SERIOUS problems, seriously!

Well, I've finished my "evaluation" of Elgg.  My report is as follows:

Nice.  Slick interface, clean-looking, somewhat elegant.  Great if you only want exactly what it does out of the box.  If you want to add lots of mods or make it look significantly different than a default site, you might be in trouble.  And developers at large consider it "non-developer friendly" compared to similar scaffolding/environments.  Overall, if you want "just a basic community site" really fast, Elgg might be your #1 choice.

However...

There are some SERIOUS challenges here, such as the lack of documentation, the crippling SEO void, poor forums, and even the "different" way that the MVC-style coding has evolved...  But far greater than all of these issues - far greater - is this community/support site.  The unbelievably federated "group" style (dis)organization makes it impossible to find answers and leaves you wondering if people are even reading your questions, comments or suggestions.  I bet the core developers can't even keep up with the flood of multi-posts and repeated questions, but it's less to do with users not searching before they ask.  They're trying, believe me.

The scattered collaboration here is going to snuff out any momentum and prevent "critical mass" in building a substantive following.  I can deal with the platform being new and there not being mature mods and themes yet.  But when I feel like I don't know if something exists, and I have to randomly drop in-and-out of forty pages of groups to search, and I have to individually read six versions of the same mod post in an unorganized list, I eventually throw in the towel.  Evaluating open-source packages has gotten to the point where you walk into a new platform knowing there will be growth issues to deal with, but you look for how the community is handling these issues to see if you're going to be able to work through road blocks in a timely and elegant fashion.  Here, I'm afraid, if you need some blocking and tackling in getting your idea out, you better have an Elgg veteran on speed-dial.  You may very well be on your own.

I like this package.  I intend to use it.  I am begining to figure out the coding style and I think I can handle it.  But I also know my v1 functionality is very close to the default kit, and I fully expect to jump ship to another platform for v2, using Elgg as a stepping stone and prototyping tool.

That is, of course, unless CurveRider can stop debating "if and how" to approach some of these obvious, common-sense product and support concerns and take a giant leap forward in a very short time.

I want to thank the community for coming this far, I really do like the work that has been done here.  It's a nice package and it has inspired a few ideas, regardless of whether I will be able to realize them through Elgg or otherwise.

  • " Systems that exhibit mathematical chaos are deterministic and thus orderly in some sense; this technical use of the word chaos is at odds with common parlance, which suggests complete disorder. However, even though they are deterministic, chaotic systems show a strong kind of unpredictability not shown by other deterministic systems."

     

  • What type of documentation are you looking for?

    http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Main_Page

    The install instructions seem fine to me. The admin FAQ seems decent. The developers overview is pretty good. Specific feedback is needed to improve the documentation...

  • I just subscribe to the site RSS feed and get the titles for all posts. I also have notifications set to receive the full content by email for groups I really care about.

    Search is a different issue. Elgg currently does not have full text search and the best way to add this is under active discussion for a future release.

    As an aside: I really think that popping up on this site and introducing yourself with a long rant is not the best way to get a response from anyone ... My two cents.

    If you don't like the software, just go elsewhere.

  • I did not "pop up" - I have posted in a variety of places and all I hear is chirping crickets.

    This solution needs

     - Documentation
     - SEO
     - Better forums
     - More structured collaboration

    Moments ago, I clicked on the "SEO" keyword/tag and got a blank page.  Manually sifting, I got thirty discussions or so, all debating the need for SEO or pledging to "get right on it" - most of them hundreds of days old.  The only mod I could find was laden with disclaimers such as "only does the basics" and "don't know if it works with 1.5" and such.  Where is the definitive answer?  Does this package handle SEO, or not?  And if not, why isn't an official fix out in hours, not months or years?

    My post is a hopeful nudge to the community, not a rant.  To respond with gibberish or a shun of "go elsewhere" is to decide, as a community, in which direction the solution will go.  If that is how the Elgg community wants to act, then enjoy your solution.  Yes, I am criticizing, but I am also complimenting, and both are well-deserved.  And I do it to support, engage and challenge the community to move forward.  Man up and face the music, rally forth and make things better.  Unless, of course, you don't see these issues as critical.  But I think a large percentage of your supporters do find them critical, and I can't believe most of these things are still being debated.  But heck, maybe it should take months to resolve that SEO is important, and then some planning, then some development, then some testing...  Perhaps I'm all wet here.  Perhaps I deserve to be flamed for my post.  Hmm; maybe I don't fit or belong here.  Maybe I should go elsewhere.

    I wonder...  How many other people out there are like me, only don't take the time to say anything?

     

  • I took a leap of faith back before v1.0 of Elgg was released and committed to using Elgg for a big project.   I didn't know much about the new product but from the previous version I could see that there was a very active community that had put together some very amazing stuff.  Other products that I saw in the market might be marketing themselves as open and look great but there was no real following that I could see.

    Has the last year been a cake walk?  No.  The learning curve has been a steep one.  There were significant inprovments between 1.2 and 1.5 which set me back.  But they were all necessary changes. 

    Could the documentation be better?  Yes.  But from what I can see, everyone in the community and Elgg directly are working to improve this. 

    What I think happened here is Elgg has a great engine and may people are very excited about it and ready to build applications using it.  A lot of developers has been busy actually building applications and may not have had as much bandwidth to give back or help others on the site as they might otherwise have liked to do.  (at least that has been my experience) Much more time has been spent on devloping core engine features than maybe ironing out all these other issues.

    If you are looking for a social networking applications (like facebook) then Elgg is not your solution.  If you however are looking for an engine that will allow you to build really exciting social applications then you have found the product.  Yes there is more that the core developers need to work on.  Search, hooks so roles and permissions and be developed.  They are working hard to open up the process of devloping a roadmap for the product.  I really don't know where a developer could have a bigger voice if they wanted to be active and involved.

    The site that I launched recently is http://www.interfaithfamily.com and it has a highly integrated interface that took some work but I feel it really helps the user experience.

     

  • I think ELGG does more that is simple over many other platforms. It is different in its approach, so there is a need to grasp its structure, but once this is understood, it has its own moment of aha.

    I would think that the docs has some justifiable issues for being better documented as well, but all the information is there. Mostly, I think it comes down to having a better search and I have all the confidence in the world that this is a core concern and will be addressed, either by ELGG or the community.

    Scattered collaboration is something that is taken into account. Being that ELGG is a social media platform, there is an element of freedom for its users no one wants to go "big brother on" so you can also find the community telling people about their double posts and helping others create/direct others to a more suitable place for their questions. And that is the trick about ELGG, its a platform that emphasizes interaction with people and not computers, even though it uses a computer to facilitate this communication.

     

     

     

     

  • Hey, how about a bit of gratitude for the free pie? Yes, it may not be 'perfect' but nothing is, in all senses of the word. And, to be perfectly honest, your 'serious' problems aren't that serious at all. Is a lack of SEO going to break the internet? No. Are we all going to run around like headless chickens wondering what the hell to do because the documentation isn't ideal? No. Is a less than ideal forum going to cause Madonna to adopt another African child? No.

    If you want to go around giving your input to the community and the developers, there are better ways of putting it. (And shorter ones) Whilst I agree with many of your points, saying this is a 'SERIOUS' problem and needs to be fixed NOW, for quite mediocre problems, is a little over the board. The developers/community do what they can and us lesser beings must sit back and wait for the handouts, however long they take.

  • Elgg as we know it is 1 this month. not only can it walk, talk, and shout, but it's six feet tall and still growing.

  • Well...ahem ;)

    Elgg *** IS giving us a serious problem ;-)

    3 months ago we had approx 11,00 userbase on our elgg-based site

    Today, right now we're looking at 24,647 users

    Sure.. we have a serious problem here ;-)

    Though... it nothing to do with ".. scattered collaboration... momentum. critical mass.. substantive following..." and all that high jazz LOLZ :-)

    I do believe that we're past those academic aspects involved with "evaluating" Elgg. We're kinda looking more closely at real life aspects of maintaining a web-site such as scalability issues ( Leonard Lin's *fantastic presentation on this at ElggCamp2009 Boston helped heaps and if you ain't read that - it *is uploaded to SlideShare, so grab it ).

    S-o-o-o

    we ain't looking to "throw in the towel..." - we need the same towel to wipe away the sweating we're doing 'cause we need a 2x or 3x dedicated server power sometime soon... Thanks to Elgg ;-)