Re: Issue #2 - Allow contributions to website from browser

On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 09:02:22PM -0400, Filipus Klutiero wrote:
> On 2016-08-20 12:20, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
> > Are you saying that you think people don't contribute because of the
> > overhead of submitting changes to the ikiwiki+git system, rather than
> > because they don't understand it?
>
> Not exactly. I am saying that people would contribute more if:
>

Perhaps a bit of history may or may not be useful, as I was the one who
installed plone.

When I initially joined SPI, the entire site was run using a similar
system that Debian uses - wml. This had a number of unique features,
such as the ability to have translations in multiple languages.
Unfortunately, it ended up that I was the only one who was updating the
website. Thus, I decided along similar lines, with a similar lack of
evidence, that a lower barrier to entry would encourage more people to
contribute to the site.

In hindsight, I was wrong. The number of contributors didn't magically
increase because someone could type stuff in to a text box and have that
submitted to review. It didn't increase because there wasn't the number
of people who were willing to create content, and those who were didn't
like dealing with a CMS.

After I left the board, SPI moved to ikiwiki. This has a number of
advantages over both plone and wml, and more importantly, is the choice
of workflow from people who actually contribute. The amount of extra
overhead from running a CMS system (which is considerable) is simply not
worth the potential (and generally non-existent, or at a minimum,
non-persisting) contributions we may get.

I'd urge the board to concentrate on things that matter to member
projects rather than get side-lined into this discussion.

Neil