It is worth noting that there are a number of things currently being done, and more in the works. Maybe these will be helpful.
~ Of primary importance to the thread subject... we are hopefully about to announce a new lead for the News project. I'll keep you posted on that. Nik Kalyani's name had been applied to it merely because of the need & lack of another volunteer with expertise in syndication... but the reality is that he (and many of us) have too many responsibilities to make us effective project leads. Having a strong community member fill those roles is the very best thing that we could hope for. And having another core team member serve as their "sponsor" to help them learn the ropes, processes, get connected to the team, etc. is just as it should be. So stay tuned!
~ Our Release Tracking has gone public: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Development/ProjectReleaseTracking/tabid/997/Default.aspx
Now folks can at least keep up with some of the internal rigor we are applying to our projects. Over time, I expect this process to open up more & more...
~ As part of our module Release processes, all are both blogged about and posted in our Announcements forum (you can see these in the last phase). While this does not address communication for projects that are not releasing often or between releases... it does reflect a specific policy on responsibility for being communicative. This is a battle that will continue to be uphill for a while... I don't blog often enough myself :(
In general, the very best way for more communication to happen is for more people to be involved in it. Any project lead will tell you that its hard to be a one man show... and almost harder to find, work with, empower and depend on a team. So we're continuing to work on new ways for project level interaction to occur, delegation of responsibility & authority to occur, increase of folks ability to participate (and Team Leads ability to expedite that). When folks are involved in planning, testing, etc... there is a lot more to communicate and a lot more folks capable of doing it (which is part of the bottleneck).
~ You'll note the new addition of roadmap feedback and community comments for the core: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Development/Roadmap/tabid/616/Default.aspx
This is a feature that is likely to find its way into each of the projects too once we have some experience with how to effectively manage it. Its being asked for by team leads already... :)
~ There is also some new testing delegation being experimented with... Shawn Mehaffie & Phil Beadle have been working on a way to involve others in functional testing. This link is not on a menu anywhere yet because I'm exposing some of their work in progress... but it will give you an idea of what they are doing: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Projects/ModuleHelp/TestCases/tabid/1078/Default.aspx
Your offer of assistance will be greatly appreciated, I know. But unless it is focused on something specific enough to actually do... it is unlikely to be responded to by anyone? And I know that you'll remember... that no matter which area you add value to, there will always be another area still in need. I'd be happy to make any introductions that might help you establish a relationship with a team that (I'm sure) would welcome your kind and seasoned approach.
Thanks, Phil... hope that helps (at least a bit).