[zeromq-dev] Website -- separating newbies from the community

[Pieter Hintjens]

On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Martin Lucina <mato at kotelna.sk> wrote:

> Well, the "newbie" category is minimalist; looking at the current .com site
> it's just the front page and "Get the software"; Join the community might
> as well go straight to the existing site, no?

Yes, that was the idea.  My problem with that is that I'd like a
simple page explaining how to get help, report an issue, etc. (the
current third page).

One option is that on the new community site there is a big '?' icon
labeled "Get Help".

So this is still the reason I've not merged the two sites; we need in fact:

* Read about 0MQ
* Get and build the software
* Report an issue / get help
* Explore / work with / join 0MQ community projects

The current .org site is a rough mix of these four but by moving the
first three parts out we can refactor the remaining content into the
neater collection of easy-to-navigate projects that I'd like to
encourage.  (Same reason as Debian uses packages, it scales.)

There's a fifth page we need, which is "Get commercial support", i.e.
the 0MQ Market, which we'll make once there are enough businesses
offering 0MQ products and services.  By end-2010 we'll be there, I'd
guess.

So IMO this brings us to a front page with four (and later five) main
pages, where one (the community page) jumps off to several dozen other
'microsites', maintained by the project owner.

Right now those microsites are entangled in zeromq.org (e.g. bindings
pages, whitepaper wiki, etc. with unclear responsibilities) or
elsewhere (reference manual, zguide, etc.)

This is what I mean by it becoming more complex, not simpler, to
manage.  It's doable and I'd like to proceed with little steps.

-
Pieter Hintjens
iMatix - www.imatix.com