SEUL: Re: [Fwd: (FWD) seul web site requirements]

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

Just two clarifications:
1) I hope to patch this up so it says better things, sometime before
the meeting. Hopefully that will be Monday afternoon. I'm on a bit of
a timecrunch for other things currently too, so..
But only skim this version for now, since I hope to change it.
2) Down there where Pete says "Roger Dingledine wrote", it wasn't me,
it was Doug.

--Roger

On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 12:00:09AM -0500, Pete St. Onge wrote:
> My pathetic attempt at a spec. :) I've emailed pertty much everyone I
> remembered talking about this to, and am looking forward to tomorrow's short
> irc meeting (2130 EST). I've also cc'ed this to seul-pub-www as doug
> suggested.
> 
> I hope this doesn't confuse the issue. Our primary reason for wanting to do
> this was to reduce the work required to maintain the site, particularly news
> and other info
> 
> I refer to doug's email in the text, and I pasted it below.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Pete
> 
> ---
> 
> I should start by explaining that I see a hierarchy here: SEUL is the main
> project under which individual projects as well as what I call meta projects
> (access, edu and sci) fall. Individual projects can also fall under these
> meta projects.
> 
> Aaron's questions are numbered, everything below
> 
> 1) what do you like about the current web site
>    - we know where everything is, and we can change things easily
> 
> 2) what don't you like?
>    - Keeping news and pages maintained is time consuming, and this is
>      my primary concern.
>    - Doug's point about lack of consistant look-n-feel is a good one
> 
> 3) Do you have a prototype/layout/look/color scheme you'd like?
>    Perhaps you like the look of another site?
>    - I'm thinking that perhaps more than one presentation style could be set
> up, so that a user with a graphical browser would get one presentation, and
> the lynx/links user could get a more text-oriented presentation. I don't
> know of how to make this work offhand, but since we'll be hosting access, it
> would be important.
>    - simple layout would be good, imo
>    - a template-like layout would be cool, so that we could easily change
> the look of the site as required.
> 
> 
> 4) What kind of information do you want to track?  (project names,
>    news, dates associated, general info on each project, people
>    names/emails, etc)
>    - this will differ with others, but my primary concern is making the day
> to day maintenance easier, especially with respect to news. setting up all
> projects to use this approach is not necessarily essential, although it
> would be nice. each project should be able to opt into this if they so
> desire.
>    - links to our current offerings (general info, goals, software) should
> be available from the mainpage
> 
> 
> 5) What information/content do you want to track for all projects?
>    for starters...
>    - goal(s)
>    - contact
>    - status
>    - what project or meta project it falls under
>      .. much of this would presumably be on the project's main page, so it
> doesn't necessarily have to be elsewhere.
> 
> 6) Do you want to centralize control of content for a few people or
>    give each project control over their own destiny?  Some kind of
>    mix?
>    - personally, I think I'd like to see a mix; the individual projects
> should be free to set things up as they please. submitted news items should
> go up to the overlying projects for validation and posting on the frontpage.
> the main and metaproject frontpages should be in the hands of a few people.
>    - approval for posting news items to the main and metaproject pages
> should be done via web interface and require authentication. individual
> projects should be able to do the same
> 
> 7) How do you want projects and their information organized and
>    categorized?
>    - some projects fall directly under the seul umbrella, others under edu,
> access or sci. it would be cool to have the project group to be specified in
> the info
>    - last news item date
>    - type of item (info, release, presence at expo, etc) and have the item 
> 
> 
> 8) Other thoughts...
>    - I'd like to see each individual project being able to submit their own
> news details. If their own site is enabled in this way, their own details
> would go on their front page. the news item would also be forwarded to the
> meta project page (access, edu or sci), where the item can be validated and
> then put up on the meta project mainpage. The news item should be submitted
> by default to the mainpage as well
>     - frontpages should post 8-14 news items or so, with a link to a page
> listing all news items available
> 
> 
> 
> Roger Dingledine wrote:
> 
> > ----- Forwarded message from "Aaron D. Turner" <aturner@pobox.com> >
> >
> > 1) what do you like about the current web site
> >
> 
> It's easy to maintain (not that we do a particularly good job at that).
> 
> >
> > 2) what don't you like?
> >
> 
> There's no overall "look-n-feel" to the site.  Various pages follow
> different styles and/or stylesheets, depending on when, how, and by whom
> they were created.  We also have a lot of historical pages that haven't been
> modified in a long time.
> 
> >
> > 3) Do you have a prototype/layout/look/color scheme you'd like? 
> > Perhaps you like the look of another site?
> >
> 
> I think the hosting page that Daniel put together is nice, without a bunch
> of trivial presentation hacks that get in the way of usability.  I'm
> somewhat of a minimalist when it comes to web authorship, perhaps because
> I'm not very good at graphical stuff.  Still, I think Occam's Razor works
> here too: the simplest is generally to be preferred.
> 
> >
> > 4) What kind of information do you want to track?  (project names,
> > news, dates associated, general info on each project, people
> > names/emails, etc)
> >
> 
> All the above is nice, plus perhaps some indicator of activity level of the
> project (last modification date?).  Of course, it assumes that someone is
> willing to invest the time in doing the tracking and page authoring
> required. Now that I think about it, the names/emails of the people
> associated with each project should probably be left for the project pages
> themselves rather than the general SEUL page.
> 
> We also should keep general information about SEUL, its goals, and its
> offerings available from the main page, as well as links to email archives.
> The email archives page should be kept up-to-date to reflect the various
> active SEUL mailing lists, with some criterion for moving inactive lists
> somewhere else or removing them entirely.
> 
> >
> > 5) What information/content do you want to track for all projects?
> >
> 
> See above.
> 
> >
> > 6) Do you want to centralize control of content for a few people or
> > give each project control over their own destiny?  Some kind of mix?
> >
> 
> For the main site, there should be some small group with clear
> responsibility for its maintenance.  For the projects, there should be
> someone listed as the site maintainer who can decide to share responsibility
> for it with others in the project.  But the maintainer would be responsible
> for the project's website maintenance as a whole.  We should also provide a
> standard SEUL CSS stylesheet (or perhaps a selection of stylesheets) that
> projects can choose if they want
> to look like the general SEUL site.
> 
> >
> > 7) How do you want projects and their information organized and
> > categorized?
> >
> 
> Logically.  Seriously, there are many ways to do this.  I think Daniel's
> hosting page is a good first cut at it.  I'll be happy to whine and snivel
> about any system that the rest of you dream up.
> 
> >
> > 8) Other thoughts...
> >
> 
> Is the seul-pub-www mailing list still around?  It was for discussions of
> this type.  If it is, should we continue this there or here?
> 
> --
> Doug Loss                 God is a comedian playing
> Data Network Coordinator  to an audience too afraid
> Bloomsburg University     to laugh.
> dloss@bloomu.edu                Voltaire