[theforum] Zombie!

Adrian Roselli Roselli at algonquinstudios.com
Tue Jun 4 22:05:47 CDT 2013


Writing this on my mobile, so apologies for the top-post.

To be clear, I'm not talking about giving up nor turning off the lights.

Let me try an analogy. The airport has no planes coming or going, nobody booking flights, no luggage to check, no employees. Instead of keeping it staffed, running the conveyors, or keeping a fire truck ready, I'm suggesting we shut down all the support stuff no one uses anyway and leave the airport open as a museum. A piece of early aviation history. Before everyone got jet packs and forgot the fundamentals of flight.

Ok. Poor analogy.

Regardless, I am only suggesting this for www.evolt.org, not browsers.evolt.org and not the lists.




-------- Original message --------
From: Simon MacDonald <simonmacdonald at uk2.net>
Date: 06/04/2013 3:39 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: theforum at lists.evolt.org
Subject: Re: [theforum] Zombie!


I think it's sad that you are thinking about giving up and effectively
turning the lights off - weo that is. However I think there is still a place
for thelist.
I've only been a member about 4 years, but the community  has helped me
enormously with the advice that has been given on thelist.
I look at ALA all the time but evolt has something that ALA doesn't - not
sure what - but whatever it is I like it -  sad to see the drop off of
activity on thelist  - maybe the growing maturity of the members - in
experience that is, not age.

There is a place for thelist, maybe it just needs to be publicised  more
widely. It has some of the best advice around.
Not sure how to take this forward - but happy to help promote thelist,
increase the membership, and keep it going.

Regards

Simon

Simon MacDonald
simonmacdonald at uk2.net


-----Original Message-----
From: theforum-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:theforum-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Roselli
Sent: 04 June 2013 18:36
To: theforum at lists.evolt.org
Subject: Re: [theforum] Zombie!

> From: theforum-bounces at lists.evolt.org [mailto:theforum-
> bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of William Anderson
> Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2013 12:34 PM

[...]

> > Here's my idea of how we celebrate 15 years:
> >
> > 1. Convert evolt.org to a static HTML site. Turn off submissions,
> > commenting, and sign-ups. Take the site as it stands now (when it is
> > working), spider it to flat HTML, and keep it out there as a part of
> > web history. At that point, it can really be hosted anywhere.
>
> Interesting.  I doubt we'd need to spider it since everything's in the
database.
> See comments below.

True, but sometimes a spider tool does a good job of gathering all the
assets and creating a simple flat file structure. I still spider stuff all
the time (most recently when Posterous shut down), but I understand that a
technical discussion is premature. Even though I just had one.

> > 2. Approach some of the names in the industry (folks like Christian
> > Heilmann, Eric Meyer, and so on) who were evolters or had worked
> > directly with evolt.org and ask them to write up a missive for the
> > 15th anniversary (with a 6 month lead time).
>
> Like it.

If others like it then we should gather names. For example, Stephane
Deschamps does a good job of finding other evolters at conferences, Martin
seems to have a good handle on many, and so on. They can all help identify
folks to approach.

> > 3. Approach evolt.org contemporaries of the time (Webmonkey guys,
> > Zeldman) and ask if they'd like to say a few words about our shared
history.
>
> Anyone have contacts at WIRED?  :)

Is anyone still at Wired?

> > 4. Gather it all and put together a nice anniversary piece on the
> > home page, while gracefully announcing the permanent mothballing of
> > weo, all links still intact.
>
> weo as-is, unless there is a massive upswell of support for retaining
> evolt as a web developer community and support site, should definitely
> be mothballed.  I think it would be nice to wrap the *content* in a
> pleasing, simple, modern HTML template, leaving it all Google-friendly
> and reader- friendly at the same time.  Mike is looking at various
> Drupal upgrade-locally / sidegrade-to-the-cloud options to make lives
easier.

I think carving it out of any CMS is a good idea if it goes static. I still
think the evolt.org blacktabnavbarthingie template that Isaac put together
is the most iconic of all the layouts we've had. But I also have no interest
in trying to make a go of that or any other re-templating effort.

> > I think the lists and beo can continue on, assuming there is enough
> > use to warrant.
>
> Hence my thought of expanding the mission of evolt.org from web
> developer community to simply community.  I'm not sure I'm
> articulating this part well.  I like the idea of people sharing things
> with people they like, and commenting on them.  I'm aware people do
> this already on Facebook, Reddit, Hacker News, et al.  I think we could
join in the fun.  I'm not sure.
> Wibble.

Meh.

I don't mean to sound dismissive, but there are so many platforms, so many
networks, and so many ways of doing it that *I* wouldn't want to play in
that space. Whether or not I would be interested should have no bearing on
the future direction, however. Otherwise we'd be selling evolt.org cheeses.

Which I would buy.


--
TheForum Archives: http://lists.evolt.org/theforumarchive/

evolt.org wiki: http://wiki.evolt.org/
teamwork site: http://evolt.teamworkpm.net/

--
TheForum Archives: http://lists.evolt.org/theforumarchive/

evolt.org wiki: http://wiki.evolt.org/
teamwork site: http://evolt.teamworkpm.net/


More information about the theforum mailing list