Reputation Management Live Case Study Sweetspot.ca

09.05.09

Last week I posted about Reputational Management in Twitter, interestingly enough, this concept of online reputational management seems to be cropping up more and more on my radar.

There are even web applications springing up that will aggregate online references to yourself and searching for "web reputation management" get's over 800,000 hits.

Only this morning I see an interesting example chirping its ways through the Twit-o-Sphere about some dubious reporting abo [...]

Joomla 1.7 now features a terrific redirect component, which will make preventing 404 page not found errors in your site redesigns and migrations much easier. This component is particularly important now that many are starting to migrate their sites from Joomla 1.5 to 1.7. A few years ago, fluid width templates were all the rage. Accessibility guys loved them, and it was cool to grab the corner of your browser window and see all that content slide around. Heck, my original Joomla template tutorial published at joomla.org even showed you how to make them. We even sold templates that had the more advanced "jello layout" (fixed side columns and fluid middle). But now, at Joomlashack, we don't make fluid templates, but focus on fixed width templates. I firmly believe they are misplaced on today's web.

Captain's log, September the 13th 2010.

Dear Community,

It's been almost three months since I took over the role of Trademark team leader. Three very, very busy months are behind TM team and I feel it's time to give you a report of what's been going on. I know that a lot of people tend to observe TM team and it's activities as a bunch of dark hooded guys up in the High tower doing the dark arts. Well, we're not. And I plan to put a stop to this public image by making TM team more open to the community.

So, what's been going on lately?

Our first major task was to clean the backlog of all the domains that waited approval. Believe me, it wasn't an easy task. Thanks to extreme efforts of Claire Mandville we managed to bring that list to it's minimum. I've been contacted by people thanking me and telling me that they completely forgot that they even submitted their domains for approval cause over a year passed since they did so. One of our goals is that such things never happen again.

TM team got reorganized internally. What does this mean? Well, my main idea was to make us all obsolete. Me, as a team leader, the first. TM team, and any team as a matter of fact, is about the whole team not individuals. If you tend to organize your team around one or two individuals what happens when one of your individuals leaves - everything falls apart. And we don't want that. The decission is made to spread the work between sub-teams of the main team and so two new "virutal" roles were created - The Domain Keeper and Logo Keeper. In our case those two roles were taken by Claire Mandville and Dianne Henning. Each of the sub-teams takes care of education of new members too.

This brings us to the next point - documentation. Since we're not dealing with the dark arts and the secret knowledge we decided to document every procedure we're dealing with on a daily basis. In community projects team members come and go. And that is normal. The problem shows its ugly face when we realize that no one really knows how are the things done. To prevent that we decided to document everything we do.

Documentation itself is not enough if you don't have a record of real people doing the job on a daily basis. In my personal opinion there is no better way to do that than via mailing list. Thus, TM team finally got it's internal mailing list so that everything we do gets archived. Such an archive is of great help to newcomers - I should know. When I came to OSM the mailing list archive helped me understand what is going on.

One of our big concerns are TM violations around the world. People using Joomla! TM without an approval or people who got an approval in the past but got lost somewhere down the road. Working with violations is somehow my personal trade - back in Free Software Foundation Europe(FSFE) I used to work on GPL violations around the world. That's why apart from working with the team on organizing things most of my time goes on checking the violations that get reported one way or the other.

How many people do you know who get lost in the procedure of submitting their domain to OSM? A lot. I've noticed that quite some people make a distinction between OSM and Joomla! and they don't quite understand why do they need an approval of Joomla! related web sites by some OSM group. In order to try and fix that we came up with an idea to move most of TM related data from OSM web site to Joomla! website. This is currently in process of planning along with reorganizing TM material so that non-legal people can easily understand what are they allowed to do and what is a violation of Joomla!'s trademark.

Three months later...

A lot has been done in just three months. I'd like to thank the whole TM team on their time and dedication. Time to move forward. Plans are set into motion and there is no going back. In order to make it all a reality we need your help - help from the community. When I started my TM work the idea of bringing TM team closer to the community was my guiding star. But how to do it? Simple. Bring the community closer to TM team.

Back in FSFE we have local teams in many countries. This helps us be closer to local communities and above all, it helps us speak their languages. I find this extremely important. Languages are a personal hobby of mine and I know the power they hold. That's why I'd like to have more people from different Translation teams in TM team. Joomla! speaks so many languages I can't even start to count them all. And that is a power beyond all powers. That is something that can make TM team extremely efficient. Something that can bring knowledge of trademark to every single Joomla! user out there.

So, this is a call to all Translation teams out there - if you are interested in helping TM team, please, reach me or any other TM team member and let's start working together.

Awaiting your responses at: http://people.joomla.org/groups/viewdiscussion/686-From+the+trenches+of+Trademark+team+dicussion.html?groupid=579

Greetings from the trenches of Trademark team,
Marko Milenovic

Over the last five years Joomla has seen exponential growth.  We see this happening in not only the market share of sites that use Joomla, but also in the community that supports it.  Having a common goal of making Joomla better and a community structure that encourages each individual's creative spirit to be free has brought our CMS to places that were once only dreamed of.

During the joint summit in San Jose the growth and empowerment of the community was discussed.  Part of that discussion included the inherent need to document the structure and shared values for all people participating in the community.  The result of that documentation is below in the Community Code of Conduct.  Being part of a community like Joomla comes with great rewards - the largest of which is the satisfaction of knowing that you have done something positive to help society.  Anne Frank said, "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."  Each member of the community has this opportunity with Joomla.  To help bring the best positive methods of this to the forefront, this document was drafted.

Prior to this, only a Volunteer Code of Conduct existed.  What you see below has been taken from the Volunteer Code of Conduct and applied community-wide.  A seperate Volunteer Guidelines will be published at a later date for feedback and comments.  For now, however, please provide feedback and comments on this draft version of the Community Code of Conduct.  The goal is for this Community Code of Conduct to apply to all members of the community and all volunteers.

Community Code of Conduct

This document outlines the code of conduct for everyone interacting with other people on any of the official Joomla community resources. By participating, you agree to the following principles:

Be Considerate

You are interacting with people in the community, so be considerate of how your words and  actions affect others in the community.

Be Respectful

A community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. All members of Joomla community should be respectful when dealing with others in the community as well as with people from outside projects and initiatives.

Everyone can make a valuable contribution to Joomla.  We might all experience some frustration from time to time, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack; disagreement is not an excuse for poor behavior or poor manners.

Avoid becoming involved in flame wars, trolling, personal attacks, and repetitive arguments that are not respectful of others’ time. Take these matters "outside" (off-list, etc) if it helps resolve the situation. Do not use community resources for personal or business arguments or agendas.

Be Straightforward

In the Joomla community it is important that you speak for yourself in discussions.  Quoting other community members is often necessary, but be considerate of the fact that context is a very important part of the meaning of what others say. Avoid quoting if it creates a different meaning than what was originally said.

Be Collaborative

Joomla is free software and about collaboration and working together. Collaboration reduces redundancy of work done. It improves the quality of the software produced regardless of whether you are writing code or performing some other task.

When you disagree, consult others. Disagreements happen all the time, and Joomla is no exception. Disagreement, debate and constructive criticism is often how progress is made and is a necessary part of doing complex work in a team. The important goal is not to avoid disagreements or differing views, but to resolve them constructively.

Above all, don't make conflicts personal. Debate should never include reference to a person’s nationality, gender, orientation, beliefs, religion or other personal characteristics.

When you are unsure, ask for help. Nobody knows everything. Nobody is expected to be perfect. Asking questions avoids many problems down the road. Questions are encouraged. Those who are asked should be responsive and helpful. Working Group Coordinators and Team Leaders may be able to help you to decide which direction will be most acceptable. However, when asking a question do it in an appropriate forum. Off-topic questions, such as requests for help on a development mailing list, detract from productive discussion.

Click Here to add your Feedback and Comments or Ask Questions

Open Source Matters (OSM) is entrusted with providing organizational, legal, and financial support for the Joomla! project. You can find out more about the organization at http://www.opensourcematters.org.

Given those responsibilities, and the recent departure of two long-serving board members, and the OSM officer changes resulting in the election of the Treasurer to President, the decision has been made to expand the board once more.

We are looking for your nominations for new OSM board members.

We acknowledge that the greater worldwide Joomla! community can help us a lot in this election process, and make us aware of potential candidates we may overlook.

Nomination Information

We are looking for up to three new board members. Useful areas of experience and expertise include:

• Accounting, bookkeeping or financial
• Legal or trademark
• Organizational or managerial skills
• Non-profit organizations
• Fund-raising
• PR and Marketing
• Education or certification development work
• Events planning and support

Nomination Criteria

We are looking to recruit the very best and the brightest members in the Joomla! community.

Some of the criteria that will be used when evaluating nominations include:

• Community: the nominee should have a strong track-record of successfully collaborating with, enabling others and earning the respect of the Joomla! community.
• Character: the nominee should have proven themselves a person of high character, with a history of acting honestly, fairly and openly when in leadership roles.
• Experience and Expertise: if the nominee is being proposed for a specific role, they should have strong experience and expertise in that area.
• Success: the nominee should be able to point to a history of success and leaving previous roles in a better state than when they arrived.
• Diversity: to work towards gender balance and geographical diversity, we are committed to seeking nominations from talented members of the Joomla! community who are female and / or are fluent speakers of languages other than English.

Nomination Schedule

• Nominations close: April 11
• Appointments announced: April 25

Nomination Form
Click here to submit a nomination

How many sites are you maintaining that are currently running Joomla 1.5? Remember that the end of life for Joomla 1.5 is coming in April 2012. The time for planning for a move is now! Read my article in the August 2011 Joomla Magazine called Nine Questions When Preparing Clients for Joomla 1.8. This contains some important information for you to think about as you prepare your clients for the big move.

Increasingly, websites are offering a bit of HTML you can paste into your site to show some cool feature: Facebook or Twitter feeds, YouTube videos, badges from site or another. You try copying and pasting the HTML into a Joomla article or a custom HTML module, and you find that the code gets stripped, removing critical tags like script or iframe, so it doesn't work correctly. Then you try to go find a Joomla extension that will allow you to post the information. It's frustrating!

Brian Teeman pointed out a great new feature in Joomla 1.7 that you can use with many of your articles. New formatting is offered for the Page Break feature, adding extra functionality for Joomla articles.

In preparation for the Joint Summit (CLT, PLT, OSM) sheduled for July 29 - 31, 2011, at eBay in San Jose, California, the Joint Summit Committee has compiled a list of proposed goals for discussion at the three day meeting. The list below is shared with the community for feedback before finalizing the meeting agenda.

The goals include planning and discussing the following topics (not presented in any particular order):

• Who are we building Joomla for? Who is our target audience and thus who should we build new features for?
   
• Better collaboration
   
• The future of the Project
   
• The Joomla Project common goals
   
• The Joomla Project strategy
   
• Evaluate our project structure
  • The future role, if any, of the Community Oversight Committee
  • Better understand how our teams function
     
• Talk about processes (conflict resolution, budget process, ….)
   
• How to attract more developers?
   
• Review Sponsored Development program
   
• Review our Mission, Vision and Values
   
• Collaboration strategy with international communities
   
• Joomla! World Conference 2012 - Setup a committee, define goals
   

To comment on this list of goals please visit: http://people.joomla.org/groups/viewdiscussion/1220-Joint+Leadership+Summit+Goals.html?groupid=714

Be sure to read the latest proposal for Joomla's leadership structure and give them comments and feedback for what's being planned. (You may need to join the Leadership Group at the Joomla People site in order to provide that feedback.) This is important, because Joomla's leadership and direction impacts your business, particularly if you are making money building Joomla websites for clients. Jomsocial are offering a big discount on their award winning social platform for Joomla, It ends August 2nd, but you can get three months access for only $45!

This is a report from the Joomla Leadership Summit now underway in San Jose, CA. Members of the Community Leadership Team (CLT), Production Leadership Team (PLT) and the board of Open Source Matters (OSM) are busy discussing the best foot forward in all areas of the project.

The PLT had our summit in the days leading up to the overall Leadership Summit. We'll share shortly the results of that summit, but we wanted to get some direct feedback from the community on an issue that affects many.

We decided to make a small change to the way Joomla versions are numbered. If you have read about the new development cycle, you know we now have a new Joomla version every six months and one long-term-support (LTS) release every 18 months. Versions 1.6 and 1.7 are six-month releases and the next release in January 2012 will be an LTS release. This way, users have a choice. They can get the latest and greatest version by updating with improvements every six months, or they can have a more stable feature set with updates every 18 months.  Maintenance and security releases will be done as necessary for both LTS and STS releases during their support periods.

To try to make this as clear as possible to users, we have decided that the long-term releases will always be labeled as x.5 releases. For example, 3.0 and 3.1 will be regular, short-term six-month releases. The following version would be 3.5, indicating that it is a LTS release. Version 3.5 will be supported for 18 months. In the meantime, we will release 4.0 and 4.1. The LTS replacement for 3.5 will be 4.5, 18 months later.

We would like to present two options to the community to decide how to proceed with this versioning approach. 

Click on the diagram above to view a larger version.

The first option (Option #1) in the diagram is to call the January 2012 release (long-term release) 1.8. The subsequent short -term releases would be 2.0 and 2.1 (e.g. maintenance releases would be 2.0.1 or 2.1.1, etc.) and the following release would be 2.5 (using the x.5 number to identify it as a long-term release). This would be an anomaly in the versioning strategy because it would be the only version to not follow the x.5 numbering, but this version number would naturally follow 1.6 and 1.7.

The second option (Option #2) in the diagram is to call the January 2012 release (long-term release) 2.5. The subsequent short -term releases would be 3.0 and 3.1 (e.g. maintenance releases would be 3.0.1 or 3.1.1, etc.) and the following release would be 3.5 (using the x.5 number to identify it as a long-term release). This would be an anomaly in the versioning strategy because there would be no version numbers between 1.7 and 2.5, but this version number would follow the future versioning strategy (also there would be backwards compatibility with Joomla 1.5).

Vote for the option that makes the best sense here:

http://tinyurl.com/jversion

 

 

 

 

 

(This post is in reply to one that Dries Buytaert wrote on OStatic.com)

I agree with Dries that Open Source CMS' are putting more power into the hands of people who may not know or want to learn code, and that as their learning curves get less steep we will see more people jumping into creating and growing their websites themselves; depending on the type of website they want to have.

We've of course seen the *huge* acceptance of wordpress for simple content publishing (read: 'blogging') amongst all sorts of people ranging from tech pros to near-luddites.  As people use more websites that have richer feature sets everyday they'll no doubt want to see the functionality of those sites in their own; for a while yet, though it may not require custom coding, I think the role of 'web master' or 'web developer' or whatever-you-want-to-call-them will be around for quite some time.

That role will continue to exist but may change to focus on conceptualizing the end result and making it happen with the right combination (and configuration) of 3rd party modules/extensions; whether through just hand-holding/teaching people wanting to develop their own sites or actually putting the pieces together themselves.

I'm really excited for Mark Boulton's redesign of Drupal 7; right now a major hindrance to non-technical people using Drupal is its stratified admin interface, which often leads to developers custom-creating UX per-project to suit each client's administrative needs.

To help people jump-start their web projects we've taken a hard look at another Open Source CMS called Joomla for example, and come up with a packaged solution called Seedling (http://www.plantseedling.com).

Seedling's distribution of Joomla is cool because it comes pre-configured and loaded with a suite of extensions and easily changeable theme; so people can develop their web projects a lot quicker and with more power under the hood.  Plus, it comes with optional email/ticket support - so new adopters of Joomla can get help when they need it.

Until core installs of Open Source CMS' are a lot more user friendly I think solutions like Seedling will really help bridge the gap for those folks who want to learn via DIY and/or can't afford the services of web developers.

Migrating from Joomla 1.6 to 1.7 is very simple. However, depending on where you're starting in your Joomla 1.6 site, this may take a few steps to complete.

Over the last couple of years, we have been conducting a survey about the scope and features of the Joomla community. Over 7,000 people have completed the our survey over the last few years, and this year we want to make it the biggest ever.

Complete our survey and you'll be entered to win prizes!

• Grand prize winner: Our new lifetime Developer club - $399 value
• First Prize: Three $100 gift certificates to Amazon.com
• Second Prize: Three Joomlashack University spots
• Third Prize: Five template giveaways
• Bonus prize: 3,000 person to take the survey, also a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate

Head to our survey now and tell us about how you use Joomla!

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