Re: Blog post for taking the Q&A system offline.

Hi, Peter-

I was thinking Monday or Tuesday, after we've put everything into place.

Regards-
-Doug

On 4/10/13 5:12 PM, Peter Lubbers wrote:
> Since Scott just posted the blog post about the SF Doc Sprint, can we
> wait with posting this one for a day or two?
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Julee <julee@adobe.com
> <mailto:julee@adobe.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi, everyone:
>
>     Before we announce the close of forums, can we address the global nav
>     issues? I'll send out a separate email, delimiting the dependancies.
>
>     For the blog post, here's some suggestions:
>
>     * Change title to something more inclusive, such as: Refining our
>     communications channels
>
>
>     * Change:
>
>        Email lists were another
>
>     to:
>
>
>       Email lists were another channel of communication
>
>     * Add heading:
>
>        After "...like the popular and useful StackOverflow."
>
>     Add:
>
>        Suspending forums
>
>
>     * Change:
>
>        we are closing down the Q&A forum
>
>
>
>     to:
>
>        we are suspending the Q&A forum
>
>
>
>     * Change:
>
>        IRC, email, telcons, doc sprints, and our issue tracker.
>
>     to:
>
>        IRC, email, telcons, doc sprints, and project.webplatform.org
>     <http://project.webplatform.org>, our issue
>     tracker.
>
>
>     * After that, add heading:
>
>
>     project.webplatform.org <http://project.webplatform.org>
>
>     * After
>
>
>        and port over old issues.
>
>
>     Add:
>
>        In addition, project.webplatform.org
>     <http://project.webplatform.org> has a system where anyone can
>     propose an idea, and everyone can comment in context.
>
>
>     * Add heading
>
>     After: site¹s look-and-feel.
>
>     Add:
>
>     GitHub
>
>
>     * In last paragraph, change:
>
>     , and our issue tracker,
>
>     To
>
>     , and project.webplatform.org <http://project.webplatform.org>,
>
>
>
>     HTH
>
>     J
>
>     ----------------------------
>     julee@adobe.com <mailto:julee@adobe.com>
>     @adobejulee
>
>
>
>
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org <mailto:schepers@w3.org>>
>     Date: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:50 PM
>     To: Jonathan Garbee <jonathan@garbee.me <mailto:jonathan@garbee.me>>
>     Cc: "public-webplatform@w3.org <mailto:public-webplatform@w3.org>"
>     <public-webplatform@w3.org <mailto:public-webplatform@w3.org>>
>     Subject: Re: Blog post for taking the Q&A system offline.
>
>      >Hi, folks-
>      >
>      >Here's the rough first draft, without the links to resources. Feedback
>      >welcome!
>      >
>      > http://blog.webplatform.org/?p=318&preview=true
>      >
>      >[[
>      >Suspending Q&A Forums
>      >Apr 10 2013 by Shepazu
>      >
>      >When we launched WebPlatform.org, we wanted to have plenty of ways for
>      >the community to talk back to us about how to improve the site,
>     and how
>      >to pitch in. IRC was a familiar option for many of us. Email lists
>     were
>      >another, for long-term asynchronous discussions. An issue tracker was
>      >important to make sure we knew what needed to be done, and how it was
>      >progressing. An inline comments extension for Mediawiki was
>     developed as
>      >an improvement on Talk pages. Community teleconferences to talk about
>      >tasks and progress. Doc Sprints to onramp new people into the
>     community,
>      >and get work done. And a Q&A forum, like the popular and useful
>      >StackOverflow.
>      >
>      >After evaluating the most productive ways that our community has used
>      >each of these channels, we are closing down the Q&A forum, and
>     refining
>      >some of our other communication processes.
>      >
>      >The software we used for the Q&A forum, Question2Answer, seemed to
>      >perform the task well. Our problem was communicating how to use the
>      >forums, and integrating feedback into our workflow. People tended
>     to use
>      >the Q&A much as they would StackOverflow, to ask technical, pragmatic
>      >questions about doing Web development. Though our intent for it
>     was more
>      >to act as a living FAQ and suggestion board for content on Web
>     Platform
>      >Docs, questions about Web development were natural, and we did try to
>      >use these questions to help guide us in what content we would
>     create for
>      >WPD. But the Q&A forums were never as focused as other channels, and
>      >ultimately there was not enough energy in our fledgling community to
>      >mine the Q&A forums for gems while keeping our eyes and hands on the
>      >tasks ahead of us. So, we¹ve decided to close down the Q&A forums to
>      >refocus on what is working well: IRC, email, telcons, doc sprints, and
>      >our issue tracker.
>      >
>      >We¹re also looking at refining those communication channels we are
>      >keeping around. We started out with W3C¹s go-to issue tracker,
>     Bugzilla,
>      >but found it lacking. One of our most active contributors, Garbee,
>      >researched alternative, and convinced us that The Bug Genie has the
>      >feature set we wanted for not only filing and managing issues, but
>      >overall project management as well; he is taking the initiative to
>      >configure our new instance at project.webplatform.org
>     <http://project.webplatform.org>, and port over old
>      >issues. Another active contributor, Frozenice, has been
>     researching The
>      >Bug Genie¹s API, so we can push issues directly in via the inline
>      >comment system in the wiki. Two W3C staff, Denis Ah-Kang and Lea
>     Verou,
>      >have also helped by respectively installing the system and skinning it
>      >to match our site¹s look-and-feel.
>      >
>      >We are also strengthening one communications channel that we initially
>      >undervalued: Github. We are putting infrastructure into place to make
>      >all the code for WebPlatform.org available through Github,
>     including our
>      >MediaWiki extensions, templates, skins, and stylesheets.
>      >
>      >We don¹t know yet if we are retiring the Q&A forums forever. We are
>      >keeping the software installed, with all the questions and answers
>      >intact, but are not allowing any new questions or answers. Once our
>      >primary and immediate goal of documenting the Open Web Platform is
>     more
>      >mature, we may decide to reopen the Q&A forums to allow people to
>      >discuss Web development, if that¹s what the community wants. But for
>      >now, we encourage people to get involved through email, IRC, our issue
>      >tracker, or by just diving in and helping create and edit content.
>      >]]
>      >
>      >Regards-
>      >-Doug
>      >
>      >On 4/10/13 3:05 PM, Doug Schepers wrote:
>      >> Hi, Garbee-
>      >>
>      >> I'll write this today.
>      >>
>      >> Regards-
>      >> -Doug
>      >>
>      >> On 4/10/13 3:03 PM, Jonathan Garbee wrote:
>      >>> We should try to get a blog post written for the Q&A system
>     being taken
>      >>> down. This way we can post it and finally take the software and
>     put it
>      >>> out of commission for the time being.
>      >>>
>      >>> If I recall the email thread on taking it down correctly we had
>     decided
>      >>> that it currently doesn't have a solid use-case with the
>     current state
>      >>> of things. Further it hasn't had much use since the initial launch.
>      >>> Although we are taking it offline for now, it may come back
>     later once
>      >>> the documentation is worked on more and we see a valid use for it.
>      >>>
>      >>> Did I miss anything major from our conversation (probably did)? Is
>      >>> anyone up to writing this post?
>      >>>
>      >>> Thanks,
>      >>> -Garbee
>      >>
>      >>
>      >>
>      >
>      >
>      >
>

Received on Wednesday, 10 April 2013 21:14:28 UTC