Infrastructure "Doing" (was: Re: [libreoffice-website] Website Projectplan)

Hi Charles, Michael, David, and especially Mike! "All", not to
forget ;-)

Am Montag, den 31.01.2011, 11:02 +0100 schrieb Charles-H. Schulz:
> Le Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:02:34 +0930,
> Michael Wheatland <michael@wheatland.com.au> a écrit :
> > On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 11:23 PM, Charles-H. Schulz
> > <charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org> wrote:
> > > Unless I'm misstaken we have no actual plans to redesign the
> > > website in any substantial way for at least 6 months...
> >
> > There is always room for improvement, and as we seem to have the
> > vibrancy and resources I would love to see the website team step up
> > and do what they do best. [...]
>
> While there is always room for improvement -I understand you talk about
> incremental progress (fixing bugs on the website, etc.)- I do not
> believe that continuously remaking the website is what desirable.

There has been something I really liked concerning Mike's proposal - he
added some initial planning (focus, keeping it simple, goals). And this
is something which helps a lot, even if pages are "just" incrementally
improved.

But, and this is more important to me, it would also be valid for other
website activities.

> Also, it's a matter of priority. I understand there are many volunteers
> for the website
[...]
> there are many ideas out there, on the wiki, from easy stuff to more
> complex efforts that are only waiting to be implemented...
[...]

> > As far as I know, the plan was to wait until David presented the work
> > he had compiled, then the whole website team would get involved in the
> > improving phase. Don't get me wrong, the work David produced is
> > fantastic, but I know that as a team we can create something that
> > really represents the quality standard of the LibreOffice software
> > product.
>
> You are absolutely welcome to work with the website team! But I don't
> have the feeling they want to restart the website over and over again.

> From the UX point-of-view, I welcome any effort to make the website more
usable and helpful for users. At the moment, I welcome the ideas
concerning improved Information Architecture, making the pages a bit
easier to understand, making them visually enjoyable. 

On the other hand, I perceive some mis-balance with regard to some of
the topics discussed here. Sometimes we are not that bad (e.g. website),
or there are established alternatives that work well at the moment (e.g.
forums). But product development and marketing needs a bit more.

When reading the other mailing lists, I perceive that people do have
interest and special needs concerning website infrastructure. It would
help to test new tools, check whether they improve the workflows, having
better usability. I fear that these demands are missed at the moment ...
although they would raise the "quality standard of the LibreOffice
software product" - to refer to this nice sentence by Michael.

And now it becomes a bit difficult for me - since I know that I'd like
to focus on the Design Team, and since I'm lacking some technical skills
concerning the infrastructure administration.

But a proposal nevertheless: why not picking one or two of those
requests ... this would be extremely helpful within the community, and
increase the trust what the website team can deliver. And a little
planning like Mike did and also discussed in public, would be helpful as
well.

> > I am not sure who you are referring to by 'we', but these plans were
> > discussed at length on the recent conference call, and the team has
> > people who are willing to get on board and help out 'now'.

If this is also true for other topics, there is plenty of stuff that can
bring much value to the community!

Cheers,
Christoph


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