Re: [GMG-Devel] Clarifying site's organisation

[Christopher Allan Webber]

Thanks to both of you for having this conversation.  I'm glad that
exchanging mockups seems to have lead to some useful results.

As said on IRC, I think we are not going to change our wiki/docs
distinction.  I think it's true that the main page should help guide
people to the right place better, and this document seems to suggest
better ways of how to do that.

We are talking about building a more solid "development corner" section
of the actual docs.  It might be that the HackingHowto would move there
in that case, but I'm still not sure that's best.  But even assuming it
did, I think the use of the wiki would not go away, because there's a
lot of "ad hoc" contributor collaboration notes that happen there:
design proposals, deployment tricks, etc.

I think what we should do is implement the new site design (I know, I
know, that's currently on me to work on new wording) and then look at
where we're at.

 - Chris

Jef van Schendel writes:

> Hi,
>
> I'm not the one to talk to regarding the docs/wiki separation, so I
> will skip that part of your mail. But I have been working on a
> redesign for the MediaGoblin homepage so I will comment on that.
>
> For reference, this is the latest mockup:
> http://schendje.fedorapeople.org/goblin/homepage/wireframe3.png
> And this is a version with notes:
> http://schendje.fedorapeople.org/goblin/homepage/layout_explained.png
>
>
> 2013/1/25 Tumulte Dogma <address@hidden>:
>> - The wiki is not the place to dispatch users, the main page is.
>
> You used the word "dispatch" a few times, but I am unsure as to what
> you mean by it. Are you talking about directing visitors to the
> appropriate locations?
>
>
>> - Any information on where to contribute, fill a bug, find info, help...
>> should be on the main page.
>
> I agree. Looking at these one by one:
>
>  - Contributing. As you can see I've put the "Get involved" button in
> the "Our community" section, as well as links to IRC, the mailing list
> and other ways to contact the developers.
>
>  - Fill a bug. The mockup contains a link to the bug tracker, so this
> is also included, but it might be good to have a link in the actual
> MediaGoblin software as well.
>
>  - Find info. The homepage itself should contain enough information
> about MediaGoblin, the software, as well the MediaGoblin project and
> community. I believe my mockup satisfied this as well, though it is
> (intentionally) heavy on the software-side.
>
>  - Help. Depends on what you mean by help, but if it is help as in
> "how do I get this thing to work", this is (or should) all be included
> in the documentation. The homepage has the "Use MediaGoblin" call to
> action, which links to the docs. However, it might be good to add a
> "documentation" link separately.
>
>
>> Additionally, since I want to put so much in the main page, I've made a
>> quick and dirty sketch of a One Page App design for mediagoblin.org.
>
> Thanks for taking the trouble to include a mockup! That's really helpful.
>
> However, I believe it is starting to contain too much info. For
> instance, having a spot in the layout for "Contributing" is great, but
> we don't have to describe all the ways to contribute right away.
> Instead, we can show that it's an option for the people who are
> interested, after which they can choose to visit a page with more
> info.
>
> Likewise, the "Learn" section has useful sections, such as how to
> install and how to configure MediaGoblin. But I think displaying such
> a large amount of information right away is counterproductive and we
> should simply link to the docs instead. Keep in mind that adding more
> content doesn't just cost more pixels, but also requires curation and
> maintainance. A wiki page is much easier to update than the project
> homepage. ("How to code for it", by the way, should be placed under
> "Contribute").
>
>
> In conclusion, both mockups share a lot of ideas, that's interesting.
> There are *a lot* of aspects to the MediaGoblin project so the trick
> is include everything that's important in an orderly and clear
> fashion, which is why I think we need to keep things simple.
>
> I think my mockup could be improved by adding some of your ideas, namely:
>
>  - Adding a more visible link to the documentation.
>  - Finding a place for the "donate" button, because I had not included it yet.
>
> Jef
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