How to improve our Outreach efforts?

Backdrop can take advantage of localization, which was poorly represented in Drupal. Look at the distribution of languages in the world. English is only 5%. Attract bloggers not only English-speaking.

Thank you Tim for bringing this up... and sorry for not participating in the meetings for such a long time (seems that I will also miss the next one, early February).

I'd like to add another point we need to be aware about (given my experience in customer communication projects it might be the most important one):

Who are we talking to?

There are a lot of assumptions from our side. But we have not idea how the "onboarding process" for new users worked in the past, and understanding the past helps planning the future;-)

Without knowing that, it's hard to create content and find the appropriate language. So maybe we got a better idea when we ask CURRENT users how they came to Backdrop CMS. Plus (important) what their background, skillset, expecations, environment, motivation etc. was by that time. What triggered them to start exploring a new CMS.

After that, we can create a strategy. And I guess that the methode of Growth Hacking could deliver a great toolset for spreading the word.

Just an example:

Last week, a former employee of an fellow D7 agency called me. She now works for a former customer, but still has some D7 side projects running. Most of those projects will be upgraded to Wordpress in the near future, because she likes the ease of use and the WP ecosystem a lot.

But one of those D7 projects has a lot of structured content, plus a number of very specific content types. It's hard to build this site in Wordpress.

That's why she called me. And the project seems to be a perfect fit for Backdrop CMS.

But before calling me, she called her former Drupal freelancer, and asked for an estimation for migrating the project to D9. It turned out that the price was way too high and even hard to predict.

What I try to say is: in my opinion, this colleague is a very good example for the kind of persons we should address. She's an experienced website creator. She knows pretty well what structured data is about. She had built a number of websites and knows Wordpress well. She's used to create websites on a budget. She's used to tweak some code snippets, but she is not a developer. She knows that some customers simply don't want to edit everything on their website, but are happy with a very specific content type for structured data.

Backdrop is such a great tool for some use cases. But it's not visible enough in our communication, because we have no idea who we should write for.

What about creating one or two "buyer personas" in the weeks to come?

A few ideas from me too.

I have been working with Drupal 5, 6 and 7 since 2006-2007. I am a freelancer, I work alone. Over 200 sites created, I currently maintain 60-70 sites. Small and micro-businesses, foundations, NGOs. I know a little bit about Wordpress - several (3-4) of the sites that have assigned me support are with Wordpress, but I definitely do not like Wordpress and for 5-6 years all the new sites that I develop are with Backdrop CMS (and before that with Drupal). I'm not a developer, I define myself as a graphic and web designer. I do not use ready-made themes, for all sites I develop my own theme with a unique design. I really like Backdrop and thank the community that initiated and maintained it. I live and work in Bulgaria and as far as I know I am the only one who develops backdrop sites in my country. I use Bulgarian (native), English and Russian and very little German.

1. I agree with Dmitry. The lack of support in the native language is an obstacle, an even bigger obstacle is the lack of opportunity to communicate with compatriots in the native language. I offer the following solutions:

1.1 When registering a new user in the Backdrop Forum, information on the location (country, city) of the new user is required, and existing users can add, as well as the native language and what other languages ​​the user uses. The Local settings field does not do this, it only shows the preferred time zone. But I may be in a different time zone, but I want to connect with compatriots or users of languages ​​I speak.

1.2 On the basis of this, create local groups, uniting users on two principles - state and languages ​​used. This will allow new users to post to groups of people from the same country or using languages ​​that the user knows.

1.3 The posts (topics) in the forum can be translated, either by their author or by other users. For this it is necessary to add in the language settings of the forum the languages ​​for which there are registered users.

1.4 Not only in the forum, the main site of Backdrop is good to present not only in English but also in at least some of the major international languages ​​- German, French, Russian, Portuguese and for the translation of content can be used the help of registered users who can both translate and edit and moderate translations. This is especially important for the training content on the site (User Guide), but also for the News section.

1.5 It would be a good idea for the forum to allow the organization of local events according to the city and country of the user, as well as to allow "subscription" for posts by users from the same city, language or country.

2. A big problem for me is the lack of up-to-date books (printed books and in electronic format), which are textbooks, guides or indroductions  for Backdrop. The books available now are very old and from the first years of Backdrop development. Having a User Guide does not eliminate the need for books. The user guide on the site is necessarily one - official point of view. The books can be addressed to different categories of users, from beginners to advanced, to use different didactic. Some introduce the system to consistently build a sample site, others are built as a consistent guide to menus and settings, and still others are essentially directories.

3. Finally, a few more questions that, in my opinion, hinder the widespread use of Backdrop.

3.1 Although I do not use ready-made themes, mass consumer needs more ready-made backdrop themes with a beautiful design and ready to work for a certain type of site. In this regard, Wordpress is a champion and most of his success comes from the availability of ready-made themes for all types of sites, including graphic design tailored to the type of site (car service, beauty salon, law firm, etc.).

For this purpose, it is good to consider how to post already developed Backdrop themes at https://backdropcms.org/themes. To facilitate the process, to be accessible to non-developers. I've done at least 30 different themes for Backdrop, but I don't know how to publish them. It is a problem for me to publish my themes and the fact that I use my own layouts and the theme itself will not work with any of the layouts that are officially published - mine have preferred from me different structure of HTML code, classes and CSS selectors. A possible solution is to be able to submit my theme in its original form and have a community developer bring it in line with official standards.

3.2 As with the themes published on Backdropcms.org, as well as on the module pages, a big problem is the lack of graphic information - screenshots, and why not video or links to external help information, links to the forum topics discussing module, questions and answers or problems of the module.

So far, I'll probably add more notes in the future.

The topic is extremely important and interesting. The real disgrace is that a great content management system like Backdrop CMS is not widespread and I am horrified to be commissioned to work with thoughtless constructed sites with themes with tens of thousands of lines of code made with Wordpress - heavy, slow, user inconvenient, with terrible navigation and mobile design.

I can't understand these "colleagues" - learning to work with HTML / CSS today is much easier (and gives incomparably more freedom to do what you want) than mastering the incredibly complex and floated block editors with which today's Wordpress works and imposes as an insane standard for site development.

Hi Amilenkov, great ideas...but what I really like is your professional background (very similar to mine, BTW). Backdrop seems to be attractive for people who build websites on a regular basis. It solves problems which beginners are not even aware of.

Unported important modules should be converted. (for example: OneAll Social Login, Organic Groups) If a developer or a site builder becomes interested in Backdrop but does not find the modules that are important to him, he will be disappointed and maybe go away forever.
Some important modules require the most powerful core developers to convert. Why? Because the enthusiastic developers in the community couldn’t convert them either, and I think converting these modules is more important than developing the core before November 2022. (I'm afraid I'm writing this sentence, but I think it's the truth from the developers' and site builders' point of view.)
The important modules are required by another modules!
For example, I couldn’t convert the Organic Groups module, Laryn’s work got stuck, and Irina won’t be able to convert it probably. Laryn wrote: Porting of Organic Groups module is hung up on this core issue.
I would like to hear the views of the next "dev meeting" about this. :)

Thank You! :)

I think that the best way to port a module is to have a project that needs this module.  Catch 22 is that people do not start projects if a module that is required for that project is not ready. 

I am not convinced that adding more and more "important" modules will solve the the problem posed in this post - "How to improve our Outreach efforts?".

And, please, "important" for whom, for someone some module may be especially important, but is this module important for a wide range of users?

OneAll Social Login, for example, is currently used by 998 sites out of a total of 571,129 - using Drupal 7 as of January 16th. That's 0.17 percent! It may be a good module, but converting it to BD will certainly not solve the question of how to expand the influence of Backdrop CMS.

In this regard, I want to point out something I have been thinking for a long time - I think the community is wrong to attach so much importance to the possibility of upgrading from Drupal 7 to Backdrop CMS.

First, despite all the community efforts, this only works for simple sites. With no errors and not requiring an unacceptably long time to fix the converted site from such errors. Which attempts often end in failure and almost always by realizing the fact that the site needs not just to be converted to BD, but also to be rebuild in some or other way. I mean sites with a more complex structure, functions, visitors and users actions, many additional modules, many different types of content, many views, plenty of rules, etc.

Second, Drupal is excellent in that there is always more than one and even plenty of ways than one way to do the same thing as functionality on a site.

At first (in 2016-2017) I tried to upgrade from Drupal 7 to Backdrop SMS, then I gave up, I haven't done that for at least five years. Since  then I do it in a different way, I rebuild the site with Backdrop SMS at the very beginning and this allows me the freedom to do it in a better way, with better modules or a combination of them and with a better design.

And because in five years I am not the same and today I know and can do more and I want to make the new site in a new better way, not simply to convert some old site.

And thirdly, most importantly, people will use Backdrop CMS because they work with a familiar, very powerful and super convenient environment and will not lose knowledge gained through years of work and study, not just because this system will allow them to convert the old D7 site into a BD site.

There are no eternal sites, the Internet is evolving, and so are browsers and devices. Moving a site from 2012 to 2022, even if successful, will cripple the site and make it impossible to use more modern solutions.

And it is pointless to attract consumers (who look for the easy job and do not like challenges) with such a market advantage. Such users would feel more comfortable with Wordpress. Let's them go there and attract new users that really need and can appreciate BD.

Let's think of others who know how to develop creative sites. They will not stop from the fact that one or another module is not in Backdrop SMS, they will just invent another way to achieve the desired goal.

If there is a case of a site that has significant content content built with Drupal 7 - I move it to a subdomain, convert it to static and give a link to the old site in the new site.

Some sites just have to retire and thinking about how to maintain these sites forever and without change is a pointless task.

Do you remember the time when website's designs were made with tables. Or when personal computers were running DOS?

I don't know of anyone who has tried to convert a site with tables-made design to one with a modern design. And if he tried, it was hardly successful. It is much faster and easier, much more useful for users to rebuild such an old site by taking only the useful content from the old one.

Therefore, I think that future users of Backdrop (who are referring to the question "How to improve our Outreach efforts") do not need more and more converted modules, but an effective tool to migrate content from Drupal 7 to Backdrop.

And as I mentioned above, an abundance of educational information in accessible languages for world users of different countries; and local communities.

I found Backdrop at a DrupalCamp.  Initially when I read about the trainings and saw a class on something that wasn't Drupal I did not understand why I would go to a DrupalCamp to learn another CMS.  But then I read what Backdrop was and it sounded interesting.  My thought is perhaps there should be a tagline or tagline that goes with saying Backdrop to say what it is, so it is clear.  Something like Backdrop: Drupal 7 -- modernized.  Yes, Drupal folks might get the name back to drop but that's definitely not everyone.

I believe from a marketing perspective the "elephant in the room" is the name. "Back" doesn't conjure exciting images of forward momentum, and "drop" ... well, who wants to drop something that is good, beneficial, worthwhile?

Technically, backdrop is, in my experience, brilliant. Why not give it a real boost by calling it what it is. If Facebook can do a name-change with a billion plus users, I don't see why 'backdrop' can't.

While writing this just now, I thought, "what would best telegraph the cms' qualities, what would be salient?"

Get people inspired, run a competition for the most salient, succinct name.

Name is certainly very important, but it takes a lot of professional effort and time to make rebranding efficient.    Maybe extending the name would be good.  Maybe unique nickname? My challenge with the name Backdrop is that when I search for "Backdrop" I get too many results unless I put Backdrop CMS.  

There is a great point in this thread that BD is not a teenager imitating it's parent anymore.  It is a mature CMS with it's own advantages and deserves to be treated as such. 

I am spanish speaker (from Argentina). Sorry, the following translation was Google made.

MARKETING
1 - steve2020 is right, the name BACKDROP does not suggest anything attractive in English and in another language, like mine Spanish, it is decidedly unintelligible and untranslatable. To confront it, the WordPress example is valid (the combination of Word and Press has been great, no doubt) but it is also a good example of one of the most harmful points of marketing: without a product that supports it, any genius in the communication is pure smoke. And, as we all know, wordpress, in its early days and for a long time, was a mediocre CMS riddled with security holes whose sole purpose was to build blogs. Therefore, beware of putting all the gunpowder in marketing. Everything in its measure and harmoniously (JDP).

2 - Leaving aside the shortcomings of its name (we share steve2020's opinion in this regard), unlike WordPress Backdrop it is a certified quality product (its close relationship with Drupal 7 confirms this) which paves the way for that advertising and marketing that takes key aspects of the product to position it in the market. In the case of Backdrop, these would be: having the average user at the center of its sights, ease of use, quick response, very safe and free. And here we already have the three magic words of advertising: Easy, Fast, Free. To which we add a keyword on the Internet: Security. Backdrop can be "sold" like this, without deception, as what it is: easy to use, fast and light, very secure and free. Proposed slogan: Easy, Fast and Safe?... Backdrop.

ESTHETIC
1 - Backdrop, at least on a basic installation, is ugly. Black, white and gray. Depressing. Why not give a touch of color to your logo (it is not well understood, moreover, what it symbolizes) and to your basic presentation. Even the bug that serves as its icon would also look a little cuter with a bit of color.

2 - In line with the previous point, a proposal that is perhaps easy to implement is to change the home page of Backdrop (also ugly, boring, poor in images and very schematic) for a more cheerful and dynamic one. Color, smart text layout and image addition can attract many new potential users.

LANGUAGE
1 - Although it is not relevant for the construction of sites and the end user, it is important for developers or simple web makers without programming knowledge the translation of the help texts (how they work and how and why to use them) of modules and themes . Proposal: replicate the Drupal 7 translation site on the Backdrop website, or include a link to that Drupal translation site in the module's introductory information.

DIFFUSION CHANNELS
1 - social media, social media, social media and social media.

2 - social media, social media, social media and social media.
 

I'm totally exited about this thread!

The related blog post by Tim already summarizes things I had in mind pretty well, but here in this discussion some good suggestions were made.

This might be an incomplete list, please bear with me:

• Consider different languages (on the b-org home page, in the forum, blog posts...)
• Clarify the target audience and create a strategy to better address them
• Provide more out-of-the-box pretty themes for end users
• Provide better documentation and help how to contribute themes (GitHub and git can be an obstacle)
• Improve the presentation of contrib projects on the b-org website
• Port important missing modules (og seems to be on top of that list)
• Put more effort in attracting new users, less in trying to convince D7 users to migrate
• The name Backdrop is a drawback (<- see ;-) ) - maybe rename
• Provide a more attractive default theme for new Backdrop installs

Many of the suggestions seem feasible, but it might need advocates to get things done. Suggesting something good is one thing, getting it over the finish line is another one. One concern: renaming Backdrop might possibly be overacting, but (sigh!) I totally get the point.

Crazy idea: what if we organize a "New theme for backdropcms.org 2022" competition?

Another idea: create a GitHub-tutor group to better help people with the infrastructure aspects of contrib module and theme development.

Finally: what we all as community members can do: use Backdrop and proudly speak about it.

Of the 570,000+ sites using D7, only around 16,000 are using OG. Why the immediate concern about 2.8% of the installed D7 sites?

As I alluded to earlier, I don't believe a few technical issues is what is keeping those ~550k (570k-16k) site admins from migrating.

WHY are they not migrating?

They might not know Backdrop, they might "poker" - hoping that D7 gets longer support, they might not yet have a budget for any migration (D9 or B1), might wait for a specific module to get ported... We can't know.

But should we really worry much about that? Backdrop is a Drupal fork, but it has its own feature set, its own "personality". It's different. Backdrop is not just a fork to keep old Drupal sites alive, Backdrop is not a project for people not willing to learn new things. Just to mention two most common prejudices in Drupal land.

As to the colossal effort  to change the name ... The heavy lifting has mostly been done

I don't agree re that. The effort is colossal, but the gain is small. Changing the name, domains, overall branding is an overkill. We'd lose all the search engine results we already have. All the mentions and reviews out there would be worthless. Renaming basically means starting from scratch. And I don't think we have enough resources to be able to do that, anyway.

Addendum:

... it's seen as a fork that might stall.

I doubt that. After seven (!) years of constant work that's really no argument anymore.

I don't think we should expend energy on changing the name; we're making gradual progress of raising awareness through social media, but as indigoxela says, we would be starting from scratch if we rebranded.

What I do think we should do, following the comment from amilenkov about having the meaning for the name, we should probably make more of the originally conceived tagline: 

We believe Backdrop is a great name for a CMS, because it's always behind the scenes. The tagline "Put your content center stage" was recommended to pair with the name.

https://backdropcms.org/presskit

When used with that, the name makes more sense.

I agree with @indigoxela about changing the name. We should focus on things where we have the resources, and a rebranding process needs a lot of them.

For me, the elephant in the room is the website.

It's the fact that we have much more search traffic for "drupal alternative" than we had one year ago. But only a tiny fraction seems to start using Backdrop CMS. The landing page does not convert enough (https://backdropcms.org/drupal-alternative, not in the menu). I am allowed to say this because I am the creator;-))

backdropcms.org is a great resource for many things... but it needs to evolve, also visually. Creating trust is a very important step in this process. It's a lot of work, and it's about baby steps. But we do not have enough resources here at the moment.

What follows are notes of a simple guide for the development of a communication strategy by no means definitive.

BACKDROP AS A BRAND
1 - In order to continue with Tim's initial request (propose strategies to make this CMS better known and used by more and more users), I would like to close the discussion, at least in this thread, about whether or not the Backdrop name should be changed. My opinion is that it should NOT be changed (although several of us, as I said in another message, are not totally seduced by him). "It is what it is", we say in our country. Therefore, the suggestions on communication strategies should have as one of their first objectives to re-install the BACKDROP brand. Without a doubt, an stimulating challenge.

HOW, WHERE AND WHEN
Through a "communication strategy". At a minimum, consist of objectives, actions and execution timeframes to achieve the objectives. The steps to develop it can be summarized as follows:

1. Analysis of the current situation: For example, in the case of Backdrop, questions such as How many users does BD have today? What is your profile (freelancers, companies, personal use)? In what order and type of websites is it applied (business, blogs, personal, institutional)? How did you meet him? Why and what are your main competitors (WordPress, Drupal, Joomla...)?, etc.

2. Determine what is the central objective. According to Tim's proposal, it is to make Backdrop more and better known so that more users can access it.

3. Define the recipients (audience) of the communication: The first segment is configured by the users defined in the first point (web developers and designers), to which are added the end users (customers) who can be bloggers, companies, institutions, etc, and that would be defined by the answers to the first point.

4. Establish the message to transmit. The messages summarize the identity of a brand and the product it represents. In the case of the Backdrop brand, and as I specified in another of my postings to this forum, this CMS is characterized by its "ease of use, speed of response and security". Hence, my proposal of the axes (messages) for a hypothetical campaign will be:

Do It Easy!

Do It with Backdrop!

---------------

Do It Fast!

Do It with Backdrop!

---------------

Do It Safe!

Do It with Backdrop!

---------------

Do It with Backdrop!

Is Free!!!

---------------

Of course, these ads can be varied to the extent of the advertiser's creativity and must be completed with images, videos, descriptive texts and even music, which is known as "advertising pieces", and maybe retranslated (the originals are Hacelo Fácil, Hacelo Rápido, Hacelo Seguro, Hacelo Gratis).

5. Communication channels: Flyers, Banners, Twitters, Videos, Jingles... on all Backdrop sites (home, forum, FAQ), Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, specialized websites, Twitch, etc. This point requires a more detailed analysis of the means to be used and how to apply them, since communication fundamentally depends on them to achieve the objectives. And always taking into account the lack of human and financial resources.

6. Execution times: For example, reach new XXXX users, or XXXX downloads, or XXX Likes in XX days/months/years. Although sometimes for whatever reason they are not fulfilled, the rule is to put all the energy into achieving the objectives during that period.

7. Measurement and evaluation of results. It allows analyzing whether or not the objectives were met and identifying the problems, if any, to develop a new strategy or extend the current one.

I'm not convinced there actually are a half million D7 sites out there needing to upgrade.  Personally I have several sitting out on the interwebs that are no longer used but still reporting data back to Drupal.

There was a library near where I used to work.  They also had a D7 site.  They were trying to decide between Drupal and Backdrop and even talked to us a bit about it.  Even thought it was going to cost more for them they chose to stick with Drupal, we didn't.  

That library didn't have any developers.  They weren't going to be seeing how much easier Backdrop was to work with.  They were just going to be entering content, which was going to be a similar experience.

I used to visit a lot of library websites.  Some of those old D7 sites have stuck with Drupal but a lot of them have gone to WordPress.  

I'm struggling to understand the reluctance to doing basic market research

Hi, steve2020

Maybe you can do it?

The other library didn’t choose Backdrop for the same reason I almost wasn’t allowed to use it. There weren’t enough sites using Backdrop. There was a fear that it was new and wouldn’t be around at some point. More people used Drupal so it was safer. 

I highly recommend adding a FAQ as a separate menu entry to the main backdropcms.org menu, with a rang of questions that address all the issues

With each question having its own url (so people can share on social media etc).

And playing devil advocate, to really address some of the (often) unspoken concerns, such as

Q. I hear backdropcms is a relatively new system. I'm concerned it might not progress or be around for long. Why should my team invest time, money and energy migrating our existing D7 sites to this system?

Q. I'm a novice web admin, and was looking around for a good cms. I've seen many reviews that Drupal is hard to learn. Is backdropcms, originally derived from Drupal, any easier to learn?

The answers should be succinct, reassuring, and factual.

Reading the comments on this topic, I am extremely happy with how many zealous and loving supporters of the system Backdrop has.

@stpaultim

The list prepared by you is extremely detailed and useful as a summary and work plan. I am confident that the community will deal with those issues as before - steadfastly and with a lot of patience.

It is not urgent, these problems will be solved calmly and naturally when the time comes. One of the major advantages of open source software over commercialism is its consistent and patient, persistent movement forward without revolutions and unexpected innovations.

I would like to make just a few brief additions to the previous discussion.

1.

Backdrop CMS - the name has already been given, the christening has been performed, it is pointless to raise this issue again. If the system lacks the desired number of followers, the reason is not the name. Neither Ford nor Opel's names shine with originality, but they are successful brands.

2.

The real need is not for renaming, but for good marketing and advertising. And without wanting to offend anyone, I will point out that a person can be a perfect and unique programmer, but it is possible that same person does not understand marketing and advertising also well. And vice versa.

3.

Research, surveys and especially marketing research are also difficult professions requiring serious education and years of experience, and if such work is to be done, relevant professionals must be found, including specialists in statistical information processing. Home-made questionnaires only confuse the picture and do not provide useful information, and there are great opportunities to make wrong decisions based on unreliable information.

4.

BD's site is full of useful information, but graphically unconvincing and uninteresting. Today I stumbled upon two sites, another type of open source software, and I was amazed - we don't need to find hot water - here's how:

https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/

https://inkscape.org/

Draw Freely | Inkscape

Attention - the Inkskape logo has no color - it is black and white. The effect comes from the simplicity and beautiful typography.

Short, very expressive and impressive. And I thought of something like that

Freely web design | Backdrop CMS

5.

An Eastern proverb says: one drawing says more than a thousand words.

In the context of this discussion, I thought, the Backdrop site is great as a wealth of information, many thousands of words but aren't they too few to say that there are no drawings at all?

Well, I know that exclude the dragon \in itself an excellent drawing|, but for God's sake, hardly an outside visitor knows what this dragon has to do with the logo and why it's there.

6.

Finally, a very specific and, in my opinion, working proposal, easy to implement and with immediate results:

The BD website has a working section - Showcase:

https://backdropcms.org/showcase

It seems to me that it will not be difficult for everyone who published their site there, if they wish, to attach the theme, templates and layouts they used for the creation of this site - with a simple ZIP archive there is one additional field for uploading such an attachment.

Other registered users of the site will decide for themselves how and whether to use such information, and developers of the system can decide and include it after appropriate processing in accordance with established standards in the official resource of downloads.

Here is an example of a small brochure site I made with my own theme with a completely original design. It can also work for anyone who wants to work with Backdrop, who needs a similar theme.

https://mebelibgplus1.com

I would adjust this theme according to the established standards if someone would guide me how to do it. My attempt to make my own themes comes from Drupal 7 and as such is probably inappropriate in BD times.

If the system lacks the desired number of followers, the reason is not the name.

That is your opinion. What market research data do you have that confirms or even partially supports that opinion?

"it is pointless to ignore this issue again" -- there you go, a bit of balance, again.

Listen ya'll .. I'm the sort of person who asks the awkward questions. People invite me to places twice, second time to apologize.

As to market research ... it's really not that hard. Walk out your front door, walk down the street, ask the first 50 people you meet, "Excuse me (with hand on your heart), do you mind if I ask, what's the first thing you think of, when I say the word 'backdrop'?"

or, "hi there, can I ask  what comes to mind when I say the word 'backdrop'?

[update] - I see by the push-back, changing the name won't happen. But were it ever to become a majority concern, I thought of 'staplecms' (available). It implies/means substance/fundamental, and joining things together. That said, ciao.

Re: the complaint that Backdrop has a name that doesn't have a meaning...

What does "Drupal" mean?

And what are the meanings of the following names...?

• Apple
• Chevrolet
• Xerox

A product name need not be meaningful in and of itself. It's enough for it to be inspiring and/or catchy. 

So the question is, how do we make it meaningful? Suggestions:

• Your Backdrop for success.
• Are you using the right Backdrop?
• We provide the Backdrop; Your content provides the focus.
• Present your ideas before a Backdrop of functionality.
• Nice website. What's your Backdrop? 

Wow, this topic reached over 50 posts.

That's long enough that we found a bug in the pager. The bug briefly prevented access to comments #51 and #52. We've found a temporary solution. All comments are once again available. 

Thanks to everyone for their participation.

Hey people, before this is getting out of bounds...

@bwpanda wow, that aspect of a name change wasn't even clear to me, but that's correct!

@steve2020 that means for you, that this will and can never happen. Renaming is off the board, the most important reason: it's simply not doable. Please at least try to understand.

Let's stay constructive, let's put effort in something feasible, like giving the name "Backdrop" a positive meaning. Several good suggestions have already been made here.

A few more topics to think about "how to improve our outreach efforts":

• The Drupal community is very stressed by everything that has happened since Drupal 7 and is therefore extremely skeptical of any new projects - what is the probability that they will not degenerate in the same way? The reliability of Drupal 7, even in the face of the dangers of EOL in November 2022 in this regard, would seem preferable to the possibility of any other Drupal fork at some point trying to cash in on its popularity in the interests of large developers with huge development budgets and maintenance.

• Many are probably waiting for new opportunities to appear as the deadline for the fateful EOL approaches - and there are already - you are probably familiar with YAD7.

• It is also a fact that Drupal 7 itself is a great and powerful system and this is evident from the fact that on the site of drupal.org in its HEAD section is the meta tag:

<meta name = "generator" content = "Drupal 7 (https://www.drupal.org)">

• I administer several small sites with Drupal 6 and so far they have not had any risks or problems at work. But something much more important - the site of Sofia Airport was made with Drupal 6 (I have nothing to do with this site) and still works perfectly, integrated with dozens of custom modules and integration with external systems (the developers shared this in the Bulgarian forum for Drupal, which no longer exists). https://www.sofia-airport.bg/

• The decade we live in today is different, full of tensions and problems that have nothing to do with Drupal or Backdrop. And the fact that people don't perceive or notice Backdrop with the necessary attention and positive evaluation is most likely not a problem of the brand, of this CMS as software or its marketing strategy, or even of the imperfections in the design of the site, but of quite different external causes.

•  I fully support what indigoxela wrote minutes ago:

"Let's stay constructive, let's put effort into something feasible, like giving the name" Backdrop "a positive meaning."

I would add: Backdrop has an excellent philosophy and the right long-term goals and principles. Let us trust them and let the temporary failures in attracting new followers not prevent us from believing in the great future.

New followers will come - when they are convinced of the long-term viability of the project and constant fidelity to the set principles. They are not yet members of the community, but they are certainly closely and constantly monitoring what is happening here.

• I find an indirect but convincing for me reason for this permanently attention to the events in the Backdrop community in the fact that the topic of "Backdrop" is absolutely taboo on the sites of vocal adherents of Drupal 8, 9 and 10). I mean the thousands of publications only last few months (as if coordinated action, even the words, topics and advises are similar as if written under indigo) that warn users of Drupal 7 EOL about the need to update their sites and all there is not a word about Backdrop CMS as an opportunity. It only shows fear, and that fear is encouraging, at least for me.

Backdrop (framework for front end) goes well with Bootstrap (framework for front end).   Names seem to have some similarity.

Backdrops allow you to set the stage and enhance the decoration with the visual impact that makes a presentation unforgettable. 

"The only truth is reality" (Aristotle -> Kant -> JDP):

- Backdrop has its own name: BACKDROP
- Backdrop is NOT Drupal
- Backdrop already has 7 years old and a few more of development (and continues to evolve)
- Backdrop is developed by volunteers only
- Backdrop is today the engine of almost 2,000 websites (source: builtwith.com)
- Backdrop traces its own future (does not depend on corporations)
- Backdrop "will always be free" (according to its own developers)
- 1 + 1 = 2 (yet)

At first glance, this is off topic, but it is actually is something important that should be kept in mind.

I only have 4 sites left with Drupal 7 that I haven't converted to Backdrop yet.

Today I enter for the necessary update of these sites to the latest security version of Drupal 7.

And I see an extremely unpleasant surprise on the page "available updates " - in all these sites works also module Colorbox and the last message is that this module is no longer supported and should be uninstalled and replaced with another. Which other module is unclear and what is the point if Drupal 7 support expires in a few months?

https://www.drupal.org/project/colorbox

At the same time, statistics show that this module is used by 156,972 sites with all versions of Drupal.

https://www.drupal.org/project/usage/colorbox

From a marketing point of view, this should be a huge number of dissatisfied Drupal users. And if we have the task "How to improve our Outreach efforts?"

The discussion here is also indicative:

https://www.drupal.org/project/colorbox/issues/3260933

At first glance, this is off topic, but it is actually is something important

What we can learn from that is, how not to treat contributors, or the community in general.

Although the handling of abandoned modules with a known security problem is pretty similar in Backdrop - which makes sense, because security is important - the communication with potential new maintainers is pretty different.

The Drupal security team seems to expect some humility. I'm pretty sure the Backdrop team would offer help instead of nagging.

Sure, the end-user (customer) may not be aware of how potential contributors get treated in a project, but who would volunteer to do promotion for a project with bad vibes?

Back story...  

I've not been around much over the past 8 weeks due to burnout...  By December I'd run out of steam and accomplished very little in the last three weeks of 2021 (apart from rest and recuperation)...  The first couple of weeks in January I spent finalising our company accounts but since the second week of January work has taken off again.

I've taken on another five websites to create and all will be using Backdrop... 

With that in mind, and with wanting to support Backdrop and the team... I am putting aside a few hours a week to do whatever needs doing and helping out in whatever area needs help, even the mundane stuff.

If everyone who makes money from producing websites with Backdrop or who has a vested interest in Backdrop, you may operate a personal site or site for a non-profit organisation... then why not offer to also put aside a few hours a week to help?

------------------

From my perspective, I don't care that D7 will go end of life in 2022 and I know all, and I do mean ALL of my customers (I look after 217 domains and over 170 websites) don't care either; 99% of them don't even know what CMS I use or care what CMS I use, so long as I get the job done.

Most of the security warnings for D7 over the past x months/years have nearly always been mitigated by the fact that someone needs access to the creation of content for the security "hole" to be a problem... ergo... it's not a problem for the vast majority of site creators or owners.

So, I don't think that focusing on D7 EOL is a worthwhile avenue to pursue.

The reason I chose Backdrop is not because of D7's demise, but because D8/D9 were not as usable for me as a small developer/creator/host and Backdrop fit's the bill nicely.

We do need to decide on the target audience and not just assume because we are looking from our perspective because we all have a bias, it's just the way our minds work... 

What I would like to see is an overhaul of the b-org site, to make it more appealing and to make it look more professional... no disrespect to the site's contributors, it just needs some work.

I've also found the documentation side of the site very frustrating... it assumes (and you shouldn't) that the reader knows what the article is talking about...  yes, It can't be all things to all readers, but I think it needs work.

I'd like to see the newsletters being produced more frequently but I don't know how many readers there are so I can't know if it's worth the effort or not. Does any know the mailing list size and open rates etc...?

Well, that's it for now... time moves on and I've got animals to feed...

Hope this is useful and you should start to see more of me in the forums on github and in the meetings.

Always Backdrop

Steve

If I may be so bold as to state a personal experience as to why I am considering leaving BackdropCMS and finding an alternative.

I am an old man in my mid 70’s.

I have been working with computers since the 1970’s and have no formal training.

When I say I have been working WITH computers, I should say I started writing code in Basic when we used the pixel address where a LINE would start and end.

Every line of code we wrote was saved to a tape.

I learned to write this code because I owned a national business here in the USA that was a “phone directory” where people without home computers could call us for information about various businesses all across the country.

Over the years I have built many successful businesses of all types as well as some not-for-profit organizations that have tens of thousands of members all over the world,

Again, I NEVER had any formal business training or even graduated from High School. I only have a 9th grade education, and to this day, have a real hard time understanding a lot of “technical conversations or words.”

In spite of that lack of education, I also started and built one of the largest computers stores in the state where I was living. That store was located in a big college town and also had one of the first Internet Cafe’s and On Line Computer Game Rooms, that was open 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, where local students and adult workers would come and play against each other for days at a time.

I tell you this simply to show you that I know how to attract customers and KEEP them. One of the first things I learned in business is that you MUST always be promoting and finding new ways to attract new customers to replace the ones that you will loose through death, moving away, or simply leaving through lack of interest, because their life style has changed or their needs are not being met.

That brings me to why I am thinking about leaving BackdropCMS in the dust behind me.

Before I retired and sold my Computer Store, Restaurant, Factories, gas stations and other businesses, I used to teach classes on computer repair, password cracking, and web design.

I started web design using nothing but htm, then shtml, with includes so that I could use templates, before CSS and/or other programs were available.

Having multiple servers, I hosted many many of my own websites, some of them being enormous in content and membership.

As I got older and more and more programs and languages came onto the scene, I began using a ton of various web programs to host various sites. I built and managed all these sites by myself and was always looking for programs that would not take a lot of my time to learn how to use or maintain my sites, so that I could concentrate on letting others add the data and managing the servers while I created the art work, logo’s and format for the sites.

One program that I used for many years, was great. It had everything I was looking for, in order to handle several of the not-for-profit organizations that I still run.

There was a great front end that would display a magazine type layout with images and small intro’s., plus it had a built in photo gallery which was a must have for two of my organizations, AND a forum that was also a must have for those two organizations.

It was perfect because professional freelance writers could log into the site and post stories, editors could review them and approve them, while regular users could log into the forum AND photo gallery without having to log in multiple times.

Then the biggest site was hacked and I shut it down.

I went back to strictly html for the stories until I found a more secure script that I could use. Over the next few years, I texted a whole bunch of sites and never found another one the fit my needs, UNTIL I found BackdropCMS.

It is not perfect, as I use a separate Forum that can be connected to a photo gallery where the user does not have to log in a second time.

One other tool I use on a regular basis is Softaculous. I have that program on ALL of my servers and use it on a weekly basis to backup sites, clone sites, install sites and even Import sites from one server to another server when needed. And all of this is usually be clicking one button.

For someone with literally hundreds of sites, this is a life saver. And due to the versions of php needed by various programs, as well as other script and program requirements, I figure I will continue using multiple servers as long as I am alive and can handle a keyboard.

During my time with Backdrop, I have talked with the people at Softaculous and had them set up the ability to “clone and stage” a backdrop website and even import ” a backdrop website from one server to another server.”

The one problem I still have is that I can not “update” or “upgrade” backdrop on my server via softaculous.

On 95% of the programs I use, I get an automatic email update from Softaculous letting me know that and update is available.

I never get an update notice about BackdropCMS. Plus, when it does come time to update or upgrade, you want me to go through 10 steps, including downloading it from your site, to my computer, then un compressing it and uploading it, as well as checking which files I need to update, etc.

In this day of computers and automation, I would expect you to have an automated backup and update built into the script like many other scripts have.

I have already contacted Softaculous and asked them to add the “upgrade” feature to their scripts. I don’t know if they can, without something from you guys, but the bottom line is instead of worrying about what name you are going to use, I think more time should be spent on communicating with your users, and creating automated scripts that will make life easier for the end user. Especially because for individuals that may host a few websites part time while holding down a full time job plus a family and life outside of the computer, they will not want to spend a lot of time looking at your website to see if and when an update is out and having to download, upload search, edit backup, etc. 4 or more times per year.

Even though I am normally working 7 days a week, 12 hours per day, (except when I am doing speaking engagements either on TV or in front of live audiences) I still don’t have an abundance of time to spend doing manual installations, updates, upgrades, editing, and researching existing program scrips.

Just my thoughts and I hope you guys have learned the golden rule of KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid.

In other words, make it easy and quick for new users to install your program, and easy to maintain it.

Even before the automatic computer voice told drivers it was time for an oil change, a car had a sticker on the door or windshield that reminded the driver when to change the oil or UPGRADE the lubrication.

This is not the 1050’s when a person has to drive to a full service gas station to have an attendant tell you it’s time to change your oil.

Good luck with all of your endeavors and I hope you succeed at creating a program script that will help hundreds of thousands individuals, designers and companies.

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare metatag_views_views_plugins()

@FTW: that was a bug in the metatag_views module (submodule of metatag), fixed in it's latest version 1.x-1.22.2.

I'd suggest to update the metatag module before you update to the latest core version. Then everything should run smoothly.