Re: Design document [Draft 1]

[Joakim Ziegler <joakim helixcode com>]

On Sun, Dec 17, 2000 at 03:05:26AM +0500, Ryan Muldoon wrote:

>> The GNOME websites span a rather large range of audiences (and corresponding
>> goals), including users, developers, members of the press, representatives of
>> companies considering supporting GNOME, and so on. The goals can be broken
>> down as follows:
 
> I think one of the main goals should be the issue of integrating new
> members of the GNOME community.  What I mean by this is encouraging
> people to get involved in improving GNOME.  The best way to accelerate
> the rate of improvement of GNOME is to get more people involved.  

I agree that participation should be encouraged. People who've read "The
Mythical Man-Month" might disagree with the "The best way to accelerate the
rate of improvement of GNOME is to get more people involved" statement, though.

Specifically, I'm not sure if we *need* to make this a major goal. After all,
the percentage of web site users that are even potential contributors is
extremely small, and new contributors join GNOME every day, without the
current website appealing specifically to them. It's an aspect that should be
considered, but personally, I find it a lot more important to communicate
well to users, and to the press.


>> 3. Navigation structure/usability
  
> To further my suggested goal, I think that we should have a "get
> involved" (or "projects of the week") top level link.  This would
> basically lead to a section of the website that lists needed tasks from
> each of the various projects.  conceivably it could include teh bugzilla
> link to the wishlist item.  It would also have a contact email address
> for each task.  These projects would let people wishing to contribute to
> quickly get started doing little things without much effort overhead.  I
> think that this is really very important: GNOME should try and integrate
> as many new members as it can.  We should push the fact that we're an
> open project that welcomes newcomers (as is stated in the GNOME
> foundation charter).  

This would be well served by a link in the list of "quick links" on the
frontpage, I think. "Get involved" is not terribly suited to be a top-level
navigation category, as it would either be too broad (by including everything
that could be related to getting involved) or too narrow (specific howto type
documents).


> If we want to push it even more, we can publish the accomplishments of
> new members in the "People" section that you propose, to give people a
> fame incentive to participate.

This is a good idea. It runs into the problem of knowing when someone
actually enters the community, though. Most people drift around for a bit and
get gradually involved. Of course, we could do this with people who made a
substantial contribution (code, translation, whatever) for the first time.

-- 
Joakim Ziegler - Helix Code web monkey - joakim helixcode com - Radagast IRC
      FIX sysop - free software coder - FIDEL & Conglomerate developer
            http://www.avmaria.com/ - http://www.helixcode.com/