Re: [Dfey-nw-discuss] Re: DFEY website redesign

[Tim Dobson]

Robert Leverington wrote:
> On 2009-07-13, Tim Dobson wrote:
> > Lets start with mailing lists.
> >
> > Hopefully, lists would be provided by the Savannah project,  
> > www.nongnu.org - mailman servers are really really hard to run well and  
> > the guys at Savannah do a great job at making our lives as easy as 
> > possible.
> >
> > We should be able to, on request, set up new mailing lists for new  
> > localgroups (hopefully dfey-*-discuss format).
> >
> > I think there should be a dfey-general-discuss for general  
> > non-geographical discussion and perhaps dfey-admin-discuss for  
> > non-geographic administration boringness. :)
>
> This makes sense to me, maybe avoid dfey-admin-discuss for now as we are
> not at the stage where there is such a high volume that this is
> distracting.

Hmmm. well I'm begginng to notice that the people who don't filter their 
mail - people who use hotmail for instance - aren't really looking at 
emails because there are so many and most of them aren't relevant for 
people who just want to meet each other and aren't really interested in 
getting involved in any organisation aspects.

I think the sooner we can get administration discussions onto an opt-in 
mailing list, the better. :)

As mailing lists are a priority, I should really sort this ASAP.

> > DFEY.org
> >
> > The DFEY.org home page would be fairly simplistic, concise and low on  
> > text content, linking one to several other main pages (again, concise,  
> > small amounts of text) and a "more" page containing links other content.
> >
> > On the three main pages, perhaps we would describe DFEY, talk about  
> > local groups and mention how you can get involved. (The last two seem  
> > very similar - maybe not those two!)
>
> Something simillar was discussed, but the general consensus was that
> there would not be sufficient content to span multiple pages - at least
> for the time being.  This is always something that can be added on
> eventually.

There's plenty to write about!

I mean, if I can talk about DFEY for 20+ minutes without notes, then I 
think we can write what would amount to 1/2 a page of A4 across three 
pages. How should people find out information about why we exist or what 
DFEY's here for or how to get involved and help out?

> > *.dfey.org or dfey.org/
> >
> > In my opinion, local groups should have their own web presence. It  
> > shouldn't be forced, but a local DFEY group in Kent and in Glasgow, as  
> > much as they might all wish to meet face to face, probably aren't going  
> > to, and would probably like to design their own region specific DFEY 
> > sites.
>
> This is fair enough, probably something for individual groups to focus
> on of course.  For now I don't think this should be a priority as it can
> easily be added at any time.

Absolutely, it's not a priority, but the principle is the really the bit 
that is important.

> > Wiki's
> >
> > I don't know about wiki's. Wiki's are great for adding ideas  to,  
> > collaborating on stuff, planning meeting, discussing stuff...
> > But you have to work VERY hard to make them work as a homepage as the  
> > important info gets hidden in links that don't appear too be obvious.
> > I can see the benefits for having a unified wiki for local groups, but  
> > at the same time there's a lot to be said for running one's own.
> >
> > The DFEY-NW wiki needs a cleanup; there is no doubt about that.
>
> As you say running a wiki involves a significant amount of work, and I
> doubt there will be people in every DFEY branch that enjoy that sort of
> thing. 

Running a wiki is easy. Actually tidying the wiki is the timeconsuming 
bit. One online community I have been involved in openmoko.org actually 
hired someone full time to cleanup the wiki, at the same time, maybe it 
shouldn't be cleared up in DFEY's case - notes about stuff don't really 
benefit from a 3rd party jumping in and suggesting that their page & 
link structure is semantically wrong.

> There is also not a huge amount of content that would be unique
> to each wiki.  With this in mind I think it makes sense to have a single
> wiki.

Well I don't know, I think if you start looking at it from a local 
level, then it's not necessarily desirable...

>  There was talk about using the DFEY-SE wiki as a base for this
> and gradually moving content from the DFEY-NW wiki (and actually keeping
> it in a nice condition this time).  I'm happy for this to happen, and
> will gladly take responsibility for keeping it in shape, what does
> everyone else think?

Maybe have it a bit like the fsf groups wiki?

http://groups.fsf.org

The lower bits are essentially organised but its up to you how you mess 
up your actual patch?

> > Logo's
> >
> > I imagined dfey.org using the vanilla DFEY logo and local groups using a  
> > template of the logo with then the region they revolve around underneath  
> > in text. Take a look at this page to see what I mean.
> > http://nw.dfey.org/wiki/Press_resources
>
> Seems to already be implemented. :)

Yup! thanks for doing that!

Cheers,

Tim