[JDEV] End-User Web Presence (JabberCentral)

[Michael Brown]

Hi Justin,

This is indeed good news.  I for one would be delighted to see JabberCentral
return - it has been sorely missed.

For what it is worth, Brett Hutley (who is currently on holiday so I'm not
sure if he is up-to-date with the discussion) has made an offer on the list
to host an "end user" Jabber portal and he seems to have the skills and
experience, as well as a hosted machine to run it on - so maybe it would be
worth having a chat with him and seeing if you can help each other out
before we start duplicating work.

The feature list below looks well thought out, and pretty complete.  As well
as the client stuff it would be good to have a review section for the public
servers - maybe with an extensive list of features, and maybe even an
automated up-time rating.  Something along the lines of what jabberview.com
was originally intended to do.

Let me know if you want a hand with any non-PHP related stuff :-)

Michael.

----- Original Message -----
> Hi folks,
>
> In light of recent discussion regarding an end-user portal, and
> considering my background (having created JabberCentral), I thought I
> would chime in and fill in some blanks and attempt to set things in
> motion.
>
> First a little background.  When JabberCentral was started in early 2000
> there was quite a lot of energy behind it.  Populating it with content
> was never a problem.  Over time we developed a comprehensive listing of
> I believe all the Jabber clients (public, at least) that were available.
> After this initial energy, things kind of died down.  Myself being too
> busy to write content and manage or solicit contributions led to the
> site becoming stale.
>
> When the new Jabber.org site went up, and after discussing this issue
> with Peter, I decided to shut the site down and redirect traffic to the
> JSF.  My hope was that the new site could accommodate the audience that
> JabberCentral had. Peter did not tell me to shut the site down, it was a
> decision I made on my own.
>
> I believe the first requirement of a successful Jabber portal is that a
> group of dedicated people need to be involved to keep the gears turning.
>
> Of late I have been pondering bringing JabberCentral back, having a
> little more time on my hands and wanting to become involved with Jabber
> again.  Seeing this discussion on JDEV, it seems there is a real demand
> for filling the end-user informational void.  Can this transfer from a
> theoretical disscussion to a productive design and implementation
> discussion, and be followed up by volunteers that can spend time making
> this happen?
>
> The following list is what I believe should be the immediate, primary
> focus:
>
> o A comprehensive developer-maintained client list, with optional
>   syndication capability from JabberStudio for projects that are hosted
>   there (for file releases, news, etc).
>
> o Documentation to assist in choosing a Jabber server to start out with,
>   syndicating the list from jabber.org.
>
> o Documentation covering the basics of a select group of the most
>   popular clients (eventuall expanding into all clients, hopefully).
>
> o Other documentation (FAQs, glossary, etc).
>
> o News capability (syndicated from jabber.org, and also original
>   end-user oriented postings).
>
> o Forums (preferably Jabber-integrated).
>
> I believe once these basics are implemented, a more robust site can be
> tackled. Features that would be useful in the future would be:
>
> o Internationalization support.
> o Documentation covering the basics of setting up your own Jabber
>   server.
> o Community-oriented features to assist new users in finding people on
>   Jabber to talk to.
> o Directory of Jabber-powered services (bots, etc) that new users can
>   use to get the weather, etc.
>
> Please add to these lists.
>
> I am willing to get behind an effort to do this, and would like to
> revive JabberCentral as the vehicle to accomplish this if there are
> enough people willing to help make this happen.
>
> Please respond with your comments and ideas. I propose that we hold a
> Jabber conference within the next couple of days to utilize the energy
> behind this discussion and take it to the next level.
>
> -- Justin
>
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