[Users] Kick-starting website review

[Dave Neary]

Hi everyone,

I sent a proposal for some thing which I think will help improve the 
project to the board list a few days ago: 
http://lists.ovirt.org/pipermail/board/2012-June/000537.html

The first step in that plan, which has received only positive feedback 
so far, is to review the website and wiki to focus it better on the core 
audience of the oVirt project.

Once I got an account in the wiki, I created a stub wiki page to gather 
suggestions and changes people feel should be made (please add any 
suggestions you have - we'll prioritise and discuss any contentious ones 
here). Ironically, this is one of the pages that has no good category to 
go in yet :-) http://ovirt.org/wiki/Website_organisation

The main priorities for me are:
* Provide an automated way for someone to create an account on the wiki 
- contacting someone with an existing user account breaks the intimacy 
gradient for me - getting an account on the wiki feels like a 
semi-public thing to do, and contacting a stranger to get an account is 
private.
* Review top level menu and web pages, and propose an alternative 
organisation. Some things are prominent that don't need to be, other 
things which should be are not.
* Start spring-cleaning the wiki: make a more attractive front page, 
categorise pages, and generally work on making it more easily navigable
* Gap analysis on the documentation we have - what docs do we need which 
we don't have yet?
* Migrate PDF documentation to HTML (either static or wiki) - PDF 
documentation is not ideal, I think. It would be better, if and when PDF 
docs are needed, to generate them from the wiki rather than the other 
way around.
* Promotion of the 3.1 release - I'm sure that there are announcements, 
release notes, etc. in the works already, and I'm happy to help work on 
thoise if I can.

We'll work with the infra team to implement any changes that need: 
http://ovirt.org/wiki/Infrastructure - specifically changes to Wordpress 
themes - but other than that, our plan is to work in the wiki and here 
to come up with a list of priorities and work through them over the 
Summer months.

I'm eager to get people working together on this - you all have lived 
with the site for longer than me, and can see what needs 
fixing/writing/changing better than I can. Part of the goal of this 
initiative for me is to make the development of the website and 
documentation more collaborative - so if you have pet hates or 
suggestions, please do contribute, here or in the wiki: 
http://ovirt.org/wiki/Website_organisation

Thanks!
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
Community Action and Impact
Open Source and Standards Team, Red Hat
Phone: +33 9 50 71 55 62