Re: About merging the Hurd homepage and the Hurd wiki

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Am Sonntag 09 November 2008 22:47:41 schrieb Thomas Schwinge:
> That's a valid concern, yes.  But also, the question here is, whether we
> really want to take so much care of people who blindly, thoughtlessly
> click on the first link they see, and are not themselves able to navigate
> through the whole page.  We indeed may have to be so careful.  What do
> you suggest about how to split the text?

I think we should take care that the main points about the Hurd are accessible 
to everyone, regardless of how intense he or she is reading the page. 

Just imagine Hacker X getting the link in a mail from a coworker, while he 
just takes a short break to get his head cleared from a damn mess of licensing 
issues. He may have heard of the Hurd, but the 30s of attention he spends for 
checking if the site is worth his interest (that's a quite high number) have 
to suffice to show him that he should dig deeper (what I think is necessary 
for that: "What is the Hurd", "The Hurd is active", "the Hurd works right 
now", "the Hurd offers unique features", "You can contribute"). 

The following few minutes should show him, how he can test it and, if he's 
interested in contributing, how he can contribute. 

I think this could be accomplished efficiently by changing the link name in 
"What is the Hurd" from "Read on" to "more detailed", and changing the 
structure so that "What is the Hurd" becomes a regular section and the news 
are a simple list (<h2>News</h2><ul><li>newsitem</li><li>newsitem</li></ul>). 
Also I'd put the table of contents above the news (but below the "What is the 
Hurd" section) and include the news in it. 

Best wishes, 
Arne

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