There's such a thing as maintain too low of a profile, too.
A stampede of interested onlookers could cause trouble, but those with a
casual interest will drift away again when they realize it's not ready yet.
Sufficiently-interested people will make an extra effort to get involved in
the project and help out. But what about the middle ground in between?
My feeling is that there is a not-insignificant segment of the developer
population that might take an interest in furthering the project, but maybe
not so much of an interest that they'll go far out of their way. Lowering
the barrier to entry is the best way to turn such potential developers into
active participants in the program. Making it easy to keep up with the
status and ongoing efforts helps to lower that barrier.
Perhaps it's best to start this kind of thing early, usable or not?
Deven
On Thu, 22 Feb 2001, Greg Stein wrote:
> This is a definite point for a "public / usable" project. We aren't at that
> stage, so there is actually something to be said for not drowning in
> inquiries from stampedes of interested onlookers. Maintaining a low profile,
> until you're ready, has a few advantages.
>
> :-)
>
> Cheers,
> -g
>
> On Thu, Feb 22, 2001 at 12:04:52PM -0500, Deven T. Corzine wrote:
> >
> > On 22 Feb 2001 Kevin Pilch-Bisson wrote:
> >
> > > In light of some of the comments given on page talking about subversion,
> > > I would like to make a suggestion regarding the subversion website. I
> > > think it would be good to move the status section closer to the top of
> > > the page, and try to update it at least once a week. I think that there
> > > are a lot of people watching the subversion pages, without being on the
> > > mailing lists, and it would be nice to give them frequent accurate
> > > status updates.
> > >
> > > What do you all think?
> >
> > I think this is a VERY good idea. In fact, I think it's a big mistake that
> > many projects make, leaving users with a casual interest no way to easily
> > find news tidbits and status information. For example, this was a problem
> > with the Mozilla project for a long time -- the active developers knew that
> > the project was VERY busy, but if you weren't on the mailing lists or IRC
> > (especially IRC!), you were relying on the website for information and it
> > looked like the project was languishing when it was in fact very active.
> >
> > Having a weekly status report (news, task status, bug & fixes, etc.) can
> > really help a lot. Summarizing significant threads from the mailing list
> > (a la kernel-traffic) is also valuable for people without time to track the
> > mailing lists personally. Having this information appear on a near-daily
> > basis is ideal, but weekly is probably sufficient.
> >
> > Allowing the website to remain static for week after week is best avoided;
> > it conveys an impression of stagnation and inactivity, and discourages
> > people from returning often and maintaining an active level of interest in
> > the project. If there's usually something new and interesting on the site
> > (ideally daily, but at least weekly), it will encourage people to make it a
> > habit to visit the site, which will keep the project more at the forefront
> > of their minds and make it more likely they'll make the extra effort of
> > actually contributing in some fashion. It lowers the barrier to entry,
> > which is good for everyone...
> >
> > But hey, this is just my opinion. I'm new here, ignore me. :-)
> >
> > Deven
>
> --
> Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/
>
>
Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:23 2006