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Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:38 am
by floris v
orcmid wrote:
orcmid wrote:I realize it is late in Europe but I can take more suggestions until around 24:00Z. I am going to look for simplifications of the front part and my English so that translation and ESL (English as a Second Language) is facilitated. I am also looking for an image that I can link from some license-free archive. "forum" is a promising notion, of course.
FACT CHECKING PLEASE

I have been simplifying the sentences and text. I have the following replacement paragraphs that I want reviewed to be accurate enough:
Stay and contribute

The forums were originated by a group of independent volunteers. The entire content of the Forums is created and curated by individual users and volunteers. With migration, the volunteer structure is supplemented by arrangements for accountability and oversight appropriate for properties in ASF custodianship. Day-to-day operations and volunteer activities are unchanged.

User peer support grows by inviting frequent contributors of questions and answers to serve as volunteers. Volunteers review Forum activity and point out where moderation is required. More-experienced volunteer Moderators intervene where appropriate to provide special assistance or curate threads and subscriptions.
Now I'l go look for one or more images.
Here's a rather lame pic of the Forum in Rome (I mean it's really rather good, but too literal for the blog): http://www.flickr.com/photos/se_johnson/2464956182/

For the role of the volunteers, please consult the wiki article - reviewing forum activity is certainly a task of volunteers, but not their main activity. Suggestion: "Apart from answering questions and discussing forum policy, volunteers review forum activity ...".
I suppose that in "the volunteer structure is supplemented" you should read "forum" for "volunteer", and the same seems to hold for "in volunteer activities are unchanged". The part about moderators is too vague, suggestion: "The general atmosphere in the forums if very friendly, so that its moderators can largely restrict themselves to deleting occasional spam and renaming topics with vague titles, moving topics to more appropriate forum, etc."

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 1:13 am
by Hagar Delest
Temple of Antoninus and Faustina is rather austere here.
A crowd may illustrate better the concept of users meeting at a place to get help.

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 1:26 am
by floris v

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 1:27 am
by kingfisher
I think it is far too verbose. I would leave out everything before "Community forums on the move" and incorporate the earlier links into what remains after also deleting everything after "Always open, browsing welcome."

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 1:32 am
by FJCC
A few suggested edits:
orcmid wrote: The forums were originated by a group of independent volunteers. The entire content of the Forums is created and curated by individual users and volunteers. With migration, the volunteer structure is supplemented by arrangements for accountability and oversight appropriate for properties in ASF custodianship. Day-to-day operations and volunteer activities are unchanged.
The forums were originated by a group of independent volunteers. The entire content of the Forums is created and curated by individual users and volunteers. With migration, the volunteer structure is supplemented by arrangements for supervision by ASF members as required by policies concerning properties in ASF custodianship. Day-to-day operations and volunteer activities are unchanged.

orcmid wrote: User peer support grows by inviting frequent contributors of questions and answers to serve as volunteers. Volunteers review Forum activity and point out where moderation is required. More-experienced volunteer Moderators intervene where appropriate to provide special assistance or curate threads and subscriptions.
User peer support grows by inviting frequent contributors to serve as volunteers. Volunteers review Forum activity, point out where moderation is required, and participate in privacy-sensitive discussions about Forum operation. More-experienced volunteer Moderators intervene where appropriate to provide special assistance or curate threads and subscriptions.
 Edit: Dang, several posts came in while I was typing 

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 3:09 am
by acknak
Old sources might work, and should be legally safe, no?
Image

Image

Image

Ok, maybe not that one.

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 3:26 am
by orcmid
I rather fancy the last one ;) . The ones of ruins just don't work. I was hoping for something along the lines of Plato's Academy, but I failed to find a line drawing form. From the Michelangelo painting, I would crop to emphasize the crowd of figures. Also, it was difficult to find one that has clear copyright so that reuse on an ASF web page is not an issue.

The last one might be good for ooo-dev. I think the drawing of the folks around the new kiosk would be better than the larger image. I will check the permissions.

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 3:44 am
by orcmid
FJCC wrote:A few suggested edits:
orcmid wrote: The forums were originated by a group of independent volunteers. The entire content of the Forums is created and curated by individual users and volunteers. With migration, the volunteer structure is supplemented by arrangements for accountability and oversight appropriate for properties in ASF custodianship. Day-to-day operations and volunteer activities are unchanged.
The forums were originated by a group of independent volunteers. The entire content of the Forums is created and curated by individual users and volunteers. With migration, the volunteer structure is supplemented by arrangements for supervision by ASF members as required by policies concerning properties in ASF custodianship. Day-to-day operations and volunteer activities are unchanged.

orcmid wrote: User peer support grows by inviting frequent contributors of questions and answers to serve as volunteers. Volunteers review Forum activity and point out where moderation is required. More-experienced volunteer Moderators intervene where appropriate to provide special assistance or curate threads and subscriptions.
User peer support grows by inviting frequent contributors to serve as volunteers. Volunteers review Forum activity, point out where moderation is required, and participate in privacy-sensitive discussions about Forum operation. More-experienced volunteer Moderators intervene where appropriate to provide special assistance or curate threads and subscriptions.
 Edit: Dang, several posts came in while I was typing 
No luck on an image for the post. I accept all of these changes. They work well. Also, you caught the differentiation that is important between volunteers and Volunteers. I don't want to editorialize about how peaceful and pleasant the forums are. I believe it. I just don't find it appropriate.

I am going to attempt to submit the post-dated post now and trust that everything in the post-management queue works properly.

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 4:01 am
by orcmid
kingfisher wrote:I think it is far too verbose. I would leave out everything before "Community forums on the move" and incorporate the earlier links into what remains after also deleting everything after "Always open, browsing welcome."
Thanks. You prompted me to look at this again. In the post being submitted, the first subtitle is "Community Forums on the move." At the end, the "Supporting global community" replaces the "Stay and contribute" title and now there are 3 paragraphs there. The "Moving complex web properties" is now at the end. Not part of the narrative flow, but comes back to what was involved. I also had touched that part up some more.

I must post this quickly before more changes come in! (It will be in the queue for 3 days, if my submission works properly, so there is always a chance to fine tune and perhaps even add an appropriate image.)

It's not as brief as you recommended, but I believe the most-significant portions are now moved up to the top of the post.

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 4:09 pm
by acknak
I hate to bring this up now, but maybe it's worth putting it on the table.

Isn't the forum--as end user support--a new activity for ASF? As far as I can tell, Apache has always been about developers and support has been handled by third parties.

If that's accurate, it might be worth including a phrase or sentence to that effect.

I don't feel strongly that it should appear in the blog article--especially this late in the process--but a change in an organization's mission (if indeed this is a change) is always an important topic.

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 4:02 am
by orcmid
acknak wrote:I hate to bring this up now, but maybe it's worth putting it on the table.

Isn't the forum--as end user support--a new activity for ASF? As far as I can tell, Apache has always been about developers and support has been handled by third parties.

If that's accurate, it might be worth including a phrase or sentence to that effect.

I don't feel strongly that it should appear in the blog article--especially this late in the process--but a change in an organization's mission (if indeed this is a change) is always an important topic.
I didn't see this, in time. Fortunately, I had already added a remark that this is the first-ever Apache-hosted Forum system.

I don't know that ASF would consider it a change of mission as much as a change related to the fact that Apache OpenOffice is a consumer product.

From the project perspective, I think the consensus is that this operation is too important to the community to lose, regardless of the personal preferences of individuals for lists or other means for engagement with the user community and the fostering of peer-support for that community.

The blog post is now up at <https://blogs.apache.org/OOo/entry/open ... _community>.

Re: Drafting an Apache blog entry about the forums

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 12:19 am
by RGB
orcmid wrote:Fortunately, I had already added a remark that this is the first-ever Apache-hosted Forum system.

I don't know that ASF would consider it a change of mission as much as a change related to the fact that Apache OpenOffice is a consumer product.

From the project perspective, I think the consensus is that this operation is too important to the community to lose, regardless of the personal preferences of individuals for lists or other means for engagement with the user community and the fostering of peer-support for that community.

The blog post is now up at <https://blogs.apache.org/OOo/entry/open ... _community>.
Thanks! Not only it look good, it seems to be the longest post on the blog... :mrgreen: