Subject: Re: [vserver] Roadmap and Future ...
From: randall <randall@songshu.org>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:39:52 +0100

Some thoughts and suggestions for the website, although not sure if you 
really would want all of it ;)
I definitely agree that it would already be a huge step forward if the 
frontpage would indicate that the project is not dead (still happy about 
that everyday)

Personnaly i'm not a professional website builder myself but as a simple 
administrator i do have friends who come for help because they want a 
simple website (the demand usually becomes more complicated later ;) )
So this is the reason i looked for something simple so people (and i) 
can easily set up something nice, have been looking in to various CMS 
kind off systems but simply was impressed by wordpress.
It can be easily modified by a non scripter to look anyway you want and 
the content can be changed/edited even by a "kernel developer" ;)


Assumption 1:
you want the old wiki pages included/integrated into the new design
in order to prevent migrating the content, once again, from the older 
and even_older wiki, you can actually pull wiki content to wordpress.
as an example, the content on the page below actually resides on a 
dokuwiki page, simply make a new page and fill in

"
[toc class="toc-right" style="max-width:400px"]
/data/pages/avantfax_install_script
"
and the result will look like this (don't mind the not so slick theme):
http://www.songshu.org/index.php/avantfax_install_script

this also has the benefit that you can keep using the current wiki for 
making new "technical" content, which i think works less distractive 
then any wysiwg  editor, and you can then later choose which wiki pages 
you want to publish on the "slick website"

Assumption2:
You want to expand the user base, wordpress is already very google 
friendly so new users being attracted assured, which will bring you to a 
new problem making some easy step explanation to get started with 
Vserver in a "NoOb" friendly way, using Vserver is very easy but it 
could use some pages to actually describe that fact in a simple way, 
backed up with the more in dept content that is already there.

Assumption 3:
OK, you attracted new potential users and convinced it is easy to get 
started and exactly what they need and would like to offer some support, 
as said before the mailing list is excellent, but not many nowadays know 
the way to find it (it took me some time to actually start using them 
being a late comer to the scene)
As i see it people more easily sign up for a support forum then for a 
mailing list, this would not be too complicated to set up and even 
integrate in to the wordpress design, but you would need to consider 
moderating it a little.

Assumption4:
You want to go overboard and let Vserver be the new hype, . If extending 
the user base is something that Vserver really wants i would suggest to 
have a look at other projects that are successful in the community 
building area such as ubuntu and its forum and launchpad for example,  
people seem to be fond of  signing up and have some profile to set up 
and having some visual rating/recognition that shows there involvement 
in answering forum questions, creating documentation, bug 
reporting/fixing etc.....
As i already made a pledge for wordpress you could in this case also 
have a look at http://buddypress.org/ if you would want to go with the 
whole "social" thing this would allow the users to easily team up and 
get some side projects going.

so to make a long story short.
easily themed.
easily edited.
you can integrate the wiki pages into the new design.
you can integrate a support forum into the new design.
every user/developer that signs up could even have his own 
blog/page/project on the Vserver site.
etc....


as i noted earlier, just some thoughts letting the imagination run 
freely, if no other with some more experience in web sites is interested 
or has some more sane ideas i would happily spend a weekend or two to 
see if i can get some mock up running.





-- 

www.songshu.org
Just another collection of nuts