Category Structure

Feedback
1

Would it make sense to create top tier categories for each of the components or functions of Gramps. Right now there is the Support category. But support for what?

A user opens a new issue and others will offer their help and experiences. But a year from now, a new user comes here looking for answers to their issue. Instead of searching through all support issues they could quickly go to the category for that area of concern as a starting point.

Having a more focused category may also help keep the thread on topic.

Categories like:

  • Data Entry
  • Sources and Citations
  • Reports
  • Filtering
  • Addons
  • Import and Export
  • The Database
  • New Feature Ideas

Others ?

Iā€™m not sure if once a discussion is created if it could be moved from a general category to a more issue related category after the fact. It might make sense to start off with the more focused categories from the start.

1 Like
2

It is easy to move threads into different categories. We can also create sub-categories.

A separate Feature Requests category is a good idea. Users could ā€œlikeā€ their favourite idea,

3

On the other hand, a Features lists with Lots oā€™ Likes is misleading in that wonā€™t actually drive the development cycle. It might even foment discontent.

Because it IS easy to move topics into a new category, perhaps we ought to let the categories develop organically for a month or two? See where it takes us.

It seems that ā€˜Supportā€™ as a category puts out the wrong expectations. Iā€™ve managed Call Centers and tech support groups for software & hardware. And seeing ā€˜Supportā€™ (Customer or Technical) leads people expect professional response times & expertise. (Sweatshop call centers, notwithstanding.)

Since this will be a Community powered resource, volunteers should not have to take angry retorts if they fall short in either expectation. Every diverse response should be appreciated with the realization that it isnā€™t a ā€˜definitiveā€™ answerā€¦ and is volunteered (free!) advice.

My free opinion, for what itā€™s worth. :wink:

-Brian

4

I deliberately avoided the word ā€œRequestā€ to make it clear it would be an area to discuss new ideas. Some ideas may/should never make it to the stage of Request. Maybe just semantics but also one of expectations.

1 Like
5

There may be some items on this list worth consideration:

image

6

On Geneanet siteā€™s forum, of course thereā€™s genealogical search and technical forums but there also is a ā€œbistrotā€ (pub) forum to discusse anything else about genealogy.

Discourse generates a lot of messages on regular mailing list. Equivalent messages on Discourse forum could be in this kind of ā€œpubā€ forum.

Another kind of category could be foreign language categories. Gramps is internationalized. Geneanet Gramps forum in French is active. May be some non English speaking Gramps users could have their own forum in their language on Discourse: German, Danish, Spanish, Frenchā€¦

Third idea: regular usages of Gramps vs more specifics or new like DNA. May be clustered in something like a ā€œUse casesā€ forum.

7

Hereā€™s a revised list for proposed subcategories under Support

  • People
  • Relationships
  • Families
  • Events
  • Charts
  • Places
  • Sources, Citations & Repositories
  • Media
  • Notes
  • Reports
  • Filters
  • Add-ons, Gramplets & Tools
  • Import & Export
  • Localization
  • The Database

I am not sure if ā€œLocalizationā€ is the term we should use here. It is the term used in bug reports and by the developers but would the casual user know this refers to the translations, etc. Any other ideas, or will a description of the category suffice?

While Nick has said it is easy to move threads into Categories after their creation, that means someone would need to do that, We could do this ourselves by posting to the right area. As I stated at the top, having the subcategories may also help us stay on topic.

If you think this is the way we should proceed, please Like :heart: the post so we can get a sense of what the group wants. And of course, if you think any other categories may be needed.

8

An additional Category suggestion deals with New Features.

Should this be a subcategory with the others above or its own top tier Category

If you think this is the way we should proceed, please Like :heart: the post so we can get a sense of what the group wants.

9

Two other suggestions for categories are not specific to the Gramps software.

Do we want to expand the discourse here to general genealogy discussions dealing with tips and techniques and the how-to of basic genealogy research.

The other category suggested a category dedicated to discussions in languages other than English. Again, is this a direction we want to take this discourse.

If you think this is the way we should proceed, please Like :heart: the post so we can get a sense of what the group wants.

10

Iā€™m wonderingā€¦ isnā€™t this sorta like taking a step down the path of recreating the wiki? It seems like that would be a misstep. As much as the wiki has become chaotic and a fresh start seems appealing, it adds another layer of confusion for users already backsliding on our steep learning curve. (The Gramps-Project.org wiki currently has 1,921 contents pages!)

Building a comprehensive framework almost imposes strictures on the discussion directions.

-Brian

2 Likes
11

I tend to agree. Letā€™s keep the number of categories small to start with.

Perhaps we should start by renaming ā€œSupportā€ to ā€œHelpā€, and adding ā€œIdeasā€ for feature requests and ā€œGenealogyā€ for non-Gramps related discussions?

1 Like
12

I like the idea of fewer categories.

1 Like
13

It would be great if you could add a ā€œRoadmapā€ category, where the features comming in next version would be listedā€¦
That way people wouldnā€™t easily find what was planned for next versionā€¦

It do not need to list anything but new planned features or changes for Grampsā€¦

1 Like
14

Or we could just looks at the 3 places where such things are managed and look for ourselves.

The GEPS list has the big design changes that require lots of discussion.

You can see the narrower scope items by looking through the pulls on GitHub

And the MantisBT bug tracker lists the things that have been fixed. It has its own Roadmap feature.

15

@emyoulation
Do you really think that new users are going to go through the GEPS list and try to figure out whats actually comming in the next version or do you think they will just make a new topic with a question ?

99% will just create a new question/topic and leave it to others to maintain the listsā€¦

Its about trying to be userfriendly for the users of the software.
Sorry to say but the GEPS system is as messy to search as the mail list on sourceforge was, there can be 3-4-5 different GEPS for a topic/feature and you need to know the system to figure out whats actually going into the next version or notā€¦

Regarding github, how many users of Gramps do you know how to navigate github? most users do not even know what github are !

MantisBT, same as the GEPS and maillist, for normal users its not user friendly! all of those are tools for developers, not normal users of a software.
And the roadmap there is for bugs, not for new features ā€¦

I see you keep on the negativity for any suggestions from me, i really donā€™t know why, but it would be great if you just stopped commenting on my posts instead of using so much negative energy !

16

Iā€™m sorry, but I thought this was a forum for all users and that everyone was welcome to come with suggestions, not only the few in the ā€œinner circleā€

17

If this is an important enough item to you, maybe you should take on the task. Thatā€™s how Open Source works!

Thereā€™s already a roadmap-like feature for each release. What youā€™re talking about now is a presales or marketing feature. Are presales & marketing really applicable in Open Source?

Why would a community want to build pent-up demand in a group of people not even willing to make the effort to look through the existing documentation? Thatā€™s probably not the kind of person whoā€™s likely to become a contributing member instead of a complainer.

I think the documentation being more User Friendly would cut down on people repeatedly asking the same basic (and reasonable!) questions. That would help let the Discussions on the maillist (& here) cover more challenging subjects. Since I have experience in that arena, thatā€™s where I contribute.

18

Discussions have different points of view. Iā€™m not trollingā€¦ I supported some of your points and disagreed with others. Others have disagreed with my points with cogent arguments. I appreciate that. Lets not let things devolve into personality & attitude.

(And Iā€™m not inner circleā€¦ merely vocal. My ideas get shot down a LOT. Often appropriately.)

19

@emyoulation

You really have a lot to learn !

You need to understand that most users that use gramps or any other open source software that have public releases and want users to use the software, the majority of users will be people that dont know anything about WIKI, Python, Programming or Databases !

Most users do not have any knowledge of anything but their genealogy research, and struggle even with simple desktop tasks, and at least not about systems developed for developers by developersā€¦

You need to step down from your high saddle and get up of your bubble and understand that there are people that want to use Gramps because of the software and the features, and many of them will have trouble logging into any of the systems used by the gramps projectā€¦

I dont care if there is a roadmap or not, this was a suggestion for a category in the forum that would be a place where users easily could see what was planned, instead of asking questions about itā€¦

But you may not understand that some users actually ask questions or suggest feature that can benefit other users?

And again, I had a plan to contribute, both with data and a complete setup for Norwegian sources for the forms gramplet, but the attitude from you and Ron have made me drop itā€¦
ā€¦ I also dropped publishing the detailed howto use OpenRefine for Gramps data cleanup in the wiki because of you.

ā€¦ I have a near finished converter from Legacy database to Gramps xml, but thanks to you, Iā€™ll keep it to myselfā€¦ Iā€™m so tired of you attacking anything comment I do, so its no longer any fun or interest to contribute or helpā€¦ so from being one that wanted to contribute, you alone have got me to be ā€œjust another userā€ā€¦ I have actuially used the last year learning python to be able to contribute, butā€¦ you stopped that interest a few month ago, and you are doing it again !