Following up some discussions about drupal, the strengths of drupal and his weakness I can observe often this pattern:
1. Some "hot" topics are discussed again and again in countless different threads. Discussions about new features, wishes, concepts are not organized. As an example take the discussions and modules about node relations. This has the following negative effects:
a) The finding process of what module should be used for his requirements is painful and time intensive. This leads to frustration and a (new) user might drop drupal, which would not happen when the information would be organized
b) This user would be ready to code some improvements or a new module, or in my case to pay somebody who does it (I am not coder). But since I do not really know how many others are now working on the same problem, I am hesitating to do it, because I do not want to spend time/invest into something which is implemented already by others.
2. Users are frustrated about finding information in an efficient way.
3. 12790 topics in the "post-installation-forum" says all. It makes a chaotic impression.
4. Users are frustrated about some functions missing in drupal or a module, but looking exactly at their statements the frustration is to a big part about information finding and organization, and more about knowing whether there are work-arounds or additional functions planned.
5. Some coders are frustrated about users which "only" give comments and even criticize drupal and answer in a way "if you can do it better, do it". Because they work hard on Drupal.
In one sentence: The ideas, the current states, the future plans are not shown in a very organized way to the user.
Note: I do not speak about the list of features of new versions, I speak here only about the mass of topics and threads in the forum.
In my opinion Drupal would gain a lot with a better organization of the forum of some "hot" topics. It will give the users some anchor points, it will give users information about what will come soon and what is in discussion, it will focus the energy the drupal community puts into this CMS.
Proposition
Make for each "hot" topic a own category with these forums:
a) a list of modules dealing with this topic including future plans of these modules. Information how far drupal is dealing with this topic and what plans exists for the future.
b) a discussion about future new functions or how a new module to "solve" this hot topic should look like
c) discussion/feedback/comparison of the current modules
Some may say that we will have hundreds such new forums. Others will ask, who defines the hot topics. Let's consider this: There is no perfect solution, but should we drop an improvement just because it is not 100% perfect? No, if we think an improvement is better than the current situation, then it should be done. And in my opinion such a new organization would help a lot. I would say that there should be around 10 "hot" topics and an adminstrator defines what are these topics. Examples could be: Node Relations, User Rights, Mailing, Node Display.
Information is important, structure is important.
Comments
following you around...
My thoughts, reposted from the other thread:
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Forum organization
Or, you could bundle groups of related modules/functions into forums, eg,
- image upload/processing
- RSS issues
- WYSIWIG editors
- ecommerce/income
- content categorization/tagging
etc.
At least then people have an idea of what area is likely to get the best responses from people working on the same problem as they are.
Our general interest community is based entirely around forums and it really helps people to know that they're in the right spot to discuss *specifically* what interests them. They also know that when they post, they're likely to get responses from people who at least have some knowledge or interest in their particular subject.
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To elaborate: when someone new comes along wanting to customize their site, they have specific needs they want to meet. They want users to be able to add photos to their blogs; they want to be able to charge for membership; they want to organize information in a particular way. This is before they even have 'problems' as such.
What they *don't* want is X module, because they don't know it exists or what it does. In the module list, everything is alphabetical and the descriptions are often terse to say the least.
If they were able to go to an area related to their particular need and find people discussing it, with how they met it, and some detailed information on all the possible solutions, how much more useful would that be? And if they also know that if they have problems with the solution they choose, they can go to the same place for help, they'd be well pleased.
Right now, everything is organized by *when* it occurs. That can be very useful for troubleshooting an installation, but doesn't help much when trying to work out what to install. It also leaves all the support until *after* a problem occurs. It's reactive not proactive. If the information is easy to find and well-organized for people to get at *before* they start installing things on a trial and error basis, then you should get a lot less of the really basic problems coming up.
Someone mentioned the issue of lots of forums. My advice: don't worry about it. As long as they're clearly defined and easy to navigate, it shouldn't matter. People will go to the ones of interest and ignore the others. In fact, by dividing subjects up you're likely to find more people participating in the specific areas because they'll be more easily able to keep up with all the postings. Having thousands of threads in the same place is absolutely daunting to both newbies and experienced members.
Do Drupal forums make use of sub-forums? We use them a lot on our site (with linear forum software); an overall area of interest, with specifics divided up underneath.
BTW, this is something I would be willing to help with here, the structuring of the forum system. I'd be absolutely no good at helping out with code or development, but I DO know a lot about online community and what makes for good forums, whether it's organization or hosting/moderation.
Phoebe
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I think the biggest drawback
I think the biggest drawback of the current forum is the totally inadequate search function. Funnily enough, almost every single search string I use brings up the 'What I really think of Drupal'. That's ironic in itself. I know that using google and the Drupal filter is the best way to search, but how long will it be until a better search function is added?
4.7
When drupal.org runs on 4.7, seach will be much improved. You can take a peek at http://scratch.drupal.org/
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Tips for posting to the forums.
When your problem is solved, please post a follow-up to the thread you started.
Great, but...
The new search will calm the storm. While I think that search is the largest problem causing frustration for new users, it isn't the only one. And as thousands more posts are added to the site's many areas of posting. The search results may be cluttered with so many duplicate questions that results' value will diminish (unless intellegent pruning is applied.
A reevaluated organization of features would be of benefit to the drupal community. Perhaps you don't agree. You might not even agree with this statement:
I think we have duplication of roles for the features our site provides. The support requests vs. support forums. The Contribute page vs. Community page. Handbooks vs. Support.
One area where this conflict is most evident is the support forum. I think most of us posting to this thread is in agreement that the current structure provides unclear direction of where to post your requests of help and where to search for others that have your problem. We all have ideas on how to "fix" this. I think our community is strong enough to support a proper brainstorming of these ideas.
Sure
I simply answered helsinki's question:
Answer: when drupal.org runs 4.7
I think so too.
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Tips for posting to the forums.
When your problem is solved, please post a follow-up to the thread you started.
A forum for each project/module?
Would there be any huge drawback to making a separate forum for each project/module?
It's always stuck me as strange on each project/module's main page, the Support forum link dumps you out to the main support forum.
Yes, 200-300 additional
Yes, 200-300 additional forums would not be practical. Also with each version some contrib modules die out as their maintainer doesn't upgrade them. We have insufficient people resources now.
Drupal is designed to be moduler. Forums per module also don't make sense when the drive is to get modules to cooperate and be used in combination to end with a solution for your site.
The combination of views module and cck will eliminate the need for a lot of the existing special purpose contrib modules in 4.6.
As an FYI it is unlikely that there will be any change to the existing forums until Dries is back from his wedding vacation. Once feedback has matured and refined this thread overall, then the infrstructure list would be the place to follow up with the refined suggestion/proposal in a few weeks.
-Steven Peck
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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
Actually, all those modules
Actually, all those modules already have their own support forums - their issues tracker! It's got options for submitting support requests, feature requests, and just about everything else you'd do in a forum for that module. It's just that it's not called a 'forum' and it's kinda burried away amongst a dozen or so other links, including one called 'support forum'.
If you look at the index of an issues page, you're basicly looking at a forum index with a couple extra info columns and display options. Likewise, the issue page itself is pretty much a forum thread view with extra info for version and priority and such.
For this reason, I've often wondered: would the issues system be better off reimplemented as an extension of the forum system? I don't think it would be too teribly unfeasible, given how much the two are already alike. And here on drupal.org, I think it could alleviate some user confusion and frustration, making the support issues system easier to find and used more often when it should be.
Why NOT to organize around modules
These two posts (Toe) and (Sepeck) demonstrate why you would NOT want to organize the forums around modules.
First, as Sepeck says, you fragment too much. Second, as Toe says, the need for specific development/fix is already met here.
But what *isn't* met is a way to for new folks to easily find out the options available to meet their needs and learn which ones to implement, and then get help specific to their need.
That's if you want the system to be useful to users who aren't developers as well. You need to think differently and approach it from a different angle.
The issues tracker will work just fine for the module development/fix side--all you need to do is make sure more people know about it, can find it, and are encouraged to submit to it if they get that kind of problem.
But be aware also that many new users won't know if the problem they're experiencing is due to something they've done wrong, or due to a problem with the module itself. Most will assume the former and ask for help rather than submitting it as an issue, which is how it should be.
Forums as a first line, issue tracker as a second.
Phoebe
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Visit The Town
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The Debate
To the point of fragmentation, I would argue that the many satellite forums could be aggregated sufficiently through useage of the Views module.
as it should be
The Support tab at the top of the site goes here:
http://drupal.org/support
In order to make it even more clear I bolded part of the text relating to the third item.
Views is a new module and aggragating 'views' of the forums doesn't solve the underlying issue mentioned of why forums per module is a bad idea.
-Steven Peck
---------
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
Project module
I was wondering earlier if it would make sense to reorganize the project module to have 2 easily-switched views into "Issues." One that would be more of a forum discussion and one that would be more task oriented like the current Issues (I know there are different types of Issues, but the views into it aren't used the way I wish they were). Kind of a middle ground between the Forum and the Issues, which would result in many of the general forum posts working their way to the project that they belong to.
-- Ben // profilefx.com
Tabs
So under this idea, when we click on a project's page, would we see the following:
1. A group of tabs at the top for the views you mention
2. A list of top issues for the project.
3. A description of the project
4. links to other resources for the project.
And to the your point of a middle ground:
If we have a dual-solution of relying on the project's issue managment for urgent support requests and the support forum for general support requests and discussion, I think the confusion of users' seeking solutions will persist. They have to decide where to post their question.
Here's an idea:
1. We provide one link for all support requests.
2. that link goes to a search page where they user first types their question. we allow them to specify a module that they are referenceing, and whether they need the solution urgently or not.
3. They submit their question and it returns a number of results ranked by relevance. If the text of their question case-insensitively matches another question they are not allowed to continue. They then are asked if any of the listed solutions match their question and if not they are allowed to post it.
4. We enable another sidebar (that could be disabled in their profile) that lists the top X support requests. We also make the top X support requests display on the Support page.
Users of Digg.com may notice a similarity of this process to the post submission process on that site.
Mockup Ready
someone requested that I mockup my idea for a revamped support section. I have it ready and I'm wondering how I will be able to post the image to you. Does drupal provide a way for me to upload it?
Create an issue and attache
Create an issue and attache the file
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