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List:       kde-www
Subject:    Re: Hello KDE-webteam
From:       "C.M.Lotion" <cmlotion () wanadoo ! nl>
Date:       2005-03-03 4:54:04
Message-ID: 200503022354.13623.cmlotion () wanadoo ! nl
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On Monday 28 February 2005 12:18, Olaf Schmidt wrote:
> Hi Claire!
>
> Thanks for your offer to become involved with the KDE web team.
>
> Your help is greatly appreciated, because currently we are a small team
> and there are always a lot of small things that need fixing. Most of the
> mails going to this list are in fact sent to webmaster@kde.org, and since
> we are so few people, it sometimes takes several days until one of us
> actually answers these mails.
>

Hi Olaf,

Thanks for your fast reply. It's me who's slow this time ;).

> A lot of these mails are referring to broken links, so it would be really
> good to test all of kde.org for broken links. I think there are a number
> of tools to automatically test for this. It would be great if you wish to
> help us with this.
>
Ok, do you have a certain tool that you prefer/recommend? 

> The website is written using custom PHP scripts. We commit the changes
> into the CVS module kde-www, and the server is automatically updated to
> show the latest version. Are you familiar with CVS? Otherwise it is not
> too difficult to learn.
>
I have used CVS to checkout stuff, but I usually sent the result to someone 
with commit permission. Anyway, I don't mind learning, since I am also using 
it for the Dutch KDE site with Cervisia.

> You mention that you have a number of ideas how to improve kde.org.
> I am looking forward to your suggestions.
>
> Olaf
Well, here goes nothing. I don't have that much experience with maintaining 
large websites, so most of my suggestions are based on other personal and 
professional experiences. I think most of my suggestions or more practical 
alternatives - again: I'm not a webmaster/developer (yet) - are possible 
technologically, but some would take a lot of time and effort to design and 
implement. 

First, I will explain my motivation for all this. Recently, I have been 
helping a couple of my friends (German, Japanese and Dutch) discovering parts 
of KDE and KDE applications, with the help of initiatives such as 
http://www.kde.org , http://kde-apps.org , the AotM team, developer blogs and 
a lot of reading all over the internet. Yet, the fact remains, that although 
they started at the most obvious place (KDE.org), they did not find the 
information fast enough on their own, and often gave up (for/after a while). 
I discussed this with them and KDE contributors, which led me to the key 
question: 

Why do a lot of (potential) KDE users /contributors not know about  a lot of 
KDE's cool features and framework, and have a hard time finding out, although 
there is a lot of KDE-related information available in lots of places, that 
are (probably) also reachable via http://www.kde.org?

Talking to new or less experienced users and seeing them struggle definitely 
led to a very common and simple reason: easy, comfy accessibility. One of the 
comments I often got, was that KDE.org looked as if it was solely 
for developers or experienced users, that already know where to look and don't 
really mind a minimalistic style. This has been changing a lot, and the new 
design definitely already gives the site a more friendly and open look. Thank 
you :).

At the moment, the KDE website still strongly relies on (new) people to 
directly follow the correct link or do the right search on a limited amount 
of KDE resources. I even think, that a lot of long-time KDE-users and 
developers don't visit the main website that often, because it does not 
provide any information or tools that are not available somewhere else. Out 
of sight, out of mind? 

Cleaning up the links and including a powerful search mechanism on or via the 
main page would really help new and old users/contributors to find their way 
around, and would thereby make http://www.kde.org more popular and more 
valuable to both new and old KDE-users and developers.

There is a huge amount of hidden/scattered information and ideas in KDE 
handbooks, on (international) KDE-sites, forums, etc. It's often not the lack 
of documentation, but the struggle to find that particular piece of 
information that you know somebody must have written down, but is extremely 
hard to find. I was thinking of an advanced search page that offers groups of 
search criteria:
- type of content: documentation, news, applications, themes, mailing lists, 
community site, forum etc.
- location: continent, country, region, etc.
- audience: (new) user, contributor, webdeveloper, application developer, 
translator, etc.
- KDE application, package, project, etc.
- platform: *nix, Windows, OS X (e.g.Fink project), etc.
- subscriptions: possible KDE communities, mailinglists, newsletters, etc. to 
subscribe to with a common account for all core KDE mailinglists (announce, 
developer, www, i18n, etc.) 
- feature a KDE related website every week or month
- and so on...
The page would also offer a description of and link to each source, so people 
that don't know it yet, can at least see whether it's relevant for their 
search or come across things that they have never considered before. Give 
people the possibility to add their own website or relevant links (like a 
wiki or http://kde-look.org) to minimise the amount of maintenance by the 
webteam.

Why not introduce new users to the wide range of possibilities they have to 
get up-to-date, get help and contribute as soon as they log in for the first 
time or use the KDE help center, or Konqueror? (SUSE LINUX actually already 
uses the help center to search online sources). It would, for instance, fit 
perfectly into some kind of search kioslave that searches both your local 
documentation and online sources. 

I understand that creating such a (scalable) search engine and the supporting 
page is hard to achieve, but it would definitely:
- help if you don't know where to begin your search
- introduce people to parts of the KDE project/community that they don't know 
yet
- create more synergy across the KDE project and community 
- fit in KDE integrated desktop / conquer the WWW approach
- be a cool technological and user friendly feature
KDE's strength really is its large and motivated community, and I strongly 
believe that making each and every part of it better accessible will not only 
help current users, but also boost the number of users and contributors.

The latter touches upon the second idea I was playing with. Currently, the 
webteam is a rather small group, although a lot of webcontent is being 
provided by other KDE enthusiasts. Furthermore, not all countries actually 
have a KDE website (listed). Why don't we use all this, by giving the webteam 
a more abstract kind of role of supplying and maintaining the infrastructure 
for people to easily get familiar with and contribute to KDE? 
- Use CVS/subversion for the website maintenance and translation of 
information. This would open up the possibility of easily synchronising (part 
of) the content of the main and international KDE sites (like the application 
documentation). 
- Make it easy for international KDE and other community sites to 
create/update their website by translating and/or mirroring "modules" of 
KDE.org, and also have them contribute to the main site by adding to the 
repository and checking the existing documentation while translating it. This 
would be like the documentation/application translation, but then for the 
website. 

It would make creating and maintaining existing and new KDE websites more 
effective and efficient, since it would decrease the amount of double 
work/data, increase the total amount of information (new stuff), and reduce 
the search effort/complexity. Most important of all, it would let 
http://www.kde.org be the most valuable connection between all KDE related 
sites. 

All this probably sounds rather sci-fi, but I think the KDE community can pull 
this off - just think about the technologically superior KDE application 
framework - and will benefit a lot from improving accessibility and 
integration of he KDE community. Well, I hope  that, although you may not 
agree with me (on everything), you think it over and consider this as 
positive feedback of a KDE user and contributor. I have seen a lot of great 
initiatives in all the areas I mentioned, and just want to help improve KDE. 
I would love to see a fully integrated KDE 4.0 desktop and community, with 
the above or similar improvements, because I, like so many others around the 
globe, believe that KDE is a great project with even greater potential.

Best regards,

Claire

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