Regarding your other points, I’ll respond to them here, but I don’t mean them to be defensive. I’ll try and make them factual as much as I can.

RE: 1) The unofficial forums are just that – forums that the MooTools development community has nothing to do with. We didn’t create them and we do not administrate them. To a great extent, the same is true of the Google groups – we don’t really administrate those either. The purpose here was to separate any potential bad behavior by the community from the intent of the framework developers. Like any web community, ours has a few excitable people who might say things that we, the developers of the framework, would never condone. Our intent was to separate (and liberate) the community’s voice so that it could be whatever it wanted to be. Some of the posts on the MooTools forums in the past have given the MooTools framework itself a bad rap as hating other frameworks or not being friendly to new users, which is not our intent.

RE 2) The plugin repository is coming along, albeit slowly. Keep in mind that this particular project is secondary to our work on the framework and that all of this is done in our “spare” time. However, look for a post here later today on plugins that might be of use or interest to you.

RE 3) Git is a pain. It is a complete and total pain. I personally loath it mostly because I haven’t gotten the hang of it. It is, however, a superior tool for managing an open source project. I can’t speak for your efforts to reach Valerio or anyone else, but I can say that we (the framework developers) try and keep an eye on the forums and IRC to be responsive. We certainly like it when people help us fix bugs! My suggestion is that you use the lighthouse system, which is where bugs belong. Post your bug and your solution there and it’s much more likely to get the response it deserves.

RE 4) I agree with you that engaging a community is crucial for wide adoption of a technology framework that is open source. You may consider it unfortunate or not, but the fact is that the developers of the framework are not principally concerned with how popular MooTools is. Our first priority is that the code is of the highest quality that we can make it. We are all still learning, and so this involves many, many refinements in each iteration. We do our best to engage in the community, and I perhaps more so than others (and, to be fair, I rarely commit code to the core – I devote much more of my time to this sort of outreach), but the first priority is developing what we think is the best possible framework that we can.

Thanks for your feedback. This kind of stuff is always helpful.

Modx uses Moo for its JS, as do a number of other libraries (I am working on one, Joomla || Mambo, more). I’ve yet to see any using JQuery.
My feeling is that Mootools’ class structure is much more similar to PHP’s than is JQ’s.

No doubt I will be yelled down for this comment :)

1. Mootools may have been the first to set up forums, but…
I don’t know when the link to mooforums was added, but I missed it, and no doubt so did others. Why is it unofficial? How does it work with the Google group?
We would like a nice clean clear community, and you can help that by making one forum, making it more obvious and making it approved.

@electronbender – I was a regular poster on the old forums, and was a bit put off when I saw those posts disappear. Now I know of the new forum.

2. I still don’t see the plugin repository, short of the unofficial forum. It’s not bad. We look forward to something a little more encouraging, at least like mooscripts.com’s.
Even better, to encourage a community, try to promote and show off those that have written classes. Giving a way for the small time hacker to feel appreciated will generate a much more powerful “my site” feeling, that the devs and more will show off and work for.

3. I found a bug in the swf class and made a short, clear page to demonstrate. Two posts on google groups went unanswered, as did my requests to Val (Kamicane) on IRC. I wasn’t willing to learn GIT, and assume the bug still exists. I don’t believe that I am alone.
Please consider that we the community want to contribute to make Mootools better. Anything that would make it easier is appreciated.

Also, while IRC is for quick answers, many of the questions are asked more than once. It would be very very helpful if the threads could be saved in some form.
I personally hang out on IRC, but recognize that most users don’t.

4. This is the crux, and the response to your article: The real difference between Mootools and JQuery, for many (most) users, is whether or not there is an active community in which they can feel appreciated.
Unfortunately, Mootools can give its users a feeling of being discounted. Even if not true, being the psychological creatures we are, this makes a big difference. Please don’t defensively answer the points. Consider if they might create the image they do, and consider the suggestions above on how to address it.
As said before, you’re the one man there I feel could actually bring back Moo, instead of shooting such a technically superior masterpeice in the foot.

Thanks for the response. I’ve been watching modx grow with their community and know how hard it is to grow the support structure with wiki’s, forums and nice moderators. You’re work on the cnet tutorials is great.

Just wanted to say thanks for your work on the OS front battling the browsers and your response.

Chuck

Good to get the word out there. Or, when is a virus a good virus?