Re: Task Analysis (press and search sections)

[Shawn T Amundson <amundson eventloop com>]

On Tue, Nov 21, 2000 at 02:16:28PM +0100, Tomas V.V.Cox wrote:
> 
> Shawn T Amundson wrote:
> > 
> >The first time I saw 
> >"Contact and press" I thought that section was *for* the
> >press.  (Which left a bad image of GNOME in my mind.)
> 
> *****
> PRESS
> *****
> 
> I now write in the Linux section for a spanish magazine, and I can say
> you that mass media are extremly important and have a direct impact in
> the number of users of Gnome software (for ex: there are 500.000 persons
> who reads "my" magazine per month).
>         I think that having a powerful press section is a must. But be
> careful, the section should be active mantained. For example if I want
> to write news about Gnome and I visit the actual press section:
> http://www.gnome.org/pressreleases.html
> I could think that there is nothing new in the Gnome Proyect.
>         There is no need to have all press resources in the navigation
> bar. It is enought to have a "press room" link (perhaps in the General
> Section) with all press resources: press releases (with search engine),
> press mailling list, speaking about gnome (renamed as press contacts),
> in the press (articles in others sites about gnome) and others like
> press materials, etc. The press publish and search could be a new
> category in news.gnome.org.

I agree the media is important.  I disagree that the website should
cater to that group of users specifically.  The press people are just 
users, and all the things you mention above are things *everone* wants 
to know about:  press releases, maililng lists, speaking, etc.  The 
information should be readily available for the media, I just think it 
shouldn't leave a sick feeling in a users stomach.  gnome.org has to 
be viewed as a "for the people" website, not as a marketing tool to big 
corporations and media - no matter how important those two groups might 
be.  It is really a matter of how the information is presented.  

There does exist a stigma already that the GNOME project is very
commercial oriented because of the large amount of wonderful support
from a lot of companies.  I think the website needs to give a big cry
to the world: "Users join our family!  GNOME is about YOU."  And that 
should be the attitude that this group proceeds with.

> 
> ******
> SEARCH
> ******
> 
> In the actual Gnome website, it's dificult to find software, it's
> dificult to find doc and it's imposible to search by keywords. We need a
> search section, perhaps powered by and indexer like udmsearch (the best
> IMHO) or ht:/dig, wich can do:
> 
> keyword: ________
> section: (doc, devel, project, software, news, press, foundation, bugs,
> mailling lists, all)
> bolean operators options
> 
> For example we could link the main search engine with the specific ones
> (bugs and news have they own search engine), create a software engine
> and for the rest sections use the indexer, but all should be
> group inside the main search section. 
> Here we can also have people search, contact search, software map,
> everithing people need to find they want.
> 

I agree with this, and it really boils down to an implementation
issue since I think everyone agrees we need the best search 
capability possible.

-Shawn

--
Shawn T. Amundson                       amundson eventloop com	
Research and Development                http://www.eventloop.com/
EventLoop, Inc.                         http://www.snorfle.net/

"The assumption that the universe looks the same in every
 direction is clearly not true in reality." - Stephen Hawking