Joomla! Discussion Forums

You pretty much summed it up.
Only thing I'd add is that we are in an uncomfortable position, because on one side we relay the official announcements, try to add info found in the forums here (and nowhere else), defend the official decisions and try to justify all the delays to all the (french) users waiting for the internationalized version, on the other side we have a reputation of troublemakers here because we try to get more info. Why this info should be given in private (via PM) and not openly in some dev blog or dedicated thread I don't understand?
I'll ask Hornos to read your post, and add his view if there's things to add.
Have a peaceful sunday, all.

Yes, please get Hornos to review, as well.

Joe - the most important part for you guys to nail is the "bottom line."  What would it take, now, Joe, to make you guys happy? Where do we go from here? Take your time with that. Please think it through.

I apologize for not listening well.

Here's what I suggest. I have walked through all of these pages and found what I thought was the most important points. Please review and see if there is a point that is not included.  If so, let's add it. Joe and Hornos continue to make certain what we have already is good (and the following.)

I would like to move away from this thread to a new topic. I think the topic is "International Communities" and how to ramp things up so that Joomla! can explode and the community voice is strengthened, which, in turn, strengthens Joomla!

I don't want to close this topic because we are done talking. I want to close this topic because (I want to hide from the stupid things I said that caused problems) I think the next discussion will be exciting and more about agreement and the future than where we have been.

So -- read -- see if all of the important points are listed -- indicate if we can close this thread and move to the next.

Thanks - I am heading to church.

Amy

+++++++

...it is really important to know that we didn't just finish the 1.1 work in september and decide to get sidetracked on a smorgasboard of additional features. The effort to provide (and test) support for UTF-8 was phenomenal...Yes, this has taken longer than expected, and includes a lot more changes than originally expected, but this all came from the implementation of the UTF-8 support and internationalization that this release was based on in the first place! < Mitch Pirtle-Core ( SpaceMonkey ) http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg270103 >

There are only so many hours in the day. Development, funding, expos, legal duties, time with the kids... We're human beings too, please remember that...We had to completely uproot the entire project, people, projects, resources, websites, the whole shebang when we rebranded to Joomla...There are many fundamental issues that must be addressed before "communications" can be remedied, as those organizational efforts directly affect how we communicate - both internally and to the community. One thing at a time. < Mitch Pirtle-Core ( SpaceMonkey ) http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg270182 >

One needs to understand that the undertaking to be backward compatible with php 4 and to also support utf-8 requres that every single string function call needs to be examined and changed if it has utf-8 implications. (There are several thousand). < David Gal-Core (DavidGal) http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg273450 >

(In response to communications critism--since october, we have provided...) Developer network (blog, wiki, forge news, ...) site and a feature complete framework for 1.5 to allow third party developers to start testing their components < Johan Janssens-Core (Jinx) http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg270399 >

Hindsight is 20/20 and hindsight is showing that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to try to squeeze every proposed system change into two major versioning numbers < Asphyx http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg268538 >

As far as I know, the 4.5.3 had no UTF-8 support and wouldn't have been a real internationalized version. Still, you're right. A interims version that had this functionality would have eased a lot of troubles. The problem is, that is the past and we have advanced quite a lot on this, so this would sadly not be the solution. In addition, if there would have been this release, all those new things like patTemplate and ACL would have been added, too in the know coming release, which would have thrown back the timetable another 6-10 month. < Hannes Papenberg (http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg273322 >

We understand your frustration with things, but please understand that the less fun you guys make this for us the less we want to work on the project.  Its not a matter of wanting to shut you up.  Constructive criticism is valid and welcome, but I must tell you the flame wars over things take the fun level down several notches. < Louis Landry-Core (Louis.Landry)http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,50915.msg273692.html#msg273692 >

< Where do we go from here?  >

There are a lot of good reasons as I've just read... but why not to change the roadmap simply, so  Undecided. It's very difficult to understand the right way  < newart (Italy)http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,50915.msg269377.html#msg269377 >

Ok, no one asked any of the international support site admins and contributors to do anything. SO? Just because they provide their help without asking for anything in return, and promoting J! in their country, they are not to be aknowledged beecause Core can't CONTROL them? Dammit, is this Open Source, or is this some kind of totalitarian state, where only the internal government knows anything and takes all decisions? Do I need to post a list of all the major decisions taken recently without ever asking anyone from the community, and announcements about which were posted only after much of the same discussion as is going on here? (wonder when this thread will be closed btw?) < joe (France) http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg273147 >

Please consider how huge Joomla has become in such a short time. Please also consider that Joomla community is not only made of english speaking users. < Ivan (France) http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg270070 >

As you may or not know, there are no *official* international Joomla sites, only ackowledged "translation partners" who are kindly allowed to provide international language files. There is no communication happening anywhere between communities/ core. There is more behind this than I want to discuss, it got boring some time ago.. Let's just forget I ever mentioned this, ok? < Joe (France) http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg270299 >

(In response to Joe saying "let's just forget I ever mentioned this, ok?") No it is not OK, I think it is something that should be discussed, it is just probably not the right place (forum). < Ivo (Bulgaria)http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,50915.msg270307.html#msg270307 >

I will talk about my personal experience as an admin of joomla.fr (J french portal).
I spend almost 25 hours a week working on J: translating CMT's (and now 1.0.x core backend), moderating and administrating a forum, making tutorials and documentation. I'm not complaining about this, because I like opensource, I like the idea of sharing knowledge, I like Joomla.
And what do we do now? All the coders around here say that internationalization is only one brick in the code refactoring process. The refactoring process is taking longer than initially planned. Ok. But please keep us informed so that we can schedule our activities (backend hardcoded translation for instance) accordingly. Please keep us informed so that we can explain "your decisions" to our users instead of commenting rumors like any other users. < Ivan (France) http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg273027 >

We need to be thinking more BROADLY and more about PROCESS and how we gather the pulse of the end user community and we feed those needs into this machine and how that is prioritized and negotiated with the core. And how it is taken to the masses -- first with the early communications and prep work - then with the rollout and demos and training.  < Amy Stephen (AmyStephen) < http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg270618 >

This is a start to where I think we need to go...we, as the Joomla! community need to set out a roadmap for what we want to see happen as a community (not talking about code, but about communication, etc...  if we build up a structure in our community and have one representative (we don't want thousands of people pestering the devs) that will liason with the devs and bring this information to the people then I think good things will happen to complement the good things that are happening in the core...  are the devs communicating with each other?  If so, can we have somebody who can monitor this communication and present it to the public? < Ian http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg273453 >

Why am I doing this? I love to work for the Joomla community trying to help moving the project to a higher level and hope some people also move with us to a higher level. < Marco (Core)http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,50915.msg273890.html#msg273890 >

If the intenational community feels more communication is needed the core team is happy to listen to well a formed proposal as how we can make that happen. < Johan Janssens-Core (Jinx) http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg270399 >

A bit long ( ) but nicely put Amy 
Time to move on and open the new thread so that we can discuss in a positive and peaceful way.

Good things always happen on Sunday on planet Joomla

PS: removing dates and versions for the forthcoming releases (1.5+) in the roadmap was a wise decision 

Moderator note : Topic closed down on request.

Personal comment

Feel free to discuss further in another thread, maybe in the general forum ? Please don't forget to include the wider international community in the debate, so far I only see remarks from the French community in your overview.