[openbeos] Re: the new website

Hi Jorge,

On 8/26/06, Jorge G. Mare (a.k.a. Koki) <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
Waldemar Kornewald wrote:
> What is the difference between "Newsletter" and "Developer blog"? My
> intention is to unify both into some kind of "article" which is
> similar to a blog, but more professional and only Haiku-related.

The Development Blogs are like "online diaries" where the devs can post
development stuff/rants/experiences at any time; it is more of a
personal thing, and it is very dynamic. We could well also call this
section "Devs Blogsphere" or "Devs Planet" (which is very much in vogue
these days).

The newsletter is a less dynamic media that would be published
periodically (on the web to start, potentially in print in the future)
with mostly Haiku related articles contributed that can be technical or
otherwise in nature. Think of it more like a magazine.


Why should we separate this and why should our developers mix
interesting blog entries with personal rants? Actually, I think that
we should not have *any* rants on the Haiku website. Personal rants
are for personal websites. The "articles" are intended as a newsletter
replacement, but with a lot more progress reports and Haiku-related
articles.

The Community Wiki is a place where the community can contribute
content. Your concern that it may create duplication and therefore
confusion is valid, so perhaps we could simply limit the content; this
could be handled by creating workspaces, such as the following:

- How To's
- Code snippets
- Guestbook
- Beta Docs

The "Beta Docs" deserves special mention; this could be like a "draft"
workspace for community-contributed documentation that, after review
(and changes if necessary), can be moved over the to Documentation area.


I don't think we need a guestbook. How To's could be part of Beta Docs
as all documentation should be part of our website. I agree, we should
limit the wiki to "draft content".

I do not want ugly hacks, so we agree on that. :-)

I was thinking something along the lines of this:

http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/blog

I am not concerned about the content; it is a blog, where people can
rant, and others can comment. It is more of a social thing.


I think it would be too unprofessional to have this on our website.
All important content should be part of the official website section
and that doesn't leave much room for interesting Haiku-related
articles in the user section. This will end in too many off-topic
discussions and that's exactly what we should not have on the official
site.

I prefer a separate community site which offers much more than just
blogs. It should for example also have email accounts. It should be
done by the community because we don't have the resources for this.

> I am sorry to say this, but IMHO, the only obviously useful item in
> the "user" section is "forums". We should also explicitly point to the
> "support forum".

No, it is not a support forum, unless you want to do customer service,
that is. :-)


Call it "user support forums" or whatever. It's a place where users
help other users. We already have this forum.

The *Community Forums* (with a special stress on *commnunity*) are
another place for the community to exchange ideas, tips, or to simply
socialize. It is for the community, and will not be confounded with
anything official.


Exactly. Our phpBB forums already do this job.

Haiku is composed of teams (development, marcom, etc.) that work
together for a common goal. The devs focus on the code, we at marcom
will focus on how to market the ideas (and eventually the product) of
Haiku best. Teams communicate, discuss and coordinate (this is what the
admin meetings should be for). We can also disagree. But in the end, we
should trust each other's good judgment in each particular area of
competence. Trying to subordinate any function to the another (which is
what you seem to be implying) will only work for one side, but not the
other, and in the end for nobody.


You talk about "trust", but then you don't even want to give the
developers (the people who *make* Haiku! it's *their* product!)
access. That's a bad solution and I doubt that any of us will accept
it. We trust you if you trust us.

The content that would be under the marketing umbrella is the following:

- Front page
- About (which includes FAQ)
- News & Events
- Newsletter

Tell me, which of the above is largely produced and/or initiated by the
devs?


There is news when our developers achieve a new goal. The developers
decide which direction our product takes (About). The newsletters have
always been written by our developers. The front page is just a
summary and starting point for those articles.

> Is the internal team structure really of any interest to end-users?
> We don't have sponsors, yet, but I hope that this will change. :)

It is important that people beyond the small circle of Haiku fans start
knowing who are the individuals behind Haiku. In the long term, it
produces recognition and value. Just to give you a practical example, if
Haiku decided to participate in at conference in, say, Japan, and Axel
were to give a presentation, the attendance that you can expect could
heavily vary depending on whether people know who Axel is or not. Making
the individuals known also open up editorial opportunities, something
that will be very valuable for Haiku being that we do not have the $$$
resources to pay for advertising.


That's not what I meant. The internal team structure is too detailed.
I wanted to have a "The people behind Haiku" page which describes all
main developers:
* name
* location
* year of birth / birthday
* hobbies (apart from Haiku)
* maybe a funny quote
* what the other developers say about him
* real-life identity (web designer, student, etc.)
And maybe a few "funny" questions along the lines of "coffee or tea?".
That would indeed fit into "About".

The news is the conduit for official/formal announcements/communication
with the public (Haiku fans + the rest of the world). As the number of
news items builds up, it is very convenient to have the news archived by
topic, month, and even years. It makes it extremely to find what you are
looking for. Something along the lines of this:


Okay, I just want the "latest news" to be part of the front page.
Apart from that I agree that we should have such an archive and I saw
a Drupal plugin somewhere which offers weekly and monthly (and
yearly?) archives.

WalterCon DEFINITELY needs its own entry! WalterCon is great opportunity
that we have to exploit more, and the way to do that is to have a place
where you can always find information about the event, present, past and
future. Not only would we use it to inform of future events, but also to
archive information about the events that happened in the past, and
provide some of the content for download (pictures, videos, etc.). In
the future, we may even look into how to automate some of the logistics
to organize the show, such as allowing donations specific to WalterCon,
and having a payment mechanism for the attendants. Last but not least,
WalterCon has sponsors, and this is where they will get the recognition
for supporting the event.


You're right. I just thought it would not be necessary to make this
section extremely visible, but now I agree. I'd just rather call it
"Community Events" or something like that and mention events all over
the world (WalterCon, BeGeister, is there something in Japan?, etc.).

>> - Development (as is + Documentation)
>
> What about end-user documentation?

We are not addressing end users deliberately, as our key targets right
now are developers. Provisions will be made for user documentation for
when Haiku 1.0 is released.


Does this mean that we should not prepare the website for this? That
would be very short-sighted.

"Collaborate" sounds more like a community oriented place, but
terminology aside, I have no clue what the plans are for certification
(if any), so I cannot comment intelligently on the subject. If the
certification process has been defined, and whatever guidelines/specs
need to be met have been documented, then you may need a place for this
information; if nothing is defined and there is no documented
guidelines/specs, then I don't see the point to this page.


Well, it's not only this certification (which must still be worked out
and you would be the perfect person for it, I guess). We also should
have a place for official logos ("Haiku", "Get Haiku", "Haiku User"
and "Haiku Developer" and "Haiku Tester" banners, etc.) and other
marketing material. Michael suggested to call it the section
"Marketing", but IMHO it doesn't really fit with the
certification/distribution information.

> This is at least much better than having *nothing* to work with. I
> like progressing in quick steps more than having to wait and doing
> nothing.

Sorry, but my goal is not to keep people busy, but to try to make things
better. But I understand your frustration. :-)


It's just that you can't take every possible problem into account if
you do this alone. It will take *much* more time than discussing it
with us and working on it together. You will never be able to release
the *perfect* proposal.

Bye,
Waldemar Kornewald

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