Multi-site case study of Ideas Media Group

I've pulled the images from the server, reduced them to a more reasonable size, and attached them to the article. This article is going to need significant clean-up for grammar and usage before it can be considered home page material. I also have serious concerns that so much of it is focused on the failings of the previous developer; d.o case studies are supposed to supposed to be "success stories" with a positive focus.

I will take another look at this next week and see what I can do with it; in the meantime, I'd welcome any comments/review from other site maintainers.

I agree with gdemet's assessment --

Based on a quick read, I'd suggest that the entire "Background" section be removed from the post. It's negative, can certainly be read as flamebait, and doesn't add much to the overall study.

A few thoughts here --

RE Drupal Certification and the consulting list -- I've been active on the list sice its' inception, and the question of certification is floated periodically. Personally, I think it's a crap idea, as I've articulated on the list on a few occasions.

Getting back to the writeup, let's take a look at a brief excerpt:

In one particular instance early on in the engagement we had a serious challenge. While running pathauto directly on the live environment, the entire site structure got messed up and since client did not have any backups then, it was a mammoth task undertaken by 3 to 4 developers for 72 hours to bring the site back to original state. We were told that the site was being backed up but it was not. We learnt it the hard way and IMG was very happy that our team worked through relentlessly to bring the site back to normalcy.

This quotation falls below the standard of what should be on the home page. The phrase "running pathauto directly on the live environment" doesn't really mean anything except that it wasn't fully tested in QA environment. If this was something your company did, then you probably don't want to advertise this. The passage goes on to say, "We were told that the site was being backed up but it was not" -- as I read this, this raises some immediate flags: why didn't the development team verify a backup? Why hadn't the development team cloned the client site onto a development infrastructure? The questions could continue, but, in short, they point more to shortcomings that could be circumvented via a more thorough developent/staging/QA process, as opposed to any shortcomings within Drupal or the codebase you inherited.

RE: "IMG was very happy that our team worked through relentlessly" -- this is fluff. It means nothing, and reads more like a spam email than a case study. I don't mean to sound harsh here, but, after teaching writing for over a decade and writing a book, I don't think there's anything to be gained from sugarcoating feedback. The fact that developers worked to solve a problem is normal. It's what we do. It adds nothing to the case study. In the interests of concision and not boring people, I stand by my original statement: the "Background" section should be pulled. The content in this section is fluff, and doesn't really fit on the front page.

dheeer --

When you edit the post, I strongly recommend that you focus on the things you and your shop did well, as opposed to the mistakes other people made. In short, the details that will make this post stand out, and put you and your shop in a better light, are the things you provided that no one else did.

Disaster recovery is generally not part of the development process. Including it in the case study really some flags, and the way it is written in this post it comes off like you are elevating your shop by either criticizing your client or denigrating another shop -- while this is not your intent, that's how it reads, and while you are perfectly within your rights to include this information in a post in the forums/on your blog, it doesn't fit on the home page.

As I noted earlier, it also raises the possibility of a flame war on the post, as every story has at least two sides, and it's possible/likely that the original developer has a version of events that differs from the version you have laid out. The home page is not the place to air these differences.

So, edit away -- I reset the input format to filtered html, so you should have rights to the post now. As I said earlier, deleting the entire Background section makes for a much better post. From your perspective, it would also be faster.

On an semi-related note, in the opening line, you have a set "target='_blank'" -- this will not validate.

I agree with all of bonobo's comments.

My feeling is that if this is to be considered front page material, you need to focus more on what what makes these sites special and worthy of being considered Drupal success stories. Instead of focusing on what the previous developers did wrong, or the mistaken impression that the client had about the state of their backups, you should be talking about how Drupal was able to uniquely able to allow the client to achieve their business goals, and how the success of the first site led to them building out a whole suite of sites using Drupal. Keep in mind that Drupal.org case studies shouldn't be about the companies that worked on the sites so much as they should be about how awesome Drupal is; the marketing copy should be saved for your own site.

Why are there double standards ? Here is the story which hit the front page but has a strong para on marketing http://drupal.org/node/386278

http://drupal.org/node/306624#comment-1013439 - Here is another one which is flagrant marketing of a company.

N/A

roshan, i mailed Kieran. Please expect his reply. Other webmasters please do not answer.

dheeer -- feel free to edit this post as you see fit.

However, after the comment in #10, where it is implied/stated that I have double standards, I'm out of this issue.

FWIW, I came across this issue by chance, and have already spent several hours of my time giving feedback to try and help.

I'm done with this issue. I wish you the best getting this promoted, but I will not be spending any more of my time on this. There are other areas in the community where I contribute; I'll be putting my time there.

Cheers,

Bill

bonobo, thanks for your help and please do not take insult from roshan. Please!

Also, as an answer #511156: Please block roshan_shan

Bill,

My comment was more to clarify this text from George

'Keep in mind that Drupal.org case studies shouldn't be about the companies that worked on the sites so much as they should be about how awesome Drupal is; the marketing copy should be saved for your own site.'

Roshan

I know that chx has asked us not to post follow-ups on this thread, but since my name has been specifically mentioned, I would like to respond.

My comment about the case studies not being *so much* about the companies that worked on the sites *as* about how awesome Drupal is was directed at dheeer further explaining why posting details about the problems they experienced with another vendor's Drupal installation or their client's mistaken impression about backups wasn't relevant or appropriate for a front page case study. Obviously, case studies are intended to celebrate the achievements of a particular project, and the companies that worked on that project deserve credit for it. In the draft of dheeer's case study that I was responding to, however, any content about how Drupal helped their client achieve their business goals was overshadowed by lengthy explanations of the various problems surrounding the project.

I wasn't involved in the promotion of either of the other two stories Roshan mentions to the home page, but the Publius Project is a high-profile site that I think is definitely of interest to the wider community. The story about the Bryght hosting platform addresses a long-discussed need within the community for more and better Drupal hosting options.

As it's become clear to me that any further assistance I offer dheeer on this case study will be second-guessed by one of the principals of one of the companies involved in the project, I too will have to refrain from further involvement. While dheeer has removed much of the language Bill and I had concerns about, I think this case study still needs significant cleanup, particularly in the areas of grammar and usage, before it can be considered for home page promotion; that work will need to be done by someone else, however.

I am sorry that George and Bill received this treatment. For over the last year, I have been trying to shield the 125 site maintainers from people who don't share the same Drupal principle's.

I would go into detail about my elaborate attempts to bring rationale and a sense of fairness to this discussion, centered on doing what's best for the Drupal project, but that will only provide further fuel to the fire.

There's really no way the Drupal community can promote this case study to the front page of Drupal.org and not expect a significant backlash. To do so would harm the project and bring out the opposite of a showcase of the best, the worst.

Dheeraj,

Where is the controversy coming from? Do you think if you would have made all the rounds of edits to your story, it would have made it as top story on frontpage? It is not a privilege and that's what you would have been told.

What was the issue with your other http://drupal.org/node/322076 story not making it to front page? Where did it get stuck and why? Has anyone replied?

Sure they would give some excuse or other. If they can get into debates of keeping focus on quality of content e.g CIA story http://drupal.org/node/358428 and have a conversation - what was wrong in your original landscapeideas story?

Dheeraj - get this right - there is no method around this madness of few site-maintainers. They will simply change rules on fly. Here is a post for techrobo on their double standards and they can't even back it up http://drupal.org/node/514556 and without intelligent conversation and replying to techrobo and sudhir's posts they have also put it as won't fix.

Roshan

RE:

Where is the controversy coming from? Do you think if you would have made all the rounds of edits to your story, it would have made it as top story on frontpage? It is not a privilege and that's what you would have been told.

I was actively working with dheeer to get this published until my motives were impugned in #10 and #11 -- the "clarification" in #17 (ie, only the motives of gdemet were being impugned) doesn't help much.

I was planning on continuing to work with dheeer to get this on the front page until roshan_shah became involved in the thread. At that point, it became clear that the thread had been hijacked. Given that I only volunteer here at d.o, and that I can choose to spend my time wherever I want, I chose to spend my time elsewhere.

So, to be clear: I thought this post had the potential to get rewritten to the point where it would have been great for the home page. I had started to provide feedback toward that end. When roshan_shah got involved, and began impugning the motives of me and other people in this thread, my desire to work on this issue evaporated.

Dheeraj -- I'm sorry that both you and I had our time wasted in this issue -- if we ever get the chance to meet up face to face, the first beer (or whatever beverage you want to drink :) ) is on me -- I look forward to seeing your continued work around the community.

This is my last comment in this thread. My recommendation is that it be locked. While I have the rights to do it myself, I leave it to someone else's judgment.

Bill,

re #10 & 11 - as clarified earlier - my comment was only on 'marketing' related content. Dheeraj's writeup has 4 mentions of Gloscon.

Here are last 3 front page stories :

- http://drupal.org/node/508836 -> 3 mentions of lynda.com
- http://drupal.org/node/442712 -> 3 mention of Jason Marshall
- http://drupal.org/node/497008 -> 16 mentions of MediaCurrent

Dheeraj - don't you want to know why your earlier case study was also not published? Locking thread would not be right (I think)

Roshan

@dheeraj,

This is exactly what I am saying all the time - process and guidelines. I've asked many times. Where I have raised an invalid argument? I have always supported by facts.

It would be a huge accomplishment for you if you can get something worked up for front-page. If you do, you get a dinner from me with your family.

I am just concerned for you that you may just spend a lot of effort and go in endless loop. I have been there far too often. You already know who removed your post from front page schedule - Don't you?

I got involved only here http://drupal.org/node/322082#comment-1754576 and that was comment #19 and http://drupal.org/node/322082#comment-1766886 - Comment #21 - where I even suggested that the issue be taken up elsewhere. If you get a satisfactory reply, I'd like to know what it is.

Even in this thread in my previous comment, I have given clarification with references.

I would still think that site maintainers owe you a reply on this and locking this would not be right.

Roshan