Blog
We started many moons ago with a little marketplace of just our own add-ons. It was exciting to have found a revenue model for our free software.
As we looked for ways to differentiate ourselves from the sea of other CMSs, the idea of a clean, supported marketplace like Apples App Store made a lot of sense. We started accepting submissions from 3rd parties. With the excitement of Christmas morning, Andy and Ryan would personally review each submission as we had time, of which there was plenty of to go around.
Then things grew, and grew, and grew - and we couldnt keep up. So we added the PRB as an open source inspired committee of reviewers who could collaboratively help alleviate some of the initial poking around at submissions, letting us just be the final approvers. For a while, it worked great. We knew which add-ons to look at first, and while everyone wanted things to move faster, the marketplace maintained a level of excellence far above our peers.
As the marketplace grew, there were struggles around serving both the developer and site owner side of the equation in one environment. (e.g. What impact should difficulty level have? Whats the best way to install themes on existing vs. new site?) Theres a disconnect between our original vision and the reality today. We hear from our 3rd party developers that they feel like theyre putting great effort into providing support, and we hear from customers that its not always delivering the experience they thought they were getting. For example, just this week I was told:
"...In my opinion you guys should rise bar with quality control. This is second time in three years that I'm seriously thinking walking away from concrete for exactly same reason. Poor quality of the apps and bad support. I think you should rate developers for support so before we by their item we know who we deal with..."
Its natural for something important that is growing to have adolescent pains as things change. We believe there are two major problems with the PRB and marketplace today:
- We are trying to serve a diverse customer base with widely different expectations for what a finished product and good support means with a single experience. Is our marketplace a code repository for concrete5 developers who want to share with each other and maybe make a buck? Or is it more like Shopifys app store, with add-ons that are all safe, tested and running against a consistent environment in the will that always works no matter your technical ability? While we still believe we can serve everyone, we need to make some changes to speak more directly to the extreme ends of the spectrum.
- Due to demands on our time, we are unable to keep up with approval of new work in anything close to a timely fashion.
Its time for some well considered changes to improve the processes of the PRB and give different types of marketplace customers the experience they need. Heres whats happening
Submission to the PRB and getting a listing live quickly
1) The automatic checking system (called linter) has been improved. It now runs both on new submissions and new versions of existing listings.
2) If your new submission passes all the tests, you are given a launch date of 1 week in the future. Your listing will go live in 1-week even if no one on the PRB approves it. It will have a Has not been approved by PRB member! message on the listing, you'll have to flip a check box to get them to show up in the marketplace, and it will not be shown in concrete5s in-dashboard shopping UI.
3) The PRB will now have a small administrator group. They can approve add-ons and themes without anyone from the core team signing off. This adds their personal endorsement to a live listing, and/or launches the listing right then with their endorsement.
4) If your new submission did NOT pass all the tests, your listing will not go live until one of the PRB administrators or a core team member launches it.
Submissions will be rejected with limited cause or explanation. (e.g. wouldnt install, code looked sloppy in first file I opened spend some time working on this and resubmit plz. ) The PRB is not a free school, thats for the forums.
5) A new public Submitting to the marketplace forum area will be created for the entire community to help people get their code right.
6) Issues with version updates that fail linter tests will be worked out in that public forum, and not in the existing PRB interface.
Governance
1) PRB administrators and regular members have term lengths of 6 months. At the end of that period they automatically lose their PRB membership and have to request it again.
2) It takes 3 PRB administrators agreeing to accept a new PRB member.
3) It takes unanimous PRB administrators and the core team agreeing to accept a new PRB administrator.
4) To start we appoint: JohnTheFish, Mnkras, GoutNet, Tallacman as the first PRB administrators. For this special situation, their terms will be staggered (9, 8, 7, and 6 months respectively. ) Everyone else has had there term end and should re-apply now if they're interested in being part of the new PRB.
5) To request to join as a PRB member, submit your concrete5 user name to this google spreadsheet where PRB admins will review submissions on a monthly basis: (http://bit.ly/1vSIRZ3)
Technical
1) We will have a linter server you can just throw stuff at and get results from sans PRB. Dont abuse it or it will go away.
2) If the community wants to build additional checks for the linter to run, weve open sourced the framework and an example test. The PRB administrator group will decide if your check will be added.
3) The PRB interface has changed to be more usable. Were collapsing information that was getting in the way and were adding some filters/status to help keep things organized.
We're actually putting aside the time to redesign concrete5.org again in May. Here's our priority list and some out of date comps to get your mind running. Let us know if there's something we should be thinking about that we're missing.
(Download a pdf of our MoSCoW list, or view it direcly on google here.)
Packt Publishing has released a new concrete5 book: concrete5 Cookbook byDavid Strack (that's community member rmxdave).
It's a practical collection of solutions to tasks that both novice and experienced concrete5 developers face on a regular basis.Throughout the course of over 140 recipes and 3 bonus project blueprint chapters, PHP developers will learn how to create custom blocks and dashboard interfaces as well as programmatically work with pages, files, users, permissions, and more.
The book is available in print or as an eBook fromPackt Publishing--right now it's even on sale. You can also find it at Amazon.com and other book retailers.
Today we launch Certification for concrete5 with a slightly unique approach (would you expect anything less from us?). We've decided to break certification up into very granular measurable topics. We're starting off with 21 different tests, organized into Developer, Designer and Editor categories. These cover topics such as Upgrading and Moving Sites, Theme Development, Basic Block Building, Developer Concepts, and Advanced Permissions.
If you are an employer who needs to find an expert, you can search for members with specific certifications to match the type of work you need done. There's no abstract distinctions for you to try to guess about. Each certification course is a quick multiple choice test that covers a very specific topic.
More details:
- Get 3 test credits for $15 or you can buy a full pack of 21 for $95.
- Time to take a test is one minute per question
- Tests can be retaken after 24 hours
- Members search now includes filters for each Certification test
- Tests are typically made up of 25 multiple choice questions that are pulled from a larger pool of questions
Search for Members with Certifications
Get Certified and show what you know!
To celebrate the much awaited launch of ceritifcation, we're running an awesome early adopter promo:
The first 5 people who complete a certification will receive a care package from the core team.The care package will include a t-shirt, a custom button, and a printed certificate signed by the core team.
Interested in our Developer Training Track but can't attend one of the usual time slots? Check out these special evening sessions on Wednesdays in June from 6pm - 8pm Pacific.
Two add-ons from the Core Team are now Free:ReviewsandMessage of the Day!
Plus, check out these lower prices on three other Core Team add-ons:
- Randomizer- Randomly display blocks in different ways. Now $25.
- Secret Questions- Let people reset their password by answering secret questions. Now $45.
- Specifications Table Builder- Build clean and easy to read tables to show specifications and more. Now $40.
We now offer subscription based pricing for Enterprise Workflow and Enterprise Internationalization!
Enterprise Workflow
Enterprise Workflowpowers your team with a multi-step, multi-path approval system while maintaining concrete5's intuitive editing experience.
Enterprise Internationalization
TheEnterprise Internationalizationsuite adds tools for a team of translators to collaborate.
Interested?
The Core Team isn't going to Austin, but community memberChrisHhas kindly organized a meetup anyway.
If you're going to SXSW or you live in Austin, meet up with other concrete5 lovers at Austin Java (Suite 100, 301 West 2nd Street, Austin, TX) at 10 AM on Monday, March 11.
We're sending some swag--sign up early and include your shirt size and you might just get a free concrete5 shirt.
Packt Publishing has released a new concrete5 book: Creating concrete5 Themes byRemo Laubacher.
It'sa practical, hands-on guide that provides you with a number of examples that will teach you how to create powerful concrete5 themes, change the look of content block elements, and even make your site ready for mobile devices.
The book is available in print or as an eBook from Packt Publishing--right now it's even on sale. You can also find it at Amazon.com and other book retailers.