Hi,
The ]po[ team is very proud to announce that we have launched a new version of http://www.project-open.org/ consisting mainly of an XoWiki (thanks Gustaf!).
The Wiki is about 50% completed and already includes 230 page with information on OpenACS/]po[ package, Object Types, FAQs, etc. Each pages includes a feedback form at the bottom basically to allow user to complain about incomplete pages (the form links to simple-survey). We'd like to invite everybody to participate.
Release of ]project-open[ V3.4
This new site is part of our launch of ]po[ 3.4. The code in the CVS is already very stable, but we decided to wait until September 2009 for an "official" launch in order to have more time for the new web site, the installers (see below) and PR/marketing.
So please let us know if you are interested to participate in the "beta program" or by writing a review about ]po[. Please register at www.project-open.org/register/ if you want us to keep you updated on that or if you want to participate more actively.
Hidden Gems of OpenACS Documentation
In the OpenACS wiki, there is an error in the packages includelet, for example at http://www.openacs.org/xowiki/acs-kernel, did you see this?
I believe that the online documentation in /api-doc/ and /admin/object-types/ are really gems. So we think about making this information available to The Public. Making /api-doc/ readable is easy (or are there known security issue?). However, /admin/object-types/ is only available to administrators, so we though about moving this stuff into a separate package and linking to it from the Wiki pages. Or create a new includelet for that?
Access Policy of ]po[ vs. OpenACS Wiki
We will probably use a relatively restrictive policy concerning write permissions on our ]po[ Wiki. We would basically require manual approval for contributors. We are basically willing to sacrifice amount of documentation in favor of higher quality. But we're not sure about this, though, so any feedback is welcome.
It's interesting, Wikipedia has such a high quality apparently because there is a "war" between the people putting up contents and the ones deleting contents that doesn't meet certain standards. So maybe there should be more people out there deleting pages from the OpenACS Wiki? 😊
Installers for Different Operating Systems
Installing OpenACS has always been a pain, so our plan for ]po[ V3.4 is to provide a set of "_really_ dummy proof" installation instructions for the main operation systems.
For this reason we have set up separate installation pages in the Wiki for each platform (not all pages 100% finished yet). Each of these pages has one "principal maintainer" and possibly several other maintainers in charge of making sure everything works fine. In exchange, these maintainer get the right to put up their logos at the right hand side of the page. So please let us know if you'd like to participate or if you've got suggestions on this one. The principal maintainers for VMware, Ubuntu, Debian and Windows are already assigned.
Participate!?!
So we'd like to encourage you to participate in the Wiki. It's also OK to put up links to OpenACS in the pages where we've forgot about that 😊
We thought really hard about possible incentives for contribution, and we've come up with the idea to provide each contributor with a "home page" on the server (Google rank 5) where it's OK to advertise OpenACS/]po[ services. Also, we will show the contributors in the "X registered users in community wiki" box of each page (still to do).
Any suggestions on this one? What would we have to do so that _you_'d contribute? Please contact me (frank_dot_bergmann@project_dash_open_dot_com) for editing rights...
Cheers,
Frank
