Hi all,

please let me clarify my original intention when I opened this thread.

Am Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:17:00 +0200
schrieb Bernhard Dippold <[email protected]>:
> Kay Schenk schrieb:
> > yes, this is true and exactly why the CC needs to be involved.
> 
> I don't know if this is a topic for the CC:

I dont think we need the CC to change single links on the contributing
page. Of course, we would need to get the CC involved when killing of
the contributing subdomain completely.

> But that's just my personal opinion - not necessarily the right one...
> >
> > [...]
> >> With regards to the links you mentioned I just add a few lines:
> >>
> >>
> >>> http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.html vs.
> >>> http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Development
> >>
> >>> http://contributing.openoffice.org/qa.html vs.
> >>> http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Quality_Assurance
> >>
> >
> > I'm OK with changing these two links (and will this week) after I
> > take a better look at the QA area
> 
> You did understand me right: Not linking to the wiki page, but to the 
> project frontpages at the website instead.

As a developer I think http://development.openoffice.org/ is:
- an information overkill for an interested newcomer in development
- mixing way to many topic:
  - developing OpenOffice.org itself
  - extending OpenOffice.org (using it as a platform, using its API)
  - QA is not development
- even talking about CVS, which is totally out-of-date
- way to confusing (and to long) and little inviting compared to the
  wiki (less is more!!!)

So as a developer, I vote for navigating anyone looking for
"contributing to development" to the wiki.

As for the other departments, be it QA, Marketing or whatever it is of
course up to those projects to navigate their newcomers to the most
inviting page they offer. IMHO, most other projects have better wiki
pages than static pages, so if this is done honestly we might end up
with most, if not all links going directly to the wiki. That would be
the point when we should consider getting rid of the remaining
contributing.openoffice.org by moving remaining content to the project
pages.

So my idea would be:
- link to the wiki for contributing/development
- let other departments/projects consider, if they are better served
  with linking directly to the project page or the wiki
- consider migrating remaining content away from contributing to either
  project pages or the wiki and killing the domain, if there is very
  little left

The reason I bring this up is that I have that at least we (developers)
are already overexpanded with all the different locations we have
content on the webpages (development.openoffice.org, project homes like
sw.openoffice.org, contributing.openoffice.org, the wiki) so that we
cant keep them all up to date (or if we would we wouldnt develop
anymore). I also feel that outdated, misleading or contradicting info is
way worse than no info at all as it can lead to major frustrations
(example: confusing newcomers with infos about CVS). Also consider that
especially developers are very keen on judging the "activity" of a
project ... the timestamp "Date: 2009/11/20 11:59:48" on
development.openoffice.org would cause suspicions about the open source
project being dead, if this wasnt OpenOffice.org. The wiki OTOH shows
buzzing activity ...

For comparison: Its two clicks from the mozilla.org homepage to
the wiki. "Get Involved" -> "Coding/Developers can help". On gnome.org
it is three clicks ("Contribute" -> "start contributing" ->
"Development"), with one of the first two clicks being superficial. On
kde.org there is a link directly on the homepage ("Development
Platform/Techbase Wiki").

Best Regards,

Bjoern

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