Re: Web Design Feedback

Mike,

I second the idea of putting photos on Flickr.  They have great  
infrastructure and technology for making it fun to look at photos  
(great use of flash!).  I haven't seen any php-based (or other) photo  
album plug ins that even come close.

Also, I agree with what you said at the meeting about only needing  
one mailing list.  The BLUG is low-traffic enough that there is  
limited utility for users and admins to subscribe to and manage  
multiple lists.  As well, if the goal is to "get the word out," I  
think a single list will work better.  I also think it's important to  
keep an archive of list messages.

There was a discussion about the administrative overhead of managing  
the list due to spam messages and the possibility of moving from an  
open-source to commercial-but-free email list hosting service (was it  
google groups?).  I would argue that the removal of the  
administrative burden would outweigh the possible watering down of  
the BLUG brand.  And, anyway, if the list is named "beijinglug.org  
mailing list" and is linked from the beijinglug.org site, then you  
probably have more than enough branding.  Further, google is a friend  
of open-source, and Linus Torvalds would probably recommend that we  
go with whatever works.  Certainly if you look at some of his emails  
about open-source ideology, it sounds like Linus is a pragmatist.   
Our other great master and part of the namesake--The GNU/Linux User  
Group, as I recall--Richard Stallman, may disagree.

Given that meetings are rarely more than once a month (and always on  
the second Tuesday), I would propose to drop the calendar--everyone  
knows when the meetings are coming up.  Instead, the main page could  
just post something about the next meeting.  There's more than enough  
room on the page for three meetings, if it's a particularly busy  
month.  And why two pages of introductory content?

What type of useful info do you think is best for the web site?  I  
know that if I have a Linux question, I'm going to google, not  
beijinglug.org.  On the other hand, if I'm curious about Beijing or  
China-specific open-source/Linux/computing questions, I might ask the  
mailing list, or dig through the archives.

I think it would be great to get a secretary (I nominate David Feng!)  
to do write-ups on all the meetings and post it to a page on the site  
with a link in the mailing list.  For example, one of the Chinese  
open-source guys proposed bringing a godson computer to a meeting in  
the near future.  This runs a Chinese-developed MIPS-based CPU  
running at 266MHz and consuming very little power.  It's a very  
interesting project, and I think the BLUG could do a nice write up on  
it.  A write-up (or video/audio) of the presentations would be great,  
too.

You also mentioned putting up a section about companies doing open- 
source work.  Is the idea that you will go after big companies like  
Red Hat and IBM for US$5K sponsorship?  I'm OK with that, but I think  
you should discuss it further at the next general meeting.  My  
concern is that some people who see the BLUG as a meeting of  
hobbyists might be turned off by it becoming corporate.

Searchability: I think if you do adsense, you can get google to index  
your site and do site-specific search for you.  If you do write-ups,  
searchability would be an important feature.  That way, when I'm  
looking for that-presentation-last-year-about-osdl, I could just type  
it in the search box on the beijinglug.org site.

Job advertisements: How about a policy of letting people who are  
looking for jobs or service-providers post to the mailing list and  
allowing private responses?  Would that make sense?

Anyway, Mike, thanks for your continued leadership and offer to  
improve the site.  Just my two mao.

-Peter

On Jan 9, 2007, at 10:36 PM, Michael Iannini wrote:

> Hi Bluggers,
>
> In order to satisfy Ken, just kidding Ken, I wanted to post an  
> announcemnet to all users that next week Bjorn, myself and other  
> interested members would sit down and simplify the site.  In  
> essence cut it down to what we need and focus on key content areas;  
> i.e. meeting minutes, news feeds, mailing list feed, photo gallery  
> and calendar, as well as two pages of introductory content.
>
> If anyone has any advice, wishes to contribute or wants to even  
> manage a separate section of the site where original content is  
> created, your support is warmly welcome.  For now, we will try to  
> take elements of the current plone site, move to Google Mailing  
> lists, link up with FlickR and perhaps use Wiki.  In any case  
> Bjorn's role will be to help break down what we have as he  
> developed it, and then members like Adam, Fred, Lalo and Julien  
> experessed an interest in the new development.  Hopefully one  
> person can bring it all together, but if possible I would like to  
> make everyones life as easy as possible.
>
> Lastly, please understand, the goal is to ensure that the BLUG has  
> a point of presence on the web where people can go to our site and  
> get a glimpse of our mailing list, our activities, link to  
> pictures, read about the meetings and any other content that can be  
> posted.  When someone asks when the next meeting is I want to say  
> go to www.beijinglug.org, if they want to see pictures I want to  
> say go to www.beijinglug.org, if they want to search some helpful  
> info, I would ideally like to say go to www.beijinglug.org and from  
> their join our list.
>
> Thank you for your patience and support, I look forward to  
> everyones feedback.  By the end of this week I anticipate we will  
> settle on a time to meet.  We will try to keep this working group  
> small, but all advice is welcome as we want this site as user  
> friendly as possible.
>
> Please email
>
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Michael Iannini
> President, BLUG
>
> _______________________________________________
> blug-general list
> [email protected]
> http://list.beijinglug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/blug-general

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