Re: [boost] [proposal] The boost.org Maintenance Effort

Subject: Re: [boost] [proposal] The boost.org Maintenance Effort
From: Dean Michael Berris (mikhailberis_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-05-26 22:01:38

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 8:05 PM, David Abrahams <dave_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> At Wed, 26 May 2010 10:49:11 +0800, Dean Michael Berris wrote:
>> Step 1: Move static and not-so-static content over to Wordpress MU [0]
>
> Yay. Â Consider also whether you want to go a little further, to
> buddypress. Â Also consider that WP 3.0 is imminent and it is supposed
> to include all the MU functionality natively.
>

Thanks for the pointers -- buddypress seems to be more geared towards
a social network feel, which I'm not entirely sure would be something
that I'd be willing to manage at this time. Although it would be
interesting to have a dashboard when people sign in on what's going on
with what they're interested in, that's certainly an option.

I can experiment with buddypress offline and see whether I can adjust
my expectations and plan of action as soon as I get a better feel of
what buddypress can offer that would be valuable to the community.

>> The current boost.org website is composed of mostly static content
>> that says things about the submission-review process, the guidelines
>> for libraries, what the goal of the project is, and the like. These
>> pages can be ported to Wordpress MU manually either by copy-pasting
>> the content into the WYSIWYG editor or typing the content in (and
>> editing it in the process).
>
> The WYSIWYG editor has an “HTML face,” so there's no need to retype
> anything.
>

Yup, but then I'd have to still check whether the structure and the
content translate well to the new platform. You know how it can be
with HTML and CSS. ;)

>>
>> Â  2. Incorporating a DisQus [2] discussion system to manage comments
>> on pages. There is already a Wordpress plugin for this and comment
>> moderation would mostly be handled initially by me and other
>> administrators interested in helping out in this effort.
>
> My only reservation is that I tried a similar plugin
> (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/intensedebate/) and I found it
> put my site at the mercy of intensedebate's server speed and
> availability. Â It tended to slow everything down. Â Maybe DisQus is
> better; I guess we'll find out.
>

So far, DisQus has been the leader in the comment-hosting field --
they're being used by the big enough blogs that generate insane
traffic. They're cloud-hosted and grow on demand last time I checked,
and I've had no problems with them yet. The worst case scenario would
be that we host the comments, which might not be the best use of
(limited) resources we have on the server that's going to be hosting
the site.

>> Step 2: Make it easy to jump from Wordpress MU to Trac for the Wiki,
>> Tickets, and Source Viewer
>>
>> This would mean adding links to the appropriate pages in Trac, and in
>> these pages a way to jump back to the boost.org website. This will
>> require some changes in the Trac site which should be easy to pull
>> off.
>>
>> The measurable outcome for this would be to see the actual integration
>> done in a satisfactory manner. Satisfactory of course means, that it
>> works. ;)
>
> If my plans go well, we'll have each project in a separate Git repo
> soon. Â The consequences are not all known, but one reasonably likely
> scenario is that we'll want to switch from Trac to something else
> (e.g. Redmine), so be wary about investing *too* much effort in
> trac-related stuff too early.
>

Yup, that's alright. Links at the very least should work fine in the
interim. If there's going to be any more work besides adding links in
the appropriate places then I'll hold that off for later. :)

>>
>> Ultimately I would personally want to see boost.org be able to handle
>> the growth of the Boost C++ Library, and allow for more communities
>> (not just one community) to through the site. I don't want it to
>> replace the mailing list for Internet old timers like me who like this
>> feel of email conversation, but for things like announcements and
>> communicating to the wider audience I think the website should do that
>> job superbly.
>
> I think web forums like BBPress support a mailing-list-like
> experience, don't they? Â I'd really like to see lightweight
> subscribable discussion topic areas.
>

Yes (although I can't check at the moment, BBPress' site seems to be
having problems). I'll look deeper into it. At the very least RSS per
topic/thread should be available and AFAIK would be standard in
reasonably modern bulletin board systems.

>> Thanks for reading this far, comments, suggestions, reactions, and
>> pledges to help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> I'll am focused on the ryppl side of things, but I hope we'll
> coordinate and cooperate.
>

Definitely hope coordinate and cooperate as things go along. :)

-- 
Dean Michael Berris
deanberris.com