Discussion: Where should we start a discussion forum?

[docwilmot]

I was interested in the concept of Backdrop from the start, but I am not sure how to contribute. GitHub seems (to me) to be a place for code, not community, and I notice that most open source projects pride themselves on a 'thriving community'. Is it too early to start Backdrop Forums?

Options for places to have a forum

Option	Good	Bad
Reddit	Immediately available Will happen anyway Great for non-technical people Can customize look and feel	Requires a Reddit login No SSO w/ Github
Facebook group	Immediately available Will happen anyway Great for non-technical people Everyone already has facebook (admit it, you do)	Requires a Facebook login No SSO w/ Github
Zoho Forums	Immediately available SSO w/ Github JQuery chose it	Only one forum (free version)
Stack Exchange	Immediately available Will happen anyway SSO w/ lots of things	It's not a discussion forum. Credit needs to be earned No SSO w/ Github
Google groups	Immediately available	Requires a google account Does not let you choose a new persona No SSO w/ Github
Backdrop Forum module	Module Already ported SSO w/ Github Our own dogfood	Requires a Backdrop login Needs to be built (dev resources) Needs to be maintained (dev resources) Needs to be hosted (cost) proven unsuccessful on d.o? Old technology
Backdrop Views/Content type	Config-ready SSO w/ Github Our own dogfood	Requires a Backdrop login Needs to be built (dev resources) Needs to be maintained (dev resources) Needs to be hosted (cost) proven unsuccessful on d.o?
Discourse	Immediately available Open Source Ubuntu chose it	Requires a Discourse login Needs to be built (dev resources) Needs to be maintained (dev resources) Needs to be hosted (cost) OR Would have to buy (cost) Not Backdrop No SSO w/ Github

[biolithic]

Hi docwilmot! Since Backdrop is "close to launch", I am wondering if there should be scheduled days for sprints: for example, Saturday...or Thursday. A community person could play the role of YesCT and organize people.

The idea of the community might change. For example, we have two local Drupal meetups: one, that is about what a node is and what a view is and what taxonomy is and so forth. You can't sustain much of a community for that because people quickly learn and get bored with it. The other meetup is that someone will give a speech on dependency injection in Drupal 8 or something. This is interesting to PHP developers who enjoy theory, but not too any "general public" (or sometimes even the other Drupal team members such as front-end/design people, content people, business/commerce people, etc...) It is hard to force community.

On the other hand, participating in sprints seems to work for me, such as Drupalcon, those at Promet or Summits. This also works for hackathons as well (which there doesn't need to be all coders). I started working on Backdrop but then "real life" came back to deal with and now I am kinda lost too.

Hope you are still interested!

[DirectorHaas]

Hi again! Also haven't had time recently to assist Backdrop, working more in Apps now, but interested in eventually methodically converting some contrib modules, after the launch.

The larger Backdrop community: looks like Backdrop already has some of this info http://backdropcms.org/about/philosophy, and backdrop is pro-user!

In the long run, what is important, after observing WordCamp talks for instance, is that other CMS communities involve the users to a large degree and really makes users the spotlight. This is a well-developed thing to do and will attract more followers, supporters and more users. What this says to users: "This is your CMS."

Backdrop could do well to avoid conference going-ons where there are countless inside jokes only developers would get, and users would not understand. Those are fine if a CMS community wants to do that sort of thing, but then it is a developer-centric CMS. In fact, not really sure most developers like that kind of thing either. What this says to users "This is a developer's CMS, sorry users, you will be on the outside."

Since backdrop is in the heavy development stage, no doubt everything user-oriented will eventually come, but for now, pre-launch, the code certainly needs to come 1st. It looks like eventually, via http://backdropcms.org/about/philosophy, that users will be considered very important in Backdrop!

The user is King, the developer is the daVinci providing skillful arts for the users.

Yes, eventually, a user forum and other user-centric resources would be great.

p.s. Digging the new logo, simple and to the point!

[kreynen]

Since the general direction of Backdrop is to only host the infrastructure that's absolutely necessary to support the project, it might be worth asking someone to volunteer to organize the effort to start a Stack Exchange. I know exchanges aren't given to everyone who asks, but I'm not that familiar with the process beyond what I've read at http://area51.stackexchange.com/faq. I know that there was push back when http://drupal.stackexchange.com/ started. Some people thought the Drupal community should always eat our dog food and create a Drupal driven version of Stack Exchange. That's great in theory, but the Drupal Association has now budgeted $1.4 million ($730,000 in staffing) to update and maintain the Drupal infrastructure. There is a real cost to eating your own dog food at that level. While I have mixed feelings about letting data get locked up in a system a project doesn't control, the fact that the Stack Exchange content is licensed with a Creative Commons license means it could be imported into another tool if Stack Exchange gave enough notice that the service was shutting down. I don't really see this as being any different than GitHub. While it's possible (though extremely unlikely) that GitHub could go the way of GeoCities, git itself isn't going away. GitHub's popularity almost guarantees the steps for migrating to an alternative would be well documented. While Stack Exchange isn't as popular, it's failure isn't really worth worrying about until Backdrop proves a success. IMHO Backdrop would be well served to host general Q&A style discussions on Stack Exchange vs. running their own forums.

All that said... I'm happy to participate, but I don't have the bandwidth to drive this.

[biolithic]

It should be noted that Stack Overflow only allows/encourages question/answer posts. For example, "What's your favourite theme" will usually be deleted, whereas "what template file do I need to change to alter the comments" has only a finite answer and will be allowed. It is still good, however.

[maxpearl]

There's a great open source discussion forum named Discourse http://www.discourse.org/ - could be useful. Stack exchange is cool, but it really is limited to specific questions and answers (which is useful), not broader discussions.

[kreynen]

My views about online communication are strongly influenced by McLuhan's "the medium is the message". I've always felt that one reason Drupal's email development and consulting listserves were abandoned by developers was it was too easy for end users to find and use them. By moving critical communication to a tool with a UI only a developer could love/tolerate, we changed the audience... and as a result, skewed any consensus reached by conversations in that medium.

I just realized that http://backdropcms.org/about/communication already says "Backdrop uses StackOverflow for handling support requests", but the link doesn't actually include any questions or answers :(

IMHO, a subjective question like "what's your favorite #backdropcms theme" belong on Twitter while reframing the question to be "what features should I be evaluating when considering a new theme?" would be a valid Stack Exchange question that would likely generate more useful responses. Same for "what's your favorite web font?" vs. "what font combinations are easiest to read online?".

[docwilmot]

Now this is surprising. Looking at the GitHub issue queues, it seemed that only Jen and Quicksketch lived here, now here you all are so quick. Good to see. There probably is a potential community here after all. My point was really it would be good to have a place where you can find people discussing stuff, big or little stuff. Ideas, comments, backyard gossip, whatever. To me that's a community. I could be wrong. As a non tech, non coder, non designer, which is to me that audience that backdrop is poised to retain, that's what I expect. But, I could be wrong.

[jenlampton]

I think StackOverflow is the way to go for questions and answers. It's where almost everyone goes anyway for that kind of thing so why make people create new habbits.

For larger discussions I'd be open to advocating another place like http://www.discourse.org. The only problem with splitting things like support requests and discussions is that it can become a gray area as to when a question is one vs the other.

[quicksketch]

I just realized that http://backdropcms.org/about/communication already says "Backdrop uses StackOverflow for handling support requests", but the link doesn't actually include any questions or answers :(

Yeah we adopted this approach from Google Visualizations (and probably many other projects). Unfortunately we don't have any users yet, so we don't yet have any questions asked or answered.

StackExchange is definitely a tool for getting questions answered though, not a tool for general discussion. I think @docwilmot's original question is a good one, where should general discussion take place? Like @jenlampton points out though, the more places we add the more gray area we introduce, and things start ending up in the wrong places. I'm not sure this is avoidable however, even drupal.org suffers from this in groups.drupal.org/forums/issue queue mixups.

[DirectorHaas]

Good points all, and while here, even if not the appropriate forum :), applause to @quicksketch @jenlampton and others that we don't know, who are making Backdrop (a triple entendre?) a reality! Been checking updates at night, all the changes, and it's all really excellent. :+1:

[docwilmot]

In conclusion then? I'd say launch a Discourse; who'll do it? Also, as mentioned in the original post, it is a bit unclear what a novice could do to help. Perhaps Backdrop needs a Chief of Novices, to lead us. Or at the very least just a list of stuff to do.

[docwilmot]

this conversation seemed to have died quite quickly! any update? is backdrop still close to launch?

[jenlampton]

@docwilmot The plan is to use Stack Overflow for questions and answers. Backdrop will be launching this fall!

[ghost]

I started this discussion at the main Backdrop issue queue regarding where/how to post support questions. It mentions the limitations of StackExchange and suggests other possibilities...

[jenlampton]

Hmm... @pwpanda you have a good point in the other issue. StackExchange sets a barrier to entry having people have certain reputation to do things as straightforward as posting links.

I briefly checked out GitLab and since it's a self-hosted solution (that would require yet another log-in) I don't think it's the right tool for us.

I also tried out discourse again. I didn't like it much, but if the community decides to set one up, and it ends up getting more use than anything else, we can consider switching it to the "official" place later.

At this point I'm considering using another github issue queue as a support forum and location for Q&A. I know it's not ideal because GitHub does have the reputation for being "for developers" but so far we don't have any better suggestions, and we do need something to start with!

[ghost]

I briefly checked out GitLab and since it's a self-hosted solution (that would require yet another log-in) I don't think it's the right tool for us.

@jenlampton I didn't mean to suggest using GitLab just for support, but rather to replace Backdrop's use of GitHub altogether - i.e. move all repositories, issues, PRs, etc. to a self-hosted system that would be a one-stop-shop for everything Backdrop related (except for BackdropCMS.org). Just a suggestion in case we run into similar restrictions/barriers-to-entry using GitHub...

[jenlampton]

Yeah, that's even more of a no-go. We don't need to try to support more infrastructure too. We have our hands full enough :)

[ghost]

@jenlampton, @quicksketch: I think we need to set something up for the launch of BD so there's somewhere people can go for support when they start using it.

An issue queue-only GH repo. seems the best temporary solution at this point...

[quicksketch]

We already have the core issue queue (https://github.com/backdrop/backdrop/issues) with the "question" tag, that we've already been using for that purpose. Long-term I still think a better solution is necessary, but wouldn't that work instead of creating another repository?

[ghost]

...wouldn't that work instead of creating another repository?

I guess so :smile: I thought there was originally a reason for not wanting to fill-up the developer-based issue queue with support questions, but considering we're just wanting a temporary solution for now, and considering @jenlampton's comment about forgetting to check other repos (which I also forget to do sometimes), using 'question' tags in the main issue queue seems like a good compromise.

[klonos]

...using 'question' tags in the main issue queue seems like a good compromise.

Until we build a dedicated forum on Backdrop CMS to 1) show off that it can be done and 2) port any contrib modules that are required in order to build such a Q&A site.

[docwilmot]

Until we build a dedicated forum on Backdrop CMS to 1) show off that it can be done and 2) port any contrib modules that are required in order to build such a Q&A site.

Agreed. Of all the modules removed from core I think forum.module would most likely affect our commitment to a pain-free D7 to Backdrop upgrade. I'm pretty sure a significant percentage of the Backdrop audience (small to medium sites) would have forum.module enabled. Even if its not core, it would be best to port it. It's a bit beyond me (just tried, and I have the headache to prove it).

[quicksketch]

Yep, I'd love to see forum module restored (with an upgrade path) in contrib. There's a lot of area for improvement of course, but it would be great to have a native forum solution working in Backdrop.

[docwilmot]

Done porting forum module although haven't looked at tests yet.

[cellear]

Hi guys. In order to quickly have a place where non-expert users can get their bearings, I've set up a Google Group called "Backdrop Builders." It is intended specifically to address the needs of people that just want to use Backdrop to create websites, rather than try to build or extend it.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/backdrop-builders

I have a lot of experience managing online communities, so I'll keep it moving, but I welcome any help or support (or just subscribers) that want to join in.

[docwilmot]

This morning a new user (an experienced Drupalist it sounds like) said:

Gitbub is usability nightmare for me. No idea how to find the project queues

Which got me to thinking we really need to streamline/centralize information sources. There are just too many GitHub locations, all without a unified navigation to get you from one to the other.

So I think adding another unrelated source to it in the form of a Google group is probably not the best way to go.

• We need a user forum on Backdrop.org
• We need a list (pulled from GH RSS perhaps) of contribs. Alternatively, and maybe better, I think in lieu of project.module it may be an idea to have a node type called project, which new contrib authors fill out to add a new contrib. That way we can track contrib types (module/theme/layout) and be able to generate lists with links that direct to the issue queues.
• We could also have similar RSS lists for the multiple GH issue queues, with links.

I think the group is growing and we should act to have infrastructure for support in place now so we don't end up with multiple locations to manage.

[jenlampton]

I disagree about using forum module (and don't think it has a place in Backdrop contrib either). The reason we removed it from core is because we don't need a module for forums now that we have config. A forum should be a content type (config) and some views (config). After we get a features-module for Backdrop, there could be a forum feature that would bundle together the config that is needed - but the forum module as removed from Drupal 7 is how these problems were solved in the past, not how they should be solved in the future (and present?).

That said, it would be nice to have someplace for people to go to chat that's not developer focused like GitHub. I'm not sure backdropcms.org is the place to do it though, because people won't be incentivized to create user accounts there like they were on drupal.org.

Stack Exchange also has it's problems, as does Discourse. I'm not sure there's a clear winner here...

[cellear]

I think Drupal suffers greatly from its attempt to centralize user-contributed information exchange. The Drupal handbook and forums are both of very limited value for helping new people successfully build a Drupal 7 site. I tell people new to Drupal that they need to buy two books -- O'Reilly's "Using Drupal" and "Pro Drupal Development" -- in order to get on top of things. For free online resources, I point them to "The Weekly Drop" (http://www.theweeklydrop.com/) -- Bob has done more to distribute actual usable information on how to get things done in Drupal than any group I know.

So I thought it would be useful to provide a place for people who don't have and will never have a Github account to find a smattering of information about Backdrop. A place where they could browse and possibly find the answer they're looking for, and where they won't be afraid to ask a question if they don't find it. This shouldn't stop us from building up our own, centrally-managed and curated docs. I would love to see us be as approachable, or more, than Wordpress and Node.JS are.

Don't worry about managing the Google group; I'll take care of it. (Or it will die and be quickly forgotten.)

[docwilmot]

That said, it would be nice to have someplace for people to go to chat that's not developer focused like GitHub

Agreed, and soon.

A forum should be a content type (config) and some views (config)

Agree and disagree, I considered that before trying to port forum.module but the absence of a features-like glue was the main issue against that. And I thought that this would be better than nothing. And besides forum module is sort of a glue module for forum content types ;)

don't think it has a place in Backdrop contrib either

Disagree there. I think a user should be free to choose whatever forum he likes. If he/she prefers Forum over Discourse or vBulletin or SXC or a Views/Content mashup, or whatever, so be it.

The Drupal handbook and forums are both of very limited value for helping new people successfully build a Drupal 7 site

I'm pretty sure those two are where I learnt everything about websites!

[quicksketch]

I'll also add that I'm happy to see @docwilmot's efforts on porting Forum module, so there's an upgrade path available for users of Forum for D7. Perhaps long-term it will turn into more of a Views + Config module, now that we have those tools. But for now I think it's great that the contrib version can maintain continuity until that becomes reality.

[cellear]

"I'm pretty sure those two are where I learnt everything about websites!"

I think they used to be more suitable than they are now. How long ago were you using them? I got into Drupal near the end of D6, and much of what I found in the Handbook and Forums was already hopelessly outdated. Answers often talked about implementing hooks in "your module" -- but a CMS shouldn't assume you're writing a module. If you limit your audience to those people that feel comfortable writing PHP code, you'll rule out 95% of your potential users before you start. With Drupal 7, you can actually build very sophisticated sites without writing code, if you can find a suitable theme (usually the hardest part.) But from the documentation you would probably not guess it!

I learned PHP back in the 90s, but turned to Drupal largely hoping to avoid having to maintain my own source code for every website I built. The handbook slowed me down more than it ever helped me.

[ghost]

Hi all, the Backdrop website to me looks terribly unwelcoming for newcomers and especially so for non-technical users. Maybe to add some clarity It's been said already GH in not the place for discussion beyond contrib issues and support.

Maybe an externally hosted community solution is the answer short term and longer term? This is essentially the question that needs answering to move forwards on this topic.

Centralising project pages with some level of GH integration is absolutely necessary and IMHO should be a completely separate to community forums.

[ghost]

I've set up a Google Group called "Backdrop Builders."

@cellear I'm not sure how Google Groups work, but I'd advise against making it so that users "must be signed in and a member of [the] group to view and participate in it" (the message I see when I try to access it).

If there's an option to allow 'anonymous' users to access the group, I'd recommend setting that. If not, maybe Google Groups isn't the best choice here (we decided against StackExchange for similar user-unfriendly reasons).

[ghost]

Google Groups is definitely not the answer, John Resig demonstrated that the hard way with jQuery support community.

[cellear]

Oops, I had it set to only be readable by members. That's obviously not very helpful. I've changed it to be viewable to non-logged in users, so that at least is now fixed.

What did JQuery decide to go with?

[ghost]

@cellear Zoho sponsor jQuery and provide their discussion product IIRC.

[cellear]

A little research has shown that Jquery switched to Zoho Forums (https://discussions.zoho.com/home) for reasons listed here: http://jquery14.com/day-07/new-jquery-forum.

However, I note that they were able to use Google Groups for four years before they switched, amassing over 50,000 threads. So it worked pretty well for quite a while. The JQuery group was using Google Groups to support everything -- including all of the communication among developers. They shut it down 5 years ago; they probably wouldn't have started it on GG if StackExchange had existed at the time.

I'm not sure that we're talking about the same audience. I set up the Google group specifically to try to help non-programmers be successful with Backdrop. Most of the questions I foresee ending up there probably won't be allowed on StackExchange anyway! I'm certainly not suggesting that my little group should supplant anything that already exists, I just thought it would make sense to have a place where users who were not developing the system could talk about how to use Backdrop as it exists, as opposed to how to fix it or improve the system itself. (Note the title: "Backdrop Builders," as opposed to "developers" or "themers.")

[jenlampton]

So, should we give Zoho Forums a try?

I also just got an invite to Gittter

[ghost]

I also just got an invite to Gittter

Me too; was wondering why. It seems to be developer-centric...

[ghost]

I've changed it to be viewable to non-logged in users...

Great, thanks!

[docwilmot]

Whats wrong with discourse?

[jenlampton]

With Discourse the software is free, but we'd either need to build/support it, or pay for a service that would do the same. If we're going to build/support something it should at least be made of Backdrop, since that's what we'll be experts at. Ideally we'd be able to leverage something that already exists so we don't have any additional infrastructure that needs to be maintained (or, at least not until we have the manpower/dollars/time to do so).

[cellear]

Discourse is a self-hosted app based on RoR, Ember, and PostgreSQL; these are perfectly fine environments, but it would seem to be a rather extreme case of not "eating our own dog food." If we're going to host our own forums, we should probably just build it in Backdrop. But I think there's a lot to recommend a hosted service.

(As @jenlampton said :)

[ghost]

How about approaching Discourse for a "free for non profit" account?

[jenlampton]

@chrisherberte we could try, but we don't officially have a non-profit status yet. We are still waiting to for our application to be considered by the Software Freedom Conservancy. Usually they are pretty strict about you actually being a not-for-profit before they give you something for free.

[docwilmot]

Let's all now pick one:

table moved to first issue in the queue

[cellear]

@docwilmot : Would you be willing to elaborate on the kinds of discussions you had in mind when you said "Is it too early to start Backdrop Forums?" in the OP? There's a wide range of possible answers, and I'm not convinced we're all talking about the same things. Specifically, could you touch on the kinds of users you see being involved and benefitting?

I'm surprised to see the GG I set up in the list, but perhaps I shouldn't be. I wasn't picturing backdrop-builders being an "official" Backdrop solution at all; it was just a little thing I set up. For better or worse, I was approaching it as an outsider, not an insider. I thought there should be a place where people could ask about things that all "Drupal people" know without feeling foolish. For example, "What is a themer?" (I answer that one all the time; most of my clients have no idea what the difference is between a themer, a developer, a site builder, and a content administrator.)

[docwilmot]

I thought there should be a place where people could ask about things that all "Drupal people" know without feeling foolish

Exactly that, except "Backdrop people" :)

And I absolutely was approaching this as an outsider back then, and still am; BD was new and interesting, it was (to be) a community-based project, I thought, as is Drupal, WP, Joomla etc, and I wondered where people in the community should hang out and ask questions without bothering the coders, and where people who may know a little bit more but not enough to write the big code could hang out and share what they know.

And Google groups is an absolutely reasonable means to this end. People build communities there, and thats what we need. My only gripe was that I think BD fora should be built by BD. I could be wrong about that though.

[ghost]

Backdrop on Views/Content type

I pick Option 2 in docwilmot's table. It would provide a single forum solution immediately. Keep it simple.

[jenlampton]

I don't like ideas 1 or 2 because they both involve making people log in to backdropcms.org. That's something developers will be doing to post official pages for their modules, but not something the people @cellear and @docwilmot are talking about are likely to do.

I also don't like the idea of pouring precious dev resources into something for Backdrop that has proven to be unsuccessful for the Drupal project.

I think it would be better if we used something that already existed first. When we find something that works for us, then we can talk about moving it to our site, and building / maintaining it ourselves.