It is evident to me now, there is no one in charge. AND no body within the community who has the authority to make even the smallest change.

The request to make this thread private went ignored for the sole reason ... the one with the ability to flip a switch to yes/no permissions on public viewing of this thread prefers to remain anonymous, or known to only certain individuals and desires not to have to sign in to watch over the community.

Had spammers decided to rule this thread, it could and would have been made private in a heartbeat.

This 'knowledge' is my gift back to the community, I had hoped it would have been a 'core module', but under these circumstances that is not likely to happen.

Future modules WILL come from the community, or not...

AS an individual, I have all I need.
At this point XOOPS is only in a position to give, not receive.

A BlueStocking opinion.

quoting Dave_L ref #51
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I might have understood wrong but when Herko said this:

quoting Herko ref #48
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I understood as that the Foundation will take care of this in handling corporate/product part of xoops.

There are also other main XOOPS areas: community, addons, docs, besides the product one, and I see them as independant structures interrelated between each other, so that doesn't mean that for example the community area has to sit with their hands crossed until the corporate area shows their final work.

What is needed is team work; the teams plan, work and coordinate.

quoting Bluestocking: Quote:

I reply same thing I have been saying in the post before this, since I don't agree with you: As I see it, looking at the community site, it's up to the people how they want it to be. Team work, coordination and planning the solution. The community is responsible of the making it possible and is responsible of the results, since it seems to me that when something goes wrong the wrong person is being blamed.

Direct action can't be taken over something, even what may seem to you the smallest change, WITHOUT a plan or conceptual framework.

my goal was to wait for one of the sourceforge admins to post but since others have requested a plan here is my first attempt. i look forward to community input. - eric c


If I were allowed to be a Lead Project Manager, these are the first changes I would propose:

1. All XOOPS decisions are made in public with community review and input. Reason: to foster community transparency and trust.

2. The XOOPS sourcforge wiki will become the focal point for core XOOPS documentation. Reason: to have a central and up to date source of information.

3. Use either CVS or SVN not both. Remove developers who have not been active in the last 3 years. Remove dead modules. Reason: this is our most important resource and therefore should be well managed.

4. Use the sourceforge developer mail list as the focal point for all developer communication. Reason: Everything should be documented. This will allow us to understand our history and to make better decisions about our future. It also builds community trust if regular users can see what developers are discussing, whether or not they have the technical ability to take part.

5. Do not be rude. All technical discussions allowed, personal attacks are not. This is mostly already enforced. The reason for this is self evident.

6. XOOPS social structure should be a Consensus-based Democracy and when we are deadlocked we vote. All XOOPS members have one vote. XOOPS sourceforge admins have veto. Reason: people seem to feel more confortable and participate more in concensus based structures.

7. The immediate creation of voluntary XOOPS teams to focus on concerns raised in this thread. Such as Core, Addons, Community, Publicity, International, etc. To be created, changed and removed as the community sees fit. Reason: we currently have several seriously negleted areas in the XOOPS community that would greatly benifit from official XOOPS teams.

8. Monthy ‘State of XOOPS’ newsletter written by the Lead Project Manager and other volenteers to discuss progress of initiatives. Reason: to have a clear roadmap of our progress easily accessible by all community members.

9. The Lead Project Manager is a two year position. At the end of every two year cycle there is a popular vote for a new Lead Manager.

the dragon no longer has or should have a head

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i politely disagree. the heart of XOOPS is http://sourceforge.net/projects/xoops/ and who ever has admin status there is the head.

I wasn't referring to the Core area, the core area has their structured system of working already.

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or not working...

i missunderstood. i get it now.

There are 3 elements to Xoops:

1: The Coding - the head of this is the Lead Programmer (Skalpa)

2: Foundation - responsible for the marketing, promotion and protection of Xoops. Herko has already explained that work will be underway soon to add members to the team, and to make the more active in this area.

The Foundation is also responsible for promotion partly via the Xoops.org site(s)

3: The Sites - I don't just mean this site, or the on-going development of the new sub-sites. But I mean Xoops.org, Local Support Sites, General Support sites.

In fact, what you could call the XOOPS Support Network of sites.

The only part of this structure that needs a leader is the project. We have one. He has good people working for him, and so long as he doesnt have additional duties - he can work better. (By this, i mean administrating this site - which Skalpa has had to do, since Herko moved on from that duty).

The rest can be organised by people of equal rights, who can then in turn listen the community.

Some of Erics points about making better use of Sourceforge's features I agree with. Other parts, such as discussion across the community of every issue - I don't.

I do agree that an amount of this should be done, and that we shouldn't be afraid to let people view discussion. I mostly agree with this. But I know from experience when everyone participates in talk - things can disintegrate.

Example of sensible closed discussion:

A Troll has been making new logins, and has been making a campaign of distrust and personal attacks.

Moderators should have this information privately, so they can deal with issues directly. A forum would allow them to collect evidence, but allowing all users access would allow the troll warning.

Example of sensible partly-open discussions (read only to none-participants):

Organisation of new XOOPS feature.

Example of of sensible fully open:

Suggested application of a new module.

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As James wrote in another post, the sf.net project admins are core developers. They're the development project admins, not the community support admins. IMHO split these two apart, and the whole leadership issue becomes easier to solve. The core development already has leadership, it's the support community that lacks it. IMHO, this isn't a bad thing per se.

I'll give you my input, which may seem sceptpical, but this is based on 3,5 years of XOOPS management experience, longer then anyone here.
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All XOOPS decisions are made in public --> All XOOPS support community decisions are made public.
If you stop and think about what decisions we're talking about here, then these are mostly practical issues on who does what with news, moderators, FAQ and such. This doesn't really require an overseeing and coordinating leader IMHO. See points made in previous posts in this thread.

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First it was docs.xoops.org, then xoopsdocs.net, now the sf.net wiki. A lot of talk about the location and tools used, but what about the actual writing of the docs? Who cares really where they're made? It's about writing them...

Quote:Core development team decision. Simple. Why would an overseeing coordinating project leader need to make these decisions on how the developers do their work? If svn and cvs are necessary (and its the developers who make that call anyway), why don't we let them keep it? Parotting experts decisions and making them 'official' is one of my own mistakes, and I propose everyone learns from them

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Again, a developers call, not a community leader's call. This is a change? See the trackers and forums on sf.net. It already works like this.

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Pfff. If this should come from a leader, it sounds patronising. Don't get me wrong, I fully agree with the point, but that's like saying 'If I get voted in, I'll say that you have to abide by the law'. It's about how you intend to keep people to their promises and how to keep them from misbehaving. That's what leadership means IMHO.

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Nonsense. People don't vote because they're more comfortable, they vote to make themselves better. Since when did anyone vote for the Greater Good? And then vote on what? Vote on who will do all the work? Vote on what needs to be done? Then what? Voting isn't the answer.
I'm with the meritocraticists here. See my previous posts.

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Been there, done that. This was called the Core Team, then the Management Team. Honestly, it's all been done before. And I don't see what will make it a success this time.

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The last 6 newsletters would have said 'On Hold, please check back later'.
This however is a good idea (and again, definately not a new one). Find out why the current World of XOOPS newsletter isn't reanimated, and you'll know what to fix. But it definately wasn't a lack of communication by the management.

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IDOLS ALERT!

Seriously, the temporary bit I like, the voting bit I hate. Better way is to have the period set by the goals that need to be achieved. Like: XOOPS 2.3 released, 20 new documents for users, 5 new core developers, 75.000 registered members, 2500 daily downloads, etc. If they're reached, the community will discuss new goals. And then the method of reaching them is decided.

Again, IMHO ther eis no need for an overall encompassing coordinating leader at the moment. What we do need is active core evelopment, which is already happening (see the trackers for this). What we also need is new life in the XOOPS Foundation so real work can be made of the corporate side of XOOPS: marketing and promoting the XOOPS product to the masses. And the community needs to stop looking for other people to do the work for them

Herko

Herko,

You've got me changing my tune. I like what you and others are proposing here. It reminds me of something I heard in that lecture from the Developers from the Subversion project...

"If everyone is working towards a common goal, why do you need to have your name at the top of the file?"

Same principles applies here. If we are all leading the community, by example, why do we need a "Name" at the top?

Isn't the community about community support? Yes, some may want to contribute code, patches, bug reports, etc... They can do that at SF.net. Here in the community forums, it's about supporting other users.

To illustrate this clearly...

If you look over the past few weeks of all the bickering, debating, shouting and general noise and you look at how many "big names" of XOOPS history have all of a sudden started posting, you'll see that a lot of time has been spent on these threads.

How many of those "big names" also took the time to go find unanswered questions and take the time to answer them? Not very many at all!

The point is, if the egos were put aside and we all started returning to the basic principle of helping each other out and working towards a common goal, then this (and other) threads would not be needed and a lot of users would have the answers to their questions.

I don't know about anyone else here, but where I'm from, Customer Support is very high on the list of what determines customer satisfaction.

Personally, I'm done debating. That's not why I registered. I can here to give back by supporting other users. Those who are wise will join me. Those who don't... have fun painting the bike shed.