Tennessee Team Contributions

[binarymutant]

woops, I forgot to tell everyone that in order to keep your branch updated with the changes happening in the main branch you need to issue this command:

bzr pull

[jhaitas]

Please note that the "static" directory has been renamed to "inc"

[jfenn2199]

As far as content goes I feel that this website needs to be our face to the world. Ubuntu is billed as Linux for Human Beings so we need to cater any said site to their means. For Example:

Lets say we're out at a street fair or any gathering and find an opertunity to promote Ubuntu. We give them the address to the wiki and there's digging and scrolling etc. Now this is great for us because most of us have been here through this pages evolution we have gotten used to using it (though not the whiteboard as this really should be going there).

Now say we directed that person to www.ubuntu-us-tn.info, they have the kind of web experience they are most familiar with there's not too much information on the front page, just enough to tell who we are, what we do, and how we're doing it (as stated on IRC last night the text to the main page can be changed I have no objections I just needed an idea of what it would look like and how the style interacted with everything). Then our newbie to the world of linux and possible of open-source (well knowledgeable exposure anyway), can decide that yes these values match mine I want to join and click on the join link and follow through the steps.

As far as the contacts page go I think we should include an email address for w4ett, binarymutant, pace_t_zulu, and ericG as they are the Trustee and regional PoC's respectively.

From there on the side boxes we can expand I personally like the idea of having the events on the leftside where they can be expanded but this is a project of collaboration so what does everyone else think of that positioning. As far as the right box goes it's kind of bland yes we need a spot to allow easy access to what we've done, but we also need things that link out from the main page to the other sections of our team.

Team Contributions would be a good place for us to add sites of our team members but we need official links from the main page to the wiki and forums etc so that way as our new members who very well may be the human beings the marketing slogan talks about become more familiar with how things are done we increase the activity of the team members.

[binarymutant]

(though not the whiteboard as this really should be going there).

I'm against the "whiteboard" being used for discussion around the team. Wiki syntax is hard to learn, I'd actually prefer if we used either the forum or the mailing list for real discussion. This way people not familiar with wiki's can have some input too. In fact next meeting I'm going to raise the question of removing the whiteboard from the wiki altogether.

just enough to tell who we are, what we do, and how we're doing it

I'm down for this, +1
I'd also like to add that this be all in inc/ so that other stuff won't affect this vital info.

As far as the contacts page go I think we should include an email address for w4ett, binarymutant, pace_t_zulu, and ericG as they are the Trustee and regional PoC's respectively.

+1, we could even remove Contacts too, if wanted

From there on the side boxes we can expand I personally like the idea of having the events on the leftside

+1, I'm down for this

As far as the right box goes it's kind of bland yes we need a spot to allow easy access to what we've done, but we also need things that link out from the main page to the other sections of our team.

Do you propose that we have the right box for links to info in the wiki or lumping both contributions and wiki info together in the right box? I like the idea of lumping it all together.

Team Contributions would be a good place for us to add sites of our team members

Are you proposing that Team Contributions be on the top menu? or included on the right box?

I would like to keep both boxes ( or columns, whichever) on the site so that different css styles can hide or show them. It would be a nice to gestures to future themers.

[jfenn2199]

I'm against the "whiteboard" being used for discussion around the team. Wiki syntax is hard to learn, I'd actually prefer if we used either the forum or the mailing list for real discussion. This way people not familiar with wiki's can have some input too. In fact next meeting I'm going to raise the question of removing the whiteboard from the wiki altogether.

I'm down for it I guess the roadmap would have been a better reference and not for the discussion just the actual laid out plan

+1, we could even remove Contacts too, if wanted

I'm in favor of keeping the contacts to have a quick point of reference for any newbies to get intouch with the area PoC, I know on campaigns I've worked on it's been a big help instead of digging deep then contacting one person who contacts another who contacts the PoC who then contacts you back.

Do you propose that we have the right box for links to info in the wiki or lumping both contributions and wiki info together in the right box? I like the idea of lumping it all together.

I was thinking having it linked to info on the wiki to help cut down on redundancies but lumping it together works too

Are you proposing that Team Contributions be on the top menu? or included on the right box?

Kinda like I set up now having Team contributions in the right box and underneath Projects, putting like binarymutant.com. Something along those lines

I would like to keep both boxes ( or columns, whichever) on the site so that different css styles can hide or show them. It would be a nice to gestures to future themers.

Definitely I like keeping the boxes it makes for quick reference points for our visitors

[binarymutant]

Another issue that is probably going to come up is: Code Reviews
How many reviewers should approve code changes before accept into main? If it's just me reviewing code changes then I'm just going to start pushing into main without asking

and if you haven't figured it out yet, my webdev skills suck lol

The issue of maintainer-ship has also come up: I'm all for replacing myself with the Tennessee.Team on who maintains the info on LP, but I just have one issue, any member of Tennesee.Team can potentially hijack the project away from us and potentially do other mean stuff. Pace_t_zulu has a good idea about creating a maintainer team for the website. I'd don't mind being the sole maintainer (obviously), this cuts down on having one small team being divided into even smaller teams. <edit> Do I even need to worry about this ^? </edit>

[binarymutant]

Hey what happened to this thread??

[w4ett]

Threads merged

[mac9416]

binarymutant and I have been talking about the advantages/disadvantages of using a content management system (such as Wordpress) versus hand-coding the website. Here are the emails that have gone back-and-forth between us:

Me:

...One question: why not do the entire site with WP, not just the blog? I have made WP sites that don't even have a blog, it's that much easier than hand-coding. It's a little bit of a learning curve, but it makes it much easier to post quick updates, add/edit pages in a hurry, etc. Of course, whatever the team says, I'm cool with. I'm just thinking Wordpress would be the better way to go, from what I know.

binarymutant:

Personally, I think hand coding gives it more of a team project feeling. I'm sure other people prefer a finished project over a never-ending one though, so I was kind of waiting for someone to bring this up (Glad you did). I'd rather this be on the website thread though to get other opinions as well. Or the mailing list, whichever you prefer for discussions.
So, my stance is to have the team code on the root of the website, and have a link that goes to WP, since it would be easier to see "the fruit of everyone's labor". It would encourage more activity within the team to have a never-ending project is what I'm thinking. But I can also see both sides to this coin and can completely understand the want for a finished software project. So this is just another one of those things where I'm waiting for a team decision.

Me:

Well, it's not really a matter of having a finished product to me - I'd really like to see the website be a constantly evolving project that just keeps getting better, just like you. And I really think you can have that with Wordpress. It's the speed at which you can improve/evolve a website with Wordpress that appeals to me. But I can also see what you're saying, that hand-coding allows everyone to collaborate, not just those familiar with Wordpress. So there are advantages and disadvantages to both. I'm obviously quite biased because I've become accustomed to Wordpress and really like it a lot.

But, as you say, the forums is the best place to talk about it. I'll probably post something tomorrow as it's getting late today.

binarymutant:

feel free to copy paste this conversation if you want, might be quicker

Like binarymutant, I can see both sides of the argument. Hand-coding and using bzr/Launchpad gives the website more of a collaborative feel. However, Wordpress speeds up the process and allows cool features such as a blog or a blog "planet" to be easily placed inside the same theme as the "static" pages, giving everything a unified look and feel.

One disadvantage of Wordpress is that changes to things such as themes and pages cannot be reviewed by admins before being published (though blog posts can). Reviewing features can be expanded with plugins, though, perhaps making this a non-issue.

So, what are your thoughts?