Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

wet · 2012-07-19 14:04:13

This is a thread from 2005.

philwareham · 2012-07-19 14:21:10

To be honest I’d rather not touch Textgarden, I’d rather start a new area from scratch under the subdomain ‘themes.textpattern.com’ and use the main Textpattern branding.

Destry · 2012-07-19 15:02:11

@colak: Yeah, I remember the history behind Txg, namely with Sivni. But I agree with wet, it’s been the better part of a decade now, and in any case the garden has already evolved. I’m just proposing it be better aligned. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that in principle or with history.

@Phil: Well, that would easily avoid the turf dance, but the other side of that is that Txg is a Txp property by the fact it’s managed by you guys and hosted on Joyent with the other project domains for Textpattern project use, if I’m not mistaken. If you build something else, then you’ve created a bit of a severed limb that could rot and stink. It’s a perfectly good domain. It belongs to the project (please correct me if I’m wrong on that point). It just needs better alignment.

We can always use themes.textpattern.com and route textgarden.org to it. That shouldn’t be a problem since the domain is in possession. I’m happy to do that with docs.textpattern.com too.

wet · 2012-07-19 15:11:21

Glad you asked ;)

~$ whois textgarden.org
Registrant Name:Jason Hoffman

philwareham · 2012-07-19 16:01:28

Well… I still don’t have an answer from any of you as to whether Textgarden really is managed by us (the Textpattern team)? As far as I could see it wasn’t.

wet · 2012-07-19 17:28:23

Textgarden is managed by Stuart and owned by Jason.

thebombsite · 2012-07-19 23:45:59

Well you may have noticed my lack of new themes recently and of attendance on the forum. This in no way indicates any lack of interest or confidence on my part in Textpattern but is more a result of having moved to the south of the country to take up a new post which has restricted the amount of spare time I have to give Textpattern and Textpattern themes the attention that I used to. This also applies to Textgarden.

As far as I am concerned I am quite happy for someone else to take over the reigns of the site and move it in whichever direction they see fit.

I would also like to say this though:-

It is all very well having a theme competition every 2 or 3 years or so which generate an interest in producing themes. The problem is that such interest is short-lived and in between competitions few themes are produced except by those, including myself, who are willing to dedicate the time and effort necessary for the task. Unfortunately there aren’t many of us.

And aren’t competitions for gain as well?

Destry · 2012-07-20 12:52:45

Hi Stuart,

Nice to have you chime in. Congrats and good luck in your new post.

thebombsite wrote:

Well you may have noticed my lack of new themes recently and of attendance on the forum. This in no way indicates any lack of interest or confidence on my part in Textpattern

I don’t think anybody would ever suspect as much, Stuart.

which has restricted the amount of spare time I have to give Textpattern and Textpattern themes the attention that I used to. This also applies to Textgarden.

This is why it’s important to have this conversation. When anyone starts getting too busy to manage a community resource, the smart thing to do is leverage the management so it’s maintained and supported as the time availability of people change.

As far as I am concerned I am quite happy for someone else to take over the reigns of the site and move it in whichever direction they see fit.

I don’t think it’s wise at this point for any single website to be run by one person (unless it’s a personal website). The problems in the past across Textpattern project sites—varying design and identity, erratic style and tone of content, inconsistent brand messaging, no coordination between website efforts, etc—are a result of individually-governed sites; people working in silos independently of others, and of the project itself.

If you have less time but still some time to give, Stuart, then the best direction is not to pass it to a new owner, per se, but to merge the production of Txg with the unified efforts of the other project sites, and remain a part of the larger collaborative effort.

I don’t know if you’ve been reading the magazine articles, but these people (and others not clearly reflected yet) are all working in various ways to implement a better content strategy and visual brand identity for the Textpattern project as a whole, project-wide.

In a nutshell, this is what’s going on, and there’s enough planning that began with editorial efforts that the roadmap is relatively strong:

All websites are undergoing content assessments to determine what’s good and what’s not (mostly me working on this for the workhorse content, but not solely (hat tips for past help to Shimelle and Els). This began with the magazine and we’re now working on .com’s audit in relation to .net and .org. If Txg is a project site, it should be in the audit too.
We also have Lawrence (architxt) on the editorial team now, and he will be focusing on better audience identification and marccomms in the .com site in relation.
Content auditing and marcomms efforts are in combination with the efforts of Philipp (belipe), who is very conscientious of Textpattern’s visual brand identity, and Phil, who is now Textpattern’s team designer and will be showing new .com architecture and design direction once v4.5 is done and released.
Phil’s work will then inform how presentations for .net, .org (and ideally Txg) will evolve so project sites start looking like they belong together; including common navigation system, logo branding from Philipp, etc. That doesn’t mean one template to rule them all, it means layouts appropriate for the content of respective sites, and a common visual brand identity and navigation.

The strategy and planning is accounted for. What we need in all this is more hands helping with individual sites in the build towards the unified goal, and especially at this point with .org and now Txg. The sooner we know Txg is onboard with the larger plan, the sooner we can roadmap the architectural changes with Txg that would support competitions and theme designers in better ways. There’s no reason you have to pass the site off, Stuart, but you would have to work as part of a team and be open to the greater communication and design direction that we are all building together.

It is all very well having a theme competition every 2 or 3 years or so which generate an interest in producing themes.

Actually, I’m hoping to see competitions happen at least annually, and magazine editorial will take it up to coordinate them.

The problem is that such interest is short-lived and in between competitions few themes are produced except by those, including myself, who are willing to dedicate the time and effort necessary for the task. Unfortunately there aren’t many of us.

Again, there will be a different coordination effort behind theme competitions in the future, and notably more closer to Txp since the competitions will be coordinated as a function of the project.

And let’s not forget that we’re all waiting for the markup/css changes that will come in v4.5 and further improve in later releases. That has always been a blocker for theme development but won’t be anymore.

I, for one, will be creating some themes once those changes are made, and I don’t think I speak alone in saying other will too.

And aren’t competitions for gain as well?

Yes, many types of gain. Gain is good. Gain is what this project lacks.

thebombsite · 2012-07-28 10:19:52

Well my first problem was deciding whether to post here or over on the magazine and came to the conclusion that here was better from a continuity point-of-view but I can always copy it to the magazine if you would like it there as well.

First, I have always wondered why theme design competitions required a new site when Textgarden was already up and running. It has always seemed the obvious place to me. That’s not to say that I would run it myself. There are undoubtedly better qualified people for that job who would simply require access to the site to set things up. Let us not forget what I said before about time constraints. They are pretty severe at the moment and not likely to ease until we get to winter time.

Second, with regard to whether Textgarden is an “official” Textpattern site or not, I have always regarded it as such. It was, in the beginning, owned and approved by Dean Allen. Indeed it was Dean who handed the reigns of the site to me after Sivert unfortunately passed away. If my memory is correct it was the third “official” site to be created after Textpattern and Textpattern Forum. Though things may be changing now, back then I was always under the impression that the majority of users/contributors thought that “the code” was God and to a certain extent, being a new CMS, I could understand that, but the result was that Textgarden became a “background” site ignored by much of the community.

Third, I think that admin designs are also important so maybe we should have a competition or two for those as well.

Fourth, Textgarden was always meant to be “all things visual” with regard to Textpattern so I’m thinking that “The Exhibit” should be located there as well.

Fifth, The “Textgarden” name is somewhat historical and I quite like it. I see the logic behind “Textpattern Themes” and maybe it could be branded that way whilst retaining the original name. Not unlike “TXP” methinks.

I shall leave it there for the time being as I have to get off to work but I will be back to add more as I think of it.

Destry · 2012-07-30 14:47:52

thebombsite wrote:

Well my first problem was deciding whether to post here or over on the magazine and came to the conclusion that here was better

Originally, when the article was posted, it would have been better there, but the conversation is taking place hear now so this is more appropriate, IMO.

First, I have always wondered why theme design competitions required a new site when Textgarden was already up and running. It has always seemed the obvious place to me.

Me too. But it’s not really surprising; there was never any unified effort before like there is now, so it left the door open for community members to run projects on their own. Spin-off efforts rarely have lasting power, among a bunch of other problems. Textplates is case in point. That’s history. Now it’s time to put things on track, under the projects own umbrella.

That’s not to say that I would run it myself. There are undoubtedly better qualified people for that job who would simply require access to the site to set things up.

That’s planning detail that we do behind scenes in editorial, and there’s already some focus on competitions. What I want to know is… are you onboard with the collaborative effort? If yes, you’ll get added to planning where it concerns project branding and Txg rebuilding, and further conversation goes there.

Second, with regard to whether Textgarden is an “official” Textpattern site or not, I have always regarded it as such. It was, in the beginning, owned and approved by Dean Allen. Indeed it was Dean who handed the reigns of the site to me after Sivert unfortunately passed away. If my memory is correct it was the third “official” site to be created after Textpattern and Textpattern Forum.

I agree, and remember the history the same way. I think it’s important that we all be clear on that now and move forward with the understanding that the garden is a Textpattern project site. I would discourage Phil from pursuing any subdirectory scheme in .com for themes, separately from the garden.

However, I am all for changing the public URL to the garden to themes.textpattern.com (and docs.textpattern.com and plugins.textpattern.com too, respectively).

I’m surprised Jason Hoffman owns the domain, and not Dean, but then after recent events with .com, maybe that’s a good thing.

Though things may be changing now, back then I was always under the impression that the majority of users/contributors thought that “the code” was God and to a certain extent, being a new CMS, I could understand that, but the result was that Textgarden became a “background” site ignored by much of the community.

I know the feeling well. Content/docs is another thing that people historically didn’t give two chicken necks about. I made a lot of waves in my years to champion content, but these days I see good things said about the docs wiki compared to other projects, and the magazine is in a new era now too.

Third, I think that admin designs are also important so maybe we should have a competition or two for those as well.

They are important, and they will be part of the competitions. Beyond that it’s planning discussion.

Fourth, Textgarden was always meant to be “all things visual” with regard to Textpattern so I’m thinking that “The Exhibit” should be located there as well.

That’s open for discussion. The exhibit was originally conceived for the magazine to supplant the former “Sites gallery” that was there (and a mess). A lot of redirects now point old, broken site gallery links to the Exhibit. It’s also in good care there at the moment, which is important under all this talk of time availability. Also, the Exhibit is inextricably linked with the Site Watch column of the magazine, so moving it out of the magazine doesn’t make as much sense in that respect.

I think this is a discussion for later after more important things are figured out, like the garden’s own content and associated layout needs, and how competitions can be managed within it too.

Fifth, The “Textgarden” name is somewhat historical and I quite like it. I see the logic behind “Textpattern Themes” and maybe it could be branded that way whilst retaining the original name.

This is the only point I don’t agree with outright. Regardless of how anyone feels about the name “Textgarden”, it’s absolutely worthless in terms of SEO and usability. Ask a thousand people what label is more clear and suggestive of content to be found under it — Textpattern Themes or Textgarden — and you’ll get a thousand people saying “Textpattern Themes”. (And you might get most of them saying “Textgarden” must have something to do with writing.)

You don’t dicker with statistics for sentimental reasons. Google certainly doesn’t. Neither do people who just want a damn theme to use. Make it easy and brand it clear! You can’t brand it one direction and say another; it needs to be clear in code, metadata, IA, and content.

The entire editorial team agrees on this point, Stuart, it’s not just me. Part of the integration process would require a compromise on the current name. There’s no reason not to write a nice Txg story and put it into the site to remember it’s history. But as far as using “Textgarden” as a site identifier, in the banner, etc., it doesn’t work … the algorithms have moved on. I think it will get a lot more known under clearer identity and new initiatives than it ever was before.

Not unlike “TXP” methinks.

If you’re talking about the magazine, then it’s not the same thing at all.

But if you’re talking about “TXP” as the nickname for Textpattern CMS, then all I can say is that letting that nickname business go as far as it did over the years was a mistake for the brand. But we’ve got editorial guidelines for project content and communication now, so the healing process has begun … at least on one side of the fence.

Wrapping it up…

It seems to me, Stuart, that we mostly see things the same way. It would be very helpful if you remained as the steward of the themes site and we begin thinking about it in relation with the rest of the project efforts. All the other aspects of user accounts, content, redesigning, etc, is conversation for planning and you’d have a voice in there. So if you’re down with all of that, make it clear, and you’ll be added to the planning docs accordingly as a new editorial team member for themes.

Then the Textpattern ring (as it is) is complete and good things can go full speed ahead. ;)

philwareham · 2012-07-30 14:50:57

Wouldn’t it be safer for the domain names to all be transferred to Robert, as lead developer? Or is there some political reason for them all being held by disparate groups?

Bloke · 2012-07-30 14:53:51

philwareham wrote:

Wouldn’t it be safer for the domain names to all be transferred to Robert, as lead developer? Or is there some political reason for them all being held by disparate groups?

Well, he’d have to pay for them all if that was the case :-P

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#13 2012-07-19 14:04:13

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#14 2012-07-19 14:21:10

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#15 2012-07-19 15:02:11

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#16 2012-07-19 15:11:21

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#17 2012-07-19 16:01:28

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#18 2012-07-19 17:28:23

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#19 2012-07-19 23:45:59

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#20 2012-07-20 12:52:45

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#21 2012-07-28 10:19:52

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#22 2012-07-30 14:47:52

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#23 2012-07-30 14:50:57

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

#24 2012-07-30 14:53:51

Re: Themes, competitions, and Textgarden

Board footer