"How can you help Geeklog?"

That's the question we asked you in one of our polls. After more than 200 votes (thanks to all who participated), we now would like to take your word for it.

So here's how you can help Geeklog ...

Ideas and Criticism - These are always welcome, of course. Let me assure you that your comments are read, even if you may not get a response to your post.

Support - That's an easy one, and many of you are already doing it (thank you!) - answering questions in the forums or on the mailing lists. If you see a question that you can answer, don't hesitate to do so. You'll see how satisfying it can be to help others. And more often than not, you will even learn something yourself along the way!

Documentation - Geeklog has been critisized in the past - and rightly so - for its incomplete documentation. Now, there is a certain party at work on a user documentation, so let's give them some more time to come up with something. In the meantime, there are other parts of the documentation that could need a revamp or extension. For example, the help texts (in the help directory on your Geeklog site). Entries for the FAQ are also welcome. And I think there is a need for some tutorials for basic tasks such as setting up a database, using ftp, setting up email(!), etc. Any takers with good writing skills?

Themes - We do have quite a few themes already (63 that are available for download, on last counting). However, if you look closer, many of them are simply recolored versions of other themes (especially XSilver and Clean). What Geeklog could really need are a few more professional-looking themes. Also, an interest in "lighter" themes has been expressed in the past. For example, themes that don't use too many graphics or themes that focus on accessibilty. Any takers for these tasks?

Development - This is, of course, the most interesting thing for any true geek. And there's quite a lot of work available. If your knowledge and interests are more in the area of OO, PEAR, and PHP 5 (yes, five) and you want to help on building Geeklog's future, then please get in contact with Tony who could need some help on Geeklog 2 development.

There's also lots to be done for Geeklog 1.3. We have an embarrassingly long list of feature requests (started on Sourceforge and continued on our own site). If you look through the discussions, you will also see requests to integrate this script or have something like that script. The Plugin API should allow you to implement a lot of these things (and if it doesn't - talk to us, so that we can see how to extend it to make it possible).

A related topic is testing and QA. The development versions of Geeklog (remember, we have nightly tarballs) are always available for testing. And those working on plugins or hacks could surely need some testers.

If I may insert a small damper here: Development is something that needs a certain steadiness. So please only "apply" for a "job" if you really mean it and if you are sure you have the time for it. There's nothing more frustrating than to spend a lot of time explaining things to someone only to never hear from them again. This should not disourage you from starting on something, of course. But if you're unsure of your own abilities or on the time you may be able to spend on it, it may be better to work on something on your own first until you are confident that you can commit yourself to some task.

So how can we help you help us? The mailing lists are a good place for (development-related) discussions - feel free to use them. If you're planning to start work on a plugin, you may want to register a project on our project site or with the GPlugs site.

Is there an interest in setting up a Geeklog-Wiki? This may be useful for documentation, but also for developers (e.g. to work on specifications). I found a nice Wiki that can be integrated into the Geeklog site easily.

Anything else? We await your input ...