OS2.org is back!
Finally, OS2.org is there again! In opposite to prior announcments, this website, being so important for the community of OS/2- and eComStation users, has not closed its gates.
Well, OS2.org stayed online anyway and was not just shut down meanwhile. But not all areas were taken care for, if any. So for example the news section and calendar were not looked after, because news being entered by users were only placed into the queue for editing. To make things worse, in all areas problems appeared again that already recently showed up when entering new entries.
Now, after some delays, things are going on, with a new owner and a new core team, where both are introduced here.
But there are many things left to todo, not only before, but as well behind the curtains. Bugs have to be found, making the existing services work properly again. Some services are to be extended in order to provide increased functionality, so that they hopefully are used more afterwards. We also need more helping hands for managing the visible parts, so for editing news and dates.
In the first place we intend to make clear that users can expect ongoing usual, if not even better services. At the same time some things cannot go on like before. After all a situation, like the one we experienced now, should not occur once more, OS2.org is to be continued.
How important is OS2.org?
Why do we commit ourselves to support OS2.org? Well, we just consider it being very important. Everybody may come to its own judgement on the importance of a website, but already only some features of OS2.org underline the importance of this website:
- OS2.org is one of the most important site for news around OS/2 and eComStation (especially for the german part).
- the help desk forum serves many users to share their know-how
- The calendar provides a good overview to dates related to OS/2 and eComStation. It is used mostly by our german users, but all (european) users are, of course, invited to use it as well
At this point I would like to cheer up for all people being involved in OS2.org so far. The concept and wide parts of its offers certainly did not only convince me - here a big thank you! has to be said to these persons for creating a website that has grown to a key point for the OS/2 and eComStation community.
Especially the following have to be named (in alphabetic order):
- Philipp Bühler
- Markus Hannig
- Andreas Linde
- Jörg Sievers
- Jörg Skottke
Another thank you goes to all persons not named here in particular that have contributed to make OS2.org a success within recent years.
The range of involved people includes the inventor as well as the developer, and last, but not least, the editors. Moreover, it has to be remarked here that of course as always one is able to contribute more than the other - and therfore deserves some extra gratitude. So the involvement and the time massively invested by the developer(s) has to be mentioned in particular - without this the editorial work would not have even been possible and all ideas would have remained just ideas.
That puts up the question:
Who does it now?
The new owner and operator of OS2.org is Team OS/2 Deutschland e.V. (Team OS/2 Germany). This organisation, especially the local association Team OS/2 Ruhr e.V. (Duisburg, Germany), has offered to take over charge of running OS2.org from the previous owners. As Team OS/2 Ruhr e.V. already has supported OS2.org financially for several times before, from our point of view this step is only a logical consequence.
So Wolfgang Wilms and I as chairmen of the named associations have offered to the former staff to continue OS2.org in own responsability. We wanted to do so in particular as also offers came from outside Germany to continue OS2.org. For us it was and is especially important that also the german part of the site will be maintained further - this can be assured best by having someone from Germany running the site, being fully committed to this goal. Of course, in times of european integration, the english part will with no doubt stay as well very important for us. In the end all involved people agreed and the site was handed over to the new core team.
Nevertheless it is not intended to give the impression as if OS2.org now just belongs to this associaction, and that would be it and everything is going on as usual. At the contrary OS2.org is to belong more to OS/2 and eComStaion users than ever. In the end the Team OS/2 association wants to take financial and technical responsability, so the basis for running the website, as well as taking care for that required efforts are being taken. That does not necessarily mean though that in the future automatically all required efforts are taken by these associations, but instead more than ever OS2.org requires help from users committing themselves to perform activities on a regular basis! Moreover, it would also be wrong to think that we alone will determine how OS2.org will evolve. This is an issue to be decided by all involved people, and in case of further-reaching questions, to be decided also together with the users of the website. We think that this is the only way to ensure that OS2.org will remain appreciated by its users as before.
And now to the new core team: Markus Montkowski (we all know him as developer for USB device drivers) kindly has offered to take over the technical part at first, where Wolfgang and I would like to support him as soon as possible. As already thankfully remarked by some users within the OS2.org forums, Markus already has removed some bugs in recent weeks, so also from this side we say: Many thanks, Markus!. We are also very happy that Jörg Skottke will stick to OS2.org as an editor! So all in all we are now four persons in the new core team that currently coordinate and/or take all efforts around OS2.org:
The new OS2.org core team (in alphabetic order)
As already mentioned, we still need help, for editing as well as development! This is necessary, as Wolfgang and I are already greatly involved in the german Team OS/2 associations, and therefore cannot take even only the editorial task in full. In the future we can and would like to mainly take care for integrating new helping people into the team in order to decrease the amount of required efforts per person.
Only if enough help (on a regular basis) can be aquired, OS2.org will remain alive like we are used to it. The alternative would be that news would again take too much time before being published, or that again a situation could arise where some or even most of the involved people would cease work, because things could not go on like this.
But why could it come to such a situation?
Why was OS2.org to be closed recently?
There may exist many reasons for this, and I for sure don’t know them all, but for me the most important ones seem to be (where the order of them does not imply anything about the importance of the reasons):
- Missing motivation due to reduced positive feedback by the user
Or even, in some rare cases, excessive malicious criticism about an effort, which after all basically is given voluntarily and for free. At that point I understand that this is no fun anymore.
- Overloading of the staff
The regular tasks and in addition to that, the development over a long period of time put too much load on the few OS2.org team people that where mainly active.
- Problems with the Database Management System
Here software problems unfortunately could not be solved completely yet (due to the software), which lead to repeatitive additional efforts and, of course, frustration as well.
- Changed interests of the staff people
It happens from time to time that somebody turns to other things. And that will happen the earlier, the more reasons as stated above apply.
Let me make an additional remark though. If my view on these things is correct, the staff and all involved people always have tried to ensure with own efforts that OS2.org is up, to find solutions for problems and to implement them as well. First of all, this is well and laudable, but if, at any time, whatever problems are growing too big, one must call for help, and this the louder, the more problems appear (exactly this we will do right from the beginning, and I am just starting with it).
I don’t have any clue, if and to what extend somebody called for help, at least not a single plea for help has reached me until the announcement of the intended closure. Therefore I think, one could have asked for help much earlier. I also heard an argument that already the coaching of a person for the technical part of the website already would have taken so much additional effort from the old staff that they preferred to run it further completely on their own.
I think that the latter approach is pretty much wrong. First, we just saw what this attitude lead to, as at some point nothing more was possible, when the complete motivation of the former staff was simply gone, due to understandable reasons. In addition to that, the people of the old staff now will have less time for the new staff, if still some help is required. This would have not been the case, if the migration to a new team would have been undertaken in a coordinated and softly manner.
But in the end we need to make the best out of it, as we simply have no other option left. It is just good to know about the causes in order to avoid such situation in the future (with help from the OS/2- und eComStation community).
How are things going on?
We think that currently it is best to
- keep the look&feel wherever possible
- keep proven services
- remedy software problems (and with it the problems within the web interface)
- extend and improve some services as well
But it remains to be repeated that all of this is only possible if more users really take part in OS2.org. Many, maybe in the worst case, all topics that require any effort, are unavoidably endangered or at least will correspondingly slow down in progress, if nobody helps. Please help us to make OS2.org working well again!
Editing OS2.org - how can I help?
The moderated parts of OS2.org require editing, so that entries sent from outside become rational and businesslike messages.
Herefore it is also required to translate messages, either from German to English or vice versa. In case of many incoming messages a number of editors will split up the messages between them for editing and translation. The way of moderating news, here in the positive sense of censorship, where it is necessary (e.g. to prevent misuse of OS2.org as advertising media in the news section), will be determined together within the team.
Required are good knowledge of the german and english languages, including more or less good grammar. Please contact the current core team, if you can help!
Further development of OS2.org - how can I help?
First of all: make suggestions! Herfore please use the discussion forum in order to allow everybody taking part in the discussion. Then, after some discussion, contact the core team and tell them, just in case the forum thread was not yet read by the core team members.
It should be said from the beginning though that suggestions that can be implemented faster, will likely be gone for earlier. Moreover, beside good ideas we mostly need enough manpower to implement them, othwerwise also here ideas will likely only remain ideas.
Unfortunately OS2.org would not be the first OS/2 related project that everybody is enthusiastic about, but where nobody really helps. So: if anybody really can help, please say so. In order to help effectively within the development, advanced knowledge in HTML, PHP and usage of SQL databases are useful. But often there is even no deep knowledge required in order to assist the team fellows. Together within the team we easily can figure out, what and how much who can do with what know-how for OS2.org. The very best prerequisite in all cases is available time, then it is possible to get even from superficial knowledge to expert knowledge!
Give OS2.org a chance!
One final word: Please have a littlebit patience with OS2.org!
It is likely that the newly involved people take some time to cope with the new tasks, so it may take a while before the ususal level of quality and also speed of OS2.org can be reached again. Moreover, it cannot be emphasized too much that everything will take long time, if not enough help is reaching us. In addition, it may also take some time to restructure the required tasks and to integrate new helping users into the team.
At the very end I would like to say: we are very happy that OS2.org will remain alive as a proven website. There is no reason at all to remain discouraged, at the contrary! Let’s all together make the best out of it!
Christian Langanke, 2003-06-23
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