I have more appreciation for the people around here then you would think. I have developed two products lines from an idea, to market. I know how much work and dedication goes into things like this Elgg project. I have been challenged in my own endeavors to "get out of my own way" and rarely have I taken the time to look from the outside in. I, like Brett and the team here, try to please everyone (continue a community site with the entire Elgg history on it) when I am quite sure has held me back many times in my ventures.

I suggest the "look/feel/usability" and the intermitent "speed issues" on this site warrant a review of possible "rethinks". I know many people still run 1.7 and older versions and you don't want to alienate them, but by starting a new community, I really don't see how you do that. Any member could frequent both systems. You still would have the ability to "stay tuned" with the past versions, just that a "new era" is launched with a new 1.8 site with 1.8 vetted plugins. And I suggest an entirely new way of communicating on "said" site. 

Bill,

I know for a fact that Brett, Cash and Evan have been working hard on upgrading the community site to 1.8, and I think your patronizing tone is neither appropriate nor fair.

The community site is not a demo, it serves a functional purpose and it does well despite the Elgg version it uses.

The community website should be run on the latest version. Why even keep the existing website??

Theo is quite right when he says that the community website needs to be more robust. I know because I struggle with the speed of elgg sometimes. I know others will now come point the finger at my ISP and my modem and my dog.. everything else will seem to be wrong except for elgg itself.. but that wont change reality, and reality is Elgg 1.7 is not the best platform.. Elgg community website has the potential to perform better with a more advanced backend technology, and, from what I can see and heard, 1.8 provides for that.. so, why not?!

I am currently doing a project for a client who has access to 30,000+ subscribers.. if Elgg 1.7 was the only version available to me, I would not be building the website on Elgg platform t all, but, given we have 1.8 that seems to have some significant structure modifications, I am taking a reasonable risk and building the site with 1.8. I'm sure it will be good..

The issue here is that every Elgg user (I mean developer who uses Elgg) will have a much easier life if this website is a little more robust and so will Elgg itself. The Elgg team work extremely hard and put in alot of effort and time to keep things in motion.. and lets admit it, there aren't many of them, but yet they maintain this entire module on both, business and technical levels. So, having achieved that with the resources available to the entire venture is magical and is a great achievement already, but at the same time, there is absolutely no harm in moving north.

@ Carlos- Glad someone at least somewhat considers my point.

@ Ismayil- no intention to be patronizing the hard working gang here. I do get somewhat colorful in my words, especially when I get frustrated (like to trying to cruise this website the last 4-5 days thinking my ISP was hanging up). I don't know what else to say other than this website is unfitting in it's representing the hard work all you guys. I DO have a vested interest in Elgg. I could say I have spent X amount of my income and X amount of my time (last 3 years!!) into projects planned with Elgg, but what does mean, not much I think. Many have worked their butts off way beyond what I have done, but I stand by my being the grain of sand in the oyster in this small point.

The way Elgg has been handled by, in our opinion, three hero's and some very active supporters has lead to a very robust product. Maybe conservative... but it is one that our clients can rely on - it works!

I've hired two full time Elgg programmers and a tester to work for our clients. We contribute on Trac and a few plugins where appropriate.

Somehow however we also not reached a tipping-point... .we do not feel that we are really contributing to the core of the project in the best way we could.  I am not sure what it is. Maybe we need a playing-field, call it a group, where we know that if we put out effort in, it will benefit the whole project and not just a few downloaders of our plugins. Take this TinyMCE thing... why does it not corretct my spelling mistakes?  This could be an example of a Core Plugin that with the blessing and guidance of the core dev's we would be more or less free to generate our own ideas and put into good use...

All in all, I dont know.... but my feeling is that we get there ...just the tipping point ;)

I will clarify my suggestions and it is a repeat of things I had suggested before.

1. Lauch a new community site in 1.8 (keep the old one up!).

2. Add some key plugins beyond core that aren't necessarily about looking good, but facilitate communication on the community site (i.e. chat, google docs viewer, the best forum plugin for groups). Choose plugins that are obviously an upgrade to peeps working together here!

3. Allow each new plugin to be in its own new group space if possible. Get the group river working with comments.

4. I had the chiefs at fuzemeeting.com interested in offering free cloud webinars (recordable?) for this site, and it wasn't acted upon. A webinar feature in groups donated by the largest educational University in the world couldn't be a bad thing, me thinks.

Take action on this list (at least 1-3) and watch things happen! You can't have guys building Mercedes driving around in Yugo's, now can you. The future of the elgg group space is it's strength. I have yet to see the "beginning" of what can be in that sense. You need this site to be the exploratory place for that.

I am willing to pitch fuze again as it's been a year if that became an interest.

Content over design! You are missing the bigger picture... I don't need the extra "oh la la" when im trying to download a plugin or get an answer from a topic, this site does an incredible job, some youtube videos would be nice though ;) im not at that level yet

@ Potato  http://www.blurtit.com/q166650.html

I can see where TahoeBilly is coming from, though I don't see the need to create a separate site/community - upgrading this one to 1.8, adding in all of those bells and whistles we've all been discussing over the last few months, and slapping a fresh design on it would be perfect.  However, given the finite resources of the project I think it's more important that those resources are directed toward the product of Elgg.  We still manage to have functioning community here despite the blah paint job, and plugins still manage to get bug reports and discussion happening, it's just less organized than it could be.  Functionally there's nothing wrong with the status quo, there are some improvements that could be made if more resources are available.

I myself might attempt to contribute more on this side of it, but as always, it's time dependent.  We really can't demand any more of the core team than they're already doing.

Matt, should we put together our resources and get a couple more people on board and push the community site forward? I've already forked the repo, but haven't had a chance to work on it much. I think Brett, Cash and Evan could use some help on this one. 

Brett, Cash and Evan, what do you say? Should start actively making pull requests for the community site? Any spec document, where you might have outlined the roadmap for the community site?