[AG-TECH] AG Community Portal prototype launched ...

[michael j daw]

Mike,

>From what I see, Darran's site looks excellent and is just what the community needs (i.e. not as a prototype, or a good start, but the real thing). And, the best thing of all, it's come directly from the community, spontaneously! Like its unplanned announcement, it may start to have a momentum of its own... (Watch out for Manchester software to be posted there soon.)

There's no need to fragment the community - why don't you use it as your means of communication with the community (e.g. software releases, other ANL-specific info)? That way, you don't have to spend any more effort worrying about revamping the website because someone's done it for you. Which means more time for you to concentrate on getting AG3 out there. This can only help your "small overworked Argonne team". 

The best community involvement is bottom-up. I don't believe the top-down model of community involvement can ever really work.

I for one am very excited about what Darran has done.

Mike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov 
> [mailto:owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov] On Behalf Of Michael E. Papka
> Sent: 24 May 2005 05:43
> To: Darran Edmundson
> Cc: Michael E. Papka; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
> Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] AG Community Portal prototype launched ...
> 
> Darran,
> 
> This is great.  As we have discussed the plan is to move the physical
> home of accessgrid.org to the University to remove some of the
> restrictions placed on access to the site that having it at ANL has
> caused, this is currently in the works.
> 
> On that note, we would like to see volunteers fr congeasus om the
> community take stewardship of different areas on the new and improved
> community site to lift the burden off the "small overworked Argonne
> team".   Mary Fritsch who has left the core AG group at Argonne to
> move to a  new exciting position will still be overseeing the site,
> but  hopefully now with help from the community.  The work you've
> done on the prototype site looks like a good start; we'd like to have
> you help spin up the community site at accessgrid.org. Please let us
> know if you're interested (this is with the initial setup, it is
> assumed the community will help once the site is in place). We are
> currently evaluating the Mambo server (http://www.mamboserver.com/)
> for the new site, this is based on recommendations from different
> people, but if the community has a strong leaning towards another
> system let us know.
> 
> The overall goal is not to fragment the community with multiple
> sites, the www.accessgrid.org site has always intended to be a
> community site, we have made a conscious effort to remove any ANL
> slant.  We'd like the accessgrid.org site continue to serve as the
> community site, and be developed by the community.
> 
> There are more efforts underway to increase community involvement,
> look for announcements in the next month.
> 
> Please keep contributing!
> 
> Cheers
> Mike
> 
> On May 23, 2005, at 5:11 AM, Darran Edmundson wrote:
> 
> >
> > Well, I was hoping to keep it under wraps for another week or so
> > but the word is out ...
> >
> > There was a lot of discussion at the recent Retreat regarding
> > the lack of community input.  We are all painfully aware of
> > the shortcomings in the current AG, and yet we are waiting for
> > the small overworked Argonne team to deliver our software utopia.
> > The fact is, we as a community need to be more involved - in
> > design, development, testing, bug reporting and bug fixing,
> > documentation, feature requests, human factors, etc.
> >
> > None of this can happen without effective communication.
> > But how does one submit a tutorial, update or add an "FAQ",
> > hook up with other developers to collaborate on a shared app,
> > contribute to the software roadmap, or even just find the latest
> > version
> > of a node service?
> >
> > As a response to this, I've whipped up a prototype web site to
> > stimulate discussion on these issues:
> >
> >      http://slap.anu.edu.au:8200/
> >
> > The downloads section has been populated with a number
> > of shared apps and services.  (Note, Tom Uram did *not*
> > put up the AGTk, I did that as a demo before inviting Argonne
> > to try out the site.)   Under the forums section, a number of
> > discussion
> > areas have been created.  One possible option would be to populate
> > these with the AGTech archives sifted into appropriate categories
> > and gateway future traffic?   The missing item, and perhaps the
> > most import, is the documentation section.  This will be modeled on
> > the "documentation" section of the main Plone website:  http://
> > plone.org/.
> > Plone allows members to individually submit tutorial, FAQs,
> > How-To's, events, news items, etc. that are optionally reviewed
> > by the site admins.  It's a powerful paradigm.
> >
> > Please, have a look and offer your constructive criticisms,
> > wish-lists, etc.  If you'd like to play a more substantial role in
> > the nitty gritty of getting the site up and running, please contact
> > me directly at darran.edmundson at anu.edu.au.
> >
> > Finally,  let me publicly state that within a few months, I would
> > like to
> > have the site either (i) run under the governance of the 
> community at
> > large or (ii) used in a (planned?) redesign of the main
> > AccessGrid.org.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Darran.
> >
> >
> > Darran Edmundson (darran.edmundson at anu.edu.au)
> > ANU Supercomputer Facility Vizlab
> > Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2600
> > tel: +61 2 6125-0517  fax: +61 2 6125-5088
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
>