[ZWeb] Front Page & Other Changes

[Chris Withers]

Mark wrote:
> I just don't have the screen real estate to have an IRC window open all 
> day and the time zone thing is sometimes a problem as well.

Then just reply to emails, it seems to be working okay...

> Find a bowl or a bucket because its impossible to discuss reorganizing 
> the site without looking at structure.

Why are we re-organizing?! How many more re-organisations does Zope.org 
need? This was all done with NZO, and I remember other efforts before that.

> Alternatively you can pull out a Thesaurus and I'll agree to use a 
> different word :-)

How about just hard graft editing of the two main books already there 
and that are already structured, along with a simplification rather than 
re-complification of the documentation structure!

>> Then I'd encourage you to make that change! I certainly have no 
>> problems with it. In fact, something else I wanted to ask is how long 
>> those ads should stay there, and who decides what ads are appropriate.
> 
> That is exactly the point Chris. I don't think you or I should 
> unilaterally make this change.

Why not? We are all sensible and responsible adults. I don't think any 
of us would do anything unreasonable, and if people felt that we had, 
I'm sure none of us would have a problem undoing the changes and having 
further discussion...

> Zope.com pays for Zope.org hosting and seems to consider these Ads as a 
> type of payback for their efforts.

It's interesting to note that the only comment from anyone at Zope.com 
on the changes I've made has been a positive one ;-)

> News Items are for News.

I think news items are fine for advertising events.

> We are missing an Event Type which includes at 
> least two more fields (than a news item
> has):
> 
> - Type ( of Event)
> - Country
> 
> (Start and End dates should be enforced)
> 
> Something Like
> 
> Event
> 
> --- ZUG Meeting
> --- Conference
> --- Training Session
> 
> Nice side effects would include that we could for example include a 
> "What Zope Events are  happening in France" page.

...which might have one or two entries in it a year. I've seen enough 
sites like this to know that even when they're perfectly implemented, 
they're sparesely populated and of little use to anyone.

> We could then include a box similar to the one on the main page for News 
> Items which could show a mix of the next
> 5 upcoming events (regardless of their type). Clicking on the Events 
> title would bring up a similar page as this one for
> news:
> 
> http://zope.org/News/
> 
> except for people could filter on Type of Event and Country.

In all honesty, I don't think this is worth doing and will hardly ever 
get used. But, if you want to write the code, go for it...

> One last thing this if nobody objects / silence --  then we do it thing 
> doesn't work for me.
> 
> All of us are pretty busy people we might miss that email (in some cases 
> because we never actually get them) or IRC discussion. I propose 
> somebody come up with a simple yes/no voting system for the major 
> changes to a site (there definitely should be a minimum amount of votes 
> required) and then call for a vote in IRC and the mailinglist(s). It 
> would be especially nice when we do things like come up with mockups to 
> people able to ask for multiple yes no votes for alternate designs or 
> individual changes.

This doesn't work, it's been tried in many ways several times in the 
history of Zope as I've known it. Look at the Fishbowl, the Zope.org 
collector, the various Zope Docs projects, etc.

The fact is people are busy, and have limtied time to work on stuff. As 
already mentioned, we're all responsible and can make our own judgements 
on what needs discussion and what doesn't. Formalising this, while cute, 
just adds more red tape and results in even less getting done.

It even enourages the few people who ARE prepared to do "real work" to 
go off and do something more fun instead...

cheers,

Chris

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