One thing is clear: we all love Camping! Months ago after seeing other
frameworks like Sinatra and Padrino garner so much attention, I realized
that the "one thing" missing on our side was not content but a
marketing-oriented site to incite other rubyists to check out and try
camping.
So I drafted http://www.ruby-camping.com (after many posts on this
mailing list) to serve as that marketing site to:
1. Quickly communicate what Camping is about
2. Advertise its strength and benefits
3. Provide links for people to download it, join the community and
dive into the docs
4. Start tracking traffic so we can get a sense of whether or not we
are starting to get some attention
This is a very different goal from (and not mutually exclusive with) the
goal of a blog or wiki.
I also asked for help - knowing that we're all super busy. So I am glad
some of you are starting to help out .
On 8/13/2010 4:19 AM, Dave Everitt wrote:
Okay - we might be all running before we can walk, what with no real
improvement to existing content yet.
Everything I do professionally in this field starts with a solid
content plan/list and a kind of strategy - there are some pretty good
content suggestions in older posts.
Before go any further (since we're all pretty busy) perhaps the main
effort after all should go into refining the content on:
http://whywentcamping.judofyr.net
and avoiding duplication from:
http://camping.rubyforge.org
The only thing stopping me is that I have to get to grips with Webby,
which I've never used. I was going down the Nanoc and Sass route
before I got abducted by some nasty paid work. Or even make it all
in... Camping (gasp!).
But I do like the diversity of views of this group, although the
healthy disagreement makes things hard to pin down.
BTW Tumblr is fine (I use it), but why not use the blog on
whywentcamping.judofyr.net instead?
- DaveE
My suggestion is that it not exist. Magnus already made a brilliant
camping website at http://whywentcamping.judofyr.net/
It has content, but no drawings of tents. However I think we can have
both in the same website. Could make an issue about it on the github
issue tracker if you like.
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------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Wiki vs homepage
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:20:04 -0600
From: Philippe Monnet <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Yeah, I agree that it makes sense to have two sites, one to promote
Camping and one to serve as the official reference. And a wiki would be
very convenient for that.
On 7/8/2010 1:55 PM, Magnus Holm wrote:
Hey guys,
Philippe had some interesting points about the website:
1. Keep the home page simple with all content fitting within 1280 x 1024
2. Use a catchy design (need some help here)
3. Accentuate that Camping is about Ruby (maybe also include the ruby
logo somewhere)
4. Have a brief note about the connection to _why and a link to a page
explaining the history of Camping with further links to _why's other
sites
5. Encourage people to try it by capitalizing on some of Camping's strengths:
- Fast to learn - requires only basic Ruby skills
- Much simpler than Rails but more structure than Sinatra/Padrino
- Lightning fast and memory efficient allowing fast and efficient sites
- Can evolve from simple file to organized directory structure
- Can layer in more features later using persistence and choice of view engines
6. How about using some kind of an animated (auto advancing) slideshow
to highlight some of the benefits? See an example at:
http://blog.monnet-usa.com/?p=276
7. How about a page on learning with a link to the book as well as a
list of links for other tutorials or short explanations on key topics
(e.g. how to do migrations, how to use include/extend, how to use
different view engines, etc.)?
8. How about a page about plugins with some brief description of their intent?
9. I would love for us to include _why's cartoons in some of the sub pages ;-)
Now, the more I look at this list (and my own thoughts about the new
camping site) I realize that we're talking about two different things:
* A site to attract new users
* A site to inform regular users
It looks like my attempt (http://whywentcamping.judofyr.net/) tries to
target the latter, while Philippe targeted the former
(http://rubycamping.monnet-usa.com/). Both sites serves a purpose and
I believe both are equally important.
--
Here's what I propose: We split the site into two parts. We turn what
I've created into a wiki. Everyone are welcome to edit and add their
own content.
Then we take Philippe's ideas/design/site and turn it into
ruby-camping.com or whywentcamping.com or whatnot. It probably doesn't
need to be more than a single page.
What'd ya think?
// Magnus Holm
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