[COLUG] COLUG website suggestions

[Mark DuPrey]

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On Monday, June 30, 2003, at 11:55 PM, J. Jacob Hopkins wrote:

>
> The unasked, and unanswered questions are:
>
> What is the purpose of the colug website?

I would say to help COLUG spread the word about Free/open source 
software by providing COLUG with a way to communicate and educate.

> Does satisfy the purpose(s)?

Yes. Could it do a better job? I think the answer is that it could do a 
much better job

* Our site needs to be brought up to modern standards compliance. This 
is important for a group that stresses standards compliance for 
interoperability
* Our site could use a lot of help in the accessibilty department. This 
is important for a group that espouses openness and access for everyone
* Our site as it stands doesn't have a very attractive cover. 
Unfortunately, many people still judge a book by its cover.

>
> On Sun, Jun 29, 2003 at 11:37:48PM -0400, Mark DuPrey wrote:
>
>> ... So, here we go…
>
> Your email contained a number of "oddities" at least to my eyes, what
> did/do you see after the "go"?

An ellipsis. Probably a character set conversion problem.

>
>> You can see a static prototype at : 
>> http://home.columbus.rr.com/skippyd
>> (Who knew that web space would eventually come in handy?)
>
>> Further suggestions:
>> •
>
> More oddities, what are these?  (Further oddities have been removed.)
Bullets. Meant to replace those with asterisks.

>
>> ... Keep essentially only the meetings, mailing list, and possibly
>> contacts and a renamed administration pages
>
> What is gained by so much deletion, or so little retention?  Asthetics?

Not deletion--reorganization. The gains should be organization, 
coherency, and ease of navigation.

>> Remove contacts as they I seriously doubt they are up to date.
>> Alternatively set up a script that allows people to add themselves 
>> with
>> a valid email address. Have all active contacts automatically 
>> validated
>> at a regular interval (say 6 months) via script sent email
>> Remove the links page. I don't see the utility in it and it's got to
>> be a pain to keep up
>
> Linking is an important aspect of the WWW, not only to humans but to
> spiders as well - though the links page seems to spider resistant, is 
> it
> the reason or a consequence of the current design?

Indeed linking is important. But rather than just a list of categorized 
links that many of us are already aware of I would like to see content. 
If someone sees a worthwhile open source project, say Zoe for example 
(http://guests.evectors.it/zoe) I think we would be better served by 
someone doing a small write up for the front page as an announcement or 
article and keeping an archive. The link is still there but there's 
more now too.

>> Remove the topics page. Same reason as links
>
> The topics page(s) is rather lean.  Unrealized potentential.

I agree. But why put it on a back page. Make it part of the front page 
just like the links. Let's take our knowledge and share it, not hide 
it. The more often a site is updated the more people who visit it, the 
more often it's crawled by search engines and so on in a positive 
cycle. If we put the knowledge up front and rotate it often we can 
reach more people.

>> Remove the source code page. Replace with a link on each page to a
>> tarball of the site code (not implemented on this proposal).
>
> The source link gives insight to how the site works, particularly
> in the preprocessed code.  Making the source only available to the
> masses through site-date.tar.gz feels like a layer of obscurity instead
> of transparency.

Ok. I'm going to lose on this one. I'd just like to point out that 
often times modern web site pages are generated by a series of scripts 
acting in concert and that a straight-forward source code listing isn't 
always possible. This is particularly true in the event that a content 
management system is used.

>
>> Move the contents of the presentation page to the meetings page as an
>> archive. This makes sense as all the presentations seem to be ones
>> given at meetings.
>
> Not all presentations have been made at meetings, it appears about one
> non-meeting presentation per year for the last few years.

I'm still in favor of consolidating the meetings and presentations 
pages. It will make site navigation easier.

>> Remove the knowledge page. It serves no purpose other than to
>> demonstrate that a web server can read HTTP headers.
>
> Perhaps a name change but I have found it of use, and would miss it.

To each his own. Not my decision, just my suggestion.

>
>> Remove or at least update and rename administrivia page.
>
> If removed, why?  Is it not up to date?  I don't know if it is, but I 
> do
> not know that it is not reasonably current.

Reading it, it appears to be at least 2 if not 3 years out of date. 
Honestly I think we would benefit by acknowledging those who help us on 
our site. Listings for those who donate time, expertise, and meeting 
space is entirely appropriate. That's what an update of this page 
should be.

>
>> Other things I'd like to see would include:
>> * Rotated front page content including
>>   + Announcements
>
> Would this augment or supplant the mailing list?

Augment. I would seriously hope that nothing supplant the list because, 
as a discussion forum, it's unparalleled.

>>   + HTML versions of the last meetings presentation
>
> It has traditionally been left up to the presenter to provide
> presentation materials.  I don't know that requiring presentations be
> available, in HTML, or any other form, would make presenters more eagar
> to present, particularly those who take on the task with short notice.

As it still would be. But I think many presenters use formats that can 
be converted easily to HTML (OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, Latex, DocBook, 
etc.) There's no reason to NOT have an online version and a 
downloadable version in its original format. If there is an online 
version then there's more content updated regularly for the site which, 
once again, increases traffic and allows us to reach a wider audience.

>>   + Member submitted articles
>
> Would this augment or supplant the mailing list?

Again, augment. See above.

>> * An RSS feed for those who wish to syndicate the site
>
> Does that imply unique, original or aggregated content?

The list certainly seems to be a bunch of intelligent, creative people. 
I would hope that we could produce unique, original content that others 
would like to know about.

>> * Option of additional RSS feeds to replace/augment the one from Linux
>> Daily News
>
> Per user or site feature?

I was thinking per user. Ala slashboxes on Slashdot.

>> * Random link to replace the "This page generated by" links
>
> I'm not familiar with the "generated by" links, where are they?

Sorry. "This site is powered by" links in the upper right hand corner 
of each page.

>> * Link of the time period (day/week/month/etc.) that we can use to
>> highlight deserving Free/open source software projects
>
> I'll have to think about this one further.

You said yourself that linking is the reason for the web?

>> So there you have my proposal. As I said, I'd be willing to do the 
>> work
>> required if the general consensus is that it's worth it.
>
> What license(s) would you license the resulting work to the 
> licensee(s),
> or a full copyright assignment?

I think that work on the site itself should only be accepted as donated 
time with full copyright assignment to COLUG for the site itself. I 
would assume that each person that contributed could place their own 
license on the content they submit although there should be a suggested 
default license. Perhaps one of the Creative Commons licenses.

> Would the resulting site be maintainable, or maintenance through
> redesign?

I would certainly hope maintainable. Re-designs are a pain in the butt. 
I speak from experience.

> I'd agree that there is room for improvement, but vi seems more a tool
> for improvement than rm.

Think of it more as mv than rm. :-) A better organizational structure 
and fresher information, not deletion.

> But I have my own style and preferences,
> typically involving rampant abuse of the pre tag.

You know, they make several browsers for people like you :-)
http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mikulas/links/
http://lynx.browser.org/
and my favorite, http://w3m.sourceforge.net/

Mark "Skippy" DuPrey
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