New host services

[Genete]

Hi people!
This morning Zelgadis and I have been talking in google chat about something that is related to this thread. We both want to show you the whole conversation:
(“Yo” is me - Genete)

[size=85]07:16 Yo: Morning!
can you access to synfig.org?
Zelgadis: Hi!
I can’t
07:17 It’s gone down 10 min ago
BTW
Will you rename Normal Tool to Transform Tool?
07:18 Yo: I read it on chat, I think that rename is possible but I’ll ask to Nikitakit. He did once and for some reason he come back to “normal”
what could happen to it? is morevna down too?
Zelgadis: yes
07:19 Yo: oh, seems that tuxfamily is having troubles
Zelgadis: Good time to think about backup? ~^
07:22 Yo: Right
08:08 Zelgadis: synfig.org is back
08:25 Yo: still there?
08:26 Zelgadis: yep ^^
Yo: I can do a rsync to my pc of the tuxfamily content, is download.tuxfamily.org/synfig the right path?
08:27 Zelgadis: Mmmm… I suggest not waste a time for temporal solution and configure BackupPC
Yo: backup pc is a feature of tuxfamily?
08:28 Zelgadis: no it’s a software that doing regular backups
I run it on my pc to backup morevnaproject.org
08:29 I can configure it for synfig.org here too. But I have limited bandwidth. I can set up it for you too.
08:30 Yo: cool. I’m not in my home now. I’ll ping you when I have time and will configure it on my pc
btw, cron facilities on tuxfamily!!!
08:31 we can setup api and such things!
Zelgadis: they do cron?
08:32 *do have
Yo: yeaaaah!
It seems to be a new feature!!!
08:35 Zelgadis: where?
08:36 where did you saw it?
O_O
08:37 Yo: go to tuxfamily panel, enter with your username, enter to synfig project and it is listed together with the other facilities, website, dowload, git, etc.
08:38 btw there is an advice about quota overload. It is time to ask for more resources
08:40 Zelgadis: My suggestion is to cleanup joomla dirs first
08:41 cool! They really run cron!
08:42 Yo: now let’s open our hearts… do you still against on maintain jommla site?
I remember that you mentioned long time ago that it is a monster and that wikimedia is enough
08:43 Zelgadis: I’m not against maintaining joomla.If we will decide to kepp jomla I will still willing to maintain it to help synfig project.
I’m against joomla in particular.
08:44 And I have 3 reasons.
08:45 1) No revision control for articles. Even drupal and wordpress have this feature nowdays.
08:47 2) Images and uploaded files. It’s very-very hard to make joomla store its upload on download.tuxfamily.org. It was hard to tweak phpbb for this, but for joomla it’s much harder. Thus we will end up wasting webarea space or storing images in the wiki.
08:49 3) It’s very hard to track changes. Oh, sorry, it’s not hard. It’s impossible. ^^ I’ve changed links on download pages but no one have noticed that. Why? Not just because everyone busy, but because there’s no way to look latest edits.
I do remember that it was me who insisted to use joomla. Now I’m confessing - it was step in the wrong direction.
08:50 ^^‘’
Yo: ok, good heart opening
is there a not huge complex alternative/solution?
any suggestion?
08:51 (remember, who nothnig decides doesn’t fail)
I’ll back you on any new step
08:52 Zelgadis: My suggestion is to store cms content in the wiki. ^^
Under CCMS Namespace
*CMS
08:53 Yo: and what would it give us in long term? a wiki with a good skin?
Zelgadis: 1) A wiki with a good skin
08:54 2) easier to track changes and store files
3) easier to maintain using templates
08:55 I.e., in joomla if I want to change the way how files are displayed on this page synfig.org/en/current-release
…then I must edit HTML for each file entry.
With mediawiki i can get the same look, but using templates
08:56 Also I think that transparency is something that must have any open source project.
Yo: I wonder if it is just a lack of joomla knowledge form our side
yes, I vote for transparency

08:57 that all movements scapes from my understanding abilities
Zelgadis: No it’s not a lack of knowledge. ^^ I’m intensively digging joomla for 2 months. And my impression is getting worse.
08:58 Every automation task in joomla leads to installing or writing a new module. That’s creepy.
08:59 Yo: yes, it is a resources sucker
09:00 Zelgadis: Templates are resource suckers too, but they are much easier to use and write - you don’t need to upload them and they don’t break main engine if you wrote somrething wrong.
09:01 And the worst thing: there’s no OpenSource spirit around Joomla. They claiming to be OpenSource, and so they are. But basic joomla comes with limited functionality. And there’s a bunch of people around who try to sell you their modules. Some of them hardly have understanding of opensource. Personally I don’t like it.
09:02 Joomla not allows to upload images during post editing. You should upload all images first and then go edit article. That’s uncomfortable.
Yo: yes, I’ve noticed
09:03 Zelgadis: In Mediawiki it’s better. You can insert links during editing and upload after.
Yo: can synfig.org point to wiki without much troubles on missing links?
09:04 Zelgadis: it can
Yo: what I disliked from wiki is that you have to collect manually the news and the galleries and challenges and so
but if the templates and DLP macros can help on that…
09:05 Zelgadis: Yes. I can do that with DPL! ^^
Yo: also old front page was a disaster, nobody liked it and tried to make its own forks in the other languages
09:06 Zelgadis: I can make a frontpage at least equal to current one.
09:07 read: or even better
Yo: hehe
Zelgadis: What else you don’t like about ol mediawiki setup?
Yo: basically it was:
09:08 1) side bar navigation is static you usually don’t know if you’re in a documentation page or a other related stuff page
2) difficult to collect articles with similar content (news, challenges, releases)
09:09 3) difficult to include eyecandy engines (image gallery, image viewer, etc.)
that’s basically
09:10 Zelgadis: 2) can be solved with DPL
09:11 Don’t know about 1 yet, but it can be improved in some way
09:12 3) can be partially solved or even fully if I’ll find extensions or write them by myself.
OK, I have to go now
Yo: ok, thanks for your time
09:13 Zelgadis: Maybe you post this conversation log to the forum into “Web infrastructure” thread?
Yo: think that I’ll back on you and will help as much I can
yes, I’ll do
Zelgadis: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1011
(to make my confession public ^^)
Yo: he he
Zelgadis: ^^
09:14 Yo: enjoy
Zelgadis: Take care on the code - that will be the best help. ^^
Yo: I’m doing my best
Zelgadis: I’ll will finish the miracle I promised you back in September 2009. ^^
09:15 But now I’ll focus on documentation. ^^
09:17 Yo: ^____^
cya![/size]

We would be very interested on listen your opinion about if it is worth to continue with Joomla website or move to a wikimedia site with its templates, DLP macros and extensions.
Also I want to publicly admit the amount of errros that we are commiting lately, but sincerely, we are doing our best ^_^‘’. Keep alive a project like synfig is not a one or two man task. We are open to any suggestion and any help.
Meanwhile, as I said, I’ll focus on the release.
Cheers
-G