[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Proposed change in Vendor Listing Policy

[Justin Hopkins]

Hi everyone!

I've been watching this discussion for the last few days now. As it's 
been going on for quite some time, I've finally decided to share my 
thoughts.

There have been several comments about the work required to maintain 
this page. Some folks seem to feel it's quite a bit of effort, and 
others think it's really trivial. What I know for sure is that in the 
last year I've seen this issue discussed at some length here on the 
list, and I can only imagine the time required to write such thoughtful 
messages as I've seen from Chris, Rogan, Kathy, and everyone else is 
substantial.

I am beginning to wonder if this even needs to be on the 
evergreen-ils.org site at all. Take a look at this: 
https://www.google.com/search?q=wikipedia+list+of+vendors

I'm not trying to sell this idea, but I'm wondering if moving the list 
of vendors to a Wikipedia article might be a good way to get around 
this being a "policy issue". The wikipedia article could contain 
listings for vendors that would like to add themselves, vendors that 
community members felt compelled to add, and content/links that each 
individual contributor felt appropriate. People who have strong 
feelings about the evergreen-ils.org vendors page might redirect their 
efforts to being a major contributor to the Wikipedia article.

With respect,
Justin


On Fri Sep 12 11:13:12 2014, Lazar, Alexey Vladimirovich wrote:
> Perhaps by moving the link-back paragraph out of the “must” section and some minor wording changes the issue of appearing to mandate specific content on third-party websites could be avoided, for example:
>
> ----------
>
> Getting Listed on the Evergreen Paid Support Services Page
>
> Companies and non-profit organizations providing Evergreen services must take the following steps to be added to the Evergreen Paid Support Services page.
>
> 	• Send a request to the Evergreen General List with the following information:
> 		• Name of company/organization
> 		• Contact person
> 		• Contact email
> 		• Web site address
> 		• Brief description of services
>
> Companies and organizations will be added to the Paid Support Services page after demonstrating through the above process that they currently offer Evergreen services. Companies and organizations that do not offer Evergreen services will not be listed.
>
>  From time to time, the members of the Evergreen community may check support providers to see if they currently offer Evergreen services. If a company no longer does, their entry may be removed. All removals will be posted publicly to the Evergreen mailing list.
>
> A support provider may request that their entry be removed at any time.
>
> Vendors, we would appreciate if you could show your support for the Evergreen community by linking back to our web site at http://www.evergreen-ils.org/.
>
> ----------
>
> Or something like that.
>
> Also, the spelling should either be "Web site” always with a capital “W” or “website”.
>
> Aleksey Lazar
> IS Developer and Integrator - PALS
> http://www.mnpals.org/
>