Re: PPC Port pages: dynamic "supported model list" and poll
On Sun, Nov 11, 2001 at 12:36:45AM +0200, Andreas Wüst wrote:
> James Treacy wrote:
> > The powerpc port pages are currently unmaintained.
>
> You mean there is nobody who contributes new/fixed/updated content?
>
That is exactly what I am saying.
> > Hope this helps. BTW, if this thread continues, it would probably
> > help to open it up to debian-powerpc.
>
> CC'ing -powerpc or post summaries? Well, this thread originated about 2 weeks ago in
> debian-powerpc, but I was advised to move over to -www because this would be
> the better place to discuss web related topics (well, of course it is).
>
> So, I could inform -powerpc about lacking maintenance and ask if someone would
> have the competencies and time to do some updating?
>
I have included -powerpc in the reply as I think it would be useful for
them to know about this. Some of the following info may seem obvious,
but still bears saying.
Many people in Debian believe that there is some mystical group that
handles all the web content and that they spend all their volunteer
time gathering information about every aspect of Debian for the web pages.
No such group exists. A little thought will convince you that such a
setup would be completely unworkable. The only thing that will work in the
long run is for each group in Debian to maintain their own web pages.
After all, they know what is happening in their corner.
The webmasters of Debian maintain the core web pages and create a
framework for others to contribute work. We do some of the admin work
on www.debian.org, maintain most of the cgi scripts, the network of web
mirrors, and the set of template files that allow all the web pages to
have the same look (which also facilitates the translation into other
languages). Ah, I forgot maintaining access to CVS. This is already more
than enough. I believe that all of us also maintain some packages
for Debian.
I wrote this, not to get sympathy for the poor webmasters, but to
help you understand that the powerpc web pages are yours. They will only
be useful if the people contributing to powerpc make them useful.
If you do not work on they on them, they will continue to rot until
they become so outdated that we (the webmasters) remove them.
So, what does the powerpc web page maintainer need to do? First,
talk to me so you can be given access to the CVS repository. Next,
you check out the web pages for powerpc (webwml/english/ports/powerpc)
and the template files (webwml/english/templates). Third, read the
web pages on working on the debian web site,
http://www.debian.org/devel/website . Finally, make the changes you want
and commit them to cvs.
I suggest you use this as an opportunity to create pages that will not
only attract new users to install Debian powerpc, but to attract
developers that will help to make Debian powerpc even better.
> > (*) The pages use wml, which is very powerful and perl is just one part
> > of it. This is what we use to automatically have the web pages add the
> > latest news items to the main page, among other things.
>
> Uhmm, I only have plain html experience..
>
That is fine. All the additional 'stuff' uses tags so it looks like
html. You don't need to know anything about it if you don't want to use
it - just use vanilla html and all will work fine. I just tell people
so they know that there is the ability to do more when/if they need to.
All you need to know for now is that the end result after wml is run is
legitimate html that look like all the other Debian web pages.
> It seems that it would be best to put together some fixes and contact you
> again after having it all completed, and ask you to upload them? Or should
> we look out for a new powerpc maintainer with access to the cvs?
>
For the reasons mentioned above, I suggest finding a new maintainer for
the powerpc pages.
--
James (Jay) Treacy
treacy@debian.org
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