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Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog - Introducing PowerShell.Org

"Summary: Guest blogger Don Jones, PowerShell MVP, talks about PowerShell.org.

Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. I was thinking about the PowerShell Summit and contacted PowerShell MVP Don Jones to ask him for a blog post to share information about PowerShell.org and what exciting things are happening over there. Take it away, Don.

Introducing PowerShell.Org

By the PowerShell.org Team

If you haven’t yet visited PowerShell.org, it’s worth your time. The site is the successor to PowerShellCommunity.org (PoshComm.org), and its main purpose is to serve as a Q&A site for all things Windows PowerShell and to help newcomers locate some of the other great resources that are out there. Started by Windows PowerShell MVPs Don Jones and Kirk Munro, the site is now owned by a standalone corporation, PowerShell.org, Inc. That corporation is unique in that it’s specifically intended to be community-owned: anyone can buy shares in it, and thereby, gain a vote in the makeup of its Board of Directors (currently Jones and Munro, along with Jason Helmick and fellow MVPs Richard Siddaway and Jeffery Hicks). That makes PowerShell.org the first community owned-and-operated online resource for Windows PowerShell!

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PowerShell.org

Welcome to the PowerShell Community

PowerShell.org is a community-owned and -operated corporation dedicated to helping IT professionals and developers master Windows PowerShell. Inside, you'll find enthusiasts and experts answering questions in our discussion forums, information on the incredibly popular (and now community-owned) Scripting Games, the latest news about our in-person PowerShell Summit event, and more. Look for regional and local events near you and connect with fellow PowerShell users, browse through our news and blog articles, and check out some of the free PowerShell books written by community members. If it's PowerShell, you'll find it on PowerShell.org!

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PowerShell.org - About this Community

This site is designed to be a general-purpose gathering place and portal for Windows PowerShell, providing access to Q&A forums, technical articles and blog posts, and other resources. We’re the spiritual successor to PowerShellCommunity.org… just with a simpler look, a tighter focus on answers and education, and an easier-to-type domain name!

The heart of this community is its discussion and Q&A forums, since most people come here looking for answers to specific PowerShell-related problems. Aside from those, we also try to provide pointers to other best-of-breed resources within the broader community. In other words, we’re not going to try and duplicate effort when someone else is already doing a great job someplace else. For example, you’ll find that many of our blog posts here are actually aggregated from elsewhere, bringing together some of the best PowerShell content we could find into one place, while letting those authors continue to do their own thing.

This site, and the PowerShell Summit event, are owned by PowerShell.org, Inc. This corporation is community-owned, meaning ownership shares in the company can be purchased by anyone, up to the limit of the corporation’s issued stock. Shareholder determine the makeup of the company’s Board, and the Board appoints its Officers, who execute the company’s day-to-day operation. Legal documents and other information about the corporation can be found in its dedicated forum, along with information on purchasing shares in the company.

Our current Board (through January 31st, 2014) consists of MVPs Don Jones, Kirk Munro, Jeffery Hicks, and Richard Siddaway, along with Jason Helmick. Don Jones serves as President and CEO, Kirk Munro is our Vice-President, Jeffery Hicks is our Secretary, and Jason Helmick is our Treasurer.

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Wait, Why Another “PowerShell Community?”

Well, we don’t really think of this as “another,” exactly. As mentioned above, this site is meant to be the successor to PowerShellCommunity.org, which has been around since 2006 or so. This is just kind of a re-thinking of that site, with more focus on the forums (which we think are the real value-add), and more of an effort to have community experts and enthusiasts actively making sure people get answers.

Those of us contributing to this site do so because we’ve noticed an unfortunate tendency for “communities” to spring up, get a flurry of activity, and then slowly fade away – meaning people who run across them post questions, and get no answers. So we’re trying to be very aware of that pattern, and consciously attempting to not let it happen here.

Also, many of the “PowerShell communities” out there have been corporate-owned or -hosted. There’s nothing wrong with that, except that changing corporate priorities can sometimes leave a once-thriving community left out on its own. That’s not the case, here – this site is “owned” and monitored by members of the PowerShell community, and legally owned by an actual standalone corporation, so that the site can survive the loss of interest even by its current leadership.

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