www/86970: The new web site look and feel is not FreeBSDish as we all know and love

[George Danchev]

On Thursday 06 October 2005 20:19, Simon L. Nielsen wrote:
--cut--
> Yes there are things that need to be changed, it was never the plan to
> just change to the new web site and then leave it.  We knew that there
> where things that should be improved, but it's much simpler to do once
> we have it in our many CVS repository and people have had some time to
> digest the new site.

This does not explain the deploying the new and unfinished web site in 
production without being announced on the old one and shown to the site 
visitors as in separate dir/. No all site visitors are supposed to read 
www/doc mailing lists, but all of them are vulnerable to unexpacted 
surprices. Also you might have distributed it in cvs repo as separate branch 
or dir or whatever without main site surprises.

-cut--

> > It has already been said that the important links should stay on the main
> > page, not forcing people digging hard for stuff.
>
> I agree, but defining what is important is really hard since we have
> many different types of users of the web site.  E.g. we have new
> commers that want to learn about FreeBSD, regular users, developers
> etc etc.

Ok I hope you are collecting the requested links found in the old mainpage and 
not in the new one.

> > Look at the old site's left
> > pane for example. These are the bullet lists links for Platforms,
> > Software, Documentation, Support, Bug Reports, Development (at least)
> > along with their submenus as links. Just one-click away - clean, sane and
> > simple.
>
> And way too many links almost never used which made it hard to find
> the important parts (IMO).

The important parts are now missing from the new site IMO and not only mine.

> > Also my personal opinion is that the new site should have been placed at
> > freebsd.org/new and discussed to death before surprising people
> > unexpectedly,
>
> It has been said many times on the doc/www mailing lists that we would
> do this so anybody that was really interested in the topic and have
> been on our mailing lists have already had a chance to suggest improvments.

Again, you do not need to challenge site visitors not tracking www/doc mailing 
lists. 

> Also note that over the last year or so there has been several longs
> threads about the topic.  Also, discussing it to death would just have
> meant exactly that - nothing would have changed.

As I already said you missed to deploy freebsd.org/new/ (whatever you have 
done for people to see), leave the old one as it used to be with a clear 
announce for the new one... instead of just placing the old and working one 
in old/.

> I'm sorry that you don't find the new web site to be an improvement,
> but I and many other people do.  And belive me, this was _not_ done to
> annoy people.

I believe you. Just constructive critisism. 
And thanks God there are always other options to consider.

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