[Vit-discuss] Brainstorming

[James Britt]

Michel Martens wrote:
> 
> 
>>>The community now is not on ruby-lang, but on this
>>>list, on RedHanded, on LoudThinking, etc.
>>
>>What makes you think this?
> 
> 
> Among other things, this conversation. 

Interesting.  I get the feeling that vit is driven by a small but vocal 
group who were motivated, for various reasons, so band together and do 
something about ruby-lang.org.  But I'm far from convinced that it 
represents anything approaching a community consensus.

I don't have hard numbers, but the number of people reading ruby-talk 
has grown quite a bit (based on my recollection of some ruby-talk 
threads), and many, many people prefer (or only have time) to lurk.

Of course, community consensus isn't needed to change ruby-lang.org, 
only the consent of those who run it.  But I would hope that every 
reasonable effort is made to discover the true users of the site and 
find out what they want and expect.

I know that this can be hard.  I've made numerous solicitations for 
feedback on ruby-doc.org, but have not gotten anywhere near the response 
I would have preferred.  However, based on what responses I have got, 
the opinion of the site is different from how some have recently 
characterized it.

So some care should be taken that this group doesn't become too 
insulated and self-selecting.

It is tempting to look at the particular communities one happens to 
inhabit and believe that this is where the action is.

*A* community is now on this list, on RedHanded, on LoudThinking, etc. 
But not *the* community.  And the people frequenting RedHanded, 
LoudThinking, and so on, really don't need a ruby-lang redesign; they 
already know their way around.  It's all those people you never hear 
from who are the real audience.


James