I have been waiting for some weeks now but since no one is making a clear statement to this and people are continuing to post about this issue in several threads and news comments so finally i want to say something about it before it might be to late.



For heavens sake please stop creating (or even thinking about) having subsites outside of *.xoops.org that are integral part of Xoops. Before someone is gonna shoot me: I am not saying put them in recycle.bin.(more about that a little later)


There are several things to consider about splitting sites under different top level domains:


1. how that appears to first time visitors

If i went to a project and found that integral parts of that would be placed into the official domain and some on completely different ones i would already start to have first doubts. Because if a project is not able to maintain these things under one domain ... i´d guess i would not trust it as far as i can throw it. Since i can´t really throw a website ... thats not very far then. What signal does this send to new visitors?


2. Multisite login

User would need to register different accounts. Don´t say they only need one one the subsite that holds the forum because thats not true. Other subsites do have submission systems for files, news ...


3. Did i say ... just don´t do it already?



Lets have a look why we are currently facing this scenario ...

Due to things that happened in the past like (not timely updating, massive delays in creating the new sites, differences of opinions about what to do) we now have sites being created under different tlds with the purpose of having them under community control instead of project control.

Someone explain to me what community control means? Because when it comes down to it ONE person is in charge. And thats the guy or girl who owns the domain. Yes he might be good in involving people and get things down faster right now. But what if ...?


Let me draft a scenario:

- we create http://www.xoopsforums.org registered by person x
- the council offcially announce that site as the official community forums of xoops.org and links to it
- everything works fine. Post numbers are growing because everyone who posted on x.o before does now post there
- 6 month later ... there is some disagrement in the group of people that runs the site (the community ... but still some people need to be in charge as you wont have 10.000 people with admin rights on that site, right?) Now the owner of the domain gets so mad about the disagreement that he shuts down the site. Forums would be gone and content would be gone.


Thats just one possibility and it alone justifies to have the sites from a server standpoint under the roof of x.o since that way the backups will be in posession of the main project/foundation/council and in any case will be available for one argument. The point is whatever site you create and belongs to the official sites it will never be a community site in the way that 10.000 people own it at the same time. One will be in charge when it comes down to it.



Now as i said before i don´t suggest to trash all the work that has already been done. I just urge you to take whats been done on those sites, make it the official subsites under the official domain subsites and since you worry about control put whatever you think you might need to into the XOOPS manifesto which Marco is working on to ensure that the community does have a certain level of control about the sites when situated under the wings of *.xoops.org.


Find a way to implement the level of control you need for both sides but do not create lots of splitter sites, lots of different places to visit, different logins ...

Just don´t. And act now since the longer you wait the more difficult it will be to implement.





ps: i know some of you (you know who you are) might be dissapointed to see me posting this here. Sorry guys but i sincerely believe that using many different domains does more harm then good at the end. And this way at least i won´t regret for the next years to not have a least said something about it. If it will happen or not ...

Amen Bender!!!

The best thing is to keep it here under x.o and not fracture the community.

If they listen good. If not we did try our best! Thats all one can do...

Herko Said the Following:Here

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I totally agree with you Bender but maybe what you are fearful of having happen has already happened? Although, if Onakazu were to take back xoops.org then the whole thing would be a disaster. Since the "Project" is going to remain here they might as well leave the "Community" here as well.

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I wish DJ or Dave would make this clear once and forall.

This really has gone on long enough.

Thanks Bender.

It is some weeks now that I am repeating the same thing.

Hopefully the new management will understand it.

Quote: I do not believe that he will or wants to. He could have done it a long time ago.
Anyway, I guess that somebody keeps a backup of the site...

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For what it worth, that's my opinion too, I'm starting to get tired folowing the project, newbee would have run away after 2 min.

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I was looking at it more from the perspective of not letting the community/organization/developers utilize the site. That would mean that everyone would have to somewhere else to get their centrally located support/downloads etc... I wasn't really worried about losing the content per se.

It's all so confusing and I don't understand why DJ doesn't comunicate. The xoopsinfo thing just strikes me as confusing and unnecessary. This whole thing could be done under the .xoops.org domain with LDAP and nobody would need to register anywhere or go to different sites to do different things.

Following this project has become mind boggling. We have these teams, many comprised of people that are new to the project (not a bad thing mind you) reinventing the wheel. Migrating to new servers, adding the sub-domains, doing a site redesign and getting on with the latest release should be well on their way to being done. Instead we're still debating all this stuff again and again!

Quote:Totally agree. And it is not only me and you

I agree.

A new user will trust a *.xoops.org site from the start.

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Sorry for the confusions.
The project is not managed or by one single individual, it is worked on by project teams and project council.
However, I would like to express my personal opinion, more exactly, to repeat: I am strongly loyal to the XOOPS Project, I would prefer to see all official project sites under the same top domain of xoops.org


Quote:
Along with teams establishment, the works are going to be carried out by corresponding teams.
As you can see, the community coordinator team and design team have been established with their reports.
If you have any suggestion or any task you would like to help, please contact the teams or ask help from the coordinator team.

The teams are looking forward to your participation.