Magazine to newsletter

hcgtv · 2015-07-14 19:07:15

zero wrote #293183:

You know reasons why TxpMag stopped and I’d just like to say that TXPQ stopped also because of lack of enthusiasm for a magazine from the community.

Zero, I don’t think it’s lack of enthusiasm from the community, I think it’s the small size of the community, coupled with the fact Textpattern is used as a tool by most users (developers).

Were Textpattern to grow, and bring in more regular users, then you’d have a larger pool of people to interview and to read said copy.

We need users, end users, or else you’re just trying to get developers to get enthusiastic about their hammers.

zero · 2015-07-14 19:19:30

Yes, sorry, I put that badly. Smaller numbers = less enthusiasm overall, but the hardcore community is still enthusiastic about all things Textpattern.

Bloke · 2015-07-14 19:23:50

I like where this is heading. Great discussion.

For reference, there’s already a good Style guide which covers tone and voice. If that’s deemed too formal, spice it up a bit: it’s work in progress.

There’s no point waiting for blessing from someone like me on branding and direction. You’re better off poking our chief designer. I’m Emperor Procrastinator. King Sit-on-the-fence. I like everything if it takes the project in a positive direction and attracts more people to it. If your vision is that .com needs a new Section for newsletter content, then someone who has an account will do it for you. Just say what you need. Say how it needs to work. I don’t have full server access but if I can do it and it’s safe to do so (no increase in attack surface from SQL injection, etc) then I’ll do whatever is necessary.

Technically, my aim is to keep the spirit of the project the same. In buzzwords:

Lean. Agile. Nimble. Lightweight. Airy. Insert simile here.
Just Write.
A platform upon which plugins can build.
Convention over configuration where possible; striving for sensible defaults (difficult to achieve with backwards compatibility in mind, but sometimes you just need to break stuff for the good of the project).
For publishers, designers, and developers to tell their stories.

But that’s just code and this thread is about more than that. It’s about engagement, it’s about appeal, it’s about marketing and the way the brilliant community members can help shape the future of our little world and grow it into something we can look back on and say: we did that. Whether it’s #1 or #501 doesn’t matter to me, as long as the people using it enjoy the experience and, with the help of the community, can take the canvas we supply and bend it to do whatever the hell they need.

The more people we can bring to the project through multi-channel initiatives such as this, the more people can try it, love it, get involved and drive innovation, documentation, evangelism, TxpCon, …

hcgtv · 2015-07-14 20:07:26

Bloke wrote #293188:

The more people we can bring to the project through multi-channel initiatives such as this, the more people can try it, love it, get involved and drive innovation, documentation, evangelism, TxpCon, …

The festivities simply become too much for Stef to handle

wavesource · 2015-07-14 22:35:29

This is where I’ve felt like a square peg in a round hole, eventually, because I’ve learned through this discussion so far that I’m really interested in the, er, fresh blood. People who aren’t developers. The TXP sites are firmly focused on development, and that has been a huge boon to those who are ready to roll up their sleeves. And that’s acted like a pass-not filter for users, and so you’ve ended up with a fairly committed hard core of braniacs, and not many others.

You can still respect that development and code – just need to share the joy of it and provide stepped down communications to raise awareness.

TXP != Wordpress
TXP != Drupal
TXP != Joomla etc.
TXP == TXP
Vive la difference.

If the newsletter picks up subscribers and grows (and hell, you just have to have the subscription form on the site and I promise you, it will continue to grow gradually), then that may induce others to look at the amenity and offerings of the TXP sites, but that’s not my problem.

I am very interested to see the discussion about TXP theming going on (http://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?id=45752) as that keys in well with the outreach and increased amenity for the less technical.

Once they are using TXP, however, the key is to show them techniques and ways so they can get behind the buttons and panels and become more comfortable working directly with the tags. That is the big ah-hah moment, I reckon.

So, my missing third of content would be latest good discussions in the forums. Forums are great tools, and new stuff is always bubbling up, and sending people straight to the heart and stomach of TXP is definitely a goal, if at least so they can search for those hidden gems of information locked away in here. TXPcraft. Where’s my 3D headset?

There’s just so much in these forums that can be pulled out. You can run a masterclass on etc_query and smd_query for a few broadcasts… So unpacking gems like those would be most definitely a strategy.

Not to call down a cloud of screeching bats upon myself, I would probably make it key to talk about editors like hak_tinymce etc. simply because expecting end users to learn Textile as well, in my experience, also kills uptake.

Top 10 list of most popular plugins – check. Top 5 plugins for running a blog – check. Associated startup TXP themes for bloggers – check. Short class on pimping out your new TXP blog from [insert TXP theme here].

Thank you for your time.

And thanks for the pointers to GitHub, gaekwad, I will definitely go to have a look.

Last edited by wavesource (2015-07-14 22:36:55)

hcgtv · 2015-07-14 23:01:48

wavesource wrote #293193:

Top 10 list of most popular plugins – check. Top 5 plugins for running a blog – check. Associated startup TXP themes for bloggers – check. Short class on pimping out your new TXP blog from [insert TXP theme here].

I like your thinking, with the revamp of the resources site, we should definitely have a top ten list of plugins.

As for taking a theme and tweaking it, as soon as Themes are stable and released, I’m going to release some tutorials for new users. The first tutorial makes an XHTML template into a Theme, steps I took to add txp:tags, real simple, remove the mystery. Then there’s another tutorial where I take a WordPress Theme and txp:tagify it for the audience, I’m studying Twenty Fifteeen now.

Anybody got a hold of Dean yet for the domains?

wavesource · 2015-07-14 23:40:08

hcgtv wrote #293195:

Then there’s another tutorial where I take a WordPress Theme and txp:tagify it for the audience, I’m studying Twenty Fifteeen now.

Gee, it would really sting to convert the official included Wordpress theme of the year and make them available for free for download as part of that tutorial. I’d be happy to help out with that, that would really take some steam from Wordpress. 2016 rolls around, we just update – and maybe only keep the latest available so we don’t end up having a stack of older themes that might need maintenance. In short, a how-to, and the end result for demonstration.

People are sure to run off with the Wordpress TXPified clone, but as always, they’ll want to do more, and back they’ll come to read through the tutorial.

As a proof of concept that goes to the heart of the Wordpress user community, I would be interested to see the traffic drawn in. So I would agitate to ensure the newsletter signup is HIGHLY visible.

hcgtv · 2015-07-14 23:56:58

wavesource wrote #293197:

Gee, it would really sting to convert the official included Wordpress theme of the year and make them available for free for download as part of that tutorial.

5 years ago, before I fell off the Textpattern grid, I took Twenty Ten and started to make it a Textpattern Theme, I was astounded as to the relative small size of the Textpattern Theme versus the WordPress Theme. Halfway through it, that’s when I thought this would make an excellent tutorial, so I’ll begin anew with Twenty Fifteen, incorporating the last 5 years of Textpattern enhancements to it.

Less Code is Poetry

wavesource · 2015-07-15 00:02:36

and then ask them to load up Wordpress and TXP side by side with the same theme and compare load times. Backend and frontend. Ouch.

hcgtv · 2015-07-15 00:12:26

wavesource wrote #293200:

and then ask them to load up Wordpress and TXP side by side with the same theme and compare load times. Backend and frontend. Ouch.

Check out this thread, where I run benchmarks on default installs of Textpattern and WordPress.

bert@jessie:~$ ab -n 100 -c 10		OPcache on		OPcache off
Textpattern 4.5.7			1.696 seconds		4.867 seconds
WordPress 4.2.2				6.539 seconds		20.695 seconds

Without a PHP cache running, WordPress is dog slow compared to Textpattern.

wavesource · 2015-07-15 00:42:34

Nice to see that quantified. Will be very useful.

Destry · 2015-07-15 10:08:00

wavesource wrote #293165:

…this is not about TXPmag v2. … This is about a newsletter – a shorter, less intensive, more engaging format via email, posted to blog-like section with RSS on TXP.com, with Twitter riding shotgun. No author. Just a single anonymous voice. Simple stuff. Short and sweet.

Exactly what is needed.

Regarding the “no author” part, however, which I have no problem with, it does raise a bug flag to devs/Phil about the “open blog” plan, because it’s currently moving forward under the assumption that contributors do have their name at the top of their contributions (e.g., mine and Cooper’s are that way). So either that needs to back-pedal or giving contributors due credit remains. The latter might be better for attracting contributions to begin with, and we all know getting content to begin with is the real challenge in this community.

Re content…

…one third on how to use TXP, ie. unpacking tags, so it’s just a friendly rewrite of the stuff that’s already up on TXP.com

…another third to put forward [useful] plugins…

…the other third…make [it up along the way].

We content strategists would say an inventory of what’s out there is needed at some point early on (or at least a start on one that is kept running), because a lot of content related to the ideas you identify (tutorials, top plugins, etc and so forth) has already been written about at places (sometimes multiple times) other than at .com. Rather than reinvent the wheel in every case (since HR is a premium, as we know), it would be better to curate those select bits and point to them, or take them one by one and “re-write”, as needed, to modernize/update the information against new Txp code. Either way, you need to do know where that stuff is. Key places to look are:

.org
txptips.com
this forum (as you bring up later; it’s loaded with buried/locked info — one good example of thousands — and it’s a problem talked about many times over the years by me, but not only, for the sake of building better examples in tag doc pages, for example)
personal blogs (e.g., I have stuff I’ve written that’s been tremendously popular based on traffic but could do with some shortening and modernizing because it’s a little old)

So, an inventory/curation task against targeted topic types would be useful and something people can get started on immediately — easy as a Google Sheet — while the tech stuff is being hammered on.

All subject to TXP approval

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#85 2015-07-14 19:07:15

Re: Magazine to newsletter

zero wrote #293183:

#86 2015-07-14 19:19:30

Re: Magazine to newsletter

#87 2015-07-14 19:23:50

Re: Magazine to newsletter

#88 2015-07-14 20:07:26

Re: Magazine to newsletter

Bloke wrote #293188:

#89 2015-07-14 22:35:29

Re: Magazine to newsletter

#90 2015-07-14 23:01:48

Re: Magazine to newsletter

wavesource wrote #293193:

#91 2015-07-14 23:40:08

Re: Magazine to newsletter

hcgtv wrote #293195:

#92 2015-07-14 23:56:58

Re: Magazine to newsletter

wavesource wrote #293197:

#93 2015-07-15 00:02:36

Re: Magazine to newsletter

#94 2015-07-15 00:12:26

Re: Magazine to newsletter

wavesource wrote #293200:

#95 2015-07-15 00:42:34

Re: Magazine to newsletter

#96 2015-07-15 10:08:00

Re: Magazine to newsletter

wavesource wrote #293165:

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