PHPtemplate kicked me right between the eyes, and I was convinced I'd have to abandon the whole thing.
I'm stubborn, though, and my static site just wasn't doing it for me any more. So I went in and discovered stylesheets I hadn't known existed, and I became comfortable with page.tpl.php. Oh, how triumphant I now feel because I have a Drupal site that doesn't look like a Drupal site, has most of the functionality I want, and handles a few thousand visits a day.
I know that tons of work has gone into the Handbook, but I found that it didn't help me, and the forum is very difficult to search. Greg and I (and lots of others, from the look of the 2006 predictions) think that much of the next wave of Drupal adopters will be like me -- web savvy non-programmers eager to make their sites bigger and better and more interactive.
What I wouldn't have given for a basic, plain-language introduction to Drupal!
So, we’d like to make one. We want to start a sister site to drupal.org where we'll introduce new users to Drupal without technical jargon, and with basic tutorials that cover every minor detail. See Greg’s comment below for more info.
Comments
Here's what we propose
OK, here’s what we propose: Create a sister site with a completely different purpose from drupal.org. This site would focus solely on enabling new users to understand the vast potential of Drupal and to get started implementing it. Additionally, it would take some of the newbie burden off of drupal.org.
Ultimately we see this sister site as an alternate starting point for new users -- a place where they can get a clear idea of what Drupal is and how they can apply it to their needs. It would have a very limited scope with documentation and examples pertaining only to Linux/Apache/MySQL installations, the Drupal core, a few key modules, and phptemplate. For everything else, it would point users to drupal.org. We figure that many users will quickly outgrow it and will end up actively participating in the Drupal.org community, but more quickly than they would have otherwise.
We’ve been tossing this idea around for a few days, but after having just read Dries’s predictions for 2006, we’re convinced something like this is absolutely necessary.
By the way, Kim has lots of technical writing and editing experience, and I have project management and programming experience, so we think that together we’re well suited to such a task.
We're ready to spearhead this effort or something like it, so let us know your thoughts.
Greg
Good idea!
Good ideal.
It should be my expectation and appreciation.
Merry Christmas!
William
Outline?
Before deciding on creating another site in the drupal.org domain, let's try to figure out how such site would look like, and how it would be different from drupal.org. Do you have a more conrete outline, or a battle plan of sorts? Once we have such outline we can decide whether it needs a second site, or whether we need to make substantial changes to drupal.org itself. Once we figured all that out, and if the ideas get support, I'd be happy to empower people to build it.
Outline
Hi Dries,
Here’s what we’ve envision. What do you think?
Goals of the sister site:
Intended audience:
All language on the site will be geared toward this audience, so it will be less technical than most of what is on drupal.org.
Potential areas within the site:
More thoughts:
- Greg and Kim
This sounds excellent.
This sounds excellent. Exactly the way a newbie would think. And one can clearly see the technical writing background shining through. All the best. Let's hope your initiative will become a reality.
Good idea
Dear Mr.
There is a lot of site dedicated to Mambo / Joomla newbies. I learn basic concepts on use / manage CMS using their manuals. There also have pictures and flash presentation.
Building a whole book that encompass all level of knowledge is simply a pedagogical non sense. Restructuring current Handbooks can be done. However, in my point of view, is useless, because there are not done to be logically organized (and ordering page is not the most efficient feature of the book module). The menu and content are over-fragmented (because of one node per page feature) and do not focus on basic concepts explaining limits and interests, how to, and more important, are not based on problem solving.
You can possibly use a real wiki to build documentation rather than drupal.
Cordially.
What makes me cry...
...is when no body answers your P O S T S !
Todd
Well...
I could answer "I don't know" to the question "How to use a PHPNuke Template?" but that would not help a lot.
Alexandre Racine
www.gardienvirtuel.com Sécurité informatique, conformité, consultation, etc
www.salsamontreal.com La référence salsa à Montréal
newbie.drupal.org ?
newbie.drupal.org ?
Devil's advocacy
My immediate reaction is "I wish there had been something like that for me, when I got started." At the beginning, I had only a vague suspicion that Drupal could do powerful stuff without requiring a team of programmers. But I really had little basis for that feeling. Even a big arrow saying "Look into categories/taxonomies, they are at the heart of everything" would have been a big headstart."
So just to play devil's advocate, here's some ideas:
* Is it really an advantage to have this covered on a 2nd site? Doesn't that force us to look for answers in two places?
* Doesn't Civicspace already provide a similar service?
* OR, Civicspace aims to cover Drupal for a subsection of users, "Drupal for non-profit/activist communities". Perhaps the need is for a site covering a different subsection, e.g. "Drupal for simple sites".
* How will you handle near-duplicate topics and more advanced topics? Will you constantly say "this topic is beyond the scope of this site, please refer to this thread on Drupal.org"?
* How will you hold onto knowledgeable users? There'd be a natural tendency for skilled users to graduate to main Druapl.org, and not "hang out" on the newbie site. Unless you plan to answer every point yourself...
* How about planning to answer every point yourself? Assuming you have a sufficient level of expertise and a lot of free time, it would be a potentially good way to set yourself up as a paid Drupal consultant.
* Or alternatively, how about organising a small, manageable core of people co-operating as a consultancy?
Devil's advocacy is much
Devil's advocacy is much appreciated!
We essentially want this resource to be that big arrow.
Greg just posted our outline of what we envision, and that addresses some of your points. Re: the others:
* Civicspace is fabulous, but it's also very specialized for a particular type of site, and they bundle a whole lot of modules in there. We want our Drupal coverage to be more stripped down, and far more generic so it applies to all sorts of sites.
* We don't want to cover advanced topics. Those are covered on drupal.org already. We essentially want to start new users off on Drupal, and give them everything they need to become comfortable enough to then go to drupal.org for more advanced information.
* We're hoping that just like on drupal.org, when people gain from the site they'll want to give back to it. So, sure, they may graduate to drupal.org, but hopefully they'll also share some insight and content with us.
* We're not out to make a commercial site. If anything, we could use it to raise funds for drupal.org or Drupal marketing...
Cheers,
Kim
---
http://www.crochetme.com
This is your brain on yarn.
Can I be a guineapig?
I've been looking at converting my static site to one using a cms. I know my way round HTML and CSS in a basic sort of way. I'm amazed by the variety and quality of open source cms systems out there. Ive played with phpWebsite, but not completely convinced by it.
I've recently reworked my original site from a completely botched HTML with a mess of tags to a nice CSS version with all the style separated from the content, but I want to avoid having to hand-code every page, even if I can copy/past large chunks.
What I would like to propose is that I act as the "innocent" new user of Drupal, with some pretty clear ideas of what I want, but not much idea of how to do it. We can have a dialogue, perhaps on a thread on this forum, where you talk me through the process of creating a new site, step by step. I can report the problems, misunderstandings etc etc. That dialogue could then remain as it stands for others to folow through, or could be used as the skeleton for a good tech writer to construct a step by step guide.
I have webspace available with mySQL and php.
Theo
Guinea guru?
Wow, Theo, that's a great idea! My only concern is that it will take us quite a bit of time to flesh out what this resource is going to be and how we're going to do it, and I'd hate for you to have to wait for all that.
I know that kind of leaves you in a lurch right now, though, eh? What would you think about taking good notes on your experiences setting up, and then we can start a thread about how best to learn from your experiences and apply them to the new site?
So, you'd sort of be a guinea pig, but you'd sort of be a guru, too.
Kim
http://www.crochetme.com
This is your brain on yarn.
Great idea, but doesn't
Great idea, but doesn't Robert Douglass' new book on drupal fill the documentation void substantially? If you notice, the Drupal section runs to nearly 217 pages and is the largest of the book. And, it has a dedicated section covering theming with PHPTemplate.
What may be more useful is documentation that teaches to set up, configure and maintain specific types of sites. I can think of the following different efforts right now and if we could bring all these together on one site, that would be a nice start.
1.) Static/Corporate Brochure sites: Sepeck's site configuration challenge. There was also recent mention of a drupal distribution customised for corporate web sites that may or may not have its own documentation.
2.) Educators/Universities: cel4145's work with Purdue Unviersity, Bill's www.funnymonkey.com with packages and documentation and also www.drupaled.org itself.
3.) Artists and Musicians: Zirafa's drupalart effort
4.) Nonprofit-activist-political spectrum: Civicspace
5.) Urban Citizen Journalism: Bryght's guide, possibly enhanced with contributions from ourmedia and nowpublic.
6.) Personal blogging/Multi user blogging: Don't recall anything immediately but there should be some basic guides around.
7.) Commercial sites doing ecommerce
8.) Personal brand development: No guides yet, just a new idea that has been expressed on Bryght
A book is great and all, but
A book is great and all, but I think it's unlikely to be a user's first introduction to Drupal.
This would probably be more of a ground-level intro to Drupal, whereas someone who buys the book will likely have at least a grain of knowledge of Drupal. Plus I think someone who buys a book like that is a bit more likely to be more of a business user, while this newbie site would probably cater more toward Joe Blogger who has zero webmaster experience.
Reengineering the site?
Reading the comment of ramdak5000 above, and figuring out about I see accessing Ruby on Rails official site in these days, I have some comments to do.
The Ruby on Rails framework is impressive and more impressive is your site of content.
A simple home page with basic links "exploding" in myriads of links showing all potencial of the Ruby on Rails. That framework is more young than Drupal.
Exuberant framework with exuberant material on it. To all nivels, from beginners to advanced users. Videos, tutorials, wikis, download areas, applications, impressive examples of use and tools to use it, etc, all very well detailed in all situations, if explaining instalations, programming and so on.
So, a great project of design and content which it doens't limit to official site, but it expands to embrace all universe about that framework.
It would be possible to do this with Drupal? Drupal is exuberant like Ruby on Rails (each one in your area), but Drupal don't have (still) a site which shows all your richness.
I know, the subject this post is material to beginners, but what you think about a total reengineer of Drupal.org site to a project more "rich", showing all universe of the Drupal?
I think it wouldn't be necessary to create specific site to beginners or to others "publics", but maybe new materials to beginners and other situations using others tools like wikis hosted on this site, and more links pointing to already existing material on others sites to do this huge project, like Ruby on Rails site.
A first step could be a "calling" to collect all external links with good existent information (videos, tutorial, how tos, and so on...)
Only thoughts of a newbie and meddler.
Great idea
Excellent links
Apache is bandwidth limited, PHP is CPU limited, and MySQL is memory limited.
Congratulations by initiative!
Many times some peoples write about the necessity of a material for beginners. This problem is real and posts increase on forums to answer "How do I" recurrents basic questions.
So, I suggest to search the forums to find out what questions are recurrents and where peoples say Drupal is "faulty" in documentation to use it as reference this great job.
I am a beginner and I think modules documentation is very limited as well and it will be good to create a material says what modules to use in specific situations.
I hope success!
*Updated*: one discussion about "faulty" documentation is in this link .
other link
"Very basic question: How do I use Drupal?"
This is nice. This is
This is nice. This is great. This completely ignores the way to SOLVE THE PROBLEM. The way to solve the problem is for people to actually write and conribute to solving the precieved issue. There are numerous ways to contribute. Linking to threads that are complaints by people who can't be bothered to actual contribute isn't work to sove the problem. It's repeating the problem without actually doing anything.
Start writing down things you figured out that were hard for you. Then add it to the handbook. Please. 43000 registered users. Less than 150 contributed a page to the handbook.
Above is a thread with an outline. That is helpful. It's not that different from an outline that I suggested. Of course, that outline actually could just go into the handbook here, but we'll see what happens.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
I think Sepeck has some
I think Sepeck has some valid point. Do we really want to start a new site or should improvements be made within drupal.org?
I also agree with those that are advocating a new site. I agree with their needs for some improvement in how things are being handled now. Drupal.org as it is, is a difficult place to feel comfortable as a newbie. When questions or features are asked, there are some at this site that are down right hostile. Vocalizing complaints is participiation, without it no real improvements can be made.
However, while criticism is good; finding and writing solutions are also important. With 43,000 registered users and only 150 or so that contributed a page in the handbook...doesn''t that say something at drupal.org is broke? For myself, I never really felt there was an open invitation for those not involved as developers to participate in the handbook. So how best do we change that misconception? Given the interest for those wanting to start another site (something I'm not advocating), what changes is drupal.org willing to make to accomodate those that need more? How do we go about pushing for those changes?
-Bryan
Drupal Blog at:
http://likethatidea.com/category/like-that-software/drupal/
Click create content, book
Click create content, book page.
Or go to the page you want and click add a child page (easier).
Create content. It goes into moderation.
I will revise the last paragragh here to clarify
http://drupal.org/node/14279
I will add 'something' in this section http://drupal.org/node/23937 to make it more clear.
We have a docs mail list. Sign up, participate. You get a spiffy automatic mention here: http://drupal.org/node/14205 and you can check the contributed to Drupal documentation box in your user profile. http://drupal.org/profile/drupal-documentation-contributor
I added this section and one recipe a few weeks ago http://drupal.org/node/40241 and am asking for folks to put their stuff in it rather than on yet some other Drupal site somewhere else. Good docs take time.
I am not a developer. Maybe I should add to my signature.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Keeping it simple
I don't think it's in the best interest of drupal.org to be changed in the ways that will make it more useful to newbies. Much of the reason we're proposing a separate site is so that the navigation be stripped down to include only links relevant to new users, and only content related to learning Drupal -- much like themes.drupal.org contains only material related to themes.
BryanSD, I agree with you that vocalizing complaints is participation. Sepeck, I disagree that putting more newbie info into the Handbook will help them as much as repackaging and refining information specifically for them.
People may be more than welcome to contribute to drupal.org, but that doesn't mean they'll feel comfortable doing it. In my experience, most newbies at anything feel timid about teaching others.
Cheers,
Kim
---
http://www.crochetme.com
This is your brain on yarn.
Vocalizing complaints is not
Vocalizing complaints is not participation if it's repeats of the same stuff by the same people who do nothing to contribute to a solution. It's ineffective.
I think that restructuring information and expanding what is there is and would be a more effective solution. Fragmenting resources and information further means that people contribute to one place and information never ever migrates back to drupal.org to help others.
Segregating newcomers helps prevent long term involvement by new comers. I would prefer to add theis information to a new comers guide in the handbook. I asked Charlie about restructuring the handbook before Christmas and am waiting to see what he says.
If we expand the information available here, then people's involvement and participation will grow as they grow. They will not really realize that they arn't a neophyte any longer. They will simple grow into the next level.
Again, this is merely my opinion. I am one person. As I said in an earlier response, your outline represents conrtibution and work towards a solution. I would prefer to see that work here on Drupal.org instead of yet another site that draws away people and resources.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Agree on restructuring
The handbook would certainly benefit from restructering. It contains a lot of information; but it's sometimes difficult to navigate. I also feel some pages would benefit from a merge or a little extra (background) information. A group of editors, making sure the handbook remains accessible and comprehensible, would be one way to go about.
--
Tips for posting to the forums
Count me in...
A Drupal for Newbies site would make a wonderful addition to the vibrant community that has grown up around this CMS. This could answer one of the leading complaints heard from those thinking about trying Drupal: that it is meant for people able to count using binary numbers. (ie geeks.) While Drupal is fast-growing in interest, CMS' like WordPress or Joomla have street cred when it comes to ease-of-use and being easily-understood. We all know Drupal is powerful; it is time for a site whose sole purpose is breaking down the barriers for non-techie, non Webmasters. Think of Drupal as a 500HP engine and a newbie site as the transmission.
I'd be happy to lend a hand in the writing area - I have a bit of knowledge there. :)
Ed
Wi-Fi Daily
Can newbies write about they don't know?
sepeck... Newbies like me have many difficulties to install, make configurations and understand concepts of Drupal. Due to those we do many recurrents "How do I" questions all days on forums. Sometimes, some newbies don't understand all in all of Drupal. More, newbies have difficulties to understand how configurate several modules because of the slight documentation them. The Handbooks are great, but the "basic" is faulty for newbies, all people know this fact.
Your calling to our contribution is counterproductive in this case, because how newbies can contribute with the gaps in the "Handbooks"? Sorry, it doesn't make sense. Be you more realist with beginners. Besides, English is a foreign language for most of us, newbies (this text must have errors, I write it because I am a "stubborn". :) ).
So, it´s more realistic to us to point out our doubts and difficulties to Kim and Greg. They wish help us writing a "manual for newbies". "The skys will be eternaly grateful" to them. (ps. about this material, I think it must be situated in this site).
sepeck, I think to contribute is important as well, and as newbie I will do what I can do at this moment. I will translate parts of the Handbooks and the new material for beginners to my language (for me it´s more easy to translate). Ciao!
Your calling to our
It is not. I will say what I have said many times and I will quote from my own recent comment.
This helps those who come after you. This is part of the spirit of Open Source.
As I answer questions in the forums, I put them in the handbook. The best practices are almost all from answering questions. So, I answer the question, then copy the answer and add it in as often as posible.
Things you find hard now, you later don't find hard. I have seen lots of, thanks that answers helped, and they never followed up with a contribution of what it was that helped them make it easier. This is a collaborative effort. I see nothing here that cannot be added to the existing handbook. If There needs to be a guides section added, then it can be added. Why splinter resources? Why add then to a different website? Why segregate newbies into their own little different site where they miss seeing the diversity of questions and solutions for things they hadn't even thought of?
I could be voted down [shrug]. I have been using Drupal for a while, but with themeing I am relatively new (last few months). Is their a 'newbies' forum for themeing? No. There is a forum for themeing. I am still learning myself on this and am blogging my learning curve so I have something I can contribute back when I figure it out. There is a forum for installation problems. There is a 'How do I' forum. There is a Documentation forum. How will having people go to a completely different site help this?
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
I agree with the spirit of this discussion
that a newbie level information area is badly needed and would benefit this community greatly. If you are prepared to go ahead and create such a resource it can only be of benefit wherever it resides.
However I also agree with sepeck that it would best be added to the resources on drupal.org. Where exactly is not really important.
What is important is that when you (a newbie) come to the site to find some information. You enter a search term you think is relevant. The search returns for you a selection of results that are weighted so that
1) relavant handbook info is at the top of results
2) latest forum discussions are next in that list
3) old forum discussions are last on the list of results
I have searched to find information here on drupal.org and on failure to produce clear answers I have posted to the forums to find answers.
Often people would reply with a link to answers which were indeed on the site all along. They just failed to be anywhere near the top of the search results for me.
This has happened far too often for me and I suspect for many others.
wellsy
orchidsonline.com.au
And a lot of effort has gone
And a lot of effort has gone into improving search for 4.7. Drupal.org is not running on 4.7 yet so cannot take advantage of this work. Until then we do what we can.
The php snippets section has been consolidated into one section, a SQL snippets section has been added. A site recipes has been added. That's the great thing about the handbook. It can be re-organized and restructed if the content is on Drupal.org. It's been done before.
I would love to see these resources added, it just needs people who see the need and are able write them.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
ok so advanced search will arrive
with the implementation of 4.7....Great news!
Will drupal.org be running 4.7 when release candidates commence or when the first official stable release is ready?
Yep once I "found" these areas they have become very useful resources but how they were found is the key to the problems here on drupal.org.
I found them when they were referred to in unrelated forum posts and not by following links from any of the menus here on the site.
Don't get me wrong...drupal.org is a brilliant site with a huge amount of useful information for every level of user. It is just very difficult to find it at present.
I live in hope that the new search improvements will be the answer to the thoughts expressed in this thread.
The php snippets sections
The php snippets sections are on the top level of the handbook. Should we add blink tags? How can they be more visible?
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Thanks
lzfranc, this is a great idea. We're in the process of revising our outline based on comments we've read from the links you provided.
Cheers,
Kim
--
http://www.crochetme.com
This is your brain on yarn.
I was thinking about something like that...
I was thinking about something like that a week ago. I wanted to create a page in the book to explain (in plan English) a really simple how to start in witch every line of text is simple, with some graphics of how the internal of drupal works and a simple installation.
Anyway, I don't have the choice to write it simple since English is not my first language and I can make errors while going too hard core :)
I have not begin yet, but it is on my do to list.
Alexandre Racine
www.gardienvirtuel.com Sécurité informatique, conformité, consultation, etc
www.salsamontreal.com La référence salsa à Montréal
Time to Take the Next Step
Seems like a good time for a summary:
It sounds like everyone agrees that newbie documentation is needed, and that, in general, the drupal.org site is confusing for newbies. There's disagreement, however, as to the implementation. Should we add newbie-targeted documentation to the Handbook? Should newbie documentation have it's own separate home? Should the entire drupal.org site be reorganized?
As we've already laid out in the outline above, we propose building an entire "intro to Drupal" site in a separate subdomain on drupal.org or on a separate site altogether.
Why this might be a bad idea:
Why this might be a good idea:
We think the benefits of a separate site outweigh the potential "cons" listed above. A community as large as this one will never entirely agree on anything. We're volunteering to do something that is almost universally accepted to be very much a priority. Let's not argue endlessly about exactly where this new resource will live (it can always be moved), or about exactly what form it will take (it will undoubtedly evolve). We have a clear outline that can be modified as we go, and we think it's time to just get started.
Kim & Greg
---
http://www.crochetme.com
This is your brain on yarn.
Go ahead, disagree on seperate site
Although I applaud your effort and think the proposed sections for a 'newbie' handbook are accurate I fail to see why this cannot be included as a section (entire book) in the handbook (eg. Starting with Drupal/First steps in Drupal/whatever).
Themes are an entirely different beast from documentation, so I don't find that argument convincing.
The handbook could use editorial control (a task you're not volunteering for), because it's sometimes hard to find information even for advanced users, but that's an entirely different matter.
The handbook could improve a lot by adding a newbie section as well; similar to what you're volunteering for, but then on drupal.org.
I believe the same argument can be made for a handbook section.
I'd like not just to improve documentation for new users but also to improve drupal.org itself. I believe these two can go hand in hand.
(yep; hereby i'm volunteering)
Hope this makes sense (it's very late here).
Heine
--
Tips for posting to the forums
Is the Handbook the full answer?
I'm not so sure the Handbook is the sole answer. I personally think if you want to help newbies, you need to greet them at the front door. In other words, some work needs to also be done on the front pages of drupal. We see links to the usual "What is Drupal", but there isn't much in the way of "Where do you start" category and other hand-holding features. The key is finding how best to welcome the newbies, without having the more advanced users roll their eyes! It could all be done though without the need for another site.
-Bryan
Drupal Blog at:
Like that Idea
In other words, some work
Can't agree more.
I had been talking with a
I had been talking with a few folks over the last 2 months informally and this was what I am propsing to do.
http://lists.drupal.org/archives/documentation/2005-12/msg00139.html
Note that the newcomers section would best fit in the Installation and configuration section. A lot of the stuff in the proposed outline exists.... EXCEPT people writing Drupal recipes or site setup guides and some articles specifically targetting newcomers. I have one recipe that I wrote quickly on the basis of an IRC conversation while chating with someone. There is a lot of information here on corporate brochere type sites. I haven't had the time to convert them into handbook pages, but anyone could take a stab at it.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Let's not argue endlessly
Absolutely with you. Of course, this is just my personal opinion.
Go ahead and get started
I would go ahead and do a separate site. Please, put it under an Attribution - Share Alike license, and then anyone can pick and choose and put things in the handbook.
sepeck -- I understand your views on this, and I am often the first one to say centralize around drupal.org. In this case, with the specific target community in mind, and the possibility to have modules/layout/navigation OTHER that what's available from Drupal.org at any particular moment, I think having this elsewhere would be a good thing. I see the following:
* the end of each section having prominent links directly to relevant sections in the handbook (i.e. here's all the newbie stuff, go here for advanced)
* a maintained, printable version of the whole resource (potentially even a way to get one shipped, with some money to Drupal.org)
* eventual migration to something.drupal.org, and being promoted/maintained/etc. as the flagship way to get started with Drupal
Kim & Greg -- (with apologies to Mark Pilgrim) -- I've registered http://diveintodrupal.org, and can do hosting as needed. Give me a call. And...congrats on Crochet Me!
Everyone wants to build
Everyone wants to build their own mousetrap somewhere else instead of pooling resources here. It's just depressing as hell.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
I'm slowly resisting less to
I'm slowly resisting less to a new site. Sepeck, look on the bright side, if an off-site Drupal is successful it likely would be a reflection that Drupal is succeeding and reaching beyond the core audience of Drupal.org. I've always been uneasy about CivicSpace, but don't we see a lot of people here that were introduced to Drupal via CivicSpace?
Not everyone who visits Drupal.org is comfortable with the what they see and experience here. Perhaps another site with a fresh perspective of what the Drupal community has to offer users is a benefit for the Drupal community as a whole. I just hope that as they build the new site using material found here that they be sure to resubmit any new content they create back into Drupal.org.
For myself, I'm likely to remain frustrated. One site that is too light and fluffy for my taste and another site that can be too bitter the first time you suggest some improvements for Drupal without code or contribution in hand. Maybe, what we need is a third site. Yes, that's it...a third site to rule them all... :-)
-Bryan
Drupal Blog at:
Like that Idea
Nope
If we actually had a free hand on what we could install here and how we could configure it...it would be great. But we don't.
There is no one size fits all solution. If it helps, think of it as the staging ground for a "Drupal for Beginners" book. Yes, an actual book that can be printed and leafed through and handed out at conferences. No support, no hints, nothing -- feed 'em back to Drupal.org for any questions.
Don't cry for me newbies
sepeck, I understand your feelings but I don't think there is a problem with limited resources for Drupal. May be similar things were said for start-up linux distros and even CMSs. Thanks to people who branch from existing things, now we have a lot of different linux flavors and, yes you guess it, Drupal.
I share the thoughts about the need for such a newbie site for Drupal. And I think it will be more useful if it is at a different site not limited by the current Drupal.org and handbook design and traditions. Even a different look and feel can go a long way. I can't put my finger on it but there is something about the handbooks that make them newbie, non-technical user unfriendly. I guess numerous posts to forums about how to get Drupal going and how to use it for particular ideas are proof that there is smt missing. Recipes at the handbook is a good attempt but I don't think they will get the attention and kind of got lost here. A dedicated site for this purpose is much better. This site may also help people who are shopping for a CMS to get a better idea about Drupal. Again, one can argue that Drupal.org already includes such information but somehow I think they are not easily accessible and/or not organized well and/or not presented well. I suspect that most of the contributors to Drupal.org's content are developers and they don't like spending their time on such things (which is understandable). Especially, the documentation of modules are in a very poor state. The only way to understand what a module does is install it so if you don't have Drupal running (if you are searching for a CMS that means you won't) you are in dark. Of course, installing a module is the best solution to understand it but the documentation should be at least sufficient to have a good idea about the capabilities of a module and how it can be used.
I hope, these observations of a new Drupaler won't offense anybody who contributed to Drupal.org in large or small ways. It is just that I see learning Drupal as a long-term investment and with my programming and linux experience Drupal.org is sufficient for me. But I completely understand the frustration of newbies who want to get a running site quickly. I am willing to spend my time on Forum searchs, digging the handbook etc. and having fun to get acquainted with Drupal but for many people these may turn into nightmares. With easier CMS applications around, I afraid they will give up on Drupal and miss a lot of good stuff.
So, in sum, I think a site for Drupal newbies is a great idea. What is greater is that we have a technical writer who cried while switching to Drupal and willing to do something about it so other people won't experience the same.
just wondering where this project is going
So is the newbie area happening or what?
wellsy
orchidsonline.com.au
We're on it.
Updates to come.
Kim
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http://www.crochetme.com
This is your brain on yarn.
Great idea
I'd be happy to contribute, but I wish it was done on drupal.org not on a sister site. The whole purpose of the sister site would be to help out newbies, so why complicate things by creating a new site separate from drupal.org. Unless the site is very different in structure, I would recommend improving the existing handbooks. Maybe just start a new handbook called Drupal for newbies right here and later somebody can shuffle the existing content together with the new pages.
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http://raszl.net
Feel free to start adding
Feel free to start adding stuff to the handbook here. The reality is there are a limited number of resources (people) that do contribute work to the existing handbook. As disappointed as I am that people want to 'do their own thing', they're obviously going to.
I'm not sure what else to do. I've tried pleading, begging, pointing out how to add pages... People want to do there own thing and end up splintering and duplicating efforts and resources rather then build on the existing community then they are going to.
I do suggest that if they are going to work on documentation then they sign up for the documentaiton mailing list. The problem here is it is obvious that anything I say at this point will be seen as negative and it is also obvious that they are going to do their own thing no matter what. At least it will help somebody.
-sp
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
I did post a few posts that
I did post a few posts that were meant to be included in the books. For example:
http://drupal.org/node/23740
http://drupal.org/node/25840
Would these qualify?
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http://raszl.net
yep
People used to using phpBB and such are used to their style where things are made sticky posts. Sticky posts do not a handbook make :). In the handbook, it can have the printer friendly format, the various export options and such.
-sp
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
It seems we have the same
It seems we have the same goal, just with very different plans of execution.
Our priority is to reach out to new users, and to give them and everyone else in the Drupal community a simply designed, easy to navigate beginner resource. By most newbie accounts, the Handbook as it exists now doesn't provide this. Even if the Handbook were a truly stellar resource, the drupal.org web site is still geared toward developers (which we're not knocking), and still contains a whack of a lot of links and information that are overwhelming to beginners.
To answer iaszl's point above, our proposed site will be extremely different in structure and design. In our opinion, the structure and design of drupal.org contribute greatly to newbies' confusion when they first start out.
We understand that a massive effort to reorganize, re-plan, and heavily edit the Handbook may make it more user-friendly for beginners (and, sepeck, I'm on the docs mailing list, and I applaud your recent effort), but we also think that starting from a clean slate will be a more immediate, and in the long run a more successful, endeavour.
We've plainly stated above that we are not interested in splintering -- rather, we're interested in promoting Drupal most effectively. And we certainly think that rolling whatever documentation we end up with back into the greater Drupal community resource is a very good goal to keep in mind.
Kim
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http://www.crochetme.com
This is your brain on yarn.
Why I don't help with the handbook
Here is why I don't help with the handbook:
http://drupal.org/node/33028
It's a simple error correction, a piece of text that was obviously misplaced when one of the handbook pages was split in two.
I submitted this bug report on the handbook thirteen weeks ago and the bug is still open.
I would have been happy to fix the problem myself. It would have been a heck of a lot easier to simply fix it than it was to write up a bug report on it.
But I don't have access to edit the handbook, so all I could do was submit an issue. And nothing has been done about it in thirteen weeks.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset about this. But as one could imagine, it has dampened my enthusiasm for contributing to the handbook.
I know the people who maintain the handbook are volunteers and are overworked. I understand that, being an overworked volunteer myself. :-) But that is the problem in a nutshell: The handbook has a small group of gatekeepers who must make all changes. As I said, I'd have been happy to simply fix the problem myself--if I could.
Maybe we should move the handbook to Wikipedia... :-)
Everyone registered user can edit the handbook
Go ahead -- try it. You'll see an edit button on every page of the handbook. The page then goes into the moderation queue, which the doc team reviews and then approves to become public.
Not accurate. Only site
Not accurate. Only site maintainers can edit, though he can submit new pages. Although he can volunteer to become a site maintainer. We sort of need more. Send an to Charlie Rose, head of the docs team.
The page in question looks like it got seperated during one of the edits from it's parents. I haven't done anything about it yet because I was looking at doing a few other things to the handbook.
-sp
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Hmmmm
We should really turn on editing by everyone...I thought this was the case in the past? It gets moderated anyway, so why not? Yes, OT for this thread...I'll send to the docs list.
And...Charlie Lowe, although having Charlie Rose on the docs team would make for some good podcasts, I bet :P
with the new revisions
with the new revisions functionality and the potential node locking, that 'might' be posible. It's certainly something I'd like to see as well, but until 4.7 is stable and out and Drupal is on it, I don't want to make any grandiose plans. Once we see what the end functionality is and how it works, then I'm all for it. Especially if we could lock specific pages and such to prevent editing.
I got sucked into doing a Drupal presentation for a local LUG :). If I have time (real actual prep time) then I may borrow my friends video camera and see what kind of screen capture recording stuff I can come up with for my system. If it works out we'll see. At this point, I figure overview, then launch into a local install and config.
-sp
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
New site or drupal.org?
I've read this thread, and would like to see the improvements implemented on drupal.org. Making drupal.org more accessible for newbies is important. Creating a separate site doesn't solve the fundamental problem, and isn't as effective as improving drupal.org. Most newbies will still end up on drupal.org. Of course, you're free to create a new site, but it is not likely to get the support and love of an integrated solution. It is not likely to reach as many users, and it is going to be less beneficial for the larger Drupal community. Regardless your good intentions, it is going to splinter the community/resources.
So, rather than starting a new site, I'll grant additional permissions to those helping to reorganize some of the newbie documentation on drupal.org. In addition, I could setup "newbie forums", make changes to the drupal.org main page, encourage people to implement book module improvements, and what not. Furthermore, I encourage those involved to subscribe to the documentation mailing list. Coordination should be done on the documentation mailing list, so we're not duplicating any efforts, and so everyone can grasp what is going on. So if you want or need additional permissions, drop me an e-mail on the documentation mailing list.
what about
the expressed wish for the newbie area to look totally different from drupal.org?
Dose that sit well with you and the rest of the community?
I think it would be great myself...it would show the newbies how customisable drupal was straight away.
Perhaps a different look for subsections would be cool?
wellsy
orchidsonline.com.au
I welcome any change that is
I welcome any change that is perceived to be an improvement. If that means we need a newbie area that looks different, we can work on that (and use it for other parts of the site too).
I see no reason to setup a sister site then
now all we need is some people set about the tasks which have been discussed in this thread.
Perhaps this new area could be setup with the first release candidate of 4.7.0 if it will have all required functionality for that area?
wellsy
orchidsonline.com.au
Forums and Content Management
I think euchrid9's post on another thread ( http://drupal.org/node/29364#comment-80141 ) probably summarizes the frustrations of those new to Drupal. The issue is not so much that content isn't available for the newbies, but that the content is not easy to find without a lot of searching. While we can focus on improving the "front pages", improving the Handbook, or even create a newbie site...I think the real work needs to be directed at the forums.
I have found a lot of good content at Drupal.org in the forum, but the information is extremely difficult to find among the many posts. While it is nice to have the "good stuff" in the forum also placed in the handbook there will almost always be needed information only found in the forum. This difficulty to pull information from a forum isn't just a Drupal problem, but a problem with most forums I've come across. I have yet to find a forum that works well with a basic search (except for possibly the forums at mozillazine.org and only after providing a lot of details to the search engine).
How would I suggest improving the forums? I wish there was a way for users to tag individual posts in the forum in much the same way as many people do for their own blogs. I'm only slowly beginning to understand the full extent of taxonomy within Drupal. However if I'm not mistaken, taxonomy is set by the sites admin people and not the everyday user. In Wordpress, for example, by using a tag module the user can add tags "on the fly" which is a big plus for the search engines and users alike. As far as I know, there isn't a forum out there that allows users to submit their own categories for individual posts. Why not do for the forums what taxonomy has done for the blogs? Could not the Drupal taxonomy system be better applied/improved for the forum as I'm describing?
I suppose what I'm getting at is we have a content managment issue here with a need to better organize and control the content within the forums. Is anybody following me or am I way out there?
-Bryan
Drupal Sites: Not ready for show yet!
Drupal Blog (on WordPress) at: Like that Idea
New SMF Site: WebCMS Forum
I'd like to try free tagging
I'd like to try free tagging too. I think it would make site navigation much easier. Once drupal.org has been upgraded to use a more recent Drupal, we will have Steven's search improvements, too.
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Drupal services
My Drupal services
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Drupal services
My Drupal services
Categorization
Better categorization of forum topics looks like a worthwile path to explore. However, it doesn't make the good forum topics raise to the top though.
making useful and up to the minute stuff weighed to the top
is one of the keys to making the forums, issues, handbooks, etc more useful to everyone here.
Surely latest posts at least could float higher in the search results? At least then you would have to go deep to find old versions of drupal related stuff.
At present they can come straight to the top if the search terms are right.
wellsy
orchidsonline.com.au
Dries make a good point,
Dries make a good point, better categorization may help improve search, but it does not necessarily help distinquish which posts contain quality information and which do not.
Would allowing users to vote on quality of content be helpful for the forums? For those that have implemented one of the Drupal voting modules...how well does such a feature actually work once implemented? Just thinking out loud, once again.
Bringing this back to the original intent of the threat, I'm focusing on the forums because the issue (IMO) isn't so much that Drupal doesn't contain information a newbie seeks but that it's difficult to find. While the handbooks are a good reference point, I think it is the forum that people go to find "unanswered questions". CMS do well in managing content for static pages, blogs, handbooks, but I have yet to see a CMS that does well in managing content and information within a forum. Which is a pity, because the forums is probably where most users provide their input.
-Bryan
+1 on voting, site recipes, and different look
I am new to Drupal and one of those who has been trying to find out how to make it do what I want. I am sure by now that it is the best program to solve my problems, but have really struggled to find my way through the overwhelming amount of info on the site. A few suggestions that would have helped me:
1) New look for the newbie site/section. The current look is all business. It LOOKS like a serious site with a huge amount of info. It also looks pretty daunting to a newbie who is trying to figure out if all this fire-power is something they can tame. Newbies need a cleaner simpler look where they can easily see what they need. No APIs, no documentation (but link to them, of course). I agree that it could (and probably should) be on the .org site, but should definitely have its own look and there should be a very prominant link on the .org home page to "Newbie Quick Start" (or whatever).
2) Love the voting idea, assuming the voting module works as it appears to. Let people force the best info to the top by voting it there. That's almost the only good way to make it easier to dig through things to find the real pearls. Also, how adding voting (or number of downloads) to the contributed modules? There are a lot of them and it takes a long time to investigate each one. If I could see that there are a half dozen that everyone overwhelmingly voted to the top, I'd know that's where I should start looking.
3) Love the site recipes idea, but I didn't find it for a long time -- it needs to be promoted. Obviously needs additions, but what a great way to get started. Focus on the problem to be solved. Something like "recipe for a local baseball team site: Drupal core + events + signup + clipper + flexinode. Create a flexinode for tracking each team's info. Set up events in the calendar. Write stories about each event. Clip info together with clipper so you can see stories and team info when looking at events. Other ways to do this would be..." Ask people who have operating sites to just identify the components they needed to solve their particular problem and post that to the recipes site, and organize it by the type of site/situation. That would take very little of anyone's time and others can add more details and alternatives over time for each one. Just a list of the modules to investigate for a specific situation would be a huge help to someone starting out.
4) I'll try to contribute what I can, but I think part of the lack of newbie documentation is because when you're new to Drupal you don't think you *should* be posting info (what if it's something stupid that you should have known?) and by the time you think you know enough to post, you're asking and solving more complex and technical issues, not newbie issues. A separate "newbie" handbook might be a less daunting place to get people comfortable about contributing their own ideas.
Anyway good luck to anyone working on this and kudos to everyone involved in creating this great program.
Prototype separately
I'm meeting with Greg & Kim on Thursday, and everyone who's coming to DrupalCon Vancouver will get a chance to meet them.
Dries -- Kim is already subscribed to the docs mailing list.
I suspect that this will be prototyped separately. If it can then be integrated into a portion of Drupal.org that runs differently/looks different/works different, great. I suspect some fresh perspective will be very useful.
Boris said it
Boris said it. Let's think of a separate site as a prototype,
and then see where we want to go from there. A prototype site
will allow us to focus solely on the new user and prospective user,
by not only presenting the most useful information and making it
easy to find, but also focusing on the presentation, writing style,
and overall user experience. Then we can look into how best to
integrate it into drupal.org in a way that works for everyone.
www.drupalecommerce.com
You can try www.drupalecommerce.com
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Drupal ecommerce, at www.drupalecommerce.com is a new site written using language that Drupal beginners and intermediate users can understand. Quick links to "Modules."