To be honest, many of these things come not from a lack of communication, but one that is constantly active.
I'm at fault for some of that; school has become quite tedious that I no longer have the time I once had to host meetings every month.
But also, there's no push for information. No "how's the SRU going?" or "What bugs should we try tackling this week?".
Or even "What changes are planned for this week?"
I know that at Blackboard, where I interned for the past summer, teams had rallies every week. I propose we do the same.
Clearly they can't be live (seriously, some of you guys don't show up at IRC meetings, plus they take forever). So maybe a weekly email sent out to the devel list asking for "what have you done the past week and what are you going to do this week". Replies to that email thread would help us keep track of what's what.
I am not concerned with assigning fault or blame, which rarely solves problems. :-) I am focused on keeping this project moving forward in a positive manner.
As you noted, communication must be meaningful. I can communicate with the walls in my house any time I want. I pretty much feel that is what I am doing the past few months when I post to this list. :-) I get discouraged when I post to this list and receive no responses.
I get the feeling either there are only a few subscribers remaining on this list or that most of those who are subscribed no longer care. There was a time not long ago when this list was vibrant and responses to posts were common. Not anymore.
We do nothing to show we are a vibrant or active community. :-(
We have no published goals, long-term or short-term. :-(
I like the idea of a weekly "What happened this week" email request to the list. I volunteer to post that email every week. I volunteer to write a weekly status report as I shared examples in a previous email. I already have configured kalarm to remind me.
To keep the entire community informed I believe the summaries should be posted to the RSS feed and to appropriate mail lists.
Will such an effort bear fruit?
Darrell