I have used a blog editor to create a complete blog post. I have used the ideas of all the preceding material and created a narrative.
I have three concerns:
1. Ensuring that your thoughts and concerns are reflected in a way that pleases you.
2. Simplifying the narrative so that it is readable by non-native-English readers and potentially easy to translate.
3. Having this be an inclusive narrative.
It would be helpful if markup were accomplished on this draft if at all possible. Use of color, strike-outs, and Edit notes would help. I am not clear that everyone here can do that to this post. I will of course read all posts following this one for corrections, suggestions, and -- best of all -- simplifications.
The following was created in a blog-post editor, so there is native HTML. I am going to see what simple copy and past accomplishes. The draft is only on my local machine for now.
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OpenOffice.org Migration: The Community Forums
The OpenOffice.org Community Forums have been successfully migrated to operation under the Apache OpenOffice.org podling. Forum operation, location, and resources are intact. For users and the community that has grown the Forums into a valuable resource, it seems nothing changed. It wasn’t so simple. Here’s what it took and what was gained.
Moving complex web properties
The
OpenOffice.org web site is a complex structure of services, web pages, and downloadable content. The openoffice.org Internet domain lease is moving as part of the grant from Oracle Corporation to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). Migration of the various properties that constitute the web site onto Apache servers is complicated.
Some services housed under the OpenOffice.org web locations are rather independent. The apparent integration with the overall OpenOffice.org web location is accomplished mainly by splicing the service in with a special Internet sub-domain. That is the case with
http://user.services.openoffice.org/ and its ten native-language Community Forums, including
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/ for the English-language Community Forum. There is also commonality of appearance and other features that blend with the OpenOffice.org site.
Community Forums on the move
Cut-over of the Community Forums completed on Friday morning, October 28. There were few disruptions during propagation of the new hosting-site location for access via existing web addresses. A staging server holding the necessary software was tested using dumps of the data from the Oracle-hosted Forum services. Staging preparations started in July. The last dump of the “live Forums” happened on October 27. The Forums data was revived on the Apache staging system and cut over as the new “live Forums,” just like the old Forums. The transplant succeeded.
Adjustments will continue along with remaining migrations of OpenOffice.org web properties and integration into the Apache OpenOffice.org podling operation. Throughout remodeling, the Forums will be alive and well.
Community Forums legacy
The OpenOffice.org Community Forums were launched on November 17, 2007. By September 20, 2011, the English-language Forums have accumulated 200,000 posts, contributed by 45,000 Forum registrants, on 40.000 topics (threads). At any point in time there appear to be 10-20 times as many unregistered users browsing the Forum as registered users present. The most users present at one time was over 350 on October 17, 2011. The thrust is to provide a setting where users with questions can find users with answers or guidance to where they are already asked and either answered or under discussion.
The Spanish and French forums are next in size and activity, with most other forums of intermediate size. The entire Forum base is preserved on-line. Forum content is indexed by the major web search services.
Always open, browsing welcome
Visiting one of the Forum entry pages and exploring a topic of interest reveals charateristic features of Forum operation:
- It is easy to see what the variety of topics and amount of activity has been in each subject area.
- Threads are organized and presented with recent, active topics located quickly, along with other viewing options and the ability to search for any topic and content.
- Images and code samples can be included in posts and all can be quoted, cross-referenced, and reached via web locations.
- The Forums provide links to extended topics on the Community Wiki, another migrated service.
- There are tutorials on all components of the OpenOffice.org suite.
- Special topics include the programmability features of OpenOffice.org, including writing macros and using/creating extensions.
- The Forums embrace all of the descendants of the original StarOffice/OpenOffice.org that are now siblings in the OpenOffice.org galaxy. Tips and solutions in the use of one release will be useful to users of a product cousin having the same feature.
Stay and contribute
The entire content of the Forums is created and curated by individual users and volunteers. The volunteer structure has been supplemented by arrangements for accountability and oversight required of properties under ASF custodianship. There is no impact on day-to-day operations, which were the same before and after the cut-over.
The user-centered operation is accompanied by a structure for inviting frequent contributors of questions and answers to serve as volunteers who review Forum activity and moderators who intervene where appropriate to provide special assistance or curate threads and subscriptions.
Supporting global community
The OpenOffice.org Community Forums are one way that the Web connects users in communities devoted to maximizing the value of their use of OpenOffice.org-related products. Across the Internet, there are additional communities with similar concerns as well as different specialties... These can employ mailing lists, Internet news groups, and other web-based forums.
The web and search engines bring the different resources of these communities into the reach of each other and users everywhere. The OpenOffice.org Community Forums are continuing as a substantial resource of that extended community.