wiki reorg - Main Page

[Marko Knöbl]

2008/7/25 Stroller <stroller at stellar.eclipse.co.uk>:
>
> On 24 Jul 2008, at 20:21, Justin Wong wrote:
>> ...
>> I did read most of the emails on this list and, although it's a bit
>> unrealistic to answer every question...
>
> <devil's advocate>
> Well, either they're stupid or invalid questions (fair enough) or
> SOMEONE has to answer them.
> </devil's advocate>
>
>> - what do you think of the content on the Main Page?
>> The Main Page should have as few "content" as possible. See below
>> answers for what I mean.
>
> I don't know about _as little as possible_, but it should certainly
> be clear, concise and navigable.
>
> As I said previously:
>
>   Surely the first screenful of text on the main page - the first the
>   reader sees before they scroll down to explore further - should be
>   *really* *useful* and *really* *informative* stuff.
>
>> - is it suitable for people visiting the Openmoko Wiki for the
>> first time?
>> I'd say, no. There's an overwhelming amount of stuff on the main page.
>> I believe the theme of Main Page should be simplicity and it gets
>> people to other pages.
>
> I absolutely agree.
>
> See also my previous comments:
>
>     The "Introduction to Openmoko" ... section also doesn't tell
>     newcomers the most useful stuff - the first link is to the
>     "Openmoko" page which seems to be nothing more than a long list
>     of random hardware & software notes all mixed together. Shouldn't
>     the "Openmoko" page be more friendly?   ... who  cares about "The
>     original core team" if they were last responsible for Openmoko
>     in August 2007? Does "Trademark Policy" need such a prominent
>     position? ...  Couldn't links to the Trademark Policy be relegated
>     to the foot of the page? Likewise it has been stated in the first
>     paragraph that "Openmoko is a Free Software project" - so surely
>     we don't need to waste one of the following bolded links on
>     "License"? (again, I feel that can go at the foot of the page?)
>
> (both the above indented sections are from [1])
>
>
>> - should it be? [suitable for people visiting the Openmoko Wiki for
>> the first time?]
>> Or should it be suitable for everyone visiting the
>> Openmoko Wiki, even if they've visited before?
>> It's hard to answer this question without identifying the main groups
>> of users of the wiki.
>
> I don't really see how we can absolutely identify groups of users.
> The webserver logs don't say "newcomer", "openmoko user", "openmoko
> developer".
>
> So I think we have to guess:
>
>> Presumably, there are people new to Openmoko
>> (without any previous knowledge), and then there are veteran core
>> developers. Perhaps there are more categories of people. But these are
>> my assumptions without doing any actual research.
>
> Right. Let's assume these are two reasonable categories.
>
> We can waste a lot of time putting a poll on the main page.
> Are you:
> - a newcomer to this site
> - considering buying an Openmoko phone
> - an owner of an Openmoko device
> - a developer of application software
> - a developer of core or kernel Openmoko software.
>
> But lots of people won't bother answering the poll and we probably
> won't get much better results than guesstimating. Heck, even the
> categories we suggest create a bias!
>
>> The wiki and documentation should work for all these people. We
>> shouldn't cast anyone out.
>
> Let's assume those two types of people you've identified above and
> add one more
> - people new to Openmoko (don't know what Openmoko is, might have
> seen a Wired article)
> - veteran core developers.
> - people who have bought a Freerunner and want to play with it
> (installing TangoGPS, connecting to wifi, whatever)
>
> What topics or pages should we link to in order to satisfy these groups?
>
> Veteran core developers probably know the pages they're using often,
> so I don't think we need to have so many links for them. Additionally
> I suspect their pages are better linked together. But certainly some
> first-stop page-links are needed for them.
>
> We also need to cover some of the legal & trademark stuff currently
> on the main page - stuff which we'll relegate to the bottom but keep.
> What? "Trademark Policy", "License", anything else?
>
> Brenda: sorry, we're in agreement that the main page needs a lot of
> work. And I know you've already done a lot of work on it. Please
> speak up if these changes are going to be a problem for you.
>
> Stroller.
>
>
> [1] http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/documentation/2008-July/
> 000010.html
>
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>

What do you think of creating portals for each of the three types of
people Stroller specified? (new to Openmoko, owners of devices,
developers)

The Main Page could be mainly for newcomers who don't own a device
(Containing "Introduction to Openmoko", information on products and
buying them, probably simple emulation,...).

The portal for owners of devices could contain links to the pages
about "Getting started with you Neo Freerunner", updating the
software,...

The portal for developers would be pretty much the same as the current
main page (just without "introduction" and "openmoko products")

By doing this we could create three portals of decent size and keep
newcomers from the pages about development which would irritate them.
The downside would be that developers will probably have to use both
the portal for developers and the portal for owners of openmoko
phones.
Please let me know what you think of this!