It’s great to see some of the things that are being discussed here, but I’m curious to know why it’s being done behind “closed doors” to the rest of the community? Smack/Openfire/Spark are all great pieces of software but without the ongoing strength and support of the Ignite community to keep these projects alive I think things would be pretty bleak around here. What harm is there to opening these discussions up to the entire community so at the very least they can see what is being talked about?
Ryan – I agree with your intentions but it’s critical to build momentum between a smaller set of people that will actually get work done. Everyone invited to this group is among those people. Once we have traction we’ll definitely open it up.
As an aside, will Gato provide some input on this process?
Anyway, what is the end goal of this current secret community? Is there a roster list that needs to be filled out first of who will do what? Maybe we just need a document that details what Jive wants done before releasing the hounds…
As i undestand this group was created for planning. Once the planning is done, then the whole community will know the results and will have an opportunity to participate. If they want. Actually, i’m not very optimistic about most of the users will to do something. Of course, they will be happy to hear that things are moving on. But most of them are just users seeking for help with their own problems (configuration, errors, custom setups, etc.). And some of them will use such group for spaming about they needs as they do with the Contributors group
BTW, my recommended rollout strategy is to not trumpet a big planning effort. Instead, let’s simply start announcing the work that is actually getting done. The community will ultimately find that to be a lot more exciting. The major item to announce so far is the new Tinder project with code in SVN. As soon as it’s looking good, let’s get that news out there and keep building momentum.
Also, I’d love to see this group continue forward – maybe we can morph it from “Community Planning” to something a bit more permanent over the coming weeks. I think it’s important to have an on-going private area for those that are actively contributing. It’s not that I want to see anything in particular be kept secret, it’s just that a fenced off area is extremely helpful in acting as a noise filter.
For my part, I think a lot of what has been discussed here could (and should) be open, but I think we just haven’t had a place to hold these conversations before now. We probably need a group like this (or this one) to be more open. I think it would be good for the community at large to see that there is activity. We can make the group content visible, yet still require registration to add content to the group.
My personal intent with a secret group was to have a private place for specific technical requests, discussions of behind the scenes implementation, etc, and to know that a request from anyone in the group could be automatically granted. (within reason ) But, opening and moderating membership would likely solve that goal and be transparent, no?
I understand what you’re saying but I think limiting who can be involved in the planning can hinder the building of momentum. Noise in a completely open environment can certainly be an issue, that’s why I was thinking that at the very least everyone should be allowed to view these discussions.
I was hoping that the curtain could be pulled back all the way and to welcome as many people as possible.