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Hi community,

As the Events Team Leader, and as someone looking to increase transparency and lower barriers to entry, I'd like to solicit your ideas and input on the processing of Joomla!Day requests.

In my term as Events Leader, there have been ZERO times where I have rejected a Joomla!Day request. With this in mind, it seems a little silly to have a request process that puts the onus on the Events Team Leader to immediately approve a Joomla!Day request before allowing people to start moving forward with their event planning.

Let's find ways to lower the barriers to entry.

The goals of the Joomla!Day form processing are to ensure the following:

1) Joomla!Days remain consistent with the values and spirit listed in the Joomla!Day Charter.

2) Joomla!Days in local regions don't cause conflict between different local communities of Joomla users.

3) Basic support and guidance is provided to assist Joomla!Day coordinators in the safe and economically feasible events.

Beyond that, I as the Events Team Leader need to get out of the way of Joomla!Day organizers in the early stages, and let them organize quickly and effectively.

With this in mind, I'm interested in the community's input on the following procedures I've been thinking of putting in place to make the process smooth and efficient. Your thoughts are critical to our success, so let's work on this together.

1) Interested community member reads about the Joomla!Day request process/charter on the community.joomla.org site.

2) Interested community member fills out a form that includes all the
information it necessary for clarity and transparency to the community, including: name of contact, name of J!Day, city, country, contact phone number, contact email address, date of event, a check box that says, "I have read and agree to the Joomla!Day Charter", a check box that says, "I understand that this is an automated approval process, and that further details may be requested from the Events Team", and one more check box that says, "I understand that unless otherwise notified, I am solely responsible for the financing of this community event".

3) Upon submission of the form, an email notification of this submission is sent to the events team.

4) Upon submission of the form, an email notification of the successful registration of the Joomla!Day is sent to the event submitter, with language that says the event is approved, but some changes might be requested from the events team (i.e. if conflicts in dates with other local Joomla!Days are found, etc)

5) A congratulations page is created, and shown to the visitor after submitting their Joomla!Day, requesting that the following information be sent to the events team lead immediately: language for the Joomla!Day event to be placed on the community site, an image following the basic style we have for all Joomla!Days on the community site. Additionally, the page contains a list of basic information on how to run a Joomla!Day successfully (also to be listed in the wiki).

6) At their earliest opportunity, an assigned events team member (for now, me) writes a thank you email to the event coordinator after reviewing the proposed event, and asks if there are any questions or support needed. This is also the opportunity to confirm any conflicts that might be presented in the submission of this Joomla!Day event.

7) Events Team member receives and posts the announcement on the community Web site.


One further note, which isn't a step to action but rather a small clarification, we should probably include in the Joomla!Day Charter that financing and attendance by Leadership Team or OSM members cannot be guaranteed due to schedules and budget; however, we want to do everything we can to support and make a success for each and every Joomla!Day. How's that sound?

Community, Joomla!Day organizers, and others...what do you think? What's missing? What's still creating walls to easy success? Your input is greatly appreciated as we increase transparency, encourage empowerment, and promote accountability.

Let's discuss for about a week or so, and then take another shot at this.

Cheers,
Ryan Ozimek
Events Team Leader

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1. I don't know how I'd find out what other Joomla Days are happening when I'd want to schedule mine. Eventually notification goes up on joomla.org, but I'd like to see something easier and more immediate. A calendar with all scheduled events would be very nice. Better still, the calendar can get populated with dates after the automatic submission.

2. More guidelines about what constitutes dates that are "too close together" for a given country. For example, if I schedule Joomla Day New England (held in southeastern Vermont) on June 5, and Boston (a 2 hr drive away) has an event scheduled for May 5, is that "too close together"? If Seattle (in the western US) schedules an event for June 4 and Joomla New England (northeastern US) schedules one for June 5, is that "too close together"?

3. "Earliest Opportunity" with one person in charge is not really a recipe for success -- need to quantify exactly what constitutes an "approved" event so that more than one person can do this job.

4. If an event is "approved" and I start making deposits to hotels or food vendors to get the event organized, then Joomla decides to un-approve my event, that is a VERY BAD THING. What is the latest an event can be "unapproved" after the automated process "approves" it? In other words, if I'm "approved", and a month goes by and I hear nothing (or 2 weeks, or 1 week), then I start shelling out money for the event, am I safe? Do I have to wait for human confirmation? If so, what's the point of automated notification?

5. Biggest barrier to a Joomla Day event in the US is how the money is accounted for. In the US, someone must take the money and account for it for tax purposes. That means it runs through someone's business, typically, as most user groups are not incorporated entities for tax purposes. If there is anything Joomla can do about this, to serve as the entity that takes money for registration and writes checks to legit expenses for the Joomla Day, that would help tremendously.

thanks,
Jen

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Jen Kramer
lynda.com author, instructor, and curriculum designer
http://www.jenkramer.org

Hi Ryan,

two things before I go in detail about the proposal you made.

My applaud for your post, it seems that we go in the direction of transparency and openness, well done.

I thought that we Germans are the best in making things complicated and we have the bureaucracy in blood. I really have to rethink that ;-).



I don't know if this is an important point in the real world. I don't think that people wait to the time they get the approve and then start working. I have made two Joomladays and one Mamboday and I havn't filled a form for approval nor it has me stoped making the event, if I haven't got the approval. Sorry but I think you overrate the impact of OSM or the Event Team Leader.



We have the Joomla!Day Charter, people should read the document. I don't see this as goal for the registration process.



A local community can do this job better. Do you think you could better decide if two cities in india are to close for two Joomla!days.



This also depents on the circumstances in the country, we must understand that other countries have other rules. Local communties can do this job far better as anyone from outsite.



perfect.



My goal for the process is to get information about the planned events. I personally think people do this job with the best in mind and there isn't a need for controlling. We can assist and help, offer markting material and do all what we can to make every event a success. Pleople need to know there are people they help me if I need help.

So my process is easy:

1) Submit a form (I would use a calender component, JEvent, jCal, .... ) with informations about:
Name, Startdate, Enddate, EMailadresse as contact, Location (City, Country)

-> Event is automatic published
-> Eventinformation as EMail to Events Leader

done ---

Simple, Open, less workload

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I don't think there would be a reason to unapprove an event as long as answers to the form were honest. From what I'm gathering, events would only not be approved if you don't follow the Joomla!Day Charter.

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Hi Jen,


https://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/ ... ope/Berlin

Hi this calendar is updated with the current dates as far as I can see. Not sure if it is all known this is why I just post it again. Not sure who is maintaining this calendar atm in the past this was my job.

Alex

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I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that requests should be automatically approved - and instead of it being an "official" Joomla Day, perhaps it is a "supported and promoted" Joomla Day so the message is more clear?

I can throw an event whenever I want, and call it whatever I want. But if I want the Joomla project's cooperation in promoting the event, I have to play by your rules. That should be clear.

That said, maybe building an opt-in form that protects the Joomla project in the ways it thinks are required, makes it possible for folks to fill out a form, click Yes Yes Yes Yes and I Agree and *boom* done.

I did offer my services to Louis to help build such a system, and think it would not be too difficult. I think the real difficulty here is remaining vigilantly dedicated to the KISS principle, as any other path leads into the forest of no return.

Thanks Ryan for getting the ball rolling on this, and will support your efforts.

As far as I researched that in the past the existing event management extensions such as JEvents offer these features already - and I'm sure devs like Geraint will also happily assist to add the needed features. Just my be something to look at before the wheel is developed once again.

Alex

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Ryan,
First of all, thanks for asking.

It's certainly a great good step into the right direction.

I agree that an automatic approval which can be withdrawn in an unknown timeframe for unknown reason isn't the right thing.


I have an even more easy solution to propose ! :

Suppress approval forms, and replace that by just an interface to the events calendar for those who wish to add the event to the Joomla events calendar.

You could just add really a simple pre-approval text to organize JoomlaDays at the top of the Joomla!Day Charter. Like:

"Any Joomla user can organize a JoomlaDay, provided that he/she registers the event into the JoomlaDays calendar and abides to the rules of conduct for the event outlined below:"

An approval form is then not needed anymore. Approvals, even automatic, can be replaced by clear rules/charters, applicable to everyone, so everyone knows what to do and doesn't have to ask any "powers-that-decide-even-if-we-know-that-they-are-very-good-to-the-project".

If someone breaches willingly or not the rules/charter, you will know soon, and can always stop the mess (same than now actually).

Think about it: It will free up yourself time, and sparkle simple JoomlaDays and come-togethers, putting the community further in charge, and identifying itself with Joomla!.

At same time it will give a great feeling of openness and make it simple to help.

Don't fear competition of Joomla events, they are all different anyways. The more the better. People will automatically look at the events calendar to get best chances of success for their own events. Large events will be organized more in advance anyway.

btw: I'm feeling very positive for a great future of Joomla! after your blog and posts and JDC09. Although there is still some work to dismantle unneeded processes and give more possibilities to the community to help.

Best Regards, and keep the doors-opening ball rolling

_________________
Beat
www.joomlapolis.com <= Community Builder + CBSubs Joomla membership payment system - team
hosting.joomlapolis.com <= Joomla! Hosting, by the CB Team

Not sure we should do that.
It would be too late then to make sure that the event is following the JDay charter.
http://community.joomla.org/events/abou ... arter.html

How would we "stop the mess" if something is going real wrong?
Example:
A local community is preparing/making its usual JDay once a year, mobilizing all community forces.
Suddenly a "user" (most likely a commercial entity) is registering and starting another Jday in the same region (country for smaller countries). Advertising goes on. Mails sent. Joomla logo and name used all over...

_________________
Jean-Marie Simonet / infograf · http://www.info-graf.fr
Multilanguage in 2.5: http://help.joomla.org/files/EN-GB_multilang_tutorial.pdf
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Joomla Translation Coordination Team • Joomla! Production Working Group

The document can include further easy to understand and to follow rules. E.g. "A JoomlaDay should not be organized as a commercial promotional event and be open to the community contributions". Easy and done. Any other fears ? Fears should not govern the way we think and decide.

Not harder to "stop the mess" than now, not easier either.

It's a question of attitude here too, "controlling the community" instead of "encouraging the community". Btw also doubt that restraining user activities is allowed in most countries.

Also a common and saddening mistake to think that "community is stupid", e.g. here that it can't make the difference between a community-organized event and a commercial one.

(reminds me somehow common belief by some politicians that "the population is stupid and shouldn't have its voice, because it doesn't know everything". Do those who think so really know more than the sum of everybody who is communicating quickly nowadays ?)

Imho, Joomla should not be in the way of the community with approvals, forms, procedures, layers and so on, but let community take the lead and encourage it. That's the root of the problems that we want to solve. Solving that one will quite quickly solve the rest of the issues, imho.

My own today's opinions only,
Respectfully,

_________________
Beat
www.joomlapolis.com <= Community Builder + CBSubs Joomla membership payment system - team
hosting.joomlapolis.com <= Joomla! Hosting, by the CB Team

Sure, but how will you stop that with a BIG registration process, approval made from 10 people jury ... and so on.

You can never be sure that everything goes in a good way.

I think we must also look at our possible reactions, if something is going wrong. Should we hire a Lawyer to disallow a group of people e.g. in Togo using the Joomla Logo if they don't follow the rules and spend thousands of dollers? And on the other side we support a team making a joomladay with 500 Dollers for hole event.

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Best Regards, Robert
My Blog: http://www.robert-deutz.de - follow me on twitter @rdeutz
Professional Services for Joomla! http://rdbs.de - follow on twitter @rdbsnews

Very well written!

_________________
Best Regards, Robert
My Blog: http://www.robert-deutz.de - follow me on twitter @rdeutz
Professional Services for Joomla! http://rdbs.de - follow on twitter @rdbsnews

Wouldn't that be natural flow JM?

If J has a clear and very easy to find events calendar online anyone who's thinking about organizing an event will take a look and see whether there is an event planned already on the date they are thinking about organizing or not.
From that point they have a couple of options which would be:
1) be blunt and just organize on the same date which would be pretty stupid
2) contact the other event organization and seek cooperation
3) pick an other date

It all stands with the events calendar which should present clear information about who is organizing, in which state the organization time-line is (constantly updated), how many visitors registered, which speakers are locked down etc etc. If this info is up-to-date and presented well the natural flow would prevent similar events on the same date in the same area. Trust in people and openness again like always. It may go wrong someday and that would suck and should be a learning moment but I don't expect chaos allover.

In my opinion and I share with Robert and Beat events should be fun to organize, fun to attend and looked at as a happy thing for Joomla! and not a regulated by strict rules and controlled thing by OSM or whatever.

Here's what Drupal does http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-camp seems like a pretty natural process to me too.

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I have two question that is related and might solve a bit the understanding why we had an approval process in the past.

a) How can we make sure that the person registering the event is really having the support of the regional community?

b) Would it be acceptable for you if the financial support of OSM is separated from the registration of the event itself?

At the moment OSM grants an approved J!Day the right to spend 500 USD for costs related to the event. Now if we say any group can just register their event as it is done with the JUG meetings then we could actually say that the financial support of OSM is a separate point. If you like to get this support then you have to get in touch with the events team and get a formal approval - if you don't need this support you are done and can just move on.

~~~
Related the removal of events if there is a mess. I think it is quite essential for events that their information are presented on the main j.org sites. So if something really goes wrong and there are indications that the event is not going along with the charter then removing them from our main sites is quite a serious topic for them.

Last but not least we would need to solve the issue of sending out messages about the event to the community. Here I like the idea of Drupal with the central blog that commutes all the event notes in one place. Everybody that is registered as event organizer can post in this blog that should be easy to manage.

Alex

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Alex,

a) That's the natural flow, you can never be sure but if you don't have support from the community will you be able to pull of a successful event?

b) If an event organization would like financial support of OSM/Joomla! they can apply for it and OSM/Joomla! can see if they have the financial resources to cover it, if not at that time they have to express that clearly. The goal of OSM/Joomla! should however always be willing to help the best they can, that's their primary task "support community efforts".

Guidelines instead of rules should be published so anyone thinking about organizing an event knows what the best routes are to start this and what they can expect form OSM/Joomla! within reason.

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We can not at all and it isn't our job to do it. People can have the support on the moment the event is registered. And a week later the support is gone. Should we ask every week?

Yes, I think this are two totally different topics.

That's ok for me. I am not a fan of such solid rules. Sometimes a team need more money sometimes less. If a idea is good and the team needs money to make it, then we can give them more as 500 USD. Be creative


Agree

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Best Regards, Robert
My Blog: http://www.robert-deutz.de - follow me on twitter @rdeutz
Professional Services for Joomla! http://rdbs.de - follow on twitter @rdbsnews

I guess we have here therefore to make sure that the Charter is still valid.

_________________
Jean-Marie Simonet / infograf · http://www.info-graf.fr
Multilanguage in 2.5: http://help.joomla.org/files/EN-GB_multilang_tutorial.pdf
---------------------------------
Joomla Translation Coordination Team • Joomla! Production Working Group

One good example of how to help, engage the Drupal community world wide to grow with different promoting tools to help people better to interact, communicate, create local groups etc.

I think also we could always learn from others that have success with the end users but also test new things. If I was a great Joomla coder I would spend my valuable time once to also download and analyse how Drupal, Wordpress, Typo3 and a few others have make their code, architecture and end user solutions.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
About the events.

I also think this also belong to a bigger picture where events is o n e of many strategic decisions and structures to discuss and execute.

Example. What are we doing and can do better to pro-actively marketing and making pr for Joomla world wide? (Why, where, what, when, who etc)

How can we help with practical actions for using blogs, twitter, pr, newsdesks, different Joomla pdfs, Joomla flyers, events and other campaigns tools that can help Joomla.

I see a lot going on for Drupal and Wordpress "doped" people and sometime its just biased info getting spread out about Joomla and thats not good. Whatever you say (sorry Amy) we are in an competing situation and need to gain users to start using Joomla instead of other solutions.

This marketing and pr strategy for the new 1.6 release should be planned so its easy to execute. Maybe the community can help with some of these pr and marketing activities?

Marketing and pr is something important in the long run I believe and should not just be a adhoc activity and responsibility. Someone should have this role in our community and we should have a Pr- and Marketing group also.

What you think?

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Success in the long run Its not about the code its about the people and community that's make it!
Its not what you say its what you do that matters!

Darb - aka ssnobben

Darb, I agree that there could or even should be much more fun, solid and positive buzz and the community is of course the perfect tool for this. One of the current problems however is the gap between the J management and the more vocal and most engaged community.

If the project doesn't honor the community in it's concerns, wishes and needs and even feels they have to protect the project against it's community there is a huge trust and enthusiasm problem.

A project can't expect their community to scream the project from the roofs if it doesn't support building the roofs first or keeping existing roofs from starting to get holes.

A nice example of an open and community engaging thing is this http://wordpress.org/development/2009/1 ... l-plugins/ about WP plugins.

Twitter is also facing these challenges http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/09/tw ... -web-2009/ but know where the need to improve.
Transparency: “we need to be more public about our policy and intentions”
Communication: “we need to be out there and let our developers know what’s going on”
Utility: “we need to keep providing our robust APIs and enable third-party developers to thrive”
Profitability: “when our partners succeed, we succeed” (more details coming early 2010)

A strong and happy community is willing to go to the extreme to build, support and spread their common interest and a non happy community will weaken and be useless for a project.

Events are perfect for making a party out of the common goal (to make sure we stay on topic :-) )

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I am pleased with the thinking here that the best way to encourage events is to empower community to hold events and help people attend events. The project should offer a sign-up with automatic approval, granting the event organizer a limited license for use of the Joomla! name and Joomla! Day logo. Get the event on the Calendar. Give them a place to gather to talk about the event and share media and event results. And, that's about it.

It does makes sense if the Event wants financial support that there is an approval process for that. Otherwise, local community is far better at judging the rest. Is it really a problem if there are two events in the same country, or the same city, or even in the same building on the same day? With an up-to-date Event Calendar, common sense will prevail.

Opening up events is the best way to prevent commercialism. Exclusivity creates market value. Allowing anyone to have an event empowers the local community to deal with a problem event by replacing it with one that meets their needs. The policy could require Joomla! Day events publish financial records. There is no reason not to have that information public, just like OSM.

We have a trademark policy to help protect misuse, including misuse with events. So, that tool is now in place to guard against serious problems.

Mainly -> just get together and Joomla!

Ryan - thanks - this is a sign of project maturity.
Amy

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OK, let's get even more real about it:

We're looking at a submission process with automatic approval. If approval is automatic, there's no reason so submit so let's kill "submission process" completely.

Now, wait, before you leap to a conclusion about what I'm saying, hear me out. I am part of an organization that holds events around the nation and around the world. We've been doing it for well over half a century, and we've worked out in that time some fairly straightforward principles that are simple and easy to follow:

1) Locals are best suited to knowing what constitutes a conflict. Ergo, each region (state, in the US) has a clearinghouse you can check with for an open date. Head office doesn't concern itself in that issue at all. In fact, while the local clearinghouses can *advise* about date selection, they don't *control* date selection. Two different local groups are allowed to hold events as close together as they deem advisable; the only action the clearinghouse takes is notifying the other nearby events of a new one. We let their own desire to hold a successful event control their date selection process. The most efficient scheduling approach we've found has two levels: proposed and actual, where organizers get access to the proposed events, and once contracts are signed the organizer moves the proposed event into the actual event category, which is visible to the general public, but I'm certain that's not the only way this could work.

2) We have no way of knowing in advance who will put on a good event, so we don't try. Instead, we leave that up to the local group (JUG in your case) for smaller events (JoomlaDays again in your case) and only insist the larger events be handled by those who have proven themselves capable on the smaller stage.

There is nothing that can be done to stop anyone from holding a one-day conference on Joomla. Period. Putting in place measures to prevent it, regulate it or otherwise control it are simple exercises in futility. Once that fact is recognized, then it's clear OSM's best course is gentle influence, not rule-making. The focus should be on making it easier to succeed than fail given OSM's involvement. Give the locals avenues to publicize their events, offer advice, but never once reach for that little tin badge and try to block their way. People can often surprise you, but only if you let them.

Bottom line: Collect the experience of seasoned JD organizers. Collect examples of what has worked and what has failed. Instead of presuming authority, be the advisor (not a controller) that assures success and let the locals handle the rest.

I really like the direction this discussion is moving forward and all your suggestions are great. Thanks a lot and I really think this is something we can easily discuss and apply

Alex

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So many great thoughts and ideas combined with common sense in this thread, that I simply had to make a post to get the notifications

Kind of like this "new" sleeves up community attitude. Great folks!

_________________
Ole Bang Ottosen
Kommerciel Support, Migrering og Kurser i joomla 2.5 www.ot2sen.dk
Dansk Joomla! support websted - www.joomla.dk

Thanks Ole and Alex for the short but supportive reactions.

Alex, can you give a little more insight on "we can easily discuss and apply" because it sounds a bit like we are done yet without any feedback from Ryan(who's sick I know) or any other "officials".

Ole, your cheer is great of course but made me a little worried about the fact that you basically say we the community changed attitude all of a sudden. I think it's the other way around, the community has had it's sleeves up for a long long time but they where hardly ever asked for feedback like Ryan does now or given space to have an open discussion by the "leadership".
To look at your one-liner from the constructive side like this whole discussion is going, is there any reason why none of the "leaders or OSM" is participating or are they all waiting for Ryan to return and handle it?

I also wanted to add this link http://www.alltogetherasawhole.org/prof ... e=activity where a discussion about the JUGS is happening which are very related to the events discussion here I think concerning influence and rules from the project on actual community efforts.

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