The only time I've ever seen such endeavors succeed is when there's some sort of editorial schedule in place. Mapping out what you want to see published over a certain period of time (say 2-3 months) makes it a lot easier to poke people to step up and write something.
The existence of an editorial schedule doesn't guarantee success. But the lack of a schedule seems (from my experience) to guarantee failure. Bryen On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 15:03 -0500, Emily Gonyer wrote: > Obviously its going to take work to keep updated, however, pretty much > anything we do to add content and give people a reason to come to the > gnome.org site is going to take work. If we want to have a site that > people find useful & interesting, and give them a reason to keep > coming back, we're going to have to keep working on it and writing new > content. Nothing we do is going to both give new content & be work > free. Its just not going to happen. We can make it stream-lined and > easier to keep up-to-date, but its still going to mean > writing/creating new content. If we want to do something similar to > what I suggested, we definitely need to get a back log of sorts > started first with a half dozen or so articles written and in the > pipeline ready to publish, so that if/when something happens and > something doesn't get written right away we have backups to go to > first before it becomes obvious that updates are no longer happening - > give us a month or two to get new stuff written, while still > publishing. > > > > I don't know, I guess I just feel like this push for new content is > coming up against a wall of not wanting to have to actually *create* > said new content, which means that in the end we stick with pretty > much what we have, while still lacking new content! Either we have to > accept having a gnome.org site which lacks content, and therefor > doesn't really do much in promotion of GNOME, or we have to simply > decide that we're willing to put the work in to make a great site with > at least some new content constantly being created in order to promote > GNOME. Right now, the consensus seems to be that we stick with what we > have, even if that means not doing much for the promotion of GNOME in > the long run. > > > Emily > > On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Christy Eller > <iamchristyel...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi- > > I think what Karen says is unfortunately the case, although I > like Emily's idea. We don't have the contributor continuity > that it would require to pull off a page that needs that much > updating. My suggestion would just be to add more apps (with > links to their own pages) to the page that already exists, > highlight apps in the news section occasionally, and possibly > link from their entry on the page to the article about them in > the news. > > As far as the comment about Downloading GNOME, I totally > agree. When I go to a web page for a download, I look for the > word "Download". When I first came to the GNOME page, it took > me too long to figure out where to go to download GNOME. Of > course, that could be my problem :) But, I have heard this > comment from 2 other people on the marketing channel since > then. > > Currently, you have to go from "Discover GNOME 3" to "Find out > how to get GNOME 3". Perhaps there is a good reason for this. > It would be very easy to change this if we all agree. I could > put the word "Download" on the first page, or the second page- > and I could also put "Download" in the top navigation, or > whatever else is decided. > > Thanks for bringing it up- > Christy > > On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 7:16 AM, Karen Sandler > <ka...@gnome.org> wrote: > > On Mon, February 13, 2012 8:44 am, Emily Gonyer wrote: > > What if we kept the list (and added to it) and then > rotated through it on > > a > > monthly (or even weekly) basis, highlighting one > application at a time, > > with a top bar that says "Coming Next week/month > _____" with the name of > > whichever application will be featured next, perhaps > the same thing below > > only 'Last week's featured application ____' and > have each one archived, > > so > > that when you click on the name of the program you > get whatever was > > written > > up on it when it was last featured. This would give > us a reason to write > > short articles on each, and a way to ensure that > they all stay up-to-date > > - > > as they rotate through the 'featured' section, we'd > go back to each set of > > developers and ask 'whats changed/new/etc'. It would > also allow for some > > of > > the lesser-known applications to be highlighted in > turn, and thus allow > > them an exposure that they haven't had. > > > > Actually, as I think about this more, I think weekly > (or perhaps > > bi-weekly) > > would be better than monthly, so that we could get > through them all each > > year and thus they could be kept significantly more > up-to-date. It would > > also give people a reason to come back and checkout > the website more > > often. > > > > > I love this idea, but I worry about its implementation > and also keeping it > up to date. I don't really know anything about how > easy it is to create a > page like this, but I know how tough it is to make > sure you've got good > current content for websites when you don't have a > staff of writers. We > could write a lot of these out in advance, so that we > have a lot of > "safety" entries for times no one feels like writing. > It looks really bad > when you've got a feature that relies on new content > when there is no new > content to be published! > > karen > > > > > Emily > > > > On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 5:09 AM, Dave Neary > <dne...@gnome.org> wrote: > > > >> Hi, > >> > >> (list only, CCing marketing-list, setting follow-up > there) > >> > >> On 02/13/2012 10:48 AM, Andre Klapper wrote: > >> > >>> On Sun, 2012-02-12 at 16:22 -0800, Steve Talley > wrote: > >>> > >>>> I just went to your website, and it wasn't clear > to me how to > >>>> download Gnome, which I did some months ago, and > which provided > >>>> Gnumeric and many other free applications. > >>>> > >>> > >>> If you go to http://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/ there > is a "Find out how to > >>> get GNOME 3" link at the bottom leading to > >>> http://www.gnome.org/getting-gnome/ which includes > a "Distributions" > >>> section. > >>> > >>> If you would "just" like to download Gnumeric I > would recommend > >>> http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/ as a start. > >>> > >> > >> This raises an interesting point about the GNOME > web page - we don't > >> currently provide an easy way to find/find out > about GNOME applications > >> (hosted on gnome.org) which aren't part of the > GNOME desktop, outside of > >> the few applications we promote on > gnome.org/applications > >> > >> http://projects.gnome.org/ gives an index, looking > through the list, > >> some > > >> interesting apps we could promote are Abiword, > Balsa, Banshee, Déjà Dup, > > >> Dia, F-Spot, GIMP, Gnumeric, GNU Cash, Hamster > (although I think this is > >> included in GNOME now?), Inkscape, Nanny, PDF Mod, > Planner, Rhythmbox, > >> Tasque, X-Chat... > >> > >> Some of these are not hosted on gnome.org - > Banshee, GIMP, GNU Cash, > >> Inkscape, X-Chat all have their own websites, and > for good reason. Some > >> of > > >> them are on Launchpad (Déjà Dup, for example). And > several excellent > > >> GNOME > >> applications (like Shotwell, SimpleScan, Sound > Juicer, for example) > >> don't > >> get a mention on the progects.g.o page at all. > >> > >> It'd be nice if we could help these projects with > their SEO and get them > >> more visibility as the "headline" GNOME > applications - those we know > >> make > >> users happy and have great integration and a decent > degree of > >> functionality > >> and maturity. On that score, I would exclude Dia > and GNUCash because > >> they > >> haven't kept up with the platform, but the others > are all excellent > >> GNOME > >> apps. > >> > >> Perhaps gnome.org/applcations is the place for us > to promote these > >> applications? How can we do so in a sustainable and > SEO-friendly way? We > >> already promote some GNOME applications there - > including apps like > >> Cheese > >> which are included in the desktop but which benefit > from people knowing > >> what they are. > >> > >> Cheers, > >> Dave. > >> > >> -- > >> Dave Neary > >> GNOME Foundation member > >> dne...@gnome.org > >> Jabber: nea...@gmail.com > >> -- > >> marketing-list mailing list > >> marketing-list@gnome.org > >> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list > >> > > > > > > > > -- > > Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. > Boldness has genius, > > power > > and magic in it. - Goethe > > > > Be who you are and say what you feel because those > who mind don't matter > > and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss > > > > Not everything that can be counted counts, and not > everything that counts > > can be counted. - Albert Einstein > > -- > > marketing-list mailing list > > marketing-list@gnome.org > > > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list > > > > > -- > marketing-list mailing list > marketing-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list > > > > > > -- > Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, > power and magic in it. - Goethe > > Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't > matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss > > Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that > counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
