Re: Deliberate web site reorganization
On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 05:41:31PM -0500, Jeff Albro wrote:
> If you take a look at the server logs, you can see where people went from
> the main page. (grep for home page as referring link)
How does this work? I don't get it. Maybe it's just that www.d.o Apache logs
don't track referrers...
> You can tell how people are using it now. I suspect you won't find people
> clicking on the "Debian International" link because it is not clear what
> it means.
That's not necessarily true -- the "international" users, read: non-native
English speakers, see things like that on the web. It usually leads them to
a page that describes something that's interesting to them.
And TBH I can't think of a better term to replace this...
> Do more people read the DWN than the event centered news releases?
% zgrep News/weekly/current/issue www.debian.org-access.log{,.0,.?.gz} | wc -l
4449
% zgrep News/weekly/2001 www.debian.org-access.log{,.0,.?.gz} | wc -l
17585
% zgrep News/2001 www.debian.org-access.log{,.0,.?.gz} | wc -l
19056
That's since Dec 4th.
Then again, this isn't such a useful statistic -- the weekly news are posted
regularly and it's logical to expect they'd have more readers. The other
news items are usually boring, too. ;)
> Are more than 5% of people going to the mirrors? Are they worth having?
% zgrep redirect.pl access.log access.log.0 access.log.?.gz | wc -l
7513
That's also since Dec 4th.
Bear in mind that once you change to the mirror you don't invoke the script
anymore (because the in-site links are meant to stay within the site), so
this only counts those people who switch from one mirror to another.
> Instead of a link to the security mailing list, let people input their
> e-mail address.
That would be pushing it... like SatireWire.com says, "Gertrude Stein died
in 1946, so you should join our MAILING LIST". :)
> I.E. Should the user find a link to /docs/books if they follow the bigger
> link to /docs? Right now they don't.
Uh, sure they do...
<p>There are also several user-oriented manuals written for Debian GNU/Linux,
available as <a href="books">printed books</a>. Of special note
is <a href="http://www.newriders.com/debian/html/noframes/node1.html";>Debian
GNU/Linux: Guide to Installation and Usage</a>.
> Should different parts of the website look different? Clearly all parts
> of Debian need to look like they are part of Debian, but there could be
> subtle clues. (A CD behind the swirl on cds.debian.org, etc)
Makes sense...
> * A fact based analysis of where we are now.
Too depressing ;)
> * A set of design guidelines (maybe a small web policy manual?)
The primary guideline so far seems to be "What others don't protest to" :)
Heck, now that I think about it, that's one of the better guidelines on the
web today. If only some other webmasters followed it...
> * Prototype sites put up for review (with a specific comment period as
> many volunteers have different schedules, and we should make sure people
> get a fair chance to air their concerns.)
>
> * A final decision process (voting, benevolent dictator, etc..)
I know you didn't like me redoing /doc/ without a nice process, but let's
face it, if I hadn't done it, we would have been stuck with that old page
for God knows how much longer...
--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.
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