Death to the roadmap page?

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Steve McMahon () Death to the roadmap page?
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Hi Framework & Website Teams,

For those of you not following the plone-users list, there's a discussion that included the fragment:

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:16 AM, Marie Robichon <[hidden email]> wrote:
You have to admit it there is not even a reassurance on the Plone site that
the future is going to get easier, or clearer: Take a look at what's behind
the link "Roadmap: Our plans for the future". - if you were new to Plone
what would you make of the page that's behind this link ? There's no simple
presentation, no description, no nOOb talk, nor even any 'sales talk' about
how wonderful the next versions of Plone are going to be.  It's just a list
of PLIPs, ie the same obscurity that's now everywhere else and that's
understandable to only a minority.
...

Unfortunately, the situation is *much worse* than Marie indicates, as the roadmap page is completely obsolete and outdated since we switched to trac. It's more than a bit embarrassing that we link to it from the home page.

We should have something better, but meanwhile, what should we do with the old roadmap page? It may be useful to some as a historical artifact.

Steve


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JoAnna Springsteen () Re: Death to the roadmap page?
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> Unfortunately, the situation is *much worse* than Marie indicates, as the
> roadmap page is completely obsolete and outdated since we switched to trac.
> It's more than a bit embarrassing that we link to it from the home page.

You're right Steve, the situation is much worse. Unfortunately we have
a tendency to provide the information that we think people need
instead of addressing what people are saying the need. Marie is a
great example of someone crying out for improvements and specifically
pointing out things we could do better.  I think it would be a good
idea to involve Mark and the marketing team on this. Mark will have a
good idea on how we can better present ourselves and our critical
information to all ranges of users and potential users.

JoAnna

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Alexander Limi () Re: Death to the roadmap page?
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On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:29:08 -0700, Steve McMahon  
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Unfortunately, the situation is *much worse* than Marie indicates, as the
> roadmap page is completely obsolete and outdated since we switched to  
> trac.
> It's more than a bit embarrassing that we link to it from the home page.
>
> We should have something better, but meanwhile, what should we do with  
> the
> old roadmap page? It may be useful to some as a historical artifact.

The idea (at least for now) is to point it to the Trac roadmap page, and  
do a bit better job with the release descriptions there.

Eric Steele and Yours Truly have volunteered for this task, but we didn't  
want to do it until 3.3 was out. Now it is, and the old roadmap page can  
be retired.

I don't think we need to involve Mark and others in this particular case —  
they have much more important things they could be spending their time on  
— but we can definitely do much better than we're doing right now.

If nothing has happened by the end of this week, feel free to call us out  
on it. :)

--
Alexander Limi · http://limi.net


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Alexander Limi · http://limi.net

Nate Aune () Re: [Framework-Team] Re: Death to the roadmap page?
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I think pointing newbies to the list of PLIPs is not a wise move from
a marketing standpoint. You can certainly have the link to the PLIP
page from the roadmap page, but I think there needs to be a more
accessible and human friendly page showing what's coming in Plone 4/5.
The list of PLIPs will just scare all but the most technical people
away.

Compare the descriptions of Plone with the Joomla and Drupal
description on this page:
http://guide.conecta.it/index.php/Content_management_systems

Which of those CMSes (if you were completely new to CMSes) would be
most attractive to you? The Drupal and Joomla descriptions tell you
*what* you can actually do with the CMS. I think we need to boil it
down for people and tell them that Plone can do all of those things as
well, and show them examples of where it is done.

The roadmap page is probably the first thing I would look at if I were
choosing a technology on which to build my future website. It would
need to be have a clear vision of what major changes will impact me,
how they benefit me, and why they are important. It should be written
in a non-jargony tone, but have links to more technical descriptions
if I want to read the nitty gritty details.

The roadmap page should get me excited about the future of Plone,
preferably with screenshots and screencasts demonstrating these new
features that will be included. It should instill trust that the Plone
software project is moving forward and there is a unified vision for
where it is going.

Nate

On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:51 AM, Alexander Limi <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:29:08 -0700, Steve McMahon <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately, the situation is *much worse* than Marie indicates, as the
>> roadmap page is completely obsolete and outdated since we switched to
>> trac.
>> It's more than a bit embarrassing that we link to it from the home page.
>>
>> We should have something better, but meanwhile, what should we do with the
>> old roadmap page? It may be useful to some as a historical artifact.
>
> The idea (at least for now) is to point it to the Trac roadmap page, and do
> a bit better job with the release descriptions there.
>
> Eric Steele and Yours Truly have volunteered for this task, but we didn't
> want to do it until 3.3 was out. Now it is, and the old roadmap page can be
> retired.
>
> I don't think we need to involve Mark and others in this particular case —
> they have much more important things they could be spending their time on —
> but we can definitely do much better than we're doing right now.
>
> If nothing has happened by the end of this week, feel free to call us out on
> it. :)
>
> --
> Alexander Limi · http://limi.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Framework-Team mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/framework-team
>



--
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http://www.jazkarta.com
http://card.ly/natea
+1 (617) 517-4953

** Learn best practices for deploying your Plone sites at our upcoming
Plone Deployment Training in Budapest **
http://plonedeployment-natesig.eventbrite.com

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ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register now!
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Alexander Limi () Re: [Framework-Team] Re: Death to the roadmap page?
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I definitely agree, but at the moment we don't do a particularly good job at covering our basic needs on the marketing front — and the roadmap isn't the most important part of what we do for marketing. The stuff outlined in the marketing plan (standardized marketing/conference material, feature comparisons, etc) should have priority.

Of course, these aren't mutually exclusive, so if anyone wants to own this piece and make it kick ass — go for it! In the meantime, we can at least get the technical bits right, so our developers and already-using-Plone users can get better information. :)

--
Alexander Limi · http://limi.net


On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 7:00 AM, Nate Aune <[hidden email]> wrote:
I think pointing newbies to the list of PLIPs is not a wise move from
a marketing standpoint. You can certainly have the link to the PLIP
page from the roadmap page, but I think there needs to be a more
accessible and human friendly page showing what's coming in Plone 4/5.
The list of PLIPs will just scare all but the most technical people
away.

Compare the descriptions of Plone with the Joomla and Drupal
description on this page:
http://guide.conecta.it/index.php/Content_management_systems

Which of those CMSes (if you were completely new to CMSes) would be
most attractive to you? The Drupal and Joomla descriptions tell you
*what* you can actually do with the CMS. I think we need to boil it
down for people and tell them that Plone can do all of those things as
well, and show them examples of where it is done.

The roadmap page is probably the first thing I would look at if I were
choosing a technology on which to build my future website. It would
need to be have a clear vision of what major changes will impact me,
how they benefit me, and why they are important. It should be written
in a non-jargony tone, but have links to more technical descriptions
if I want to read the nitty gritty details.

The roadmap page should get me excited about the future of Plone,
preferably with screenshots and screencasts demonstrating these new
features that will be included. It should instill trust that the Plone
software project is moving forward and there is a unified vision for
where it is going.

Nate

On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:51 AM, Alexander Limi <[hidden email]> wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:29:08 -0700, Steve McMahon <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately, the situation is *much worse* than Marie indicates, as the
>> roadmap page is completely obsolete and outdated since we switched to
>> trac.
>> It's more than a bit embarrassing that we link to it from the home page.
>>
>> We should have something better, but meanwhile, what should we do with the
>> old roadmap page? It may be useful to some as a historical artifact.
>
> The idea (at least for now) is to point it to the Trac roadmap page, and do
> a bit better job with the release descriptions there.
>
> Eric Steele and Yours Truly have volunteered for this task, but we didn't
> want to do it until 3.3 was out. Now it is, and the old roadmap page can be
> retired.
>
> I don't think we need to involve Mark and others in this particular case —
> they have much more important things they could be spending their time on —
> but we can definitely do much better than we're doing right now.
>
> If nothing has happened by the end of this week, feel free to call us out on
> it. :)
>
> --
> Alexander Limi · http://limi.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Framework-Team mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/framework-team
>



--
Nate Aune - [hidden email]
http://www.jazkarta.com
http://card.ly/natea
+1 (617) 517-4953

** Learn best practices for deploying your Plone sites at our upcoming
Plone Deployment Training in Budapest **
http://plonedeployment-natesig.eventbrite.com


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ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register now!
http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconf
_______________________________________________
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Alexander Limi · http://limi.net

Alexander Limi () Re: [Framework-Team] Re: Death to the roadmap page?
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On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 7:34 PM, Eric Steele <[hidden email]> wrote:
Alex and I will be doing a bit of sprinting on Friday to get this up to snuff. Personally, I'm all in favor of having some of the marketing folks have a go at what we come up with -- I'm told I'm not a particularly sunny individual.

It might just be a requirement for (or caused by? ;) being the release manager.

:)

--
Alexander Limi · http://limi.net

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Carsten Sapporo () Re: Death to the roadmap page?
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Speaking of plone.org website ...

From the link above.
******
Plone is supported. There are close to a hundred developers in the Plone Development Team around the world, and a multitude of companies that specialize in Plone development and support.
******
Plone is extensible. There is a multitude of add-on products for Plone to add new features and content types. In addition, Plone can be scripted using web standard solutions and Open Source languages.
*****

Got a hundred developers on the team. OK ... I guess we could divert a few to update the site. It sure seems to me that release 4 and 5 are ahead in development than version 3.

Same with the extensions. I am not new plone. I came here in 2003 and saw things I liked but my interests laid with php.  I decided to come back and really give plone a fair shake but with all this good PR talk I thought that I found the system to bite my teeth in (was looking at django and rails).  The products (applications and extensions) looked awsome until I went to install some.  Behold -- dated products and versions that don't match the latest version.

Sure, I am complaining about what many of you have fought hard to build. But please also consider that my comments are being written because I'd like plone to be even better and more popular.
Alexander Limi () Re: Death to the roadmap page?
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On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 7:00 AM, Carsten Sapporo <[hidden email]> wrote:
It sure seems to me that release 4 and 5 are ahead in
development than version 3.

What do you mean by this?
 
Same with the extensions. I am not new plone. I came here in 2003 and saw
things I liked but my interests laid with php.  I decided to come back and
really give plone a fair shake but with all this good PR talk I thought that
I found the system to bite my teeth in (was looking at django and rails).
The products (applications and extensions) looked awsome until I went to
install some.  Behold -- dated products and versions that don't match the
latest version.

Yup, outdated products is a problem. Luckily, we are in the process of updating the products area to support ratings and make it easier to sort by version. Give it a few weeks. :)
 
Sure, I am complaining about what many of you have fought hard to build. But
please also consider that my comments are being written because I'd like
plone to be even better and more popular.

No worries, plone.org is probably the least well-maintained Plone site out there. ;)

--
Alexander Limi · http://limi.net



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Carsten Sapporo () Re: Death to the roadmap page?
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Hi,

Here's how I see it:
milestone: 4.0 -- 45% (finished)
milestone: 5.0 -- 83% (finished)
milestone: 3.x -- 17% (finished)

The page is misleading to the 10 second net people like myself.
Plus all those open and closed tickets create more attention than the point release write ups.

Alexander do you do most of the work here ???

If you are, all I can say is GREAT!
Alexander Limi () Re: Death to the roadmap page?
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2009/11/9 Carsten Sapporo <[hidden email]>
Here's how I see it:
milestone: 4.0 -- 45% (finished)
milestone: 5.0 -- 83% (finished)
milestone: 3.x -- 17% (finished)

The page is misleading to the 10 second net people like myself.

Would it help if the 3.x milestone said something about "ongoing ticket fixes"? This is how our process works, so it's a bit hard to change that.
 
Plus all those open and closed tickets create more attention than the point
release write ups.
 
I don't understand what you mean here either, sorry. :)
 
Alexander do you do most of the work here ???

No, I stand on the shoulders of the "hundred developers on the team" that you mentioned in your initial post. ;)

If you are, all I can say is GREAT!

Thanks!

— Alexander



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