Make Drupal sandbox projects more visible

Drupal project applications make me sad. I thought I was the only one but after reading http://www.leveltendesign.com/blog/ian-whitcomb/whats-wrong-project-appl... I feel even more depressed. I can absolutely understand why it takes "some" time to get code in. Deep code reviews by the community make Drupal secure, robust and powerful. That's what we all want.

What is cool about the Drupal project application process

  • Tools like Coder, Parreview are perfect and super handy. Thank you so much @patrickd for providing the http://ventral.org/pareview infrastructure.
  • The project application documentation (http://drupal.org/node/1011698) is very helpful.
  • The git infrastructure provided by drupal.org is kick ass.
  • The review bonus system is a great idea.

What is bad about the Drupal project application process

  • It's hard for reviewers to understand rather complex modules. Sometimes feedbacks are not related to code quality, security or performance but feature related. This can cause long discussions which do not help the project application.
  • Sandbox projects are not available with drush. This is good for non technical people (security) but bad for people who are used to work with drush (also for quick reviewing and testing sessions).
  • Sandbox projects do not have the "visibility" of a full project. A lot of sandbox projects are very promising, but the lack of visibility do not let them take off. The involvement of the community is reduced.
  • The issue cue of sandbox projects are hardly used because of the reason just written above.
  • The current project application process can be frustrating. You want to contribute, but somebody gives you love and the confidence that you are welcomed. People leave Drupal.

Suggestions to make drupal project applications fun again

  • Make sandbox projects more visible. A nice url like www.drupal.org/project/MODULENAME would help a lot. When accessing this page, show a big fat "this is a sandbox project" note.
  • Do not show a "stable" download link.
  • But show a download link for the latest dev version as it is for full projects including a "this is a sandbox project" note.
  • Show the number of sandbox projects on the frontpage of drupal.org. It shows the speed of innovation the Drupal ecosystem has and motivates contributors to convert them to real projects.
  • Create a landingpage for all project applications which looks sexy. It could show the total number of all "active" project applications, the number of applications that made it last week, the number of applications that did not make it since 8 months etc. Just a home for contributors who love to create new stuff and see what's going on.
  • Make sandbox projects available trough drush.

Oh, you could help me to get some code in: http://drupal.org/node/1505236
Thanks!