CUNY Academic Commons

Daniel was kind enough to share the language he uses at the j-school: http://tech.journalism.cuny.edu/request-wordpress-plugin/

It's a nice start on coming up with some user-facing guidelines. It seems like a bit steep to request this much information from the end users of the Commons (though I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise) but it's certainly a helpful starting point.

Thanks for getting this discussion started, Boone. And thanks to Daniel for the J-School page (interesting to note, on the side, that they document new plugins and themes in targeted posts on their dev blog. That's something we should do, too, so that we have a way of telling users what plugins/themes were added when).

I very much appreciate the need for a system and for a better way of checking plugins. However, I'm a little concerned that the questions for the people making the requests set too high of a bar if our members will have to answer them (I'm fine with doing it if it's just me or Scott answering them). I want our members to feel like their feedback is encouraged and valued, and I worry that we'll be setting too many barriers in front of them. I'd prefer to have a relatively easy to use submission system that then draws them into a larger conversation in which we ferret out some of these details.

What do you think about having a relatively low barrier for a first submission, but then a second part of the process where these more rigorous questions get answered by our team in collaboration with the original submitter?

I don't care who fills out the initial information. I agree that it's a bit much to ask this of most users. All I'm saying is that I would like to have this amount of information by the time that the request reaches me.

For what it's worth, I don't think we need to have any official channels at all for users to request plugins. The last thing we need is a torrent of requests. If people want functionality, that's great - but those requests already come through existing channels, and are filtered by members of the community and dev teams. I think it should stay that way.

I think that the j-school has a different kind of user base, so to some extent it may make sense for them to have a public method for plugin requests. I don't think we need to emulate that part of their process.

Little bit more input from me.

The policy I've put in place has largely only been useful because it now gives me the right to refuse to install plugins. Previously, students and faculty would ask for plugins to be installed. I'd get the sense they were frustrated when I would decline without detailed explanation as to why.

Moving forward, I think it would be wisest to have any public-facing material afford users the ability to request "functionality". IT can see whether that already exists, or go look for a plugin that meets code standards, etc. If nothing exists, then a decision could be made whether to build a plugin of it or not. In addition, we could pool requests as relevant and split up the work. I'm working on a Soundslides Embedding plugin with Jonathan Morgan at MSU that's a similar collaboration.

Re: Security
There are some scripts that help parse through the source code like RIPS. I haven't really looked too much into the script or alternative ones. Could do some more research.

Re: Redundancy
If an older plugin is used and a suggestion is made to use a newer plugin, we'd have to notify users that are currently using the older plugin somehow. Let them know that the plugin in question is being phased out of CUNY Commons for the newer one. You could then use Multisite Plugin Manager to mass-deactivate the plugin in question. I can't think of anything better at the moment.

Re: Theme Check
I'm in agreement with you, Boone.

Boone Gorges wrote:

I don't care who fills out the initial information. I agree that it's a bit much to ask this of most users. All I'm saying is that I would like to have this amount of information by the time that the request reaches me.

For what it's worth, I don't think we need to have any official channels at all for users to request plugins. The last thing we need is a torrent of requests. If people want functionality, that's great - but those requests already come through existing channels, and are filtered by members of the community and dev teams. I think it should stay that way.

Great. I think we're agreed on this.