On Sat, 2006-02-04 at 23:44 +0200, Cristian Driga wrote: > Hi Ian, > > Ian Lynch wrote: > > On Sat, 2006-02-04 at 21:10 +0200, Cristian Driga wrote: > > > <snip> > >> > >>We do have the same software installed as Wikipedia and we can use it > >>for marketing. Why is it not used ? The Wiki therm has become pretty > >>synonim with freedom lately. But are we able to take advantage of this > >>freedom properly ? > > > > Question is why not? Wiki software is free and easy to set up. Why is it > > assumed that we have to have just one megalithic site? Maybe it would be > > better to have a central site as we have with links to Wikis? > > I do not understand and please correct me if I am wrong: > Do you have something against using in the Marketing Project the wiki we > already have available under OOo domain at: > http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Main_Page ?
No, I would like to see it extended but with some planning and I would like to see a URL or at least a link that was more intuitive than http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Main_Page Or at least a very obvious link to a wiki where I can see its possible to immediately get started. If I was new to the OOo project and wanted to help with say marketing and put OOo and Marketing into Google I would get to marketing.openoffice.org. Its not immediately obvious if there is a wiki or if I can contribute to it from what I see there. There is a lot there in fact but maybe too much. what is the priority? I think we need to take notice of newcomers like Steven because we take such a lot for granted and he is seeing this from a newcomer's perspective. Let's not just dismiss such views as newbies who have to learn, we can learn from them. > > Yes I know > > we already have started doing some things on this recently but I'm > > thinking of an active strategy to move everything on marketing to a > > Wiki. > > Why moving *everything* and not using it as an accessory tool for active > development of the project content that will continue to reside where it > is now? (Wiki would not even support the load of serving the content > that Marketing.OOo site is serving right now.) > Perhaps I missunderstood as I am pretty tired, but this is why I ask, to > clarify things. I'm just asking questions. It might be that its not sensible to move everything but asking the question should focus on what can be moved and what shoud stay. Otherwise stuff migrates in a haphazard way without any real rationale as to why its in one place or another. > > Alos to have meaningful URLs such as www.OOO.marketing.org or > > something that is easier to remember and easier to find. These seem like > > small things but every small thing makes it harder for a newcomer to > > join in. > > Is this a real problem ? What if all projects would want to move to this > kinds of URLs ? Say www.OOO.documentation.org or www.ooo.romania.org. I > find this puzzling even for an experienced Internet user. I am trying to see this from the point of view of someone who is not part of the OOo project. I have never really found it easy to find things on the web site even after being part of the project for several years. We can't assume everyone who wants to help is an experienced internet user, better to assume they are totally without knowledge of OOo or the Internet. > For nice URLs for the end users I would rather recommend creating > categories or projects under OOo domain (if we do not have them) named: > > *use.openoffice.org* > or > *spread.openoffice.org* As long as its logical. Maybe its just me but I would expect OpenOffice.org/use and OpenOffice.org/spread rather than the qualifier at the beginning. To me http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Main_Page could only be found from a link if I knew where to look for it. I'm no web developer but I am an experienced user and if I find this a problem I'm sure 90% of potential volunteers will. If I was new to something and guessing I would look for www.openoffice.org/marketing/wiki but if that is a problem simply a big button on the front of the marketing page saying Wiki - make your contribution here or something. I'm again trying to thik how some one new would get to the resource. There might be better options but all I can say is we surely can improve on the existing situation. Let's look for improvement not necessarily perfection. > ...as a final display (and *only* display/indexing) for particular > products created by the Marketing Project (using also the wiki mentioned > above), and keeping the existing MP project pages for contributors > directions and stuff. > But not dispersing everything under various domains. This seems to me a > bad choice in the long run. > > > > > > <snip> > > > > I'm just suggesting we take a fresh look and instead of just grafting > > bits in here and there we plan the thng with some coherence. > > > +1 > > So, should another thread dedicated to MP be opened and aimed at > planning things for the Marketing Project ? Sounds a good idea to me. > I understand by this planning something like: evaluating the current > status, where we go and what is needed for that, short, medium and long > term goals as in the Strategic Marketing Plan, work division (human > resources allocation), documents/materials created, identifying and > organizing the processes, etc and how the wiki [read *the total > creativity freedom tool* :)] should be better used in this. Yes. The strategic marketing pan is about getting increased take up of OOo. This planning is about internal management of the project so its a different thing altogether and we should not confuse the two things at this point. Of course improving the management should lead to improved take up and it might well be that this process has implications for the strategic plan. Plans should be organic, they should not be tablets of stone. They are there to communicate intention and to set targets against which people are held accountable through some system of evaluation. The lack of quantifiable targets and systems for evaluation is a weakness in the current plan but perhaps this is too much to expect at this point in time. The identified problem is barriers to contribution and the proposed solution is to extend the wiki. I would start off by saying that a link to the wiki should be central and very obvious on the main marketing page on the web site. Alternatively all the links that lead to things like logos etc should go to the relevant wiki pages where people can simply up load contributions and edit things. We then need to define in say 3 years time what we would expect to be being done on the Wiki - what does good look like? eg it becomes the first port of call for member contributions and then we need to know what needs to be done to make this so (in the words of Jean-Luc Picard :-) ) > > The wiki at http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Main_Page can help > us greatly and I think it is a pitty that we do not use it for making > things go smoother in this project. I can help set an MP are up in it if > needed. I think that would be good, but it would also be good if MP members were able to give you some guidance on headings and structure - as much to get collective ownership over the decision making as anything else. > Cristian ~hoping for the best~ Driga Where there is the will there is a way :-) -- Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ZMS Ltd --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
