Pages that link to this page:
Which questions should the openacs.org website answer?
community:
- Who are the primary stakeholders in the website (this is distinct from ‘users’ of the site)?
- What message are we trying to communicate?
- Who are our competitors/rivals/partners?
- What is our ‘market’ position.
- What metrics can we apply to measure other successful communities by?
- What resources/finances do we really need. i.e. can this really be done on a shoestring, and if not where are those resources to come from?
- What structure should the community take? Do we retain the ‘educated amateur’ feel, or do we pitch at the professional enterprise (or both, if that’s possible).
- What services do our members need most?
- What technology do we need to provide? (I am assuming that it is a given that the entire thing will be a OACS deployment and therefore exemplar).
technology:
** What are the OpenACS subsystems and dependencies?
** What critical decisions need to be made before installing? (which OS, DB, aolserver version, system name, dependencies et cetera. Maybe summarize options as tables or decision-trees.
** What assumptions are made for given install procedures?
- How to set up typical site moderation and administration (parameters, permissions, "Hello World" page)?
** What parameters, permissions have immediate or significant impact (reversible and nonreversible)?
- Who is using OpenACS
- Where is a demo site
- How to get help
- What criteria are important for deciding which features are important?
- Why choose Openacs, How is this system valuable?
*** to developers
*** to users
*** to a company (for its users)
- What are the features
- Can OpenACS run a xxxxx site (this could be an FAQ)
- What packages are available?
** What are their purposes?
** What can they do and not do (strengths, limitations, comprehensive list of features)?
** What are the dependencies/requirements, known conflicts
** Any testimonials/comments from others about implementing the package?
What questions to answer regarding administering OpenACS websites
- What are typical administrative processes for operating an OpenACS system responsibly, including reading logs and command line views that describe status of various active processes?
- What administrative tools are useful to administrating OpenACS (including developer support, schema-browser and api browser)?
- What external resources on high level subjects such as web services, security guidelines do the OpenACS community use?
- What other software does the OpenACS community use to complement the OpenACS system (scalable email server for example)?
- What skill sets are typically required for administrating an OpenACS system (human-resources style)?
- What kind of job titles to OpenACS admins have? (useful for those who want to make a career out of this)
What questions should be answered with respect to developing applications?
- What tutorials are available?
- What subsystems comprise the OpenACS system?
** How does one access the various other subsystems from each subsystem (note direct versus indirect methods)?
- What are packages?
- How to create a package
- How to structure a package
- How to use the database APIs
- How to use the templating system
- How to use portals (and what are they)?
- What is a page contract?
- How to use ad_form
- How to use the content repository
- How to use permissions
- How to use notifications
- Is OpenACS object oriented?
- How to code the datamodel
- Where to put procs that can be reused by any web page?
- How to write upgrade scripts?
- How to write tests?
- What methodoloies are used for diagnosing problems, finding error statements and interpreting them --for OpenACS and the underlying processes?
- What development environments do regulars use?
** How to set them up?
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Other requirements
- Show where to find current information instead of writing about current info that becomes obsolete. maybe have a list of "20 questions" that narrow down where to look
- glossary
- FAQs
- site map/index (annotated or maybe displays count of click-throughs)
- jobs listings area
- classified adverts, listings, request for bids etc.