[gentoo-dev] Re: [Fwd: gentoo.org reorg (GDN/GUN)]

[Mecho Puh <mecho@web.de>]

> Objectives/Goals:
> 
>         * have gentoo.org to function as a central hub to all our
>           (growing) community


We need first to define sources and goals. I'll just try, but I'm newbie
so fill free to change them:

* Sources:
- developers work - changes in the CVS system
- users "work" - mailing lists, forums, IRC

* Goals:
- up-to-date news and annoncements
- up-to-date documentation - common format(read XML) translated to as
   more languages as possible
   - "small" howtos - Gentoo XML
   - books and guides - Gentoo XML or DocBook
   - FAQs

Let's try to get the "big picture" for all of this:

* CVS: now it's about 40M long bunch of directories, full with a lot of
   unused things. Example: gentoo-xml directory - dobbins xml resume ;)
   Separating it in several modules will be better I think:
   - gentoo-web, gentoo-doc etc.
   A big cleaning is needed. Can be done from the modules admins.
   We already have cvs2xml conversion, so integrating cvs changes in the
   web pages will not be difficult.

* mailing lists: no problems - they work (email access),
   have archives (web access), can be readed via gmane service
   (news access)

* forums: very active and unexplored area. Ideas:
   - ask topic moderators for weekly/monthly digest - FAQs etc.
   - extract scripts from the posts - maybe gentoo-contrib module in CVS

* IRC: same as forums - ask IRC operators for some digests

About goals:
* up-to-date news and annoncements. I think the current handling on
   web pages news is not effective. Now it is done by xml files,
   converted to html with realy biiiiig and messy xsl. Why? Who will need
   other format (pdf or something) for the main page with every day
   changed context? If you take a look on main xsl file, the part for
   handling main page and news (/guide and /main tags) is about two
   times bigger that the ALL OTHER tags handling. And it is raw HTML,
   no parameters, nothing. A small changes are a big pain, belive me.
   This is not needed. XML is for document. It is the best way to keep
   them in common format. XSL need to convert howtos, not the page with
   news. News need to be handled by some content managment engine
   (more about this later).
   Using RSS is needed - it is defacto standard for news exchange
   between the sites.

* up-to-date documentation - i like Gentoo XML format. It's small,
   easy to learn, productive. Just a small changes in the XSL are
   needed. Also now a lot of documents are in fact not valid Gentoo
   XML, they are not DTD valid. There is a section-in-section, which
   is not valid. Inside XSL is subsection tag handling, but subsection
   is again not valid (not described in th DTD). Again need a cleaning.
   Also now we have just a bunch of howtos not very well organized.
   Maybe some ideas from http://www.tldp.org/ will be good.
   Also we still haven't big manuals - handbook etc. Something like
   FreeBSD handbook:
   http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html
   I prefer Gentoo XML format, but if impossible - to use DocBook

* FAQs - people ask a looooooot of questions - in the forums,
   in the IRC. Something like FAQ-O-Matic will be very useful:
   http://faqomatic.sourceforge.net/fom-serve/cache/1.html
   FAQs can be handled on "by architecture" and/or "by topic" basics
   (install, portage, network etc.). With faq-o-matic it is possible
   different people to handle each topic/architecture.
   From where will come information? IRC and forums digests. Installing
   some Wiki (TWiki[http://twiki.sf.net] or 
MoinMoin[http://moin.sf.net/] maybe). Topic admins can see what's 
happends from the "Recent Changes"
   wiki page.
   I like the OpenBSD FAQs - http://www.openbsd.org/faq/index.html

I want to propose one tool just to ilustrate possible solution:
Drupal: http://www.drupal.org/
"Drupal is a content management/discussion engine suitable to setup or 
build a content driven or community driven website."

How will look gentoo web if use this tool:
- There are several teams - PPC, x86, doc, portage. They interact with
   CVS and we can follow to changes with cvs2xml, cvs2rss, cvs2html etc.
   Drupal's view: http://www.drupal.org/module.php?mod=cvs
   Each team need to take care ONLY FOR HIS OWN weblog - to be acurate,
   up-to-time etc. - user's blogs in drupal:
   http://www.drupal.org/module.php?mod=blog&op=view&id=622
   See the XML button on the botton. What's this mean? If I'm a x86 user
   I can syndicate my webpage with x86 team weblog, so I'll see news ON
   MY OWN page. I like RSS. And I'll start to like Gentoo ;)
   All weblogs are aggregated on the main page:
   http://www.drupal.org/index.php
   And what we recieve? Up-to-date news and annoncements.
- All documents are organized in the way similar to http://www.tldp.org/
   HOWTOs, Guides, FAQs - need also searching engine. FAQ-O-Matic have
   already this feature. Drupal also:
   http://www.drupal.org/module.php?mod=search
- We need also big manuals - guides. Drupal feature - collaborate book:
   http://www.drupal.org/node.php?id=253
   Different chapters (nodes) can be handled by different peoples.
- Translation - some changes in the XSL required. Using config files and
   parameters for country charset. Layout to be divided from the context.
   Again CVS modules can help. Translator get gentoo-doc and return us
   gentoo-doc-ru, gentoo-doc-jp etc. Or gentoo-web-.....

Some opinion?

Best Regards,
Stoyan Zhekov <zhware@gentoo.org>