What requirements to create an unoffical PR sub-forum?

[Witch]

What are the requirements to create an unofficial PR sub-forum?

Since the developers have their own private PR mailing list. Shouldn't the community have a public unofficial PR sub-forum to vent their ideas to each other and find collaborators to do things that doesn't require official ReactOS sanctions?

Not everybody can qualify or have the time to invest in becoming a fully-fledged PR member like Z98 and vicmarcal.
A backwater sub-forum would serve like BitTorrent traffic protocol, unqualified people like me could chip in every now and then to unofficial PR efforts. Which in the end would result in a Niagara falls. Also not relying entirely on having one designated person to steer the ship at all times, since there will be many eyes to steer it when the helm is unmanned at any given time for various reasons and situations.

200% vs. 1.000%

• 2 official PR members who works 100% can only produce a sum of 200% worth of efforts.
• 100 unofficial PR members who only chips in 10% will sum up to 1.000% worth of efforts.

Not everybody needs to be part of the official PR team since you only require a few. Each of these two alternatives serves their respective purpose one cannot live without the other.

Create an unofficial PR sub-forum please!

[Haos]

2 official PR members who works 100% can only produce a sum of 200% worth of efforts.
100 unofficial PR members who only chips in 10% will sum up to 1.000% worth of efforts

You are forgetting that this is not a manufacturing line and you cannot simply add the workunits or manipulate fractions of those. With so many participants you will get a monstrous overhead, not to mention the required effort for coordination. I am not sure if those 2 official PR members, working full-time could be able to coordinate the remaining 100. I am not an expert in project management (so perhaps someone more experienced will correct me) but the actual rate is more alike to 1 per 8 or 1 per 10. I`m not even discussing the infrastructure requirements for such large group - our team meetings have never reached 40 participants, yet they were very difficult to keep up with plan.

[Witch]

I`m not even discussing the infrastructure requirements for such large group - our team meetings have never reached 40 participants, yet they were very difficult to keep up with plan.

That is the beauty with an unofficial backwater PR sub-forum. You can't coordinate things on a larger scale using mailing-lists, IRC and Skype as your primary choice of weapon.
So what's the harm in trying it out and see how things will develop?
Not trying it out is like limiting the muscles of the community.

With so many participants you will get a monstrous overhead, not to mention the required effort for coordination. I am not sure if those 2 official PR members, working full-time could be able to coordinate the remaining 100.

• With an unofficial PR sub-forum you can coordinate an army in the thousands. Without it "ReactOS Fundraising Campaign 2012" will continue to progress in the same rate like it has done from May to August.

• The purpose with the unofficial PR sub-forum is not to have the official PR members coordinate things.

• The purpose is to create a backwater space for unqualified PR volunteers to meet, discuss and formulate solutions in a more focused manner. And then present the finished solutions to the official PR team who will then respond if ReactOS want to authorize the solution or not.
  
  With or without permission and official support from ReactOS team people will do things anyways. It will just take a longer time to realize the plans. The question is if ReactOS want this process to go slower or faster.

So what's the harm in trying it out and see how things will develop?
Not trying it out is like limiting the muscles of the community.

[andreas84]

Well i dont know if there are requirements i dont see a reason not to make such a forum it would add some better organisation just go and ask the person who is responsible for the forums.

[Witch]

I still feel like this needs to be done in some kind of official way for enough people on ReactOS to be happy.
So where can I file a "Change Request" (CR) for this in order to make things go through all the red tapes?

[Z98]

This request is declined, for two reasons. First, creation of such a subform would be an explicit endorsement of the subforum, which means that it is no longer unofficial. Second, the forums already have a subforum where such suggestions can go, specifically, the Feedback and Suggestions subforum. People have also been using the General Discussion forum to present and discuss ideas. Creation of a new space is therefore not seen as necessary for holding such discussions.

[Witch]

Second, the forums already have a subforum where such suggestions can go, specifically, the Feedback and Suggestions subforum. People have also been using the General Discussion forum to present and discuss ideas. Creation of a new space is therefore not seen as necessary for holding such discussions.

I think "Feedback and Suggestions" and "General Discussion" forums have too much noise and activity. That's why you never see results from the community and just suggestion of ideas. There's no space for ideas to focus-evolve.

This request is declined, for two reasons. First, creation of such a subform would be an explicit endorsement of the subforum, which means that it is no longer unofficial.

I can understand and accept that reason. But what if we could name it to something else? Like a hierarchy based Workshop area:

Stage-1: Workshops (Alpha) forum
- For startup ideas, brainstorming feedback and suggestions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workshop

Stage-2: Workshops (Beta) forum
- For more mature ideas that requires more focus and less noise from everything else going on.

Stage-3: Workshops Presentation forum
- For presenting the matured ideas and plans to the ReactOS PR team and ReactOS Coredev team.

Stage-4: Workshops Task force forum
- Where only a select few ideas can live and work in peace away from all that noise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_force


Special people needs a quiet place to grow their ideas and plans, nothing productive can be produced in a noisy environment.

[Haos]

I think "Feedback and Suggestions" and "General Discussion" forums have too much noise and activity. That's why you never see results from the community and just suggestion of ideas. There's no space for ideas to focus-evolve.

So the place you expect should not be active, if activity means noisness for you?

[Witch]

Focus activity on 2-4 things leads to results. = Activity
Mass activity on 10+ things at the same time leads to no results. = Noise

Special people needs a quiet place to grow their ideas and plans, nothing productive can be achieved in a noisy environment.

[Haos]

That's hardly a kind of activity Feedback subforum is seeing. How do you intend to keep control and limit the amount of activity on such low level though?

[andreas84]

I MIGHT think about cleaning up my homepage with forum etc and provide forums if enough interest. Will take atleast two weeks from when i start if there is enough interest i will notify you when its finished. However you would mutate to betatester for my homepage its running but not seamlessly even the private forums need bugfixing to run at all (and i would host the discussion as private. And it will need registration of all participants )


so this would eliminate z98 first reason: it would be 100% unofficial.
And well the second "reason" is not really a reason its more a oh we have enough space so you think you need more space i think you dont.

[Witch]

I MIGHT think about cleaning up my homepage with forum etc and provide forums if enough interest. Will take atleast two weeks from when i start if there is enough interest i will notify you when its finished. However you would mutate to betatester for my homepage its running but not seamlessly even the private forums need bugfixing to run at all (and i would host the discussion as private. And it will need registration of all participants )


so this would eliminate z98 first reason: it would be 100% unofficial.
And well the second "reason" is not really a reason its more a oh we have enough space so you think you need more space i think you dont.

I already have a forum setup to do the things you mention. (Don't use it though I don't have the time to maintain it!)
But doing so will just limit the natural growth of the community. This needs to be done in here if we want to create a stable foundation, for whatever it is that we are trying to do.

[Witch]

That's hardly a kind of activity Feedback subforum is seeing.

Example:
* Since I cannot see any Twitter button on ReactOS' main page or "ReactOS Fundraising Campaign 2012" banner.
* And I couldn't find the reason why official ReactOS team didn't make use of Twitter for their fundraising campaign.
* And I don't see any indication of ReactOS team trying to explore the use of Twitter for their fundraising campaign.

I then unofficially wanted to start a thread about it to explore its potential and see how much we can squeeze out of it before deeming Twitter as a useless tool for the fundraiser campaign.
Where is the official Twitter account?

But if every new member that joins ReactOS forum have to go through 49 different threads before they get to the 50th thread that I created in July 11th.
View forum - General Discussion
Then that will take a looooong time before a potential Twitter specialist can chip in with their knowledge and tell us how we can make use of Twitter the best way for the fundraising campaign. The same goes for Feedback sub-forum, there's too much of everything else going on, so how will that potential Twitter specialist be able to see that we need their help. They will be to busy reading through all the other 50 threads on General Discussion before they find the time to get to Feedback sub-forum.
I have a short attention span I don't spend my free time going through 50 threads for fun. At most I check out 10 threads then I go back to my daily life. I would think most people who are new to ReactOS also have a short attention span like that.

How do you intend to keep control and limit the amount of activity on such low level though?

I'm not sure I fully understand this question. But I would say it's the same as my previous response to Z98.
"Like a hierarchy based Workshop area:"

This request is declined, for two reasons. First, creation of such a subform would be an explicit endorsement of the subforum, which means that it is no longer unofficial.

I can understand and accept that reason. But what if we could name it to something else? Like a hierarchy based Workshop area:

Stage-1: Workshops (Alpha) forum
- For startup ideas, brainstorming feedback and suggestions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workshop

Stage-2: Workshops (Beta) forum
- For more mature ideas that requires more focus and less noise from everything else going on.

Stage-3: Workshops Presentation forum
- For presenting the matured ideas and plans to the ReactOS PR team and ReactOS Coredev team.

Stage-4: Workshops Task force forum
- Where only a select few ideas can live and work in peace away from all that noise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_force


Special people needs a quiet place to grow their ideas and plans, nothing productive can be achieved in a noisy environment.

[milon]

Z98, I must respectfully disagree with you.

First, creation of such a subform would be an explicit endorsement of the subforum, which means that it is no longer unofficial.

Not necessarily. Call it "Unofficial PR Ideas" or something like that. I've been on other forums where "Unofficial" is used in the title of a subforum, and everyone seems to understand that it is, in fact, unofficial.

...the forums already have a subforum where such suggestions can go, specifically, the Feedback and Suggestions subforum...

Feedback and Suggestions subforum?
Here's why I don't post PR-related things there:

Suggestions and comments about the ReactOS operating system

PR suggestions simply do not belong in the forum that deals specifically with feedback and feature requests for an operating system.

Also, read your two points together. If the officially designated place for PR discussion is the Feedback and Suggestions subforum, then all PR discussion is official since it's in an officially created space. (See how your first argument doesn't make any sense?)

I feel there is no reason to NOT create a PR subforum. It's not going to create extra work beyond the few clicks required to set it up. It won't make for new forum members (unless it's actually successful, which we all hope will happen). It won't make for additional posts (people are going to keep posting their ideas regardless).

Z98, if there are other reasons you have about why a PR subforum would be a Bad Thing or why it's simply not pragmatic, now is the time to tell us. I really don't understand your motivation for not wanting to have one and I don't want to make uncharitable guesses about what those motives might be. You've always been a solid supporter of ROS, so help us understand you.

[Z98]

If people want to discuss PR unofficially, there is nothing stopping any of you from doing so now. As such, lack of a subforum is not an impediment to discussion. I am not seeing any genuine justification or need for it. To claim that such a subforum is necessary feels, as I stated in my long rant in the PR respin thread, like an excuse to try to justify the lack of actual results. Unless it is actually demonstrated that there is a need for such a subforum, there is no reason to create one.

Endlessly spawning off initiatives, groups, etc, is in my opinion inefficient and self-defeating. These things rely on a sort of momentary enthusiasm that can die far too quickly and often before the actual initiative is even set up, much less the task said initiative was meant to help advance. It is a mistake that this project has made several times in the past, because we could never follow through with it due to lack of manpower or expertise. As such, when presenting us with an idea, people need to give a damn good reason for why we SHOULD do it. That reason is at this point lacking, since this is a mere shuffling of the current status quo.