Textpattern CMS support forum
You are not logged in. Register | Login | Help
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
philwareham wrote:
lister brings up some valid points I think. SmashingMag and Envanto Tuts+
Definitely!
Another idea, besides new/original content, is to take older articles and renew/refine them against modern Txp. This makes for great draft submissions to other publishers like Smashing Magazine, as well as your own site too.
Two of my articles from 2006 still get lots of hits, and I still get the occasional email requesting to translate the articles, or people just saying thanks for writing them because they really helped get them over the hump. It’s now my intention to rewrite them for the modern age, updating what’s necessary and try and make them a little shorter in length. (But first my sight relaunched.)
Offline
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
Destry wrote:
I’ve offered to share admin duties, or take it over entirely (I’ll get Stef on board too).
W00t! Thanks. Note to self: fix typo in the ‘Information’ box. It’s Textpattern :-)
As for the Fan page, I was under the impression it was Mary
Ah, right. I missed that post, thanks for unearthing it. Maybe if Mary hasn’t the time to run it now, she can also add one or both of us as Admins. Wanna get in touch with her and ask, or shall I?
The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.
Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp
Online
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
lister wrote:
I’m not being funny but if it’s awareness you want posting items on a textpattern facebook page isn’t enough.
Yeah. Also it would be helpful if the Twitter and Facebook accounts were operated by a person. Smaller amount of auto-fetching updates from external location. I.e. Twitter could be used as a social network; for making connections, posting stuff you find interesting, something users would want to stare — but something that doesn’t involve boobies (well, maybe just little). Would be super cool if someone messaged @textpattern on any social network, one of the devs would respond back. Maybe someday.
One small thing I do not really like that much about some of the discussions on these forums (etc) and the public image is the occasional smack talking competitors. For example on these forums there is shit about WordPress, which most of it is done by dev team and the most known members. Like I get it’s all funny and makes the teeny weenie feel good — I do it too, but I’m rotten to inside begin with (I taste bad, do not eat me). Instead of smack talking about insecurity, like we could, you know, embrace the competition like grown up good dudes do. Let the Goliath be the bad one.
Last edited by Gocom (2011-06-23 17:17:09)
Offline
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
Gocom wrote:
the occasional smack talking competitors
Apologies if I’ve badmouthed WP in the past. It wasn’t for me last time I tried it, but I’m sure it’s an excellent blogging platform. Guess the problem is me being elitist. I’m such a bad man There’s a fine line between evangelising something and dissing the competition in the process. That’s why I’m not in the marketing department.
The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.
Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp
Online
Offline
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
One step back please. Never ever expect the core dev team to be on marketing duty. And I (IMHO!) also don’t want someone from the dev team to do admin work on Facebook. Having the brand under control is one thing but reaching out to the public 24/7 is another.
Get all online mentions of Textpattern via OPML subscription: TXP Info Sources: Textpattern RSS feeds as dynamic OPML
Offline
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
merz1 wrote:
Never ever expect the core dev team to be on marketing duty…Having the brand under control is one thing but reaching out to the public 24/7 is another.
I think we can agree about “having the brand under control”, but let’s not exaggerate about what that requires (giving credit where due), or who should or shouldn’t be doing it.
I, for one, don’t expect devs to do what they can’t for time alone. It already takes a lot of time… time out of their free time. You see the key word there?
That’s the only legitimate reason why a dev may or may not choose to help popularize the tool they apparently take to heart. Even marketing skills are irrelevant; presence alone makes a huge difference. The idea that a software developer—hobbyist or otherwise—would not have interest in making their software known is ludicrous. Again, we only have to look at every other competitor to see it in action. In fact, we don’t even have to look farther than Txp developers promoting their own plugins. So why should that be any different for Txp itself?
This actually makes a great loop back to one of the links Bert mentioned earlier (a history to which Michael took exception too). I think that “historical review” deserves some credit for the research that did go into it, even if incomplete as far as Textpattern goes. Why incomplete? Because the only Txp reference in the article’s otherwise impressive list of references was to this thread started by raveoli (Oliver Nielsen) in 2008. But Oliver makes a statement a few posts down that I think captures a real historical problem for Textpattern in terms of it’s popularity today. Here’s a recap for ease:
The sheer innovation TXP brought to the table could have been brought a lot further, had all the focus not always been on “developers, developer, developers” but more on the holistic process of developing a good eco-system further. – 2008/11/3
Let’s be clear, he wasn’t talking about devs today, but the root of his complaint is still valid point. “Team Textpattern” is still developer-driven; there’s nobody on the team officially handling content, strategy, brand, whatever. Never has been. This is a significant reason few people in the world today know about Textpattern, compared to any other project that’s been around as long.
No, devs don’t have to market, and especially if they don’t have time, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. And if they don’t want to, they should get somebody on board who does and not rely on the public, because we all know how well that’s been working.
I mentioned giving Stef an admin role in the Facebook group so that “Team Textpattern” had control of the account going forward, not because I expected him to play community manager around the world clock. But if he, or any of the other “core devs”, dropped a note in there on occasion to show the world somebody leading the project actually cared to show they were a core dev, so much the better.
Nobody is excluded from talking about Txp at whatever capacity they can, and especially project leaders.
Offline
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
I heard from Amit earlier today. He’s happy to share admin status on the Txp FB account, though I’m still waiting.
On a different note…
“Textpattern is a CMS (content management system) and blogging tool. It is elegant, well designed, and no one uses it (well, very few people). – Blankbaby
More proof that not all WP users are against Txp. :)
Offline
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
Destry wrote:
This actually makes a great loop back to one of the links Bert mentioned earlier (a history to which Michael took exception too). I think that “historical review” deserves some credit for the research that did go into it, even if incomplete as far as Textpattern goes. Why incomplete? Because the only Txp reference in the article’s otherwise impressive list of references was to this thread started by raveoli (Oliver Nielsen) in 2008.
I may have been a little hard on Douglas but I found it annoying. And if he asked me for a relevant thread, I would have picked this one. and with complete immodesty, perhaps that one. I just thought his premise was faulty – he was trying to make the point that Dean spent years working on Textpattern and left over the frustration for not getting paid for his work. I don’t get that sense at all.
Let’s be clear, he wasn’t talking about devs today, but the root of his complaint is still valid point. “Team Textpattern” is still developer-driven; there’s nobody on the team officially handling content, strategy, brand, whatever. Never has been. This is a significant reason few people in the world today know about Textpattern, compared to any other project that’s been around as long.
I had a thought you might have been wrong on that point, but after reviewing Reid’s duties, they weren’t really marketing as such. And I don’t know what really came out of that, if anything.
No, devs don’t have to market, and especially if they don’t have time, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. And if they don’t want to, they should get somebody on board who does and not rely on the public, because we all know how well that’s been working. I mentioned giving Stef an admin role in the Facebook group so that “Team Textpattern” had control of the account going forward, not because I expected him to play community manager around the world clock. But if he, or any of the other “core devs”, dropped a note in there on occasion to show the world somebody leading the project actually cared to show they were a core dev, so much the better.
That makes perfect sense to me because…
Mary wrote:
Back when I joined the team it was told to me that we shouldn’t f*** around with the homepage because Dean could swoop in. But it never happened, and is unlikely to happen. (For one thing he doesn’t have access to anything, and hasn’t for some time, so if he did ever want back in, he would have to actually ask first.)
While we don’t want the developers to feel like they have to be the marketing team, we also don’t want them to feel like they don’t get a say in things, either.
Offline
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
michaelkpate wrote:
While we don’t want the developers to feel like they have to be the marketing team, we also don’t want them to feel like they don’t get a say in things, either.
I take a week off and when I come back, Textpattern has a marketing team!
@Destry – Keep the faith.
@Gocom – WordPress is an excellent blogging platform and I’m seriously thinking of switching all my Textpattern sites over to it ;)
Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Only one, but the lightbulb must want to change.
We Love TXP . TXP Themes . TXP Tags . TXP Planet . TXP Make
Offline
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
hcgtv wrote:
@Gocom – WordPress is an excellent blogging platform and I’m seriously thinking of switching all my Textpattern sites over to it ;)
This is a comment I left on one of the Facebook discussion threads the other day.
What I love about the whole “Textpattern is for blogs” discussion is that I have always thought it was not a particular good blogging tool. You can certainly do blogs with it, of course, but it is a bit of work to tweak things. If I just want a blog, my first thought is going to be to use WordPress. If I want to manage some content and it isn’t really going to be a blog, my first thought is going to be to use Textpattern.
Most, although not all, of my “pure” blogs are running WordPress right now. That is something I do intend to change in some cases but as I say above, it is a bit of work. The question is, have we/do we really want/desire/need to compete with WP at every level? Or should Textpattern be competing as a cms against WordPress, Drupal, Joomla et al? Personally I think that is the better route.
Offline
Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
After a few days of admin-ing in FB, there’s one thing so far that’s become apparent to me. Nobody realizes there’s a particular development “philosophy” (for lack of a better descriptor) that’s been guiding Txp development over the years; the philosophy that’s been admirably adhered to since Dean. You know what I mean, keeping the core light and using plugins for extensibility rather than integrating everything people scream out.
It’s not really their fault, though, those people just don’t know this philosophy exists, and so they make those arguments time and again about putting this in the core or that thing, whatever, and see it as a cold shoulder when Txp doesn’t respond—they don’t really understanding what’s behind it. Hearing it from some loudmouth like me just comes across like argumentation and opinion. It needs to be more officially expressed.
Something written and posted at .com (probably under About section somewhere)—a tight, articulate essay about this long-standing development tradition. Something that can be easily pointed to every time these arguments and/or gripes come up. When they understand that philosophy, it can be easier for them to come to terms with how things are. They can realize what the value proposition of that kind of development is. They’re used to communities where devs just build whatever gets the most votes. Txp has never been that way and it’s foreign to them. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t, though, if that aspect of Txp development was more openly expressed; the value made more clear.
It’s like a mission statement for development of sorts, but whatever you do, don’t call it a mission statement because those are no-no’s anymore. Call it a philosophy or value tradition or whatever, but I think this would be a very smart piece of content.
Offline