Team roles

Discuss

We need a project manager which is a task I am willing to undertake.

Ideally, we would also have someone with design experience who can layout the pages and define the specifics of presentation including the use of callouts and illustrations.

Beyond that we need writers who can agree to write to a specific style (direct and present tense, for example).

Finally, we need a strong editor who can really pull things together. I see this as the most critical task on the team. It's not an easy job when working with a single author and having multiple authors only complicates this.

We might also need a site builder/maintainer if we choose to provide a demo site created based on the book's use case.

Bob

I'd like to start getting team roles sorted out. From my perspective, we have two critical roles that need filling by someone with special skills or the time to make a longer-term commitment.

First we need a designer. It would be great to have someone with layout experience in hard-copy but someone with good web design skills could probably handle the task which includes page layout, size and placement of illustrations, location and orientation of the "Did you know?" pull-outs plus all the basic stuff like font choice and size, leading, justification and anything else which impacts readability.

We also need someone to assemble the contents into the book. This may or may not be the designer. This is an area where I might be able to pitch in but if you've got the skill and time, please don't hesitate as I will have my hands full with other issues.

We also need a good editor who can take submissions from various authors writing to a defined style code and can make them appear to be written as a whole so that the book flows properly. This is probably one of the most difficult tasks but I am certain we have someone in the community who could tackle this challenge with aplomb.

Finally, we need writers. Below are the chapters we have identified. Please consider signing up for a chapter or two that you feel most familiar with. Sign up even if another has signed up for the same chapter. We can decide later how to make the best use of the people who are willing to write the chapters. The currently identified chapters are:

   * Introduction including sample scenario and conventions used
   * Installation including system requirements
   * Basic configuration
   * Admin area
   * Member mangement
   * Basic templating (change logo, header image, background image, menus), discussion of CSS(?)
   * Galleries and catalogs and other content
   * Configuring Catalogues
   * Adding blocks (news/blogs,calendar, gallery, catalog)
   * Setting Up Blogs and News
   * Forums
   * CEDI
   * E-commerce
   * Collaboration and Explanation of Zones
   * Facebook integration
   * Advanced templating
   * Tempcode
   * Importing from other systems
   * Resources (list of resources and suggestions for bug reporting and feature requests)
   * Glossary of terms

I'm thinking that I will probably write the introduction but that is not a done deal.

Please let us know if you have any other thoughts for roles community members might play.

Bob

So, I think we may make the chapters more functional in nature than what was originally imagined. Member "O" came up with a pretty good outline to build from, shown below:

Introduction

The Brief

Glossary of Terms

Installing OCPortal

Changing the Logos and Color Scheme (change logo, header image, background image, colors - no CSS)

Customizing the Home Page (Blocks and menus mainly, and referencing Forums, Gallery, etc. if required for those blocks)

Adding pages

Writing Stories (How to write the Blogs, News, attach images, etc.)

(Basic users now have a working blog/news site, and can go straight to 'Opening the Site').

Adding a Forum

Adding a Gallery

Adding a Catalog

Adding a Shop

Letting Users Collaborate on the Site (CEDI)

Integrating with Social Media (Facebook and Twitter)

Opening the Site to Users (Member permissions, opening site, etc.)

Importing your Current Website into OCPortal

More Advanced Activities (Talks about, but doesn't explain, CSS, tempcode, complicated Admin Zone stuff, etc.)

Further Resources (points to guides on OCPortal.com, reporting bugs, requesting features, etc.)

Index

We need to start identifying writers, and an editor and designer. Please post here if you are willing to help out with this very important project. ocPortal v9 is another big step forward in the software's development but we, as a community, now need to step up to match the developer's commitment in order to grow our community – something which will benefit all of us.

Bob

As I said before I will volunteer for 1 Chapter. I am open to what Chapter I should write. Although I have some various experiences with ocPortal I have no particular area of it that I can claim an "Advanced Knowledge" of yet. In fact this book will be good for me too lol. However I have some basic understandings of minor coding for it and themeing. That said I think someone like Jean and/or Fletch might be better to write about Themeing for ocPortal. Obviously we want temp1024 to handle the Tempcode Section and then I think Bob and Harry should tackle Galleries and perhaps Mythus (who's been quiet for a while??) could do a chapter on CEDI for us as he seems to have done well at utilizing that for his site. So I can be a Floater for you to choose what topic I should write and I will concentrate on learning that to write about it.

Next I will also volunteer to do some editing if needed. While not always the best speller I do have some experience in proper structure (though you wouldn't guess from my posts on here lol) and do have a copy of Yahoo's style guide that is very handy reference for organizing writing. I can be the first tier editor for some to help reduce the burden on the proper editor. I mean I can make many of the first edits for people to help get the coy organized right before a proper editor gives the final proof. But this is only if we are short on editors. I also don't mind in helping set up and administer the companion site. I had almost put up a site for us to collaborate from but I decided to wait to see what direction we are going first.

Duck-

I concur that Fletch and Jean would be good candidates to tackle the "Look and Feel" part of the site and hope they have the time to offer. I aslo agree that temp1024 and mythus would ideal candidates for writing about Tempcode and CEDI, respectively. I also have some other ideas for potential good matches for chapters but we will ned to se who steps forward and offers to write.

I really appreciate your enthusiasm and offers to help out in other ways. You will likely be takenup on some of those offers.

Bob

Unfortunately, as I've stated before, I am unable to take on any commitments for this book .

temp1024 said

Unfortunately, as I've stated before, I am unable to take on any commitments for this book .

Which is definitely our loss but I fully understand that you have other priorities.

Bob

Still looking for volunteers for writing and editing assignments for the ocPortal book. This is a substantial undertaking and we really need the community to step up if we want Chris to provide v10 at his cost. The bargain is he writes version 10 taking on 100% of the cost to do so in exchange for an ocPortal book with rights assigned to ocProducts.

This bargain is a no-brainer as it is a win-win for us users and for ocPortal, and will likely help us to grow our community as it further legitimizes ocPortal as a top pick for a CMS solution.

Bob

This is a wonderful initiative and I definitely want to participate.

However, I'm presently spending time away from civilization in a cabin by a lake in Canada. sometimes I catch a few minutes of Internet with my iPad's cellular data SIMM. I'll be back home in August, but meanwhile, I'll be following these discussions with great interest.

Cheers for vacations!  

I'll keep in touch!
Jean

What part of Canada you in Jean? I live in Whitby Ontario (near Toronto).

I've been to Whitby loads of times, but the UK town that yours was presumably named after .

Jean said

This is a wonderful initiative and I definitely want to participate.

However, I'm presently spending time away from civilization in a cabin by a lake in Canada. sometimes I catch a few minutes of Internet with my iPad's cellular data SIMM. I'll be back home in August, but meanwhile, I'll be following these discussions with great interest.

Cheers for vacations!  

I'll keep in touch!
Jean

Looking forward to your participation in this project, Jean.

Nice that you can get "back home" on occasion.

Bob

I am starting to work on a project management structure for this book. Please feel free to suggest anything that you feel might have been overlooked.

Also, please offer to participate if you have the time. This is a great way to contribute to the ocPortal community and a great bargain which Chris has offered the free exchange of v10 for a community-created book.

Bob

My Egnlish is to bad for this. And my time to limited. But I follow this from time to time.

Yes Chris, our Whitby is named after yours (which I have not been to). It is also twinned with Longueuil, Quebec and Feldkirch, Austria.

So far, we have Duck, Harry-S, Fletch and Jean who have committed to writing assignments. We still need someone who can help with the overall design of the book and we need an editor who can polish the text and make it cohesive.

I am working on a project file based on the above outline suggested by member "O". Does anyone have any issues with this outline or see additional areas to be discussed?

Thanks for any input.

Bob

I was wondering if maybe the Glossary at the front of the book should be a min glossary with just the most common ocPortal explanations like CEDI, Comcode etc. and then a more full glossary at the back? Reason being if we want to cover all levels of knowledge (like a complete beginner) we don't have a rather large Glossary up front but even advanced users will need to get a quick grasp of CEDI and Tempcode etc. Where the newbies will need FTP and Database and many of the basics explained. But I think the number of users needing that basic info will be the minority therefor it might not be good to make the advanced/intermediate users to have to wade through common terms to them to get up to speed.

I've been non-committal on this book simply because I don't know what my situation will be like in the days ahead.

Normally I would have jumped on the editing job, but when that time comes I'm not sure if I'll have any free time or if I'll even have access to the internet. If no one has stepped forward to take that responsibility by the time we need an editor, and if I'm able, I will.

One thing everyone needs to be aware of is what you use to write your chapters. We need to agree on a document standard that is cross-platform.

Plain text would be the best. Try to stay away from anything that adds hidden formatting characters. It will make editing and layout so much easier.

One thing I haven't seen any mention about (or maybe I just missed it) is proofreaders. We need someway of submitting the chapters to a central repo so everyone has access to be proofreaders. The more eyes we have on a chapter, the more likely we will find errors in a shorter amount of time.

Just tossing out some thoughts. Sorry if some of it sounds incoherent, I've had 2 hours of sleep. I've been up all night trying to salvage a relationship. It sucks when your fiancee lives several time zones and an ocean away.

In terms of proof reading, I'd think that a pass-the-parcel method would work well.  Authors would get sent another author's work to check.  That way you don't need to find extra people, and it would have the added benefit of homogenising style.

Sorry if it's a bit incoherent - I've just spent the last few hours wine tasting……