Re: When do we update the homepage to a modern design? (was Re: Moving away from (unsupportable) FusionForge on Alioth)

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Steffen Möller writes ("Re: When do we update the homepage to a modern design? (was Re: Moving away from (unsupportable) FusionForge on Alioth)"):
> And there is a confusion over "dynamic web sites" (maybe problematic)
> with "non-static content" (must have).

I don't know what these terms mean.  I see four kinds of ways in which
a website might be `dynamic' as opposted to `static':

 * Content which is updated fairly frequently and relates to recent
   events, such as news stories, blog posts, and testimonials.

   I have no objection to this kind of thing and I can see how it
   might make our website seem more exciting.

 * Websites which reorganise themselves through CSS and/or JavScript
   to try to produce a better selection of visibloe bits depending on
   the screen size.

   I find these mildly annoying, but I don't use a smartphone and
   apparently smartphones are terrible at laying out ordinary web
   pages (because wtf?).  I don't really object to this kind of
   approach so long as all features remain accessible (perhaps through
   extra clicks) even on small screens, and there is sensible fallback
   if JavaScript and/or CSS are not supported.

 * Websites with elements which, when you move the mouse, pop up
   menus, change shape or colour, etc. etc.  I find these intensely
   irritating.  Often they are buggy too.

 * Websites with elements which move even when you don't touch the
   computer.  This is an outrage - an outrage, I tell you!  That
   web browsers even honour this kind of thing by default is a
   travesty.  Rant rant rant.

Can some webby person please tell me the conventional names for these
four levels of dynamism ?

> We should vividly demonstrate on our home page that we are just that -
> alive and developing. If we could have users contribute success stories
> like "I switched my Granny from Windows to Debian and she likes it" or
> "We autoconfigure our HPC cluster in the cloud with Debian and Ansible,
> saving us 30 grand this year" then we have enough to get people hooked
> and invest to dig deeper into the site, I tend to think.

That sounds like it would be nice, but it shouldn't take away from the
navigation parts of our site.  We have a lot of information; the
problem I find is that it can be difficult to find.

Ian.