Hi Maarten, all,
Sorry for the long email and for not having snipped out much. i
propose a plan at the end of this ...
On 2007-10-30, at 09:25 , :murb: (maarten brouwers) wrote:
Hi Louis,
(...)
We can do that on download.openoffice.org *now*, using a different
server and asking CollabNet to deploy that virtual host. I see little
reason for delay.
Actually that was my point partly. Why open a subdomain portal,
whereas we
actually need download.openoffice.org on a non-collab server. Static
pages
(e.g. pages with links to support are less of a problem of
technology, but
more of information architecture)
Well, the compelling reason was that ultimately I and many others
would want more than just downloads featured there. But we can walk
not run to that goal.
Portal has more than one set of users. It has, as a class, those who
want to download OOo as well as those who hae downlaoded it and want
to add to it or their environment, as well as those who want to
contribute to the the project and otherwise participate in it.
This has been the main user group for the main site as well, as far
as I
can remember (that is actually the group I had in mind all the time)
->
dev-people have to do the additional clicks...
Suggested but only until such time as we have portal.ooo and it
becomes unneeded. Matthias' plan was his take, not mine. I see no
reason to maintain download.openoffice.org after we have portal; that
would be confusing.
Ok, let me try to give my interpretation of what you are suggesting:
portal.openoffice.org is going to be an attempt to offer
'everything' the
end-user needs (so no other domains),
.... and more than enduser :-) eg, developers who want to learn about
OOo. Right now, we have to send them to development.ooo (poor) or the
thick wikis (great but sometimes non-navigable).
and is thus going to replace
download.openoffice.org, support.openoffice.org, why.openoffice.org,
about.openoffice.org and large parts of www.openoffice.org (and
maybe even
the introduction part of contributing/participating).
Not quite. Some of those will be progressively deprecated as portal
gains strength but I doubt if why.ooo will be replaced, as its
function is marketing; about.ooo won't be replaced--should it?--
contributing/participate: no, not really.
However support will probably be simplified if not replaced, so that
it's clearer what is there. Things that should be on portal.ooo can be
moved there.
Maarten: I am not as complete on this as you. I see promoting portal
as making it easier for users and developers but see the migration as
progressive. What I don't want is for OOo to become a mere commodity
removed from its community.
If that is what you are suggesting I am all with you. And I don't even
mind if it stays that way, but maybe we could make sure links don't
rely
on the portal-subdomain, but could be placed on any sub-domain,
including
"www" (and 'nothing', which is of course still best for end-users...)
portal.openoffice.org/download/
portal.openoffice.org/about/
portal.openoffice.org/support/
Something like that is possible but for downloaders, the more clicks
the more confusion. My constraint is simply, you arrive at www.openoffice.org
, and should be able to obtain OOo in one or maximum two clicks.
...
are not that bad urls (but maybe we should make automatic forwards
from
www.openoffice.org/download to these locations...)
Initially, it could be the case.
Actually I prefer a centralized approach over a distributed approach
where
no central authority is keeping an eye on consistency. For example,
there
is way too much room for visual experimentation in the collab net
system,
resulting in a website without much visual consistency. Similarly
there is
no real coordination on where to put information.
I prefer it (centralization) for downloads. But coordinating the NLCs
is not trivial here, not because they don't agree, necessarily, but
because QA'ing works at different rates and not all servers are the
same. To this end, I'm also in contact with the Bouncer people in
Oregon, USA, about seeing if Bouncer can serve up local servers only
(and read the user's locale).
As well, if a user goes to, say, nl.openoffice.org/about-
downloads.html and clicks on OOo 3.0 in Dutch, is she taken to
portal.ooo or just start downloading it? I think that a better model
would be for either: user -> nl.openoffice.org ->download link
immediate using Bouncer or user ->homepage (www.openoffice.org) -
>clicks on download and is given the page in Dutch automatically or
starts download automatically, the latter preferred.
The point being: no matter where you start you should be able to
obtain OOo binaries or whatever you want with a modicum of clicks.
1. the design process is hardly fast :-) and getting things going now
is better than waiting.
agree :)
2. sun very much wants an easier (one-click) download page for OOo
and
a better homepage, one that makes it easier to download OOo. You
recall that Sun gave 45K or so to the Community Council to pay a
designer for the change? The money is still available for the
homepage
redesign, but believe the difficulty lies not in actual layout but
in
the download process itself. We could replace
download.openoffice.org--
my original idea--but it seems to me that we can also add a lot more.
This in the end will cost more than 45K but that money will go toward
offsetting the cost.
I understand, and agree, with you that the portal idea, doing more
at once
is a good idea.
That said, it may just be easier now to go with a replacement for
download.openoffice.org using Drupal and then work on www.oo.o using
Drupal later. The thing is, I don't know when that "later" is. I'm
open to a discussion on that subject, and leave portal.ooo as such,
to
be populated later with useful things. Meanwhile the focus would be
on:
* improving www.openoffice.org homepage (www/www/index.html)
* making download/www/index.html a one-click destination for
downloads
**portal.openoffice.org could then be populated later (and designed
as
needed)
I do not have anything against the portal domain, and guess if we do
it
all within portal than it could work, however if we would do the
relatively 'static' pages such as explaining why to get openoffice,
and
support using something like drupal, whereas we would still be
fighting
with javascript for downloads at download.openoffice.org seemed a bit
strange, and that was the impression I got... I have been keeping the
option over for a total move to portal.openoffice.org
Ah. Yes, I don't really want to have too much confusion :-) This is
not supposed to be a postmodern site :-) (you know, where confusion is
the point ....)
To summarize, if it makes sense now to go ahead with:
* redesign of homepage with a strong aim to promote the download and
community
Something I have never seen answered is what about the importance of
the
CD's? The initial homepage we launched somewhere with 2.0 was changed
especially since there was a drop in CD-page visits
Good point. I guess I'd add: where *getting* the blessed thing is
important :-)
(To a lesser degree P2P is an issue here as well, but since that is
more
for advanced users anyway... still, we can also make P2P easier when
server side scripting is available)
yes.
* hold off on portal.ooo; but to think of using it *as* a portal but
not rush into it....
There is an very interesting group in users who have already
downloaded
OpenOffice.org, and we can increase their user satisfaction a lot if
we
are able to offer them all kinds of nice information/updates/gadgets
to
make working with OpenOffice.org more fun... :)
Yes. I am trying to get the installation people to also help, both by
making the installer feature OOo goodies--extensions, templates,
macros, etc.--and also adding a link to the Help dialogue box, where
instead of just giving a generic www.oo.o and info. about lists, it
also gives meaningful links, like to support., etc.
In sum, then, how about this:
* We ask CollabNet to make download.openoffice.org point to an outside
server. (It may have to be renamed, say to "downloads.openoffice.org)
* We work on the homepage as has been and is being done.
* We being work on portal.openoffice.org secondarily, with the notion
that portal.ooo will be a more or less comprehensive place for
endusers and even developers, but the focus on endusers.
g.,
Maarten
Best
louis
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