RE: Are you a newbie? Start here!

If I were to draw up the iSociety vision I would make it a place that is
user/member driven where members "own" it and add content to it.  To some
extent this is the case (i.e. midrange.com's FAQ's and the like), but in
other respects it is not the case. Wikipedia.com is an excellent example of
how I would like to have iSociety.  I put a high level of weight on the
definitions found in Wikipedia as I know it has been (usually) critiqued by
many eyes.

The two things I would LOVE as a developer would be:

1) Central code archive to store everything from small chunks of code
showing how to use the latest feature of version xyz to being able to store
(or link to) full fledged products (i.e. like my RPGMail at
mowyourlawn.com).  This would be very searchable and category friendly.  An
RPG version of this would be cool: http://javaref.com/.  An RPG version of
this would rock (look at the User Contributed Notes):
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php - note that comments from
users can be added directly to the user manual to relay drawbacks and best
practices, very nice.

2) "Research Central".  This would be a place where links (like the ones
mentioned in this thread) could be posted and categorized for easy access.

They key to community buy in is ease of use.  I think that is the reason why
wikipedia has faired so well - you just edit the page and you're done (over
simplified I know).  Last night I had to install a LICPGM on my iSeries for
the first time and would have liked a small 5 minute tutorial on the
subject.  I eventually waded my way through it (pretty slick actually), but
what about the person buying an i5 for the first time?

To be honest right now iSociety just seems like a messy conglomeration.  I
don't mean to downplay it at all, but that is how it feels to me.  If that
is what first impressions draw out then adoption will be minimal IMO.  I
will do my best to make it into something else, but it sounds like iSociety
is not run by the people in the System i5 Society but instead by larger
entities that have $$ ambitions (i.e. systemiportal.com). Nothing wrong with
iSeriesNews making money off of it (good for them, and I think they are a
great company), but I think it limits where iSociety can be taken.

There's my iSociety input for the day :-)

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com

 

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 10:22 AM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Are you a newbie? Start here!

From: Trevor Perry

Thanks for the advice. As you did not know about this before this 
week, neither did many of the rest of us. Now we do, I bet that they 
will be added to the appropriate iSociety pages. Since the Welcome 
page is the one that will lead you to the rest of iSociety, I would 
look there first for an appropriate link.

Since I am not in charge of iSociety member web sites, I will forward 
this information to some of them where this will fit. For me, it does 
not fit on Angus - where I am working on posting as much original 
material as I can.

I would suggest you look for it on the some of the iSociety member 
sites that are the centerpiece for all System i related information. 
Those would be www.midrange.com and www.systemiportal.com.

See, THIS is the part I don't get.

You want people to join iSociety, but iSociety doesn't actually exist.  It's
just a loose confederation of other web sites.  When things are brought to
you about iSociety, then you immediately defer to "member sites".

In effect, iSociety does nothing.  And since based on the number of links
iSociety's primary information provider is System i Portal, and System i
Portal is itself primarily an aggregator of other information, then iSociety
is sort of a third-hand provider of information.

I just don't get it.

Joe


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