My account as is now was registered in 2002, however my time with XOOPS stems back to about the time this project was born, I was one of the original Nuke converts.

I'm not a hardened coder, but I tend to be able to figure things out, most of the time through hours upon hours of research. If I can't I ask here

Because of my involvement over the years, I'd like to believe I have a good understanding of Xoops, most of it's users, it's capabilities and whats available to extend the system, ie modules, hacks and themes.

I've also spent fairly large chunks of my time contacting other developers around the net in an attempt to get them porting their scripts over to XOOPS as modules. I was the original guy whom contacted Tufat and assisted with language of the flash chat module.

I believe the news teams responsibilities will also fall in line with various team positions I've seen posted, including:

[XoopsTeam] slyss79 - promotion - member
JAVesey - Community Coordination
Madfish - Documentation and Promotion - member
[XoopsTeam] - wtravel - Documentation and Promotion - member

And others which revolve around promotion.

If you wonder why, then please let me show you what I envisage from a news team.

Community Liaison - Someone whom would be a base point of contact for the community, this person would conduct interviews with various people, and not just developers.

This is their possible interviewees:

- Core Developers - Once every month or to conduct a 'word from the devs' type article, this would help to free the time of the devs, as they wouldn't have to constantly be writing lengthy reports.

- Community sites - To interview someone of international support site, which will help show the world what everyone is doing, in a language we all can understand.

Module Reviews - Information taken from dev.xoops on new released modules, documenting features, possibilities, their future, etc, along with an interview of it's project manager.

Example: Need to stream some videos or music? We have modules

Theme Reviews - Pretty much the same as module reviews, covering further aspects too.

I'm sure there is more that could be added here.

Promotion

To communicate with outside developers, show them ways to work with XOOPS and how they can help us whilst we help them.

Promote the use of XOOPS through our own news.

Translate and share news with other community websites.

Not everything within a news team would mean writing news, look at the large press companies as an example of this, they have news, promotion, docs, com's, etc.

So what should become of the news team

Perhaps the news team as such, should be restructured, and renamed to something like:

Communication Team.

I don't see the point in having tons and tons of teams, when one team could encapsulate so many things.

The communication team would consist of:

Docs
News
Promotion
Community co-ordination
Interviews

And I suppose more.

Anyways, my name is there if required.

My latest Article:

XOOPS Aurora -- an eye of the community

Tom I think you have all the right qualities and persona to be leader of the news team. You certainly will do far better than I did.

you definitely have my vote on that.

as for renaming it to communications, that's a different issue, but from your post above it does look like you have put some thought into it, and i can't think of any reasons at the moment as to why it wouldn't be a good idea or work.

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As is mine. I like your thinking.

Tom I like this idea of a communications team and with you as a leader.

Tom, you know you have my support. Ever since you're return, you have been extremely active in this area.

I'm really glad we are seeing so many talented people step up in all areas.

I kind of like the idea of unifying the various teams, Tom.
Whether it takes the form of renaming the 'News Team' to the 'Communications Team' or not, doesn't seem as important as having a 'Chief Co-ordinator' or 'Editor' person overseeing things. After all, whether one team with many sections or several teams all submitting reports to an editor (or, considering the likely volume of information coming in, maybe an 'Editorial Team' ) ... the result is the same. More information being made available to the community as a whole. That's the goal, isn't it?

You have my vote (for what it's worth) for the role of 'Editor-Coordinator-Communicator Supremo' (subject to a limited term renewable through direct election of course).

Crip

Thank you guys and gals for your support.

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Of course the idea is more information and power to the community.

I believe in keeping things simple, and by having one unified team within this area will help to keep the flow of information constant, whilst ensuring the level of information is maintained to a high standard.

Should individuals within one team need to expand, then this is something we should take great care and time in planning and doing so, moving in the right direction to benefit the greater good.

With one team, it allows one point of contact, ensuring all receive the information required in order to work upon and relay the information to the community, in a format understandable by all.

Upon till now I've also felt the lack of translations, and feel as such we should outreach to the international support sites, making the English information available to all, and not relying on those sites to do the task for us. Of course for myself language is a barrier, but with assistants of some great people this can and will be achieved.

Because the developers do and will continue to work hard, they don't always have time to fully communicate every little detail, therefore the communications team could take it under their wing to also read from the SVN - SF, and relay this information to the community in a way which they can understand.

I've come to love the word Aurora and so will use it again.

Xoops Aurora

Xoops - The first light of day

Definition of Aurora:

- dawn: the first light of day

- (Roman mythology) goddess of the dawn; counterpart of Greek Eos

Take care

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Sounds like a good idea to me.

I believe the people who signed up for the various roles in the communication area form a good mix together. Tom, I think you would do an excellent job as the team leader of communication. You have my support