Zope.net (was Re: [ZWeb] Zope.org and New zope.org status)

[Jeffrey P Shell]

On Sunday, January 12, 2003, at 02:34  PM, Paul Everitt wrote:
> Loosely-coupled is more, well, loosely-coupled.  For instance, 
> freezope.org is doing a good job of servicing the sites of individual 
> Zope users, from the reports I've been getting.  They're responsive 
> and provide a fair bit of access.  OTOH, nzo is going in the opposite 
> direction (DTML and ZPT are outlawed for most users).  This leaves an 
> unmet need.
>
> Is there a way to let people do some of their own thing, while still 
> allowing information to flow around?  Certainly the blog universe, as 
> you know very well, has made progress on this approach.  This problem 
> doesn't necessarily require a cathedral.
>
> I'm not sure the answer to this problem.  But I'm interested in a 
> party line that says to the world of Zope, "What you're doing is good, 
> can we cooperate with your site?"  This can help bring network effects 
> which, in the blog world, are quite obvious.

I was thinking about this in the shower (and I should note - it's now 
4:20 and I still haven't eaten yet.  D'oh!).  I think it would be 
interesting to bring in RSS feeds from other Zope community sites.  
Something even more interesting would be to read in RSS feeds and 
catalog them, so that you could search for help on Zope.org and get a 
ZopeLabs recipe or "Ask ZopeZen" discussion.

>> a site to get documentation and downloads, and a development site.  
>> The two could be interconnected, because I think the community aspect 
>> of CZO has been what's made CZO actually work.  There are lots of new 
>> products and news items being posted (I expanded the "Recent News" 
>> box on the front page recently because some cool news items 
>> disappeared too quickly).
>
> Cool!

Especially since we've got four entries for Jan 12th alone.

>> Separating the core content from the community content would probably 
>> improve general maintenance of the site, and keep the speed up.  It's 
>> just a thought.  For what it is, <http://www.php.net/> is not a bad 
>> site to visit - it's like Zope.org without the community parts.  
>> <http://www.php.net/sites.php> lists affiliated sites in the network.
>
> That's indeed a good point.  The core content should be centralized, 
> fast, and relatively controlled.  The cathedral.  Other stuff could be 
> flowing, dynamic, and chaotic.  The bazaar.

>> I do think the community aspects of CZO are very nice, but we do know 
>> the burden that it places on the ZODB and maintenance of the site.  
>> It might be good to separate them somewhat, but still have things 
>> like "Latest Zope.net uploads" and "Latest Zope.net news items" on a 
>> hypothetical Zope.org front page.
>
> Or better still, leverage the work others are already doing.
>
> Zope.org isn't likely to do a better job of news than ZopeZen.  It 
> isn't likely to do a better job of recipes than ZopeLabs.  And let's 
> not discuss downloads. :^)

Maybe that's what Zope.net or NZO could specialize in, along with the 
core content.  The Zope.org News items, as I said, happen pretty fast 
lately.  But almost all of them are product release announcements.  Of 
the eight on the front page right now, seven are release announcements 
and the other is the plea for Zope ${sporadic_time_measurement} News 
help.

However the whole Download / Package discussion turns out, it does look 
like the primary pattern lately for Zope.org use by the community is as 
a place to release software (development activity such as that in the 
Zope 3 wiki excluded) and/or announce releases.  But, I'm not 
discussing downloads as per your command ;)

--
Jeffrey P Shell