Re: new website draft 8: almost giving up

[Graham Percival]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 10:46:00PM -0700, Mark Polesky wrote:
> Graham Percival wrote:
> 
> > Besides, asking our users to advertize our site will *also* be
> > easier when we have a new site.  I mean, it gives a good excuse to
> > motivate people, right?
> 
> Oh, maybe I misread your earlier comment. I was thinking
> links,
> not announcements.

Well, I'm thinking about both.  I mean, annoucements would surely
contain links, right?  :)

> > The meta description field, or the "what is lilypond" box? If
> > you're talking about the "what is lilypond" box, then please
> > supply the exact new text you're proposing.  I'm completely fed up
> > with crafting and re-crafting those two (or more) sentences.
> 
> From an SEO perspective, the meta description is worth a lot more
> than the "What is LilyPond" box:
> 
> <meta name="description" content="LilyPond... free music notation software.">

I'm *totally* fine with that.

> > I'm happy to accept a compliment, but I don't understand the
> > comment.  If you're suggesting that the general public understands
> > "free", then I disagree.  If you're suggesting that the
> > "free-aware" fraction of the population outnumbers the
> > "non-free-aware" fraction of the population, then I also disagree.
> 
> I think you wrote something about the word "free" being a
> detractor for certain demographics. And I wasn't referring to
> "free-aware" either. All I was suggesting was that I think you'll
> attract more customers than you'll detract if you have "free" in
> your target phrase. Because we Americans are greedy.

But also cynical.  TASATAAFL, remember?

I'm not saying that we shouldn't include "free"; I'm just saying
that after we explain what "free" means, we should explain why we
do it.  Otherwise all those nasty cynical Americans are going to
assume that it's "too good to be true".  :)

I mean, in many ways, the free open-source movement *is* "too good
to be true".  But unlike all the scams that sound too good to be
true, it actually *is* true.  I think we need to explain/reassure
people that we're not crazy (or scammers).

> > In any case, I can't believe that "Why do developers work on free
> > software", in a special box of its own, would make the website
> > harder to navigate.
> 
> No, it won't. I think Jan was just saying that there might be a
> better place for it. I actually like that section. Maybe it could
> go somewhere else, but I don't know. It's pretty small right now.
> It doesn't really bother me there. It is a little FAQy; if we had
> an on-site FAQ, that would be a better place. But whatever, there
> are probably more important things to work on anyway.

Remember my claim that a FAQ is simply a sign of bad
documentation?  :)   Yes, we have a FAQ now... although it's not
added to the build system yet... but that FAQ will *only* contain
links to the rest of the docs.

Cheers,
- Graham