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HI All,<br>
<br>
After some thought, I have a suggestion for how to order the the
listings on the pay for page which I hope is both fair, accurate, has
longevity, and is useful to the people visiting the page for whom we're
providing the info.<br>
<br>
In the past we've ordered by region and we've ordered alphabetically.
At the moment the suggestion is to order by date joined and I don't
think that's a good idea (see below for why).<br>
<br>
<h3>FIRST 3-4 PLACES</h3>
<br>
I'd like to propose that the first "3" positions (possibly more but no
more than 4), be ordered by current release manager position held in
the community, and that after that, depending on how many listings we
have, they be ordered by region & alphabetically.<br>
<br>
I'd like to see the first position on the list be given to the current
release manager's company (Lilime ATM). I think that the job of current
release manager is huge, and that the company who is currently
providing the resources/employment of the release manager deserves all
the support and credit we can give, even if they joined yesterday! I
agree with Josh that there can seem like not much benefit to being the
release manager (or being their boss!), and so this seems to me like a
"no brainer". ALSO if I was a library wanting to get some development
done then that's the first thing I would want to know, and lets face
it, we want to encourage those libraries who DO want development done.<br>
<br>
The second position on the list would be given to the current release
maintainer- ie the release manager for the current stable release (Bib
Libre ATM). Again, I think this is a big job, they are still doing a
lot of patching, answering a lot of questions on lists and generally
putting in a goodly amount of time and effort getting the current
release more stable, mostly I'm sure not directly funded. Again I think
that supporting the company that is providing the resources for someone
to do this job is the least we can do. It again would mean that a
library was "buying into" the idea of supporting the current stable
release.<br>
<br>
The third & fourth positions on the list could be to either the
immediate past release maintainer (in our case v 2.x - assuming they
are a different company), or the next company providing the most
tangible support to the community. <br>
<br>
I think however that we stop this system after the top 3-4 positions,
because it is less useful after that. It may be that when there is a
KSF (or similar) there are some other positions which because of the
amount of work they entail, justify giving this same privileged to
their supporting company in which case we can extend it, and have clear
rules around it too.<br>
<br>
I quite like the idea of the immediate past release managers being
listed (ie if they have stopped being current and aren't funding
another release themselves), because again being release manager is
such a big job, I think they deserve recognition beyond their "active
term" - and it kinda means they get a guaranteed "cash in" time for all
that hard work, even if they need to pass the torch to someone else for
the next release and concentrate or just building their own business.<br>
<br>
<br>
<h3>REST OF THE LIST</h3>
<br>
THEN thinking about our actual website users, I imagine that what they
mostly want is to see who supports their area, so I'd like to see the
list split into countries or regions, ordered alphabetically, and with
the vendors listed alphabetically within them, including info on
contributions, positions held etc, if they are on/members of a KSF or
similar. It may be that we get big enough it's worth having the company
who supports or is principle sponsor of the local usergroup get first
position in that grouping - but that's a bit down the track.<br>
<br>
WHY - well I think it's easier to read and understand, and to re-find a
company that way. <br>
<br>
It will also make it easier to split up the list into "sane" chunks if
it gets to big for one "page". Ie it's pretty easy to have a North
America page, a South America page, a European Page, An African page,
an Australasian page etc in the future, and will make more sense to the
libraries trying to use it I think that having a "started in 2005" page.<br>
<br>
<h3>WHY NOT BY DATE</h3>
I don't think that date joined is the best way to actually indicate who
is a good company (or person) to deal with, and date joined is no
inherent indicator of current involvement in a release, or even that
the company would be a good choice for getting the current release
installed & supported.<br>
<br>
Katipo is a prime example of why not list by date (Even before selling
to Liblime), we had not funded a release manager for a few years, and
hadn't as a company been able to afford much official involvement in
the project, even though individuals still participated. I don't think
that it would be fair particularly, for us to be top of a page when
others were doing so much more (and indeed we listed alphabetically in
part to avoid that temptation). <br>
<br>
While at the moment, the longest involved (listed) companies are at the
top of the page, I would would like to see us have a policy that
effectively achieves the same thing because I think those companies
should be at the top of the listings, but is "defensible", and
understandable for both libraries and vendors, and that allows for
other worthy companies in years to come to also get a spot in the sun
if they put in the hard yards like these guys have.<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Rachel<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
-----------------------------
Rachel Hamilton-Williams
General Manager
Katipo Communications Ltd
Phone: +64-4-934 1285
Mobile: 021 389 128
E-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:rachel@katipo.co.nz">rachel@katipo.co.nz</a>
Web: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.katipo.co.nz">www.katipo.co.nz</a>
</pre>
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