[Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd)

Aahz aahz at pythoncraft.com
Sat Aug 9 13:43:24 EDT 2003


On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Steve Holden wrote:
> Aahz:
>>>> From: Trevor Toenjes <zope at toenjes.com>
>>>>>
>>>>> 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?

Your question doesn't make sense; I don't think there's anything we can
do on the web site to drag people in who haven't already heard about
Python from somewhere else.  It's irrelevant whether other channels are
"doing the job" -- if we want people to come to the web site, we have to
*make* them do the job.

>> "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.

When people say "graphics and photos", I rarely find the result adds up
to 20K.  That level is perfectly fine with me, but it's also confusing
from my POV to label that "graphics and photos".

> 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?

That's about right for any page that isn't intentionally clicked through
as a "large" page (such as a FAQ).  And that's total: HTML page, style
sheets, and graphics.  I'd personally want the front page even smaller,
but I'm not going to argue about it.

> 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.

Works for me.

> 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!

Again, works for me.
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

This is Python.  We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects 
with useful practice.  --Aahz



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