Re: Website Improvement Ideas

[Christopher Rawnsley <rawprawns@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 15 Apr 2008, at 03:39, Justin C. Sherrill wrote:
> I'm currently using WordPress for the Digest, which is PHP-based.  The
> software itself is nice, but that underlying language isn't likely  
> to get
> run on dragonflybsd.org machines anytime soon.  Perhaps using  
> something
> like Movable Type (not PHP based, somewhat more robust) would be a  
> more
> comfortable choice - it's what I used to start the Digest, and the  
> reasons
> I had switched away are no longer present.

It sounds as if this has already been discussed. Can you share why PHP  
is undesirable and Perl is more (for that is what I am lead to believe  
that Movable Type is written in)? Also, i am curious as to why you  
switched away from MT in the first place?

> That aside, I'd like to have the Digest on dragonflybsd.org and make  
> it
> possible for others to add to it; it'd be even more interesting to  
> have a
> developer talking about why they did what they did instead of just me
> linking to it.  Would I then have to stay more on topic?  I don't  
> know,
> but I hope not.

I think this is good direction to go. It should make it feel like a  
more accessible community if users get to hear the voice of developers.

> I've suggested turning the whole site into a wiki; everything on
> dragonflybsd.org can be produced the same way on a wiki but with less
> effort in terms of creation.  Wikis tend to be messy, but with some
> organizational work, it could turn out very well for us, since adding
> files through CVS has turned out to be a rather high barrier for  
> folks who
> don't already know it.

I agree that setting up a wiki for the whole site does make things  
easier. I have done it in the past and it has worked well. I think the  
main gripe about the current wiki here is that it has no clear  
navigation. It is very much a wiki rather than a functional website. i  
don't know how flexible MoinMoin is but hopefully that can be changed  
easily so that all the good content on there can be found quicker.

What parts of .dragonflybsd.org are there? Using NetCraft I found wiki  
and leaf (The naming for "leaf" confuses me) as well as www and nntp.  
"crater" was mentioned there as well though it seems out of action at  
the moment. Are there anymore? I mention this so that information  
avoids getting repeated in multiple locations.

I have an idea about using man pages and a wiki together. I guess this  
may have been discussed before but just in case it hasn't... I think  
it would be great if we could some how integrate the man pages into a  
wiki like system in order to help keep are documentation as good as  
possible. But this shouldn't just be a one way thing and the  
documentation from the wiki should also be exportable back in to the  
offline man pages in the OS. Thoughts?