Re: Taking a step back for a moment......

[Michael Bernstein <webmaven lvcm com>]

Ryan Muldoon wrote:
> 
> 1. Navigation
> we don't need to plan out elaborate schemas for navigation.  Just a
> simple one that works.  I think that we have basically all agreed that
> we should organize navigation by task.  This makes sense, as this is how
> people want to use websites.

Task oriented navigation is a wonderful thing, but it is
hardly an all encompassing categorization schema. There is
easily going to be a lot of information that either does not
conform to a particular task, or applies to more than one
task. Therefore task oriented navigation should be
supplementary, not primary.

> 2. Software Map
> I think that it would be very nice to have a software map that listed
> gtk apps, gnome apps, and components.  It should be broken down by
> category of software, and each type of app (gtk, gnome, component)
> should be clearly labelled as such (with an icon perhaps).  There should
> be an option to filter by type of app as well, so if someone just wants
> to see components, they can select "show only components" or something
> similar.

This sounds like a good secondary classification schema.

> 3. Maintenence
> We need to remember that everything that we add to the site, we are
> going to have to maintain.  That means that multiple news sections, or
> anything that requires fresh content will have to be "owned" by someone
> to keep up maintenence.  I've seen a lot of projects fall by the wayside
> for this very reason.

If all news items have appropriate meta-information attached
to them, they can appear in whatever news sections are
appropriate. Therefore you only need to worry about
maintaining the news submissions as a whole, and let the
classification system do the work of 'maintaining' the
individual news sections.

> 4. Stress Involvement
> We should try and gear the site towards pushing the GNOME platform.  To
> do that well, we need to offer ways for people to get involved.
> [snip excellent suggestions]

I feel that the best way to get people involved is to let
them join the gnome.org site as a member, and allow them to
personalize the site to some degree. This makes it easier to
promote members who contribute to GNOME, and could also alow
members to more easily keep track of projects that interest
them.

Cheers,

Michael Bernstein.