[Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd)

[Steve Holden]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aahz [mailto:aahz at pythoncraft.com]
> Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 8:16 PM
> To: Steve Holden
> Cc: pydotorg-redesign at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd)
>
>
> [I'm going to be repeating much of what I said to Trevor in
> response to
> his private message, but it's faster for me to rewrite that
> than to get
> his permission.]
>
> On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Steve Holden wrote:
> >
> > [Stephan's top-posting remedied to relieve Aahz' apoplexy ;-]
>
> <grin>
>
> >>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >>> Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 15:28:30 -0400
> >>> From: Trevor Toenjes <zope at toenjes.com>
> >>> To: marketing-python at wingide.com
> >>> Subject: [marketing-python] Simplify and prioritize
> >>>
> >>> python.org's primary purpose is to attract others to the language.
> >>> That is what everyone on this list is most concerned about.
>
> I'm not sure I agree with this, in the sense that python.org
> is intended
> to grab people who've never heard of Python.  I believe that
> python.org
> is used *after* people have already heard about Python, in
> order to learn
> more about Python and to justify using it.  That's quite a different
> marketing perspective.
>
Possibly so, but I don't see a more relevant vehicle than www.python.org
for the purpose. Are you suggesting that other existing channels do the
job?

> >>> And, darn it, let's get some color, graphics, and photos on the
> >>> homepage.  If everyone wants to attract new users easier,
> then let's
> >>> put some makeup on her and make her kissable.  It needs to be more
> >>> consumer friendly.  If you want to attract
> business-types, then you
> >>> have no choice but to do this.
>
> "Consumer friendly" does not directly correlate with graphics
> and photos.
> Particularly if my belief is correct, people going to python.org will
> place their emphasis on finding information.  There's also
> the issue that
> lots of web research shows that any slow-loading page drives
> people away.
>
Sorry, you are just plain wrong here. A *modest* amount of graphical
content makes even technical material more likely to be read. I'd be
perfectly happy to accept an overhead of (say) 20k per page just to see
some visual interest in the pages.

> > Stephan Deibel:
> >>
> >> This was posted on marketing-python.  I thought it contained some
> >> valid points.  Aahz responding "Color, okay.  Graphics and photos,
> >> nyet" which is for the most part valid and also matches my own
> >> viewpoint for the most part, but on the other hand a site like this
> >> www.blender.org seems to do a good job with relatively few
> graphics +
> >> color.
> >
> > Personally I think a *minimum* amount of
> photographic-quality graphics
> > is an absolute requirement to make the web site "stand out" from the
> > crowd. Aahz might disagree, but as long as the content
> makes equal sense
> > in lynx/links I don't see any objection to quite a lot of
> color and just
> > a little photography.
>
> No, a *little* color, otherwise you lose a sense of design coherence.
> It's also critical that text be dark on a light background for
> readability (with perhaps a few headlines of light text on dark
> background for emphasis).  I'm not adamantly opposed to
> visual imagery,
> but any page had better load in less than thirty seconds on a
> 33.6 modem.
>
So turn this into content ... 33.6 kbit/s = practically maybe 2 kbyte/s
allowing for some communications lag. So you appear to think 60k is an
upper limit on content?

> > Interestingly the Blender web site looks, from the layout, like it's
> > built in PHP-nuke or something very similar. Such
> frameworks do make it
> > remarkably easy to manage content. Is creosote so heavily loaded we
> > couldn't consider generating pages per-view?
>
> That's not the issue.  The issue is creating the setup.
>
OK.

> > Absolutely. And Trevor's main point, which is that we need to take a
> > more conventional marketing approach, is well made. It's all right
> > saying "if they web site has to be flashy to make them
> download Python
> > then let them stay away", but this is cutting our noses off to spite
> > our faces.
>
> But making a flashy web site *will* drive some people away.
> That's very
> different from saying that we need an attractive web site.  I
> also don't
> agree that a "conventional" marketing approach is necessarily
> what will
> work best for us.  There are many ways of getting attention that
> conventional marketing doesn't cover.  The way I see it, the
> purpose of
> the web site is to *support* our other marketing efforts.
>
So maybe flashy was a bad choice of word: how about "professional"? All
I'm saying is that I'd prefer something that looks like it was designed,
not just thrown together by a bunch of techies.

> > We have some terrific skills at our disposal. The present
> site shows how
> > sadly they are being underutilized. I think it's time to
> ask for a BDFL
> > pronouncement on how the webmasters make decisions and
> who's in charge
> > of the site!
>
> That seems reasonable to me.  But the big question from my
> POV is how the
> web site gets maintained, and until some people step forward to show
> their commitment, the people currently doing the work to
> maintain the web
> site should get a collective veto over any changes.
> Currently, IIRC (and
> with a little memory help by skimming the pydotorg archives),
> the people
> doing most of the website work are:
>
> * Aahz
> * Skip Montanaro
> * AMK
> * Fred Drake
> * Steve Holden
> * Mats Wichmann
>
> with
>
> * Barry Warsaw
> * Greg Ward
> * Thomas Wouters
>
> doing most of the sysadmin work.
>
Yup. And most of my contributions recently have just been handling
low-level email and getting involved in this discussion.

> > You might be, but it could stand to be said again. There's
> a LOT that
> > could be done to improve the present design even in the
> framework of the
> > existing content-generation methods.
>
> Yup.
>
> > I'm also hoping that we can provide the webmasters with a few simple
> > scripts for tasks like "Add a job posting", "Put a news
> item in" and so
> > on, but that's another discussion.
>
> That would be delightful, and I certainly don't consider it another
> discussion -- that's at the root of much of my opposition to
> some of the
> ideas that have come up.  I don't have the experience or the mental
> bandwidth to make such improvements, but I'm not willing to let the
> currently minimal level of website maintenance get uprooted
> unless it's
> for something demonstrably better for keeping the website updated.

Well, we can probably all agree that we don't want to increase our
webmaster workload. By the same token, I don't want to limit the content
to what we can produce using our existing methods. I think the idea of
mapping a portion of the site to a separate Zope/Plone server maintained
by "the marketing crew" (whoever they turn out to be) might be the best
solution. If they evolve certain ideas that can be reflected in the
overall site (such as changes in look which can be reflected in the
template) or if they can take over more of the existing site's content
over time then that would be to everyone's advantage.

Let's not turn away volunteers just because they're less comfortable
with the command line than we are!

regards
--
Steve Holden                                 http://www.holdenweb.com/
Python Web Programming                http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/