[Evangelism] Re: "Top 15 Questions..." Final Draft

[Chris Barnes]

JoAnna Springsteen wrote:
>> Instead, one is left with a page that is available for the
>> maintainers, but with nothing pointing to a site for the general
>> public.
 >
 > You sure you're using Plone?

Are you serious, or are you trying to be funny?


 > I think you'll find most Plone people
 > will disagree with you on this one. Plus this boils down to personal
 > aesthetics and taste. Some people love Plone's default look or love
 > the NuPlone skin that comes with Plone. Some don't care for it at all.
 > But technically speaking, both are ready out of the box for you to use
 > without any customization.

Hmmm.   I have no problem with the plone interface for the people in the 
group doing the content management.   But the masses of people who would 
visit the public site wouldn't give 2 hoots to a holler what was used to 
create it.  They want to see content ABOUT THE GROUP - and nothing else.
Evidence - the site is currently being hosted by Google Apps.  It's 
horrid from a "what tools are available" stand point.   But if you visit 
any site using Google Apps, you'd never know it by looking at the site.

Peruse the web.  How many of them have the software used for the sites 
development splashed on the front page?  Or the server software being 
used.   Only the techno-geeks on the back end would care about that - 
and even among them, probably not so much.


Plone - or any CMS - is a TOOL TO BE USED.  The evangelism is to the 
people who use the tools.   The general public couldn't care less.  Nor 
should they.



>> Having themes which can be imported in sounds good.  I have not heard of
>> ZopeSkel before - is it a part of the default install that runs
>> automatically?   If it's a 3rd party add-on, that may be nice - but it would
>> seem to be misleading (at the least) to say that the product is "ready out
>> of the box".

I am re-quoting this because you didn't really answer the questions I 
asked above.


> There is a project called the Plone Out of the Box project. They have
> a ton of themes that are ready to go. Just pick one an install (yes
> they have directions on how to do this). Once it's installed you can
> tweak it as you wish. Again, this is all very well documented stuff.

Documented WHERE?   Plone Out of the Box sounds nice.  This is the first 
I've heard of it (at least - as a solution this problem).   Is it part 
of ZopeSkel?



> Once again, read the end user manual and some of the other
> documentation that's out there. Some of it you can probably skip over
> but there are docs in there that give you a high level overview that
> may fill in the gaps.

Hrumph.  RTFM.  :-/
That's your idea of "evangelism?"   It's good Dylan has been around to 
give good answers.  Your reply would have been taken as anti-evangelism 
(ie. it would have run me off of the product, probably for good).


Fyi - I have done WAY more than just RTFM.  I even attended WPD (in 
Houston) last year.  As I said in my reply to Dylan's post, if you can't 
evangelize me (someone who WANTS to use the product), I doubt you're 
going to convince anyone.