Re: New set of comps.

[Ryan Muldoon <rpmuldoon students wisc edu>]

Comments below....

> I guess I still see two hazy spots:
> 
> 1.  There is a good deal of developer type content lurking outside of
> the Developer section. Examples would be the entire Projects section,
> most of Community, bits of Software, and 80 percent of News.
> 
Projects seems like a pretty big section in of itself.  It like to see
them get their own domains.....like
localization.gnome.org, icons.gnome.org, etc.  They are kind of
semi-independent entities that need a website as their focal point for
information.  Putting it under Developer doesn't really make sense.
Usually when people think of "Developer" they think programmer, where
many of the projects are done by non-programmers.

Community has stuff of general interest between users and developers.
It would have stuff relevant to the GNOME community.  

News is pretty much user-oriented in my mind.  It isn't much different
than how the news stuff works currently on gnotices, and the vast
majority of the people that post there seem to be users.  

> 2.  There is no specific section where I can go as an end user. Where
> does the GNOME User's Guide go?
> 
In community.  

> 
> Proposed solutions:
> 
> 1.  Include Projects and Community under Developer and use the extra
> space for...
> 
> 2.  A separate section:
> 
>  User ("Using GNOME"? "End User"? "Beginner"? "GNOME for Dummies"?)
>  --> GNOME User's Guide
> (http://www.labs.redhat.com/gug/users-guide/index.html)
This seems like it could go under community without a problem to me.....

>  --> Off-site helps (http://www.linuxnewbie.org/)

GNOME isn't linux-specific...it is a UNIX desktop.

>  --> Support (http://www.gnome.org/commsupp.html) - Need content
Community already has a Support subsection

> explaining how Free Software works, why it's Free, etc.
That is what gnu.org does.  That goes in About anyway.

>  --> Interests - Links to stuff like www.themes.org
That doesn't need its own subsection.....it's basically a couple links
that will be in relevant existing sections.

> 
> Ok, so I believe the existing GNOME site and the proposed structure
> favors developers too much. Users end up being leftovers.
> 
Well, as it stands right now, we have a TON of developer-oriented
information, and a lot of general-interest information, and a few things
that are user-oriented.  So I think that the structure should reflect
what we actually have.  

> That is an inevitiable bias given our history to date. I bet there are
> very few current GNOME users who aren't handy at the command line. But
> don't you think this will probably change pretty drastically before
the
> next site re-work?
> 
We don't need to re-work the whole site to add more content.  And we can
add extra sections as needed I'm sure.  But the fact is, we have very
little user-oriented information that isn't of general interest (users
and developers).

> Maybe we drop this responsibility off to folks like Ximian and both my
> concerns go away; we acknowledge that the GNOME site's main focus is
> towards developers.
> 
I don't see a need to do this.

> But I think that using the extra billboard space in the top navigation
> bar for a distinct user section is a helpful move in advocating GNOME.
> And since I'm voicing the opinion, I'd volunteer to develop that
section
> with whoever else on the list is interested.


Really, "User" is kind of a bad term in my mind.  It isn't very
inclusive.  "Community" has a much nicer feel to it.  It is more
welcoming, it still can have a lot of user information, and we already
have a section for it.  

Community and About seem to cover everything you want to do here.


    --Ryan