A little over a month ago a cool Drupal project brought me to Kuala Lumpur. I set out to organize a DrupalCamp while I was there but the Malaysian Drupal community was not really showing any signs of life.

Najibx, the single Drupal developer that did actually respond, agreed we would downscale it to a Drupal track at BarcampMalaysia.

As some of you already know, my role in the Drupal company I founded with Roel and Jo has now officially ended.

The idea of setting up the first dedicated Drupal agency has grown from a vague idea in 2006 to a sweet reality in 2008. Being a co-founder, guiding its community involvement, defining market strategy and building the image has been an amazing experience and if it taught me anything, It’s this: working with – and for – the Drupal community is a privilege.

The past couple of days have been a real eye opener in regards to the rules of social interaction on drupal.org. Let me recap the comments and mails I’ve received the past 48 hours and draw some conclusions:

Issue subscriptions
Do not ‘subscribe’ to an issue you find interesting, even though at present there seems to be no other way to track one, not even an RSS feed. It ticks off module maintainers because they get mail notifications for each ‘subscription’.

Unsolicited help
Do not try to help unless you’re absolutely certain of what you’re saying.

UPDATE 1: blogging when you’re in an extremely foul mood is a bad idea. Seriously.

UPDATE 2:
To those who were offended or felt otherwise targeted: I apologize. This article is not directed at you. It is a rant that attempts to describe a general situation that is, in my opinion, not an isolated one. Many, many leading Drupal community members are awesome, patient, courteous and helpful people.

Living in or around Belgium? Looking for some way to get kickstarted into deploying and maintaining a drupal based site?

Look no further and head on over to the Drupal Summer School 2007 announcement at drupal.be. Please leave comments and suggestions to let us know what you’d like to learn in these summer sessions.

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to become a great drupal ninja. Just get your ass off the couch and dig in. We’re here to help.