I second that notion! Please create a "contrib" or an "incoming" branch in SVN, and allow anyone to drop plugins in there. A bunch of us can take turns vetting the plugins to make sure that they're not spam or crap.
- Brian > Rey Bango wrote: >> Hi Dan, >> >>> Still, I suppose if you make enough examples of everythin everyone else >>> has >>> done, and then throw jQuery's own killer features, then we might get >>> more >>> converts! :D >>> There's plenty of cool stuff out there that we should push more and >>> more. >> >> Yep! See, part of my concern is that it seems that the other libraries >> get a ton more exposure than jQuery does so when someone creates a new >> whiz-bang page using moo or Prototype, it gives a ton of press to those >> libraries even though in many cases, jQuery has had those features for >> some time. So I think its important to empathize, in some tangible >> fashion, these capabilities especially to new visitors. I think the >> folks at Scriptaculous have done a really good job of this with their >> new site. > > This is in part that we are not well coordinated as a community and I > think we are going through some growing pains. In the month+ that I have > been playing with jQuery it seems like the list of new posters has more > than doubled. > > The one thing that I find very had about jQuery is that there are a lot > of person blogs and sites the contain a lot of the key information the > is required to learn it, but it is not always obvious where to go look > or how to find that information. We seem to have a lot of individual > contributors doing their own things for the community, but we don't seem > to have an organized community. If that makes sense. > > Some examples: > > I now bookmark every plugin reference, because there is no one single > place to find the plugins. There is a plugin section in svn, there is a > plugin page on the site, but many (most?) of the bookmarks are not > there. In fact I remember a post a short while ago about some plugin > getting lost because the site no longer existed. > > Some things we could do: create a contrib directory in svn the would > allow us to capture more of these plugins in an unsupported way. Write > up a simple standards doc for inclusion. Think of the Perl CPAN site as > an example. > > Make it easier to find the other sites that promote jQuery, like > visualjquery.com and learningjquery.com > > How can we better leverage the resources of the community? Like the > jQuery button contest, but also promoting jQuery with announcement every > time some creates a new plugin, or releases a site built on jQuery, etc. > Recruit someone to work on a site redesign if John would be up for > something like that. Personally, I would rather have John working on > jQuery core than spending a lot of time on a new website because with a > little guidance from John others could take that on and contribute to > the community. > > Things like the following and comparisons to other library features is > another thing the people from the community can work on as part of site > content. > >> Going along your comments, I think you're right that we need to clearly >> delineate whats already built-in to jQuery, what can be enhanced via a >> plugin, and what should be added to some best practices/demo page so >> that we're not constantly reinventing the wheel. I would just hate for >> someone to come by and say, "Well, jQuery doesn't seem to have this >> animation capability that I saw on Ajaxian" simply because its not >> obvious to them from what they see on the site. >> >> Rey... > > > Anyway, I do not mean for any of this to be taken as criticism, its more > an observation of where I think we are and what make sense to move it to > the next level. I'm new to jQuery and I may be totally off base. If that > is case please delete this and accept my apology. I think I hear a lot > of desire for this to happen in the form of the suggestions that are > focused on smaller tactical steps of trying to improve the doc or > tutorials, etc. These are all things that are important and need to be > done but I think a building and growing a community takes some planning > and coordination and some leadership and thinking big. > > One way to do this is for the leadership (whoever that may be) to think > about where they want this to go or what their vision is. Then identify > concrete tasks of things that need to be done and ask for volunteers to > work on them. I'm probably not say anything that you don't already know, > but I hope putting it into words generates some discussion and action > and provide a mechanism to focus community members on improving jQuery. > > I have to say that one of the better aspects of this community is the > list and the support I have gotten from it. It is a very positive and > instructive environment. > > Thanks and best regards, > -Steve > > _______________________________________________ > jQuery mailing list > discuss@jquery.com > http://jquery.com/discuss/ > _______________________________________________ jQuery mailing list discuss@jquery.com http://jquery.com/discuss/