I have added your Markmail point to the wiki. On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 9:10 PM, Noah Slater <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 3:27 PM, Miles Fidelman < > [email protected]> wrote: >> >> With all due respect and appreciation for your efforts.... marketing is >> one thing, utility is another. While there's value to marketing, (IMHO) >> utility counts more. We're not talking about a magazine ad, we're talking >> about a web site that people have taken some effort to find and go to - >> they're (we're) looking for information - if the information isn't there, >> it doesn't matter how pretty the site is. >> > > I've been building websites for clients for the best part of a decade, so > I assure you that I understand your points here. ;) When I said "a > marketing site" I meant that it's primary purpose is to market CouchDB to > new users. Not that we should think of it as a print ad. Trust me, I have > worked with people who do think about websites like this, and I know how > crazy that attitude is. > > > >> For evaluators (and I do a lot of software evaluation), the questions are: >> - what is this thing >> - what are the details (functionality, architecture, implementation) >> - is the project "alive" (not in terms of a pretty site, but in terms of >> an active community of users and developers) - which implies things that >> change (blog, news, events, mailing lists with lots of activity, bug >> tracker that shows things getting fixed, ....) >> - who's using it >> - details of what's involved in using it (demo, install instructions, >> documentation, some slideshows) >> - a sense of the community (blog, archives, forums, links to related >> sites) >> > > Agreed! > > >> For new users, what counts are documentation, tutorials, FAQs, an active >> and friendly support community. >> > > Agreed, I think we could add a new section. This is already on the wiki. > > http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/Website_Design > > I am starting to wonder if anyone is even checking this page! ;) > > No body has added anything to it since I created it, and yet this thread > rages on. ;) > > >> For experienced users, updates, detailed documentation, code libraries >> (when users are developing stuff), support for odd problems, ... >> > > This belongs on the wiki for now. > > The website is a single serving website. > > That is intentional, and I'd like to keep it that way. > > The wiki should be our primary focus for detailed information. > > >> For contributors it becomes a matter of technical documentation, >> community, easy-to-access CVS and bugtraq, lists and community.... >> > > Contributors should be focusing on the wiki too IMO. The "marketing site" > or "homepage" or whatever you want to call our single serving website is > not a one stop shop for everything to do with CouchDB. It's a primer, an > intro, a landing page, a set of sign posts. Committers should know enough > about the project to be able to use bookmarks, and use the wiki to provide > more in-depth resources/links. > > >> Sure, all the better if the stuff looks pretty, but more important that >> things are there and EASY TO FIND (I emphasize this last point as it seems >> to be the primary criticism people are raising. Most of the other things >> exist, somewhere - it's finding them that's difficult.) >> > > Just to clarify, it is ONE person who is saying that the JIRA link is hard > to find. And that one person is a committer. It just so happens that our > user focused single serving website has moved his usual "link to get me > JIRA" out of the way, and he's annoyed about it. I can understand that, but > I am also trying to keep his concerns in context. > > >> Mind you, I'm more of a function over form kind of guy, and a sample of >> one, but when I lay the mongodb web site next to the couchdb web site >> (since people seem to compare the two pieces of software quite a bit), the >> mongo home page is uglier, but a lot easier to navigate. >> > > The MongoDB website is easier to navigate? Heh. Ours is one page. By > definition, there is no navigation, just scrolling. ;) Perhaps you mean > that the sign posts to other resources are clearer. Again, all we've done > is move our sign posts to the bottom of the page. We are, clearly, > optimising for a specific use case here. Joe Random clicking on a link, and > asking "WTF IS COUCHDB?" We answer that quite well, I think. Or at least, > better than we used to. And there is certainly room for improvement. We > could cram all of our project signposts in to the header, but we would be > sacrificing the simplicity of the site, and the key focus on "WTF IS > COUCHDB?" and "WHERE DO I DOWNLOAD?" > > >> One thing that disturbed me, was a comment that there's no link to the >> markmail archive because it's not "official." That seems like a rather >> unproductive approach to building and supporting a user community - links >> to other resources should be encouraged, not discouraged - both as a way to >> make the main site useful, and as a sign that the community is "alive." > > > You have misinterpreted me. "Unofficial" resources are great! But with a > single serving site you have to make some trade-offs in the name of > simplicity. We have, in the design, a single link to the web interfaces for > the mailing lists. So we have, naturally, chosen to link to the official > ASF web interface. The Markmail links deserve a mention, but not here. > There are other places we can promote them. >
