[fpc-devel] Offer to repair and maintain the FPC community website (repeat msg, no HTML)

[Cephas Atheos]

On 26/09/12 10:58 PM, "Sven Barth" <pascaldragon at googlemail.com> wrote:

>Regarding mailing lists: If I know that certain content was sent since
>I'm registered I'll use my mailing client's search otherwise I do a
>"searchterm site:freepascal.org" in Google. ;)

Ah, yes, see that's exactly what I'm hoping to stop ever happening again!

That's a wonderful tip! But it's nowhere on the website, the wiki, or
anywhere else related to the project, at least as far as I can search at
the moment!

So part of "phase one" (that sounds so administrator-ish, doesn't it?
Sorry...) will be to put that kind of information right there on the front
page where new users can see it, smack between their eyes.

And I'll bet my next week's grog ration that no new user would know that
kind of search is a) possible, and b) required in order to find archived
results.

If I may be so boldŠ let's start thinking about a solid attempt to get new
users into the community and compiling projects and asking questions as
quickly and easily as we can afford to, with all due diligence for
security and integrity of the existing data. That means that, unless we
can come up with a cross-platform, non-text-mode (I.e. GUI-based) access
method, that people like, are used to, and is easy to use and maintain,
we're just planning for a new front fence while the gate won't open!

I realise now that many people here are very comfortable with nntp and
mail servers, and that's perfectly understandable - after all, why fix it
if it ain't broke?

The catch is, in reality, the vast, overwhelming, majority of new users
DON'T want to have to reconfigure their mail clients (who does?), or find
a base-64 decoder, or use google to search for stuff that's "under their
feet", so to speak.

I think that Greg must have had an horrific experience with a forum at
some time, I hope it hasn't scarred you for life, mate! ;)

The way I figure it, if you guys can even get a bit of a break, an extra
hour a week that you don't have to spend sorting out snmp tags or tracing
router logs, then that's a good thing for you AND the fpc community.
(AAAAaaaahhh...I sound like a real estate agent - somebody shoot me before
I say "going forwardŠ" :)

Kostas and Doug, I agree that even a few little things (like the, er,
"distracting" running pussycat thing) can make a huge difference. And the
site can be easily fixed up without turning it into the Lazarus site
(which is a bit cluttered, I agree, but it's not the VERY worst PHPbb site
I've come across, and clueless users like me have no problems getting on
board!).

I personally love the idea of the latest FPC build being freely available,
along with links to the most important documentation, with wiki links
below that. And a link to the Lazarus site and/or binary.

A time-and-motion guy a few years ago (when I worked in HP) told us that
for every extra click our customers had to do to get what they wanted on a
website, we lost half of those customers. Four clicks is three clicks too
many!

I don't know if that statistic is true or not, but I'd like the
opportunity to try. (We do have a download counter, don't we? So we can
actually measure simple things like that?)

So, let's ask the question : given infinite resources, and infinite funds,
and infinite time, what do we need to have on that all-important front
page?

I'm not talking about forums or that heavy stuff just yet - that's a much
tougher job, and  can be referenced from the front page, as can the
message list.

What would _you_ expect to see on the fpc site the very first time you saw
it? What do _you_ use the most from the front page as it is now? What
would _you_ want to be able to do in one click (or less)?