ERT 1.5

[nicholassolutions]

http://www.expertsrt.net/main

Some of you may have noticed a post off in one of the soapbox threads regarding some proposed improvements to the ERT.net site. I'd be interested to hear thoughts from the entire community. If there is support for it, I propose we switch to the "new" ERT.net in the next day or so. During the switch, the site should be unavailable for approximately 20 minutes. All forum data and user membership can be automatically transferred.

Personally, I can see no reason not to do this. However, with the additional features and new interface, there will be more responsibilities to fill, and we will need commitments from more people to make it work. Many of these jobs will not be overly technical in nature, so lots of people can potentially do them. This will be an interesting way to see if we can still make the community work here at ERT.

Please share whatever thoughts you have here.

-Matt

[nicholassolutions]

PS: I had a couple questions from people, so let me clarify.

1) the positions of forum admin and site manager will not change, and the people who hold them now will hold them after the switch to "ERT.net 1.5"

2) The new positions will include:
Journal Admin -- basically like the forum admin, but this person will manage the journal and the comments therein.

Editor/Content Managers -- some people have already been doing this here, but we can use more people, and organize the workflow better with the new CMS

ArticleWiki admin -- manage the article wiki, like the forum admin and jorunal admin

Development and Security -- we'll have a lot more software to maintain. Nick will head the security pen testing and update side of things. Anyone else interested in security and development should talk to me. Obviously the PHP team is all welcome to contribute to both software and security issues.

Aside from Dev and Security, these positions will be elected...which brings me to...

3) I mentioned this before, but the software to run GC elections is ready. My thinking is to do the switch, make an announcement to the entire membership, hold campaigns, and run the elections within a couple weeks of the switch.

-Matt

[COBOLdinosaur]

Yes we need to get a GC as an anchor fo rthe community, and to chart a course so we don't start going in circles again.

I think on eof the first things they have to do is decide what they think is important enough to make it part of their mandate.

[Srirangan]

Not the biggest fan of Mambo/Joomla .. but if you need volunteers, count me in!

Added Later
I don't mind doing the dirty tech side of jobs. I think I'm not suited to be the admin/content editor of this or that.  :scratch:  :-$

[coral1]

<listening>

 =D>

[nicholassolutions]

OK, thanks to the few of you who've contacted me either here or  elsewhere to express support.

Sri, we need all kinds of help, and not everyone can offer it on the technical side, so I'm actually happy to hear you're willing to assist there. It means we get good development support, and it leaves a space for another person who may not have contributed yet...and as a coder myself I can appreciate the preference for sticking to that :wink:

I'm going to make the switch sometime in the next couple days. The site will be down for a short time, and I'll announce it at least a few hours in advance. There are likely to be lots of small bugs in the beginning. Nick has already found some and we have a list. It may be a little bumpy at first, but it'll be fun. Worst case, the whole thing explodes in our faces and we just have to come back here  :glasses7:

[coral1]

:sign5:

[COBOLdinosaur]

When you are ready to go just put up a notice on COM and we will know what is going on.

[admin]

test

[coral1]

test

pong

[VGR]

I'm not sure I'm pleased with the new look of ERT ; it's pretty confusing. Moreover, Mamboo/Joomla is crap and a high security risk (like phpBB...).

I'm so lost in here that I don't spend any more time answering questions. I don't find very easily new topics in my areas (the ones where I'm supposed to be editor and such) and I don't find them very readable. The journal and wiki seem empty and useless to me.

It's a bit too much for me. Too bad, isn't it?

I suppose I'm the only one complaining about the new forum look & feel, so : so be it.

[Srirangan]

I agree, I liked only the SMF part. Joomla, me not the biggest fan of.

[nicholassolutions]

I had typed a somewhat longer reply, but lost it when my computer froze a minute ago. I'm not in the mood to type it again, so here is a summary:

Drupal, Mambo, Joomla, SMF, WordPress, phpBB, and practically every other open-source application suck in terms of accessibility and security. However, I didn' have time to write all this stuff when I started working on ERT 1.5. Right now, I am done working -- I have too much else to do. What we have here is a set of applications playing somewhat nicely together, and that have been moderately well secured compared to the way they ship. Since the software was changed, signups have been steadily coming in for the first time (it's a correlation, I have no idea how much it is the cause).  Right now, I'm fairly happy with it, and I don't think the wiki and journal are useless, only empty due to lack of contributions (the wiki, by the way is where Nick has started to write his first article, so personally I think it's already a success. The journal seems perfect for coral to put his '2nd hand bytes'). Frankly, I'm not wiling to work on changing it much -- I have too much to do, and it would bring me little pleasure.

The only promise I've made and not delivered on is that we would elect a GC. I plan to do that before I go back to school in two weeks (at which point you won't see much of me around here anymore). Beyond that, I'll continue to keep my promise that if you have ideas to make ERT better, you'll be given the resources to bring those ideas to fruition, and no one will get in your way. If you want to make ERT 1.6, be my guest -- in fact I'd love that. I'm not particularly interested in hearing criticism without concrete solutions and commitments to implement them.

[COBOLdinosaur]

I think Matt was too polite in his response.

for over 10 months we have been building ERT. Only a very small handful of people have actually contributed.  All off the shelf software is crap.  You do the best you can with it until you can develop the kind of custom solutions that you want.  That takes participation. 

I dropped the forum because it was taking all my time dealing with petty problems and responding to "I don't like this" and "you should add this".  Matt took it on and made major improvments. Between us we are moving the sites to become a unique place on the Internet.

Anyone with the technical expertise to point out valid improvments that need to be done, also has the expertise to prototype it and present positive advances instead of just the negative crap.  ERT is about doing and learning; not whining and complaining.  Spectators are requested to stay the hell out of the way of the contruction teams; or put on a hard hat and start helping to fix whatever you think is wrong.

BTW, In July ERT content side had over 44,000 page views from 32,000+ visits, and daily our level of returning visitors has risen to over 30%, so I guess something is being done right. The rise in signups is a result of the improvements in the forum interface and more vistors from the content side being exposed to it.

I am really tired of the "ME ME ME I I I" crap where criticism is based on personal preference or taste instead be presented as valid technical analysis and an alternative solution.

[nicholassolutions]

Maybe I was too polite...oh well, lol.

BTW, one thing I forgot to mention is that, if you don't like all the new features, you can use just the forum here:

http://www.expertsrt.net/smf