Re: www.gnome.org - content, scope, structure

[Gezim Hoxha <gezimetc shaw ca>]

On Wed, 2006-02-08 at 15:00 +0100, Joachim Noreiko wrote:
> Hi everyone :)
>
> I've signed up for two of the goals for 2.16, because
> they're closely related: 
>     * Define the content and scope of www.gnome.org 
>     * Define a clear structure for www.gnome.org 
>
> So... before I willy-nilly wade into the draft [1] and
> play about with it, what are everybody's thoughts on
> this?
>
> What should wgo provide to a visitor?
> It's our shopfront -- we should be able to attract a
> curious passer-by, and welcome in regular visitors.

Here are my thoughts:

I think no one should need to scroll in WGO page (with current page I
have 1200px height and I still have to scroll (a wee bit)). It's meant
to be a gateway and you're not supposed to spend too much time on the
index page. I think it should be separated into 3 sections, maybe using
tabs and allowing users to change from "user" to "developer" to
"business" (like http://www.suse.org does) or using images (maybe kind
of like http://www.redhat.com has the 3 images).

On top of these these tabs or images, we could have a flashy press
release or promo page or whatever you want to call it, for one of our
gnome "products" (why shouldn't we call them products?).

I think two things lacking in the current gnome page is flashy images
and no attention is paid to developers and businesses. Since businesses
usually have a huge following (employees), a business converting would
mean so many people being exposed to gnome. So, I think we need to take
advantage of that. 

As far as developers, I don't think we're paying much attention to them.
I think the dev*.gnome.org page is a joke. We have a lot of work to do.

Onto a little different topic, there is no reason people shouldn't know
about the gnome brand. It completely shocked me when almost all of the
student in my marketing class put up their hand when the prof asked who
had heard of intel. People should know about gnome too, at the very
least people using linux should know gnome.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

-Gezim

> Newcomers should be able to discover what gnome is,
> what it can do for them, and how they can get it.
> Regulars should be able to get major news on gnome
> (releases, maybe previews of what developers are
> working on), and be pointed on to more specialized
> parts of the site: funky artwork for their gnome, more
> gnome apps, gnome documentation, support forums, etc.
>
> If I might share a personal anecdote: several years
> ago I heard about gnome and I visited the site. What I
> saw looked very interesting, but I left unable to
> answer two questions: What actually *is* gnome -- is
> it an OS, or what? Assuming I want gnome, what do I
> need and what do I do?
> To be fair, I looked up the term 'desktop environment'
> on Wikipedia, and I *still* didn't understand it.
> We're in the slightly tricky situation of trying to
> sell something that most people don't understand.
>
> Anyway, I'm starting to get too much into the
> specifics of what should be on an 'About gnome' page. 
> So over to you :)
>
>
> [1] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb/NewWgoStructure
>
>
>
>
>               
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