Learning from mistakes - viewing from a distance ...
First of all I think the portion of the title "viewing from a distance" should be taken as a note that I have not been involved in the internal decision making process of the Joomla people site that has recently gone into beta mode. I am not even aware if there was a formal process in place.
However, it has become obvious to me and to others that matters of such concern should have been thought-out better from the start instead of creating a situation that invites confusion and arguments. Not that there is anything wrong with arguing in a civilized tone as such discussions can prove very productive.
It appears (once again pointing out that this is the view I have from were I stand) that a new effort has gone public with the following view from a distance characteristics listed as they seemed to occur:
Well, I would assume that in a logical project management order something like this should happen:
Of course these thoughts are my own personal observations that for some reason I feel cannot be posted on the Joomla forums (that's another issue - so I am glad this site exists).
I see some mistakes in this process and since I know that ATAAW is considering a new "community" site perhaps others in the ATAAW team see them also. In order to learn from mistakes one must first accept and acknowledge their existence.
Thanks for reading ...
However, it has become obvious to me and to others that matters of such concern should have been thought-out better from the start instead of creating a situation that invites confusion and arguments. Not that there is anything wrong with arguing in a civilized tone as such discussions can prove very productive.
It appears (once again pointing out that this is the view I have from were I stand) that a new effort has gone public with the following view from a distance characteristics listed as they seemed to occur:
- discussion in google group about starting a community site
- public announcement of technical solution decision asking for community involvement in the form of an RFC (?)
- beta launch of people.joomla.org site
- thread discussions to decide (?) what rules and boundaries should govern the live beta site
- thread locked without any message to community
Well, I would assume that in a logical project management order something like this should happen:
- Proposal document prepared that contains basic idea of project, project goals - mission statement (how to assess if final outcome is successful?), proposed approach
- RFP issued - doesn't have to be public just has to be present. The RFP documents should contain (an internal?) evaluation process/criteria from the start, so everyone on the decision making team can use later on. Would even be good to have a risk assessment document for things that could go wrong.
- RFP shared with organization(s) that for whatever reason are deemed as suitable to undertake the project
- Evaluation process (based on previously set criteria evaluation guidelines)
- Announcement of award (doesn't have to be public) - project management tasks (requirements document, development, testing, deployment, go live, maintenance phase, etc)
Of course these thoughts are my own personal observations that for some reason I feel cannot be posted on the Joomla forums (that's another issue - so I am glad this site exists).
I see some mistakes in this process and since I know that ATAAW is considering a new "community" site perhaps others in the ATAAW team see them also. In order to learn from mistakes one must first accept and acknowledge their existence.
Thanks for reading ...
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Comment by Amy Stephen on May 16, 2010 at 5:56am
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Good post, thanks for sharing.
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Comment by Robert Vining on May 16, 2010 at 6:04am -
Thanks for the insight Nick, and very well said I might add.
And you are correct, for a project as large as J! it should seek some guidelines when starting a new initiative that requires outside vendors to participate.
And you are also correct in your assumption of the ATAAW new site build. That is why we have taken so long to discuss what our strategy will be.
Not to mention other initiatives that have become more important at the moment than a new community site for us. Thanks to the generous donations, we can sustain here for another 4 or 5 months at the new base monthly rate that Ning has proposed while we get our ducks in a row.
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Comment by Mark W. Bender on May 16, 2010 at 9:26am -
That "Boundaries and Rules" thread sure got lock down very quickly. That unilateral decision was VERY hasty IMO! That thread should have been kept alive, and if the need to "lock it" as needed, it wasn't evident from the thread content.
I'd like to know why such an important thread to/about the Community was prematurely locked?
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Comment by NicK A. on May 16, 2010 at 9:43am -
Actually, I reported this to the moderation team - telling them that they should at least post a message about locking the thread, since they did in fact ask people to discuss this. Instead I got a :
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Hello nant,
You are receiving this notification because the report you filed on the
post "Re: Boundaries and Rules" in "Boundaries and Rules" at "Joomla!" was
deleted by a moderator or by an administrator.
--
Thanks,
Joomla! Community Forum
--
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Comment by Mark W. Bender on May 16, 2010 at 9:59am
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@Nick - They ignored your message about locking the thread. Why (or what) are they hiding?
Obviously very little (or no) trasparency regarding People.Joomla.org
That's flat out WRONG!
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Comment by Marcos Peebles on May 16, 2010 at 10:20am -
I thought the same when they launched people.joomla, when you make a site first question: why? If no answer, well... no site. Goals baby, goals.
Fortunately we'll see a lot of them in South Africa over a couple of weeks :P
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Comment by NicK A. on May 16, 2010 at 11:57am
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Well, at least now they added a notice in the thread - last post - stating that they locked the thread (not reason why) and are continuing on a new thread - who knows when the new one will be locked. Also, they did start with a generic mission statement (goal for site - this is the first mentioning of such an important concept) and they are using the nice statement by carson "let the community be a community".
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Comment by NicK A. on May 16, 2010 at 3:53pm
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Another sad - locked - thread:
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?p=2143829#p2143829
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Comment by Marcos Peebles on May 16, 2010 at 4:28pm
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@Nick Cool they posted all, that
About the second locked threat ... What can one say? Speaks for itself. #fail
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Comment by Mark W. Bender on May 16, 2010 at 4:44pm
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@Nick - Sandra seems to be quick on the gun to lock down threads.
Part of the problem might be that a lot of people have questions about how JomSocial is being used on People.Joomla.org and there isn't a place (yet) where this is "spelled out". Maybe the lack of info contributed to that "misunderstanding"!
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