OPML Community 
On the OPML-Community Yahoo group (sister list to OPML-Newbies), mcdtracy asked:
Is there an OPML Community? I see some work being done but there's no "Coffee Shop" or clubhouse for conversations. We can't even comment on the OPML Blogs... how broken is that? I don't just want 2-Way... I want the explosion that comes from N-Way. We're just waiting for Uncle Fluffy to release code and patches without any way to contribute.It's boring... I want a great leveler not another logjam to community.
I agree but I take a slightly different attitude. We need to concentrate on figuring out what we can do to contribute to that community. I made a gesture in that direction when I first started using the OPML Editor. I took the time to document some of the built in macros. I am not an expert when it comes to Frontier so my effort was minimal. Hopefully, it was useful to other newbies.
Lisa is another member of the community that has taken this approach. Her OPML Editor manual is a start at a document. She has called for help in documenting some of the more esoteric features. To my knowledge, she has gotten little if any response.
Kosso has also contributed a number of goodies to the community. If we want a community, we need to spend some time thinking about what we can contribute to the community. How can we make it better. If we want a conversation, how do we start one. I'm interested in using the collaborative outlining feature of the OPML Editor. I haven't found anyone that wanted to play. I guess one of the drawbacks there is that you need a project that everyone is committed to in order to make collaborative outlining attractive.
Here's an idea. Send me proposals for collaborative projects. If I like the idea, I'll get back to you and we'll give it a try. In any case, I will publish the ideas on this blog so that anyone else that is interested can send me a note to get hooked up. Now I know this isn't going to scale. If too many people respond, we'll have to figure out some more automatic infrastructure to match folks up. But I'm willing to do this manually for a while to see if anyone is interested. You'll have to bear with me as I can't guarantee how responsive I'll be. I'll try to give proposals a 48hr turn around but no promises.
