The Production Leadership Team manages all areas of Joomla! development, including documentation, design, coding, and development cycle. In addition, the Production Leadership Team manages all areas of the Joomla! project which relate to the production of the Joomla! CMS software and its documentation. For this issue’s article from the Production Leadership Team, we want to recognize mandville (forum username) and her significant volunteer contributions in multiple areas of the Joomla! project.
How did you first learn about Joomla!?
I worked with Mambo first, I think I came in on 4.52 or something, in fact I still have a site out there running it.
Do you have any interesting stories about early Joomla! projects or websites that you worked on?
My first project was a gallery. I built it first with well known gallery software but I just couldn't get the hang of it. I then looked for something that could take documents as well (to save me taking pictures from the doc and then re uploading them) and as this was just after the fork I naturally used Joomla!.
What caused you to decide to volunteer to help support the Joomla! project?
Who's volunteering? They must be mad! I think it all started when I kept complaining about dodgy posts, or was it when I kept dealing with the security posts, etc. I think I took the king's shilling!
What different areas of the Joomla! project have you volunteered for, and what areas are you currently involved with?
I think I have managed to stay in all the areas I volunteered on, I haven't been kicked off yet! Have you got time for all my involvement's? (Brad, fire up the spare server!). I deal with:
- Community.joomla.org where I filter out all the reports on the feeds, add and remove feeds and other bits.
- I moderate: the security Joomla! 1.0 and Joomla! 1.5 security forums and try to pass on advice without to much use of the copy and paste. And also the showcase forum, and people.joomla.org.
- If that wasn't enough I also am on the Trademark and Licensing team as their "domain keeper" which involves liaising with the JED and the JUG teams.
- My final involvement, and sometimes probably the most important, is with the JSST and the VEL who join the gap between the JED, third party developers, and the core.
What goals do you have for improving the areas of Joomla! that you are currently volunteering with?
Can I say world peace and small fluffy animals? There are so many ideas but I think the main ones are:
- That all developers sign up for the VEL and JSST feeds (which one day we hope to get both of them on a dedicated security site) so they can be informed directly of vulnerabilities.
- To get a simple "how to get approved" instruction for joomla-name urls
- That people actually read stickies or provide the information people ask for in the forums.
- Get a captcha on the community.joomla.org site to cut down on spam reports.
What are some of the challenges you face in the areas of Joomla! that you are currently volunteering with?
People who don't listen (read) and understanding the entire structure and where people fit in with Production Leadership Team (PLT), Community Leadership Team (CLT), Community Working Group (CWG) etc.
What do you enjoy the most about volunteering?
The differences every day.
What do you find the most difficult or challenging about volunteering?
The every day repetitions, the failure for people to understand. I still stand by my motto of HU2HY (help us to help you).
What do you like the most about Joomla!?
It's a proper content management system (CMS), and not a wanna-be that promotes itself as one.
What would you personally like to learn more about which is related to Joomla!?
How everyone fits together into the community, and who is responsible for who (apart from some of the deeper coding!).
What opportunities for improvement would you like to see happen in the Joomla! project?
A job board for community roles eg: beta tests or code checking.
What would you say to someone who is thinking about volunteering to help with the Joomla! project?
What's stopping you?
Other non Joomla! related things I deal with,
- I work with a geolocation service (note no self promotion) and along with my sibling,
- We train community groups how to use the internet, email and Joomla!
- Provide resources, admin and training for some of the biggest physical security networks in the UK.
- My real life day time job involves driving large 12 ton+ vehicles.
- I am not always the hard person I appear to be in the forums.