Author Topic: Collaborative Space in These Forums? (Read 22672 times)

wikitect · « **on:** August 05, 2009, 05:47:02 pm »

These forums are a good way of at least helping others through threaded conversations but there doesn't appear to be any means of sharing / contributing actual examples of EA projects that might help or save others from having to repeat i.e. where's the re-use?!

For example,

custom searches
MDG technology files
profile creation
model templates
RTF / HTML templates

If this were something like Wordpress, Expression Engine etc. you'd have places for contributed plugins, customisation, themes etc.

What about it?

Martin Terreni · « **Reply #1 on:** August 05, 2009, 07:00:11 pm »

THere use to be some EA users group, not sure if it is active any mote. any way I think this could be a god time fo Sparx to pick up this glove.

bioform · « **Reply #2 on:** August 08, 2009, 07:34:06 am »

Anything we could do outside of Sparx? Seems like they already have a pretty big plate to deal with?

Say starting a google blogspot or a free business website, etc.?

Would not mind helping as I am already working on a requirement engineering blogspot of my own that is not yet ready for the public eye

David

THe EA User Group wiki seems dead... but that to me was a great approach... Hmmm... okay who knows voodoo so we could raise that from the dead?

Martin Terreni · « **Reply #3 on:** August 09, 2009, 03:33:50 pm »

I tryed the EA user group, but foud it problematic to load code and staff there. If you know some site suitable for this maybe we shoud switch.

Thelonius · « **Reply #4 on:** August 09, 2009, 06:34:29 pm »

The EA user group was swamped with job ads. People complained. Nothing changed. People dropped out.

I would encourage Sparx to take up the challenge. Running a user group forum / BB isn't that hard. Plus - it allows them to better monitor what that key market is saying about their product ...

bioform · « **Reply #5 on:** August 10, 2009, 02:11:54 am »

Quote

The EA user group was swamped with job ads. People complained. Nothing changed. People dropped out...

You both are referring to the Linked-In group? If so I also quit that group because of it.

I think the key to a linked-in group is the group MUST be managed effectively by a 'moderately' large group of admins so the burden is shared. We could propose that any member aceptted into the group is first vetted someway (e.g. through their posts to the sparx system forums?) and the admin's would need to approve the addition of any new admin... etc.

Of course that is with the idea that a linked-in site is a good choice for sharing?

Anyone want to suggest some ideas?

David

EricP · « **Reply #6 on:** August 10, 2009, 04:03:38 am »

Quote

We could propose that any member aceptted into the group is first vetted someway (e.g. through their posts to the sparx system forums?) and the admin's would need to approve the addition of any new admin... etc.

Good afternoon, David.

If you make it too difficult or time-consuming to join, a lot of people who really have something to contribute won't bother because they have too much else to do with their time.

Many people who join these kinds of forums do so because they have a question that needs to be answered RSN, and they can't necessarily always afford to jump through all kinds of hoops and wait days to be given access... then when they do get access and get the answers they need, they often stick around and become valuable contributors.

I have tried joining a few discussion groups whose administrators are so full of themselves (and this SPECIFICALLY DOES NOT include this group or any proposed Sparx group) that they make us jump through so many hoops that I just gave up and decided it wasn't worth it.

My pet peeve is groups that include those little graphics with distorted strings of letters and/or numbers, and you're supposed to figure out what the hell it says (which is easier at some times than at others) and type it into a little box before the forum admin will allow you to post a message. What a crock!

As for the problem cited early on, the one about the EA user group being flooded with job ads... I have often wished that THIS forum included a separate category for job ads and/or consultant requests or ads. If such messages could be kept solely in those categories it would be a real value for some of us who are looking for local consulting help from time to time.

bioform · « **Reply #7 on:** August 11, 2009, 03:19:36 am »

Eric,

I'm sorry my posting was not very clear. I was referring to the "admins" as being cleared through checking postings...

I agree that anyone who wants to join should find it easy. With that said, part of the problem on the current group is that it really does not serve this need, and no one really monitors off subject postings, etc.

I have volunteered repeatedly to help, but have never been answered.

So really, if we assume Sparx is too busy/not able and the Linked-In group functions don't cut it...

WHAT can anyone suggest? I often have questions or would like to be able to work from an example that has been posted, but that seems to be rare. For instance learning shapescripts was a royal pain for me, not because of the command syntax, but a lack of understanding of the impact of the command order... Has been my experience that the documentation has been incorrect, and I have resorted to trial and error to get a clean validated script...

I am game to help and maybe even host, but would like to get some suggestions from the community on what might be the best resource to make use of?

David

Thomas Mercer-Hursh · « **Reply #8 on:** August 11, 2009, 07:48:05 am »

Clearly, these forums are the right place for all the question and answer stuff. What we are missing is a user community for posting code, whitepapers, models, and the like as a resource. I've been very happy with our use of Drupal to do this on http://www.oehive.org (there is even some EA related content at http://www.oehive.org/EA and http://www.oehive.org/ABL2UML ). Drupal is quite easy to set up, especially if you keep to the basics and provides a great environment for user-contributed content and cooperative projects. There are tools for minimizing spam, but if you limit contributions to registered users, spam is rare anyway.

I would volunteer to help since I have built 4 Drupal sites and am content administrator at another, but I'm such a small player in the EA world that would seem presumptuous. What we need is a couple people who are willing to step forward as administrators to put the whole thing together. I think it is real important to do this hand in hand with Sparx so that it is a cooperative and mutually supporting relationship.

RoyC · « **Reply #9 on:** August 11, 2009, 11:59:47 am »

I see nothing wrong with any of the ideas that have been expressed here, but a fairly critical point is: how many people would actually put things up on the site for others to use?

Under the current categories of this forum we see a large number of requests for code, examples and methods, and not that many offers to meet those requests. Sometimes there is a response along the lines of "sorry, it's proprietary/private/confidential/all my work".

There have been attempts in the past to open a forum section or thread (including, IIRC, at least one Sparx-initiated one) for collecting solutions, and one person (might have been Bioform?) valiantly posted a thread of several pieces of useful code. But those previous attempts seem to have fizzled out because everyone - naturally - wants to save time and effort by re-using someone else's work, rather than doing the work for others to use.

I must also point out that there are people on this forum who do indeed chip in regularly with labor-saving devices - I applaud your generosity. But are you the ones who want another vehicle to put your gifts onto?

Maybe we need to find ourselves a beanfield out there...

bioform · « **Reply #10 on:** August 11, 2009, 02:22:27 pm »

Not sure about the beanfield? But I WILL ask Jack on his opinion, after all he is a well known GIANT in his field...

Anyway, I will TRY to start some threads along the lines of "shared/example" shapescripts, document templates, stereotypes, and such..." and maybe we can see if in fact we can breath some life back into sharing.

I would immediately think of Midnight and Paulo as two of the most thoughtful, helpful, and extremely knowledgeable posters that I have ever encountered on these forums. So maybe we can take inspiration from their and others dedication and see how things go.

As always thanks to Sparx for their great support, helpful posts, and great product!

David

Geert Bellekens · « **Reply #11 on:** August 11, 2009, 03:56:59 pm »

I would be happy to share some of my work, if there would be an easy way to do so.
I'm doing a lot of addin work recently and a lot of the code I write could be used for other purposes as well.

Geert

Martin Terreni · « **Reply #12 on:** August 11, 2009, 03:58:25 pm »

I can tell i tryed to share in the past, but it was just too problematic...

RoyC · « **Reply #13 on:** August 11, 2009, 04:05:29 pm »

Well, yes, Jack did a lot of climbing to get golden results, but I was actually thinking of the film 'Field of Dreams', where the dream of drawing crowds to a baseball stadium in a bean field was "build it, and then they will come".

Somewhat similar to (if not based on?) the German opera fanatic (Hertzog?) who built an opera house in the Brazilian rainforest.

So David is going to start some threads - thank you, David. Let's see if everyone else brings their home runs and arias to his beanfield (or beanstalk, as the case may be!)

Thomas Mercer-Hursh · « **Reply #14 on:** August 12, 2009, 04:12:08 am »

On the company provided forum site for another software package I work with, there is a code share forum where people post various pieces. That is useful for letting one know that there is something new, but not very useful when one is trying to find something. This is why I and a couple of other people started the OpenEdge Hive site I referred to so that there could be a one-stop shopping place for finding this stuff and so that there would be an organizational structure that made it easy to find what one is looking for.

Now that we are up and running and have substantial traffic, not only do people frequently include links to our site in response to questions on one of the forum, but when someone publishes a useful sample on a forum, someone often suggests that they put it on our site so that it will be easy to find in the future. We now have over 1500 pages of content and 5000 unique visitors a month.

Part of our concept, which I think also should apply here, is that it is not just code. Someone might puzzle through how to use a particular feature, get it organized in their own mind, and then write that up so that someone else doesn't have to go through that same process. Shape scripts would be a great area where more than just providing some code examples, text about how to accomplish various effects would be extremely useful. I'd also like a page in there gathering together all of the ideas that have been advanced for improving shape scripts. Ultimately that needs to go to Sparx, but think how much more powerful a document it would be if all of the ideas were brought together, organized, clarified, and use cases provided.

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