Not many people who do work on the web pages have worked on a site this large or complicated. There are two groups that the web pages must cater too: the newbie and the experienced user. These are the groups that make noise when they can't find what they want.
Newbies need to be oriented. This is the goal of the About section. I'm not completely happy with the current version (too long and tries to do too much). But, since it was written the number of complaints about 'what is it' have gone almost to zero. Additionally, they need to be able to figure out how to get installation information easily. Since the links to the installation instructions were put on the main page the complaints in this regard would be zero except that ftp.debian.org is overloaded. Allowing selection of the download site should fix that. Experienced users simply need to be able to move around fast. People have been very happy with the menubar on the left side of the page. These were brought up simply to give you an idea of what the needs of the 'customers' of the Debian pages are. Any changes or additions must keep the needs of these groups in mind. Instead of listing all the problem that have come up in the past, I'll simply list some things you should keep in mind when making modifying the pages. - Is this really pertinent to Debian? There are an amazing number of things happening in the world of Linux. Is what you want to add really a Debian item or does it belong on a more general Linux site? Example: The Atlanta Linux Showcase is coming up. If we included every comparable Linux event, it would overwhelm the News section and people would complain since they already get such notices from other Linux sources. This year, though, Debian is being represented. Now that should be put on the pages. - Where does it belong? Literally 2/3 of all suggestions want the item linked from the main page. This is clearly not possible. The web site tries (sure it can be improved) to partition everything into useful groups of items and put them on sub-pages. Odds are 10-1 that the new item should go on one of those pages. If none of the pages are appropriate, bring it up on debian-www so it can be discussed. - Try to avoid creating pages that become dated or using links that will expire. When it is unavoidable, include the current date. For example 'as of Aug 5, 1998, the current version of apache was ...' instead of 'the current version of apaches is ...'. You can often avoid links that will expire by going up a level. For example if a group is sponsoring a Linux convention at http://amazing.group.net/con98/ it is likely the link will not be valid 6 months after the event. So link to http://amazing.group.net/ instead. Sometime this is not possible. That's one reason a URL checker should be run once a week. - Taking 10 extra minutes to design things right the first time will save you hours of work later on. I'm sure others will add more. These are the ones I run into most frequently though. Jay Treacy
