new FreeBSD-webpage

[Murray Stokely]

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 03:12:04PM +1000, Greg Black wrote:
> To list the most critical issues:
> 
>   * Many important navigation links (e.g., the Handbook, the
>     Ports) disappeared from the front page.

The Handbook was added back to the front page hours ago in response to
earlier posts.  If you cared about following such things, paying
attention to CVS, or submitting patches you would have noticed.  I've
also proposed adding the Ports link to the shortcuts bar on the front
page.  I agree with you here -- those are two very important links.

>   * The user interface design is dreadful (e.g., fixed sizes for
>     things that cause all kinds of breakage when windows are
>     resized or font sizes changed to suit the reader).

Most feedback we have received would disagree with that statement.
Please provide patches for the CSS if the fixed width stuff bothers
you so we can evaluate what you propose as being better.  It will be
evaluated 100% fairly.  Show us your patches or be quiet on this
point.

>   * Really boring junk has replaced real content on the front
>     page (e.g., lengthy list of new committers under the heading
>     of "news").

That content was already on the front page of the old site.  The
content of the news bar has not changed at all.  I have complained
about the fact that we don't submit enough news stories for 4+ years.
I fix it by adding lots of news items whenever I can think of one.  Do
you submit patches or PRs to submit more interesting news items?  If
not, why complain when you are part of the problem?

> Anyway, rather than protesting that the new thing is wonderful
> and continually demanding "constructive" criticism from people
> who are offering just that, why not listen to the suggestions
> and see how to improve things?

Your mail has one constructive comment in it (About ports and handbook
links belonging on the front page).  Everything else is a vague rant.
You vaguely say you don't like the design but don't offer any better
alternative.  That is not an impressive signal to noise ratio.
Provide patches to your CSS / font complaints.

> site.  The claims that the old site was too hard to use that
> have been advanced as the main reason for the update just don't
> hold water, as far as I'm concerned.

You're welcome to hold that opinion.  I don't care to debate you on
it.  It's just not fair when you act like we are not concerned with
valid criticism when it comes our way.  Changes to valid points have
been made within hours of them first being brought up on the lists.
We've made even more changes to the design in response to feedback
over the past few months.

> Anyway, I see that the people in charge will do whatever they
> want and it will be up to the rest of us to make the best of it.

The people in charge worked very hard over 6 months to get broad
consensus for this change.  If you were interested in being a part of
this process you should have been subscribed to freebsd-www@, read the
front page where we announced a summer of code student was working a
redesign, read through the developer status reports, watched the CVS
logs, or any of the other many different methods you could have stayed
informed about the new design work.

	    - Murray