German Community Site/Blog/whatever

[thomassausen]

Hi,

it seems to me there are some PW-users in Germany, but is there a community site in progress? I am using ExpressionEngine for 5 years now. I did several client projects but had difficulties to "sell" EE to clients. ProcessWire could be my next main-CMS. At the moment I rebuild some of my old sites with ProcessWire. Yesterday I talked to a web agency about PW. They said "Well, PW seems to be great but it's unknown in Germany. We do have work for WordPress, Contao or Joomla." I showed them http://webkrauts.de/artikel/2012/processwire but their reaction was like "Ok, nice. But can you do the next project with Contao or WordPress? Because our clients heard about these CMS before."

ExpressionEngine has similiar problems in Germany, but costs money. I worked on a german Community-site für ExpressionEngine, but then EllisLab changed their pricing structure and philosophy. So I'm leaving EE and there will probably never a german EE-site. But what's about a german Community site? Is anybody working on this or would like to participate?

-Thomas

[Adam Kiss]

1.) I don't think there currently is any nation-specific PW site, maybe short of finland (and that's only because Antti (@apeisa) is a beast)

2.) Whether anybody is working on it, I'll leave that up to german boys

---

+ RANT: What the hell is that argument that "our clients heard about these before". Well, they are the agency, they should make the freakin' technical decisions! I will never understand this 'client asks for it, we bend forwards and backwards to do it' mentality… Especially when it comes to technical decisions.

[Pete]

There are a few ways to do it, none of them straightforward

1) Modx had a lot of extra forums for discussion in each language om their main forums. Whilst i can see the point, I also think it leads to less sharing.

2) Local sites per country. I think this might be the answer, bit if each has its own forums then you run the risk of fragmentation again.

3) Making the main Pricesswire site multilanguage - this is actually a great idea, but there is a LOT of content to translate. If you can hook it up to localised domains though that would be amazing!

I like option 3, but option 2 is more easily achieved. If there were to be localised sites with forums then that's fine, but personally I think it would be best if support requests were somehow handled on these forums and that's when it gets a bit messy.

And a huge amen to Adam's rant But I understand the difficulties in choosing to say no to that person if there is several months' work on the line too.

[diogo]

I think clients listen to us much more than we sometimes think. Admittedly, not knowing all the story and context, I tend to think the problem here is the agency.

[thomassausen]

I don't think about a german forum or something like this, because I really like the community here. I thought about a german website as a addition to processwire.com not a replacement. 

A site to present some facts and benefits about PW in german. Further a PW-network-section, in this section pw-professionals would be introduced with short interviews (why the are using PW, what was the their first pw-site etc). 

So you could tell a client: go to www.processwire.com this is the official website with great community, the api etc., but PW is relevant in Gemrany too, go to domainnanme.de and there you see some facts about the CMS and the community in ypur own language.

Maybe a blog could with guest-articles could be nice, just to show, that PW has a active community. 

[Luis]

processwire.de is unfortunatly occupied by a german media agency. 

Few weeks ago I thought the same, info page with small blog for german users, but link to this community. 

I think german forums would not be the best decision, as Pete mentioned before, my fear would be a fragmentation and a loss of sharing. 

[apeisa]

We have noticed that if discussion goes to that level (why pw is better than wp/drupal/modx/any other system) then we are already little late on the game (there are more everything with drupal, wp, sharepoint, anything really, you always lose when comparing on paper..).

Angle should be "why we can understand your need best". After client and you both believe that it is great match, then  technology will never be an issue. "I have never heard about that system, but if that is what is needed to best fulfill our needs, then go for it."

Although I do enjoy personally chatting and comparing the strengths, it actually adds very little value for customer. Of course if project is clearly something specific from some of the areas where PW is not strong (intranet applications, e-commerce, community sites), then by all means be honest and open with that.

[Luis]

something specific from some of the areas where PW is not strong (intranet applications

Antti please, PW is a terrific tool for Apps 

[apeisa]

Well, I didn't meant "apps" in general (we have build multiple apps already: full featured event management, trusted election voting tool, simple discussions, e-commerce.. you name it ).

What I meant is when the actual need is to have "app type of an intranet" (instead of "website type of intranet", mainly used to share information), with instant messaging, file sharing, projects & tasks, private settings, profiles etc... all doable with PW, but there is nothing out of the box and lot's of work ahead.

If I had to build that kind of application, I would definitely do it with PW. But there are many great alternatives already solving the exactly same problem.

[Luis]

My last line to prevent beeing more Off Topic.

Have you tried TideSDK yet?  http://www.tidesdk.org/

Maybe there is a chance to run a PW instance with it, will try it after finding some time...

[thomassausen]

processwire.de is unfortunatly occupied by a german media agency. 

Few weeks ago I thought the same, info page with small blog for german users, but link to this community. 

I think german forums would not be the best decision, as Pete mentioned before, my fear would be a fragmentation and a loss of sharing. 

So we have both a similiar idea. Blog/info-site for german users and link to this community (forums, api, modules etc). Well, processwire.de is gone, we need processwired.de I'm so bad with names.

[Luis]

If you are really interested in launching a german PW site, I will help you with some fancy coding. 

[thomassausen]

I am really interested. Because I wanted to do the same with EE. And I think PW is a great tool, which need more attention. 

The most agencies or client doesn't know PW in Germany. So I say "Go to www.processwire.com it's a great tool." First reaction "Well, ok. I never heard about it. Is there a german admin?" "Yeah, of course." "Nice, but I never heard about it. So it's not a reliable solution for my clients?" 

At the moment I'm glad, that I can show them http://webkrauts.de/artikel/2012/processwire

But a whole site, would be better marketing. 

[thomassausen]

Ok, we will do it. Lars helps me, but we need a good name:

processwire.de is taken by another agency.

So we need alternatives. Let the brainstorming begin:

pwninjas.de

pw-deutschland.de

pwde.net

processwired.de 

pwinsider.de

pwnetwork.de

pwcms.de

 

processwire-something seems to be a bit long. 

[diogo]

pwurst.de

[Luis]

Oh Yeah my fav!

pwninjas.de

 

btw: who is Lars?

[diogo]

btw: who is Lars? 

hm, this relationship starts with the wrong foot...

[yellowled]

processwire.de is taken by another agency.

Translation of the German text on said site for the non-German guys:

“Should you expect web site content here and think this could be a technical error, please call: […]”

Jeez. I mean, if you're gonna block a domain, just have the decency to put some content on there. What's wrong with a cat GIF?

As for the German community site's name, I think “pw[something]” is too generic. This could lead to legal issues (yes, Germans love their legal issues). I don't see what's wrong with processwire-cms.de, but of course, it's your call. 

[Wanze]

What about:

processwire-das-beste-opensource-cms-cmf-der-welt.de

[thomassausen]

Lars... ups... I meant Luis. Soooorrrrrrrryyyyy 

processwire-das-beste-opensource-cms-der-welt.de ? PDBOCDW.de hmmm well.... let me think about it

Something like: processwire-cms.de could work of course. Processwire as part of the domain is a good solution.

[apeisa]

Why not getting touch with whoever that reserved processwire.de and ask for their plans?

[thomassausen]

Just for the records:

1. I registered: processwire-cms.de

2. I got in contact with the guys behind processwire.de and asked them for their plans.

[Soma]

I've seen processwire.ch is also already in hands of a swiss fotographer. Hmm Why?!

I was also thinking to get processwire-cms.ch. Even if doing a redirect to you guys

[Nico Knoll]

I think we should do it the WordPress way (sorry for mention the w-name). We don't need processwire.de - we just could use http://de.processwire.org/ (or .com) as a beginning (like: http://de.wordpress.org/).

This page doesn't have to include all of the pages processwire.com does. It just would be a "hello german user. Yes, ProcessWire has a german admin interface. You can downlad the bundle here."

And if you download processwire on this site it may should contain a german profile already...

[Pete]

I'm with Nico on this one - I like the idea of local sites very much, but if we can approach it with subdomains we can standardise a look and feel much more easily as well as work more closely together on what we feel could be covered on the local sites.

If we could pull together on features and content for this we could maybe even use the multisite module and translate some common content into various languages.

We might also benefit from it looking more "official" this way - it would acknowledge that the dev team (ryan, but I'm thinking like a customer) cares about engaging with and supporting customers across the world.

Just out of curiosity, how many German/French/Finnish etc CMS systems are there out there? I mean ones developed with English not as the native language? Also how many developed by English speaking countries where the devs have actually bothered translating parts of their official site or offering country-based portals? I'm extremely interested to see if this might be a relatively simple way to draw in a much larger user base by standing out from the crowd