Community Projects Forum?

[erisco]

I don't know about anyone else, but I for one am dying to open some "project" threads but there really isn't a place to do so.

Has anyone been to Sourceforge? That place is pretty neat. You get to browse what people are up to... get involved... even pick up some super-duper open source! Alright, so why don't I just join Sourceforge and put my things there? Well I have a few reasons. A) Registration is long and frankly a bit intimidating, B) It would be nice to just have the project in a forum-style rather than emailing everyone, C) I don't know anyone there!

On HTMLforums we could have a Community Projects forum, or something of a similar title, that would allow any user to open a project simply by creating a thread. There they can reserve a few posts for characters if they need, and then people can post on the project. The first message (and any reserved ones) could easily be edited to keep the project up-to-date.

I believe a forum like this would benefit HTMLforums for a few reasons.
A) It would allow members to get involved in longer-termed projects. This could be great for keeping up activity and spirit.

B) It would allow members to utilize the projects after they have been finished to a usable version. This could benefit SE rankings, forum information/usability, forum hits, and forum user satisfaction.

C) It would allow members to learn in an active and more comfortable environment. Perhaps a newer programmer joins a project with more seasoned ones... now they can pick up on new things while still contributing. Hopefully, after working on the project for a while, all the members will be acquainted with each other... this could improve relations on both a social and business level.
I think there are more upsides, but these are what strikes me as being the most beneficial.

D) It allows people who do have ideas to get them voiced to the world. This forum has a whole lot of members, and this would help spread the word of open source projects. Open source, as we should all know, is like a sharing charity to anyone with a computer. What is better than helping broaden the world of development?

What kind of projects was I looking at posting about? Well, currently I am working on three PHP projects...

The first is a CMS. Reinventing the wheel? Not at all.. I would love to show people how well it is working and the potential it has. At the same time it would be excellent to have programmers from this forum to contribute and we can call it an HTMLforums contribution to the CMS world... I doubt I can finish it to its fullest on my own anyways.

The second is a PHP game authoring/development framework. Totally unique in every way.. I really cannot find where this has been done before. It is allowing anyone who knows some basic PHP to utilize the MVC framework to create a tile-based game. This game can be carried over any length of maps and have virtually any sort of event possible in a browser. Again, I do have most of the concept work done and a stable working version... it just needs the contributions of other programmers to fill out its potential. Then of course, it would be great to find graphics people to help create the game itself.

The third is a WYSIWYG editor based on PHP. This I actually just took interest in today.. and in most ways it would tie into a CMS. I am still trying out a lot of concept work and some small-scale tests. The objective is to, truly, produce valid and wholesome XHTML Strict markup with full CSS styling.. and of course it is edited visually. Hopefully only a dash of javascript will be needed here and there.

So those are the things I am working on myself this March Break. Only two things would be better. The first is getting a community going to help out projects just like these... and the second is to get involved in what other people are trying to do. I am an avid programmer, as are quite a few people here, and I am always excited to help out long-term projects.

This concept wouldn't have to just relate to programming. Perhaps a group wants to create a website about high school bullying, or perhaps a group wants to create a charity site, or maybe a group wants to make something sharp in javascript... whatever it be, having a place to house these long-term projects in a centralized spot could be the next feature for HTMLforums.

[You-Vent.Com]

I don't know about anyone else, but I for one am dying to open some "project" threads but there really isn't a place to do so.

Has anyone been to Sourceforge? That place is pretty neat. You get to browse what people are up to... get involved... even pick up some super-duper open source! Alright, so why don't I just join Sourceforge and put my things there? Well I have a few reasons. A) Registration is long and frankly a bit intimidating, B) It would be nice to just have the project in a forum-style rather than emailing everyone, C) I don't know anyone there!

On HTMLforums we could have a Community Projects forum, or something of a similar title, that would allow any user to open a project simply by creating a thread. There they can reserve a few posts for characters if they need, and then people can post on the project. The first message (and any reserved ones) could easily be edited to keep the project up-to-date.

I believe a forum like this would benefit HTMLforums for a few reasons.
A) It would allow members to get involved in longer-termed projects. This could be great for keeping up activity and spirit.

B) It would allow members to utilize the projects after they have been finished to a usable version. This could benefit SE rankings, forum information/usability, forum hits, and forum user satisfaction.

C) It would allow members to learn in an active and more comfortable environment. Perhaps a newer programmer joins a project with more seasoned ones... now they can pick up on new things while still contributing. Hopefully, after working on the project for a while, all the members will be acquainted with each other... this could improve relations on both a social and business level.
I think there are more upsides, but these are what strikes me as being the most beneficial.

D) It allows people who do have ideas to get them voiced to the world. This forum has a whole lot of members, and this would help spread the word of open source projects. Open source, as we should all know, is like a sharing charity to anyone with a computer. What is better than helping broaden the world of development?

What kind of projects was I looking at posting about? Well, currently I am working on three PHP projects...

The first is a CMS. Reinventing the wheel? Not at all.. I would love to show people how well it is working and the potential it has. At the same time it would be excellent to have programmers from this forum to contribute and we can call it an HTMLforums contribution to the CMS world... I doubt I can finish it to its fullest on my own anyways.

The second is a PHP game authoring/development framework. Totally unique in every way.. I really cannot find where this has been done before. It is allowing anyone who knows some basic PHP to utilize the MVC framework to create a tile-based game. This game can be carried over any length of maps and have virtually any sort of event possible in a browser. Again, I do have most of the concept work done and a stable working version... it just needs the contributions of other programmers to fill out its potential. Then of course, it would be great to find graphics people to help create the game itself.

The third is a WYSIWYG editor based on PHP. This I actually just took interest in today.. and in most ways it would tie into a CMS. I am still trying out a lot of concept work and some small-scale tests. The objective is to, truly, produce valid and wholesome XHTML Strict markup with full CSS styling.. and of course it is edited visually. Hopefully only a dash of javascript will be needed here and there.

So those are the things I am working on myself this March Break. Only two things would be better. The first is getting a community going to help out projects just like these... and the second is to get involved in what other people are trying to do. I am an avid programmer, as are quite a few people here, and I am always excited to help out long-term projects.

This concept wouldn't have to just relate to programming. Perhaps a group wants to create a website about high school bullying, or perhaps a group wants to create a charity site, or maybe a group wants to make something sharp in javascript... whatever it be, having a place to house these long-term projects in a centralized spot could be the next feature for HTMLforums.

>>>I am an avid programmer<<<

Maybe you could help me with a banner rotator (html) that I can copy/paste?

I need a rotator that can be affixed to different pages.

Tried a few now hasnt worked.

Gonna get mad and throw my pc away.

Kidding.

Can you help?

Glen.

[erisco]

Hello You-Vent.Com :D

Could I first request that you remove the quote of my post? I think it is a little bit of unnecessary scrolling time, hehe.

The idea of this thread was to suggest to the forum itself to, potentially, open a brand new forum (polished name plate and all) for the reasons I brought up. If you require programming help try the server-side scripting forum... I'd be happy to help you there. But, a community project forum would be for long-term projects rather than shorter questions.

[Pegasus]

It will be discussed with the mods and we'll consider the option of a project forum. However, given the propensity of some members to nitpick everything, I have my doubts that such a forum would be possible without some serious modding.

Peg

[erisco]

I'm not quite sure what you mean Peg. Why would a project forum be more susceptible to nitpicking than other forums? Anyways, thanks for taking interest in talking it over with the moderators.

[nox-Hand]

I am all for this! Oh, yes, bring it on \o/

Admittedly, all I can really contribute to projects is critique, artwork and Danish translation, but artwork is always needed if one wants it to be nice :D

I think this is an excellent idea and I am all for it :)

[eTwerp]

I'm just here to lend my support, it's a very good idea erisco :D

It'd be interesting to see what kind of things we're all up to, and to see if I can lend a hand where needed.

So, it gets my :thumbup:

[afterburn]

Lets ask the question, where does the source code get posted? an online CSM ? or CVS? The reason of using Source Forge is the GPL/GPL Lesser agreements that are required to being part of a "Shared" input/coding. No owner at all.

Next is how do you control langauages of each said project? Platform specific? OS? Processor? Library?

Source forge was created with those in mind, and a publicly accessible CVS.

[erisco]

True, and these will be things to overcome.

I think there are a few solutions to finding hosting for projects.
A) Hosting donated by a project member
B) Upload as an attachment to HTMLforums
C) Use a free online CVS (such as sourceforge) and house discussion on the Community Projects forum
D) Post the script right in a post if it is small enough

I know I, personally, will have no problem with hosting my own projects. Freewebs may be a little crude but it is also a liable free hosting solution (or any other free host). I believe you can upload a megabyte to HTMLforums? So that should be fair for most projects as well.

As far as licensing is concerned, it should be required that the project is released under a license published by the Free Software Foundation. There are other licenses such as the MIT license, so perhaps it should just be said that licensing must permit free usage/distribution/modification by anyone.

The language that the project is written under would specifically come from whomever is starting the project. So if the project is ASP.NET and Postgres, then it should be stated as so in the project outline.

[afterburn]

That is what Microsofts Team Services is designed for.

1) Bad not able to control reliablity, relfects poorly on HTML Forums.
2) Even worse to load something on a setup its not designed for
3) Then just use Source Forge
4) Not seen enough projects that it would do that. Besides last post goes to the rear and people aren;t sure which is the most current.

All of Source Forges are GPL/GPL Lesser or the likes GPL says that if you modify it, and intend on publising as your own you must post the code.


Either way, you would have to know about each of the requirements and any derived works or diverged.

[nox-Hand]

In case the forum itself doesn't have enough free space/bandwidth to host this project themselves, I'd like to back up on this project by offering free hosting for the projects "file exchange" spot :)

I would like to offer 500gb webspace, 250gb monthly bandwidth and a server that runs PHP, MySQL etc, all the stuff a site needs :) It could possibly even be used to tie straight into a part of HTMLforums if that is possible.

Anyway, add that to the list of deliberations, mods/admins! My offer shall stand. It's my plan on Dreamhost I am giving a part of, just thought you should know :)


Anyway, I hope you will consider this idea a LOT since I think it's an awesome project :)


This whole hosting idea would have to be discussed in more depth though ;) Laters guys!

[afterburn]

even if that was possible. What about the time to make the scripts to manage the account/scripts/programs

[nox-Hand]

No idea, mate :lol: I don't code, I just offer a place for it to happen :)

[erisco]

The idea isn't to recreate sourceforge... the projects would be run just as the rest of the forum is. As I explained, a new project is simply a new thread. Since posts can be edited it should not be any problem to keep information current on the first post (or following "reserved" posts). This would not require any additional work other than creating a new forum. Accounts are already managed by Vbulletin.

1) Reliability, even if it is on sourceforge, is still governed by the project members.
2) I am not sure what you mean by it is "not designed for"
3) However, the benefit of having something on HTMLforums ties into my first points about familiarity and even promotion for the forum itself.
4) I am not sure what you mean by projects not wanting to "do that". Whether the source is downloaded or just sitting on the web page really shouldn't matter. Also, as I stated the first post (and reserved posts) can be edited to keep current versions clear.

And for remote hosting I am sure there are CVS's written in PHP. If not... if it will get this idea off the ground I would be absolutely delighted to write something... as I do have March Break off right now! :D

[kemikalfire]

I guess I am confused at to what kind of projects we would be doing (some sort of coding/design obviously) and for who the projects would be done...

kate!

[erisco]

what kind of projects we would be doing
Since this is HTMLforums (which does house more than HTML) it would be anything relevant to the Internet.

for who the projects would be done
Anyone who can benefit from the projects. They will be released under the public license (as requirement). For example, if someone makes a website about... let's say the stock market, then people who seek information about the stock market will benefit from the result. Additionally the people who develop the website will benefit from the learning and group coordination experience. Or perhaps the project is a web server in PHP (yes, already done, but as example...) then it will be a benefit to PHP propaganda and possibly someone who needs such a web server. In this project it would mainly be to the benefit of those who made it.

[nox-Hand]

What kind:
any kind that pops up and people want to support! i.e, projects that some <10 post user comes with such as "make me a banner rotation script!!!!111!ONE" post won't be done, but something by someone with an actual project that he/she can lead and simply needs help with can be done.


For who:
Plausibly just for anyone who wishes to use it! There'd have to be a sticky thread working all the details and rules somewhere stating that this is all open projects, etc..



That's my idea of it, but wait till erisco pounces your post :D

wait, he did whilst I was writing -_-

[kemikalfire]

we could code a video game...that would be fun...

my roommate and I have talked about developing a game where he does all the coding and I do the design.

overall, I think this would be fun to try. The only thing that would suck is if people say they're going to help, are assigned a task, and then flake out.

kate!

[nox-Hand]

Yeah, each "thread owner" should have *some* administrative leadership if possible?

[afterburn]

sounds like you have a massive amount of time on your hands and are going to team with Scoutt and Jason on the implementation rather than listen to the way things work.

great luck

[erisco]

I don't think you're understanding how, I think at least, this forum idea would be implemented. I was only talking about CVS if a project had remote hosting and wanted a spiffy way of keeping their project organized. Otherwise it can much more easily run like so:

Download Version:

5.3 development unstable (.zip) (http://www.example.com)
5.1 stable (.zip) (http://www.example.com)
5.1 stable (.rar) (http://www.example.com)
4.7 security release (.zip) (http://www.example.com)
4.7 security release (.rar) (http://www.example.com)

*etc*

And there is a nicely kept list of versions right on the first post of the projects thread.

[nox-Hand]

I still think we need to have a better sollution to that than the first post, as someone might forget about it, etc... Though for starters, why not? :)

[¥åßßå]

The question you need to ask yourselves is : why is it that most opensource software, which have their own forums (usually on their own servers) use CVS/SVN for managing their code?

I work on opensource and believe me when I say that using a forum thread to host it (even if it was a thread per file and dedicatedly maintained) would be an absolute nightmare for the developers and project managers.

¥

[nox-Hand]

Rather agreed :( We need something a bit... more.. Could this be the first project to do? :D Make a thread where the actual PHP CVS that could tie in with vBulletin was coded? :o


Probably not...

[¥åßßå]

I was talking from a code maintenance point of view.

That doesn't mean you can't use SF to host the code and the forums for the "discussion" on the code rather than SF's forums which would allow any member here to get "involved" without having to create an SF login.

Each tool for it's own job ;)

¥

[hammerstein_04]

I don't think Erisco ever really intended for their to be a CVS as such.

As I understand you Erisco, your primary aim is to allow all members (no matter what level) to contribute to a project. And to share additions/discussion/problems on the project by using the forum, showing the actual "evolution" of a project.

I think however that there are some key problems, mainly to do with the way discussions occur on these (and other) forums.

All to often, discussions take a different direction, or people get offended or post stuff that is of no importance or relevance to the overall thread. Moderators then have to try and steer the thread, shut it or boot users. A forum like this COULD end up being another Website Review forum, where once in a while you get the member who can't take the comments made (or the poster who is out to upset), and the thread erupts into an argument that one of the mods has to try and quell.

Recently, I've been working on my own site, trying to add into the component set I've built up, with the intention of creating a small projects system that will allow it to be treated like a mini-sourceforge. I have 6gb bandwidth a month, and only 300mb storage. But if people are interested in this idea, I would be happy to up my storage and bandwidth to assist such a project and would happily steer my project software to be a very cut down CVS which could then be linked to in the way Erisco actually suggested. Like I say, I think the idea is a good one, and a full CVS (or using sourceforge) isn't necessarily what is needed. I would happily contribute.

[You-Vent.Com]

Does anyone know a copy and paste code to install a banner rotator in pages?:confused:

[nox-Hand]

Does anyone know a copy and paste code to install a banner rotator in pages?:confused:

Don't take this too harsh, but you are REALLY starting to annoy me! Don't hijack threads all the time to ask your questions!

[scoutt]

Does anyone know a copy and paste code to install a banner rotator in pages?:confused:

please make your own thread and people will answer you. This forum section is not the place to ask your question. ask it in the client side forum.

erisco, it is not a bad idea and I have only seen it work in a few places. the only time I think it may work is if you had a group that was making a project and having a section in the forums for making a thread to discuss that project. but what project could you possibly talk about? sure maybe a tile based game or a text based rpg. or even if a group got together to make a website. other than that I don't see how it could work in a html setting and right now you are the only one to ask for it. I don't see making a new section just for one group to make a project is worth it.

[erisco]

Well, I wouldn't say just myself is asking for this forum. As you can see quite a few members have become fond of the idea and are willing to pitch into the efforts. On the same note, if there actually was a forum, there would be a better chance of people taking notice of the idea.

HTMLforums is more than HTML, really. I mean look at all the different forums we've got here... from controlled advertising to the spam box. Okay, not a huge leap :P. However, PHP, ASP/.NET, CSS, Javascript, graphics, and whatever pops up in the lounge are dicussed here.... and then still a lot more. Then what about Social Bee? This isn't something that has to be implemented overnight, but I am confident that it is something to build towards to hopefully make possible in the future.

[Pegasus]

Well, one of the reasons that the project forum idea was shot down was because when a moderator says something, some members insist on continuing the argument. If you have that little respect for the moderators here, how can we expect you to have respect for a project manager?

Peg

[erisco]

I don't think that expectation is very fair. I can at least say I easily get along with most people from this forum. When you have someone, or a few people, making a ruckus I do not think it is fair to stereotype that personality onto everyone else. There will be people who have a hard time in any given community but that is no reason to shut it all down. I say this because even though there have been unsettling times in the past, we are still here together as an active and together community.

Could it be a possibility to give the forum a fair trial? If things go sour then it could be assured with solid evidence that the idea wouldn't work, and the forum can simply be closed and removed.

[nox-Hand]

Agreed, it is so easy to add/remove forums :)

This would be so interesting :D

[Pegasus]

You guys are missing the point. I'm not saying that it's any one person who can't behave, but that there are enough that opening another forum, especially one that is going to need a dedicated moderator, isn't something that we want to do.

We said "no, there won't be a new forum" and you immediately start arguing the point. You've already presented your case. We took your words and the current level of maturity of the forums into consideration and decided that a new forum just wasn't going to happen right now.

Peg

[erisco]

Is not having the forum mainly a cause of members rather than the ability to actually create the forum? In that case, so long as the idea is plausible physically, then hopefully sometime in the future it will be more appropriate to open the forum.

[scoutt]

lets put it this way. If you guys start a thread and use that thread as your means of communicating and more and more threads comes about with other projects in the works we will seriously think about it. Right now I don't see a need for it in this type of setting.

[nox-Hand]

Ah, you see, without the actual forum place, we cannot really officially encourage people to do this, and people will only join in when they come across the thread - if this was an official subforum or something users would be encouraged to come join :)

[Pegasus]

We had plenty of word games before we had the Word Games forum, nox. We just needed proof that there were people interested in it. So far, I haven't seen much proof that more than a couple of members are interested in working on projects.

[scoutt]

the forum I was at back in the day didn't add a sub-forum until they had about 10 groups that were actively engaged. Like I said, 2 people is not enough to a start a new forum. And yes, if users read it then they will be willing to participate, you do not need a forum for that.