Community manager?

[logrus]

Hi guys,

I'm not sure if this has been covered before, but I'm curious if there is any community manager or if this has been discussed.

The LinuxMCE.org frontpage is as good as dead, anyone keep an eye on the progress of LMCE is forced to read on the forums and even then it's not really clear what, if anything, is happening.

News stories on LMCE have dwindled to near nothing. I can't remember last time I saw LMCE mentioned on the frontpage of slashdot or linuxtoday.

Developers are attracted to projects that are active and that show progress, and at the moment there is no visible progress nor activity.

Even the two links the top of the page where i'm writing this (help wanted and roadmap) go to 404's!

My suggestion is (if any consensus at all can be achieved on this), appoint a community manager to; collect updates from developers and post them on the front page, make interviews with the developers and post them, collect information from the message boards and post them, write news pieces for news sites, organize testers and gather feedback for the developers, evangelize in general.

What do you think?

Cheers,
Tor Magnus

[krys]

Agreed, good idea. Plus there might be potential for some people who dont know much about programming to give something back.
-Krys

[Marie.O]

We have a community manager. He is currently on extended private leave.

During his absence, some of the core devs are taken care of the day to day business.

Regarding the lack of update on the homepage. Yes, there is not much news. Unfortunately, we have not much to say. We will post news, when there is a beta and/or another major step forward towards the next release of LinuxMCE

Best regards

Peer Oliver Schmidt
Release Manager for
LinuxMCE 0810

[Renaud]

I am very new here but I agree we see little activity from outside. I did read old posts from 2007 and 2008 so I know a lot has been done... and it would be nice to give more visibility, I would be happy to participate as soon as I feel more comfortable with this wonderful system. Yes, I did plan to install and learn how all this works.

For all newbie’s, I recommend reading the book of Karl Fogel: “Producing Open Source Software – “How to Run a Successful Free Software Project”.
This book is available online.
http://producingoss.com/en/index.html


Around the same subject, the website of Pluto seems dead, nothing new since 2007? Is it just an impression?

[tschak909]

Pluto is no longer actively pursuing LinuxMCE at all.

-Thom

[logrus]

We have a community manager. He is currently on extended private leave.
During his absence, some of the core devs are taken care of the day to day business.

Well that explains a lot. Maybe an interim community manager might be a good idea.

Regarding the lack of update on the homepage. Yes, there is not much news. Unfortunately, we have not much to say.

The thing is, there might not be much news in your opinion, however people still want news. People want to see the front page updated with anything that makes them feel that things are moving forward. I'm not expecting release dates or any profound information, but there is so much that can be written about that help create a buzz.

Cheers,
Tor Magnus

[Marie.O]

From now on, we shall spam the front page a bit more.

Even though the above might sound a bit tacky, I mean it.

You are correct, that people come to a project via the homepage. A lack of news on the homepage is not something that takes people further. I will use your post as a reminder to add news articles about stuff that I find interesting more often.

[logrus]

From now on, we shall spam the front page a bit more.

Even though the above might sound a bit tacky, I mean it.

To me it sounds spot on. Better with too much than too little. People can always ignore things which aren't interesting, but you can't see the interesting thing which isn't there.

Cheers,
Tor Magnus

[logrus]

From now on, we shall spam the front page a bit more.

Would it be possible to add some stuff to the front page automatically? F.ex. "new build", "bug number xxx solved", "number of downloads since sometime", "hottest thread on forum this today"? Not sure if it's actually that useful, but it would make the front page appear more active.

Cheers,
Tor Magnus

[Marie.O]

Tor,

Would it be possible to add some stuff to the front page automatically? F.ex. "new build", "bug number xxx solved", "number of downloads since sometime", "hottest thread on forum this today"? Not sure if it's actually that useful, but it would make the front page appear more active.

thanks for the idea. We'd appreciate some PHP code, we can add to the home page that does do that. We use trac as our bug repo, and Subversion as our repository. smf is our forum software.

Let me know, when you are done, and post a feature patch in svn, that we can integrate into the web page.

Thank you for your help.

[alx9r]

It seems to me that there are small breakthroughs almost weekly with respect to hardware support and easily patchable improvements.

Just off the top of my head, here are some recent notable developments that I've witnessed:
   * ASUS eee box now proven as Media Director
   * Improved Denon Receiver Support
   * WebDT Orbiter Image
   * Improved tagging interface for entire seasons of TV shows

I think that highlighting items of this nature could give new users something they can relate to with minimal LinuxMCE knowledge.

Alex

[hari]

good point, I usually don't look at the frontpage, but yes, it does not look very "active" :-)

[logrus]

Rapid updates on front page is noted and appreciated!

Cheers,
Tor Magnus

[totallymaxed]

Hi guys,

I'm not sure if this has been covered before, but I'm curious if there is any community manager or if this has been discussed.

The LinuxMCE.org frontpage is as good as dead, anyone keep an eye on the progress of LinuxMCE is forced to read on the forums and even then it's not really clear what, if anything, is happening.

News stories on LinuxMCE have dwindled to near nothing. I can't remember last time I saw LinuxMCE mentioned on the frontpage of slashdot or linuxtoday.

Developers are attracted to projects that are active and that show progress, and at the moment there is no visible progress nor activity.

Even the two links the top of the page where i'm writing this (help wanted and roadmap) go to 404's!

My suggestion is (if any consensus at all can be achieved on this), appoint a community manager to; collect updates from developers and post them on the front page, make interviews with the developers and post them, collect information from the message boards and post them, write news pieces for news sites, organize testers and gather feedback for the developers, evangelize in general.

What do you think?

Cheers,
Tor Magnus

See this thread http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=8023.msg52643#msg52643

There is already some discussion about this in the thread above... you'd be welcome to join in and get involved if you have the time.

All the best

Andrew