I think those are all wonderful ideas! I can relate to the problem you're trying to solve, as I was confused on some of those points just a couple of days ago.
>
>> I think both ELPA could use some improvement on accessibility, eg, change
>> the raw readme file to a html,
>
> I'm OK with generating an HTML version from some source version
> (e.g. README.org or README.md), but I definitely have no intention of
> editing/reading an HTML version of that file.
>
> The intended audience is expected to be using Emacs, so the format
> should be Emacs-friendly which HTML isn't.
>
> [ Hmm... now that I reread the above I wonder if I have misunderstood.
> I'm talking about the (elpa|nongnu).git/README and admin/README. ]
index.html is the html file that I intend to edit. As for README, I think it is targeted towards developer/admin of ELPA, rather than someone who just want to add his package to ELPA. And it obscures the fact that adding your package to ELPA is extremely easy.
I want to add a guide for those who has a package on github and want to add it to ELPA, which I assume to be the majority. Some thing like this:
Emacs elpa and nongnu elpa starter guide
* Difference between GNU ELPA and NONGNU ELPA
To distribute a package on GNU ELPA, author and contributors need to
sign the copyright assignment, NONGNU ELPA doesn’t pose that
requirement.
* Add a package hosted on GitHub/GitLab to GNU ELPA
1. Update file header to comply to the [[standard format][some link]] (copyright notice, etc)
assignment (and ask contributors to do the same, if their contribution
is larger than 15 lines of code)
GNU ELPA, and wait for administrator to review your package and add it
for you.
* Add a pacakge hosted on GitHub/GitLab to NONGNU ELPA
Like the procedure for GNU ELPA but without step two.
* Update your package on GNU ELPA
(I believe you only need to add a tag, is that right?)
* (maybe) talk about GNU ELPA-devel and NONGNU ELPA-devel
Yuan