SMF Newsletter - 1

[Trekkie101]

Message boards function are a means of communication.  You could say that was the entire point of having a forum and you'd be quite correct.  We work our best to deliver a useful product, but I don't think we really communicate enough with the public.  Our community is often touted as one of our strongest aspects, but that's because our members are so wonderful, not because we relate with you to the best of our ability. At a recent meeting, we decided that more team/community interaction and bonding was needed.  This is one effort to start us off.

We hope to make these newsletters either quarterly or monthly.  They will contain comments from the team that are probably of interest to modders, currently involved members and new members wanting to be more involved. Not everything warrants a full announcement, and reading through a ton of posts to pick up on individual sentences isn't probably something you have time for.  This newsletter should help to summarize everything in one go.


First, we are going to talk on the subject of releases.  As you have probably noticed, we released SMF 1.0.7 and a patch for SMF 1.1RC2 not too long ago.  This went very smoothly and there haven't been any major problems reported from upgrading.  We ask for your help.  Please mention these updates to the Admins of any forums you're a member of which haven't updated yet.  SMF 1.1 RC2 brought with it a lot of new features and a new theme.  This was a big step for us to take and the feedback has been very positive; but as with every major code release, there are bugs.  None of these bugs are too serious, but alas, we have a few, this means we're going to have a third release candidate (RC3).  We feel it is needed to ensure a better release and less stressful time for users of the final version, making sure to keep our reputation intact.

While we're on the subject of bugs, we intend to squash them but we can only fix them if we know they exist. We have implemented a more efficient system for working with bugs once they are reported.  We will be refining this process a bit more in the coming days. We need your help; we need the community to report all bugs they find to the SMF Coding Discussion board. With our new system, we aim to provide more feedback and status reports on bug killing.

For a long time, there hasn't been a lot of information available in one place so we present the Online Manual to counter this. We need feedback and requests. If you think something should be on the manual, please post and ask for it.  If you wish to write something, please notify one of the members of our Doc Team to be sure it isn't already in work, and if it isn't we will do our best to incorporate your work into our manual.

Pink is a controversial color on the team, you may have noticed the ugly/beautiful "On Hiatus" badge of some of our team. This is to identify that those members may not be posting for a short while as they have had to attend to other things but are intending on coming back.  We stand behind the fact that real life always comes first.

With 1.1 Final on the way we will soon be moving our concentration to the next version of SMF, for this we will need your input, so start dreaming and post them to the feature requests board. We also would like to ask your help at the release of SMF 1.1 Final to digg the site. We will make sure there are more details available about this soon.

Well that concludes our first newsletter, as with everything else, we love your feedback, so please post it and let us know what else you'd like to know about. Thanks for reading and I hope it's given you more insight on what's happening at the moment.

[Leipe Po]

what about any openings in teams?
there were some that i responded to
but ife send the pm's to [unknown] and didnt make a copy,
but are there any?

[Deaks]

I know you dont have deadlien etc but have you got a rough idea when RC3 will be released

[Trekkie101]

what about any openings in teams?
there were some that i responded to
but ife send the pm's to [unknown] and didnt make a copy,
but are there any?

Theres no openings as such, but the team is always looking and watching people and this is how team allocation works, as long as you keep active and helping in some fashion, you'll be noticed. That topic is old and no longer used.

I know you dont have deadlien etc but have you got a rough idea when RC3 will be released

Theres no rough idea been posted. Basically when all the major bugs are swatted, then we can think about the release.

[Gary]

Thats a very interesting read there Trekkie. I noticed on the team page that there's a number of the team on hiatus, and even a few that have dropped into the SMF Friend group.

[Thantos]

When we released RC2 we said it would be the final Release Candidate.  However due to the number of serious bugs we are seriously considering an RC3.  However nothing has been firmly decided one way or the other.  There are a few major issues that must be addressed prior to an RC3 and/or Final release.  Once those issues are addressed we'll make a decision then.

If you want to be part of the team I suggest that you simply start helping out in the area you want to join.  So if you want to be on the Doc team, head over to the OM and start helping out, write and/or edit some documentation.  If you want to be on the Support team start giving people some solid quality support.  After a couple solid months of doing that don't be afraid of sending a PM to the team leader letting them know your interest.  But whatever happens don't turn down joining one team because you want to be part of another.  We try to work as one team, our badges just show were our main focus is.

[winrules]

I think this is a great idea having newsletters
If there is an RC3 release, will there be new features in it?

[Thantos]

I think we've added one security related feature from RC2.  Other then that, there shouldn't be any new features from RC2 to Final.  Adding non-security related features at this time would defeat the purpose of testing.

[anunlike]

With 1.1 Final on the way we will soon be moving our concentration to the next version of SMF, for this we will need your input, so start dreaming and post them to the feature requests board.

I'd suggest keeping us informed as to what features you are considering or which features seem like they could make it into the next release, tentatively, of course.

I think that would go far to satiate a lot of the members who want to know more and stay informed. I'd think it'd also help to prevent members from asking about the same popular features over and over again, such as custom profile fields / extended profiles.

Even just a rough guestimation of things that are being considered would do very nicely, that and how likely it is for a specific feature to be added.


I love the newsletter idea. You may want to post a blurb and a link to this in the News: area at the top so people can find it more easily. Should this be posted in the Chit Chat board, why not the News and Updates board?

[jerm]

i have no problem with digging the story, i already have some of you on my friends list.. however we have to pretty much all digg it at the exact same time, or relativly close to each other.. otherwize digg.com wont really pick up the story
thats not to say that you have to give a date on which your going to release 1.1 final.. it just means that when its released, you have to try and make a time/date when we should all digg the story

also, from what i've noticed.. i think we will need a good solid 50+ diggs in a short amount of time to get the story dugg to the front page

[Trekkie101]

With 1.1 Final on the way we will soon be moving our concentration to the next version of SMF, for this we will need your input, so start dreaming and post them to the feature requests board.

I'd suggest keeping us informed as to what features you are considering or which features seem like they could make it into the next release, tentatively, of course.

I think that would go far to satiate a lot of the members who want to know more and stay informed. I'd think it'd also help to prevent members from asking about the same popular features over and over again, such as custom profile fields / extended profiles.

Even just a rough guestimation of things that are being considered would do very nicely, that and how likely it is for a specific feature to be added.


I love the newsletter idea. You may want to post a blurb and a link to this in the News: area at the top so people can find it more easily. Should this be posted in the Chit Chat board, why not the News and Updates board?

We're still not sure the features ourselfs. Later on in the post I ask everyone to posy feature requests, a list will possibly be made public detailing some of our aims, but SMF 1.1 still isnt final so its not our main concentration yet.

I posted it here for the first issue to see how it goes, if it goes well and enough people are intrested we can move it go gain more attention.

i have no problem with digging the story, i already have some of you on my friends list.. however we have to pretty much all digg it at the exact same time, or relativly close to each other.. otherwize digg.com wont really pick up the story
thats not to say that you have to give a date on which your going to release 1.1 final.. it just means that when its released, you have to try and make a time/date when we should all digg the story

also, from what i've noticed.. i think we will need a good solid 50+ diggs in a short amount of time to get the story dugg to the front page

We shall have a Digg strategy made a post should appear shortly.

[anunlike]

We're still not sure the features ourselfs. Later on in the post I ask everyone to posy feature requests, a list will possibly be made public detailing some of our aims, but SMF 1.1 still isnt final so its not our main concentration yet.

Of course.

I just think that when people are getting antsy about the final release of whatever version it is, if you start a bit of discussion on the next version's features (or significant changes), it could preoccupy everyone who's waiting (im)patiently for that final release.

[eriktm]

If there is an RC3 release, will there be new features in it?

Simple Machines is proud to announce the release of SMF 1.1 RC2, the second (and final) release candidate for SMF 1.1, this New Years Eve.

[Tim]

When we released RC2 we said it would be the final Release Candidate.  However due to the number of serious bugs we are seriously considering an RC3.

[eriktm]

uups...

My fault, I didn`t read everything...

[HoTmetal]

I think a news letter is a great idea. I wouldn't of known about a possible RC3 without it... Keep up the good work guys/gals

[redone]

To those that have asked the question about Support Postions. We all actively look for new potential in the forums. The best advice I can offer is you certainly need to know SMF inside and out, PHP knowledge certainly is a bonus.

An overwhelming desire to help people out and to be within the SMF boards on a regular basis will help you secure such a position in future.

[Grudge]

I think it would be fair to say that the RC3 release is really a product of the great work Compuart has done getting international support working over the last few months. There have been many, many changes as a result of the internationalisation which mean we need to do another RC release before it could be declared final incase any problems crop up as a result.

As far as I'm aware there have been no major bugs with RC2 at all.

[Gargoyle]

Thanks for the newsletter guys!

[Crip]

I didn't get no newsletter about this..?