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Re: original ILUG-Delhi website revisited



Ah, great to hear a fresh viewpoint on the whole new site thingie.
Without getting into an argument, let me try to explain my point of
view.

Firstly, contribution.  I agree that Linux-Delhi hasn't been a
particularly user-contributed site so far.  However, it's difficult to
say whether that was due to the innate laziness of people like me, or
attributable to the contortions one had to go through to get some new
stuff up on the site.  At least the latter portion is taken care of
with PHP-Nuke making it easy to contribute: now we need to see if the
cause was the first one.

I personally am going to keep posting stuff to the site from time to
time, mainly because it's easier for me to do so now.  Things like
interesting articles or points of view that I come across, anything
that I write myself, etc.  I hope that you also feel the same way.

Secondly, it's easier to put Ephemeral stories on the site now.  If
you look at the Ephemerids box, it's meant specifically for putting
announcements like the next meet, blood donation camps, etc on the
site.  And anyone can do it as far as I can make out.

I agree that it's difficult to find information about Linux-Delhi
itself on the site.  Have a look at the site now: the first link in
the main menu is about Linux-Delhi.  Is this better?

With respect to posting articles, I think you should just post them as
News articles for the time being.  Then we can review all articles
from time to time and link the ones that ask to be read again and
again to a permanent place, possibly in the Sections.  And the beauty
is that PHP-Nuke will provide you with the popularity of articles and
news stories itself, so no one has to make qualitative decisions about
other peoples' stories.

Bloat: yes, it's avoidable.  On the other hand, the earlier site,
while minimalistic, was a bit /too/ minimalistic IMHO.  And it hadn't
changed for donkey's years, which is a good way to kill a web site.
Let's review the web stats
(http://linux-delhi.org/stats/usage_200108.html) for a while and see
if the flat line that we were seeing earlier changes.  If it does,
it's a vindication of the new functionality.  If it doesn't, then we
should move to Nishi's or maybe even back to the old site.

Lynx: If we move the boxes to the right you'll get the big stories
first and the menus, etc later.  Would that help?

Finally, my personal point of view: I'm extremely happy that I don't
have single-handed responsibility for maintaining the site and its
content.  This is one thing that can not be handled by one or even 5
people: it needs commitment from as many people as possible.  If you
look at most of the popular sites on the 'net, they rely on content
from outside sources: LWN, Slashdot, Freshmeat, etc.  If Linux-Delhi
manages to get even 50 contributors in an year I'll consider the
change a success.

Regards,

-- Raju

>>>>> "Sunny" == Sunny Holani <sunny@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

    Sunny> Hi, The PHPNuked site, cool and neatly implemented as it
    Sunny> is, may not be exactly what Linux-Delhi needs - IMHO. I'll
    Sunny> try to explain from different perspectives.

    Sunny> I see there is a slew of messages coming on the site right
    Sunny> now, but give some time for the initial enthu to cool down,
    Sunny> and people will realise Netscape is a pain compared to the
    Sunny> comfort of pine, when it comes to posting messages etc. As
    Sunny> far as writing and posting articles is concerned,
    Sunny> Linux-Delhi has'nt the most glorious history of that. So in
    Sunny> time we'll have "There's no most read story for today", and
    Sunny> discussion boards showing last message posted on some day a
    Sunny> month back. Not too good a thing to have on the front
    Sunny> page. We dont exactly have a highly motivated, actively
    Sunny> involved, large population community here, the sort of
    Sunny> audience for which PHPNuke would be ideal.

    Sunny> For the new visitor, its intimidating. You come there
    Sunny> looking for some info, trying to find out what this
    Sunny> Linux-Delhi hullabaloo is all about, and what you get is
    Sunny> yet more hullabaloo, that too posted by some member a month
    Sunny> back. Real information about what Linux-Delhi is, what it
    Sunny> does, how to join it etc.  is hard to find. I havent yet
    Sunny> found a suitable, easily accessible, permanent place to put
    Sunny> all my articles about The blood donation camp, /dev/null
    Sunny> etc in.

    Sunny> And it's bloat. And bloat, by definition, is a bad
    Sunny> thing. At the risk of sounding as if my MBA is getting to
    Sunny> me, stuff thats technically "cool" isnt what we always
    Sunny> need. I think the older site was simple, more informative,
    Sunny> and easily accessible. Nishi's new site... with the same
    Sunny> sort of stuff, and added functionality like a tightly
    Sunny> integrated membership section and web-based maintenance
    Sunny> etc. looks like a better bet to me.  Although I still hope
    Sunny> Nishi would change the colour scheme. Its so like a
    Sunny> Sarvodaya Vidyalaya uniform, i just noticed :)

    Sunny> I must finish by saying that its still a great effort from
    Sunny> Sandip. Prompt, neat, and the sort of thing only someone
    Sunny> with a name like that could have done ;-) I hear the next
    Sunny> meeting's agenda is to give him shabashis... Who will maro
    Sunny> my proxy?

    Sunny> Regards, --Sunny.

    Sunny> P.S. - It's a pain to access with Lynx.

-- 
Raju Mathur          raju@xxxxxxxxxxxxx           http://kandalaya.org/