DFEY website redesign

[Tim Dobson-2]

When Ben Webb set up a mediawiki instance on a subdomain of his website,
it was always acknowledged that it was a quick work around saved us from
having to make any hard fast decisions that one might regret later.

Now we have at least one new local group starting up in the South East,
an increasing number of interested people and a pretty logo, I think
it's the right time to start thinking about developing a prominent web
presence

There has been lots of lively discussion about this on the IRC channel
and I think perhaps we need to work out exactly what we need, what we
currently have, and what visitors to our sites wish to do/find out/etc...

Tim

[Tim Dobson-2]

Tim Dobson wrote:
> Now we have at least one new local group starting up in the South East,
> an increasing number of interested people and a pretty logo, I think
> it's the right time to start thinking about developing a prominent web
> presence

I was thinking of a web presence along the following sort of lines.

DFEY.org would be a backbone organisation providing structure, direction
and links, perhaps a bit like lug.org.uk in some ways.

Lets start with mailing lists.

Hopefully, lists would be provided by the Savannah project,
www.nongnu.org - mailman servers are really really hard to run well and
the guys at Savannah do a great job at making our lives as easy as possible.

We should be able to, on request, set up new mailing lists for new
localgroups (hopefully dfey-*-discuss format).

I think there should be a dfey-general-discuss for general
non-geographical discussion and perhaps dfey-admin-discuss for
non-geographic administration boringness. :)

DFEY.org

The DFEY.org home page would be fairly simplistic, concise and low on
text content, linking one to several other main pages (again, concise,
small amounts of text) and a "more" page containing links other content.

On the three main pages, perhaps we would describe DFEY, talk about
local groups and mention how you can get involved. (The last two seem
very similar - maybe not those two!)

*.dfey.org or dfey.org/

In my opinion, local groups should have their own web presence. It
shouldn't be forced, but a local DFEY group in Kent and in Glasgow, as
much as they might all wish to meet face to face, probably aren't going
to, and would probably like to design their own region specific DFEY sites.

Wiki's

I don't know about wiki's. Wiki's are great for adding ideas  to,
collaborating on stuff, planning meeting, discussing stuff...
But you have to work VERY hard to make them work as a homepage as the
important info gets hidden in links that don't appear too be obvious.
I can see the benefits for having a unified wiki for local groups, but
at the same time there's a lot to be said for running one's own.

The DFEY-NW wiki needs a cleanup; there is no doubt about that.

Logo's

I imagined dfey.org using the vanilla DFEY logo and local groups using a
template of the logo with then the region they revolve around underneath
in text. Take a look at this page to see what I mean.
http://nw.dfey.org/wiki/Press_resources

IRC

I would imagine that the #dfey channel would start to become more
focused on non-geographic discussion and that #dfey-* would become used
in general for discussion about geographic stuff.
There have been discussions about different networks, however, for the
time being, lets stick with freenode and discuss it in detail once we
have a new website online.


I can imagine various people have differing opinions... if you have a
lot to say, maybe try and keep one mail/segment so the conversation
threads nicely.. gah that's me just being OCD ;) don't worry!

Tim

[Robert Leverington]

On 2009-07-13, Tim Dobson wrote:

> Tim Dobson wrote:
>> Now we have at least one new local group starting up in the South East,
>> an increasing number of interested people and a pretty logo, I think  
>> it's the right time to start thinking about developing a prominent web  
>> presence
>
> I was thinking of a web presence along the following sort of lines.
>
> DFEY.org would be a backbone organisation providing structure, direction  
> and links, perhaps a bit like lug.org.uk in some ways.
>
> Lets start with mailing lists.
>
> Hopefully, lists would be provided by the Savannah project,  
> www.nongnu.org - mailman servers are really really hard to run well and  
> the guys at Savannah do a great job at making our lives as easy as
> possible.
>
> We should be able to, on request, set up new mailing lists for new  
> localgroups (hopefully dfey-*-discuss format).
>
> I think there should be a dfey-general-discuss for general  
> non-geographical discussion and perhaps dfey-admin-discuss for  
> non-geographic administration boringness. :)

This makes sense to me, maybe avoid dfey-admin-discuss for now as we are
not at the stage where there is such a high volume that this is
distracting.

> DFEY.org
>
> The DFEY.org home page would be fairly simplistic, concise and low on  
> text content, linking one to several other main pages (again, concise,  
> small amounts of text) and a "more" page containing links other content.
>
> On the three main pages, perhaps we would describe DFEY, talk about  
> local groups and mention how you can get involved. (The last two seem  
> very similar - maybe not those two!)

Something simillar was discussed, but the general consensus was that
there would not be sufficient content to span multiple pages - at least
for the time being.  This is always something that can be added on
eventually.

> *.dfey.org or dfey.org/
>
> In my opinion, local groups should have their own web presence. It  
> shouldn't be forced, but a local DFEY group in Kent and in Glasgow, as  
> much as they might all wish to meet face to face, probably aren't going  
> to, and would probably like to design their own region specific DFEY
> sites.

This is fair enough, probably something for individual groups to focus
on of course.  For now I don't think this should be a priority as it can
easily be added at any time.

> Wiki's
>
> I don't know about wiki's. Wiki's are great for adding ideas  to,  
> collaborating on stuff, planning meeting, discussing stuff...
> But you have to work VERY hard to make them work as a homepage as the  
> important info gets hidden in links that don't appear too be obvious.
> I can see the benefits for having a unified wiki for local groups, but  
> at the same time there's a lot to be said for running one's own.
>
> The DFEY-NW wiki needs a cleanup; there is no doubt about that.

As you say running a wiki involves a significant amount of work, and I
doubt there will be people in every DFEY branch that enjoy that sort of
thing.  There is also not a huge amount of content that would be unique
to each wiki.  With this in mind I think it makes sense to have a single
wiki.  There was talk about using the DFEY-SE wiki as a base for this
and gradually moving content from the DFEY-NW wiki (and actually keeping
it in a nice condition this time).  I'm happy for this to happen, and
will gladly take responsibility for keeping it in shape, what does
everyone else think?

> Logo's
>
> I imagined dfey.org using the vanilla DFEY logo and local groups using a  
> template of the logo with then the region they revolve around underneath  
> in text. Take a look at this page to see what I mean.
> http://nw.dfey.org/wiki/Press_resources

Seems to already be implemented. :)

> IRC
>
> I would imagine that the #dfey channel would start to become more  
> focused on non-geographic discussion and that #dfey-* would become used  
> in general for discussion about geographic stuff.
> There have been discussions about different networks, however, for the  
> time being, lets stick with freenode and discuss it in detail once we  
> have a new website online.

Absolutely, this shouldn't be a priority at the moment.

Robert

[Tim Dobson-2]

Robert Leverington wrote:

> On 2009-07-13, Tim Dobson wrote:
>> Lets start with mailing lists.
>>
>> Hopefully, lists would be provided by the Savannah project,  
>> www.nongnu.org - mailman servers are really really hard to run well and  
>> the guys at Savannah do a great job at making our lives as easy as
>> possible.
>>
>> We should be able to, on request, set up new mailing lists for new  
>> localgroups (hopefully dfey-*-discuss format).
>>
>> I think there should be a dfey-general-discuss for general  
>> non-geographical discussion and perhaps dfey-admin-discuss for  
>> non-geographic administration boringness. :)
>
> This makes sense to me, maybe avoid dfey-admin-discuss for now as we are
> not at the stage where there is such a high volume that this is
> distracting.

Hmmm. well I'm begginng to notice that the people who don't filter their
mail - people who use hotmail for instance - aren't really looking at
emails because there are so many and most of them aren't relevant for
people who just want to meet each other and aren't really interested in
getting involved in any organisation aspects.

I think the sooner we can get administration discussions onto an opt-in
mailing list, the better. :)

As mailing lists are a priority, I should really sort this ASAP.

>> DFEY.org
>>
>> The DFEY.org home page would be fairly simplistic, concise and low on  
>> text content, linking one to several other main pages (again, concise,  
>> small amounts of text) and a "more" page containing links other content.
>>
>> On the three main pages, perhaps we would describe DFEY, talk about  
>> local groups and mention how you can get involved. (The last two seem  
>> very similar - maybe not those two!)
>
> Something simillar was discussed, but the general consensus was that
> there would not be sufficient content to span multiple pages - at least
> for the time being.  This is always something that can be added on
> eventually.

There's plenty to write about!

I mean, if I can talk about DFEY for 20+ minutes without notes, then I
think we can write what would amount to 1/2 a page of A4 across three
pages. How should people find out information about why we exist or what
DFEY's here for or how to get involved and help out?

>> *.dfey.org or dfey.org/
>>
>> In my opinion, local groups should have their own web presence. It  
>> shouldn't be forced, but a local DFEY group in Kent and in Glasgow, as  
>> much as they might all wish to meet face to face, probably aren't going  
>> to, and would probably like to design their own region specific DFEY
>> sites.
>
> This is fair enough, probably something for individual groups to focus
> on of course.  For now I don't think this should be a priority as it can
> easily be added at any time.

Absolutely, it's not a priority, but the principle is the really the bit
that is important.

>> Wiki's
>>
>> I don't know about wiki's. Wiki's are great for adding ideas  to,  
>> collaborating on stuff, planning meeting, discussing stuff...
>> But you have to work VERY hard to make them work as a homepage as the  
>> important info gets hidden in links that don't appear too be obvious.
>> I can see the benefits for having a unified wiki for local groups, but  
>> at the same time there's a lot to be said for running one's own.
>>
>> The DFEY-NW wiki needs a cleanup; there is no doubt about that.
>
> As you say running a wiki involves a significant amount of work, and I
> doubt there will be people in every DFEY branch that enjoy that sort of
> thing.

Running a wiki is easy. Actually tidying the wiki is the timeconsuming
bit. One online community I have been involved in openmoko.org actually
hired someone full time to cleanup the wiki, at the same time, maybe it
shouldn't be cleared up in DFEY's case - notes about stuff don't really
benefit from a 3rd party jumping in and suggesting that their page &
link structure is semantically wrong.

> There is also not a huge amount of content that would be unique
> to each wiki.  With this in mind I think it makes sense to have a single
> wiki.

Well I don't know, I think if you start looking at it from a local
level, then it's not necessarily desirable...

>  There was talk about using the DFEY-SE wiki as a base for this
> and gradually moving content from the DFEY-NW wiki (and actually keeping
> it in a nice condition this time).  I'm happy for this to happen, and
> will gladly take responsibility for keeping it in shape, what does
> everyone else think?

Maybe have it a bit like the fsf groups wiki?

http://groups.fsf.org

The lower bits are essentially organised but its up to you how you mess
up your actual patch?

>> Logo's
>>
>> I imagined dfey.org using the vanilla DFEY logo and local groups using a  
>> template of the logo with then the region they revolve around underneath  
>> in text. Take a look at this page to see what I mean.
>> http://nw.dfey.org/wiki/Press_resources
>
> Seems to already be implemented. :)

Yup! thanks for doing that!

Cheers,

Tim

[Robert Leverington]

On 2009-07-15, Tim Dobson wrote:

> Robert Leverington wrote:
>> On 2009-07-13, Tim Dobson wrote:
>>> Lets start with mailing lists.
>>>
>>> Hopefully, lists would be provided by the Savannah project,  
>>> www.nongnu.org - mailman servers are really really hard to run well
>>> and  the guys at Savannah do a great job at making our lives as easy
>>> as possible.
>>>
>>> We should be able to, on request, set up new mailing lists for new  
>>> localgroups (hopefully dfey-*-discuss format).
>>>
>>> I think there should be a dfey-general-discuss for general  
>>> non-geographical discussion and perhaps dfey-admin-discuss for  
>>> non-geographic administration boringness. :)
>>
>> This makes sense to me, maybe avoid dfey-admin-discuss for now as we are
>> not at the stage where there is such a high volume that this is
>> distracting.
>
> Hmmm. well I'm begginng to notice that the people who don't filter their  
> mail - people who use hotmail for instance - aren't really looking at  
> emails because there are so many and most of them aren't relevant for  
> people who just want to meet each other and aren't really interested in  
> getting involved in any organisation aspects.
>
> I think the sooner we can get administration discussions onto an opt-in  
> mailing list, the better. :)
>
> As mailing lists are a priority, I should really sort this ASAP.

It seems to me that it would be better to separate off the e-mails about
meetups on to separate list also in this case.  For example have
dfey-nw-meetups, dfey-se-meetups, etc.  Perhaps in conjunction with
dfey-admin-discuss and, of course, dfey-nw-discuss, and dfey-se-discuss.
Under your scheme there would still have to be admin stuff for
individual branches going to people who don't want it.

>>> DFEY.org
>>>
>>> The DFEY.org home page would be fairly simplistic, concise and low on
>>>  text content, linking one to several other main pages (again,
>>> concise,  small amounts of text) and a "more" page containing links
>>> other content.
>>>
>>> On the three main pages, perhaps we would describe DFEY, talk about  
>>> local groups and mention how you can get involved. (The last two seem
>>>  very similar - maybe not those two!)
>>
>> Something simillar was discussed, but the general consensus was that
>> there would not be sufficient content to span multiple pages - at least
>> for the time being.  This is always something that can be added on
>> eventually.
>
> There's plenty to write about!
>
> I mean, if I can talk about DFEY for 20+ minutes without notes, then I  
> think we can write what would amount to 1/2 a page of A4 across three  
> pages. How should people find out information about why we exist or what  
> DFEY's here for or how to get involved and help out?

This is my thought too, I was just echoing the general consensus from
IRC.  Whatever CMS we choose will allow multiple pages so it's hardly
difficult to implement either way once we actually have a site.

>>> *.dfey.org or dfey.org/
>>>
>>> In my opinion, local groups should have their own web presence. It  
>>> shouldn't be forced, but a local DFEY group in Kent and in Glasgow,
>>> as  much as they might all wish to meet face to face, probably aren't
>>> going  to, and would probably like to design their own region
>>> specific DFEY sites.
>>
>> This is fair enough, probably something for individual groups to focus
>> on of course.  For now I don't think this should be a priority as it can
>> easily be added at any time.
>
> Absolutely, it's not a priority, but the principle is the really the bit  
> that is important.
>
>>> Wiki's
>>>
>>> I don't know about wiki's. Wiki's are great for adding ideas  to,  
>>> collaborating on stuff, planning meeting, discussing stuff...
>>> But you have to work VERY hard to make them work as a homepage as the
>>>  important info gets hidden in links that don't appear too be
>>> obvious.
>>> I can see the benefits for having a unified wiki for local groups,
>>> but  at the same time there's a lot to be said for running one's own.
>>>
>>> The DFEY-NW wiki needs a cleanup; there is no doubt about that.
>>
>> As you say running a wiki involves a significant amount of work, and I
>> doubt there will be people in every DFEY branch that enjoy that sort of
>> thing.
>
> Running a wiki is easy. Actually tidying the wiki is the timeconsuming  
> bit. One online community I have been involved in openmoko.org actually  
> hired someone full time to cleanup the wiki, at the same time, maybe it  
> shouldn't be cleared up in DFEY's case - notes about stuff don't really  
> benefit from a 3rd party jumping in and suggesting that their page &  
> link structure is semantically wrong.

As I have said, I would happily take on the role of maintaining whatever
wiki we decide to use in terms of content (and I wouldn't exactly call
myself a "3rd party", for what its worth).  At the moment the DFEY-NW
wiki does not have any real structure (something I've tried to ensure
from the start with DFEY-SE), and is a mix of outside facing content,
and internal meta stuff.

>> There is also not a huge amount of content that would be unique
>> to each wiki.  With this in mind I think it makes sense to have a single
>> wiki.
>
> Well I don't know, I think if you start looking at it from a local  
> level, then it's not necessarily desirable...

As I have said, it takes a lot of effort to actually maintain a wiki and
you need someone who is willing to spend a significant amount of time
keeping it in order and dealing with any vandalism.  Something that
won't neccesserily be persent in every single branch, and I've seen many
times before wikis that are not usable at all because of this. MediaWiki
has an enormous feature set which makes organising content in to
different local groups quite possible.

>>  There was talk about using the DFEY-SE wiki as a base for this
>> and gradually moving content from the DFEY-NW wiki (and actually keeping
>> it in a nice condition this time).  I'm happy for this to happen, and
>> will gladly take responsibility for keeping it in shape, what does
>> everyone else think?
>
> Maybe have it a bit like the fsf groups wiki?
>
> http://groups.fsf.org
>
> The lower bits are essentially organised but its up to you how you mess  
> up your actual patch?

We can essentially do anything we want, so yes - this is possbile and
I'd be happy to help implement it on whichever wiki we decide to
designate as the primary one.

>>> Logo's
>>>
>>> I imagined dfey.org using the vanilla DFEY logo and local groups
>>> using a  template of the logo with then the region they revolve
>>> around underneath  in text. Take a look at this page to see what I
>>> mean.
>>> http://nw.dfey.org/wiki/Press_resources
>>
>> Seems to already be implemented. :)
>
> Yup! thanks for doing that!

Robert

[Richard Thompson-2]

Isn't this just seperating stuff all over again, I thought we were trying to integrate DFEY ?

DFEY's not e^x you know (lame joke, I suck)

2009/7/15 Robert Leverington <[hidden email]>

On 2009-07-15, Tim Dobson wrote:
> Robert Leverington wrote:
>> On 2009-07-13, Tim Dobson wrote:
>>> Lets start with mailing lists.
>>>
>>> Hopefully, lists would be provided by the Savannah project,
>>> www.nongnu.org - mailman servers are really really hard to run well
>>> and  the guys at Savannah do a great job at making our lives as easy
>>> as possible.
>>>
>>> We should be able to, on request, set up new mailing lists for new
>>> localgroups (hopefully dfey-*-discuss format).
>>>
>>> I think there should be a dfey-general-discuss for general
>>> non-geographical discussion and perhaps dfey-admin-discuss for
>>> non-geographic administration boringness. :)
>>
>> This makes sense to me, maybe avoid dfey-admin-discuss for now as we are
>> not at the stage where there is such a high volume that this is
>> distracting.
>
> Hmmm. well I'm begginng to notice that the people who don't filter their
> mail - people who use hotmail for instance - aren't really looking at
> emails because there are so many and most of them aren't relevant for
> people who just want to meet each other and aren't really interested in
> getting involved in any organisation aspects.
>
> I think the sooner we can get administration discussions onto an opt-in
> mailing list, the better. :)
>
> As mailing lists are a priority, I should really sort this ASAP.

It seems to me that it would be better to separate off the e-mails about
meetups on to separate list also in this case.  For example have
dfey-nw-meetups, dfey-se-meetups, etc.  Perhaps in conjunction with
dfey-admin-discuss and, of course, dfey-nw-discuss, and dfey-se-discuss.
Under your scheme there would still have to be admin stuff for
individual branches going to people who don't want it.

>>> DFEY.org
>>>
>>> The DFEY.org home page would be fairly simplistic, concise and low on
>>>  text content, linking one to several other main pages (again,
>>> concise,  small amounts of text) and a "more" page containing links
>>> other content.
>>>
>>> On the three main pages, perhaps we would describe DFEY, talk about
>>> local groups and mention how you can get involved. (The last two seem
>>>  very similar - maybe not those two!)
>>
>> Something simillar was discussed, but the general consensus was that
>> there would not be sufficient content to span multiple pages - at least
>> for the time being.  This is always something that can be added on
>> eventually.
>
> There's plenty to write about!
>
> I mean, if I can talk about DFEY for 20+ minutes without notes, then I
> think we can write what would amount to 1/2 a page of A4 across three
> pages. How should people find out information about why we exist or what
> DFEY's here for or how to get involved and help out?

This is my thought too, I was just echoing the general consensus from
IRC.  Whatever CMS we choose will allow multiple pages so it's hardly
difficult to implement either way once we actually have a site.

>>> *.dfey.org or dfey.org/
>>>
>>> In my opinion, local groups should have their own web presence. It
>>> shouldn't be forced, but a local DFEY group in Kent and in Glasgow,
>>> as  much as they might all wish to meet face to face, probably aren't
>>> going  to, and would probably like to design their own region
>>> specific DFEY sites.
>>
>> This is fair enough, probably something for individual groups to focus
>> on of course.  For now I don't think this should be a priority as it can
>> easily be added at any time.
>
> Absolutely, it's not a priority, but the principle is the really the bit
> that is important.
>
>>> Wiki's
>>>
>>> I don't know about wiki's. Wiki's are great for adding ideas  to,
>>> collaborating on stuff, planning meeting, discussing stuff...
>>> But you have to work VERY hard to make them work as a homepage as the
>>>  important info gets hidden in links that don't appear too be
>>> obvious.
>>> I can see the benefits for having a unified wiki for local groups,
>>> but  at the same time there's a lot to be said for running one's own.
>>>
>>> The DFEY-NW wiki needs a cleanup; there is no doubt about that.
>>
>> As you say running a wiki involves a significant amount of work, and I
>> doubt there will be people in every DFEY branch that enjoy that sort of
>> thing.
>
> Running a wiki is easy. Actually tidying the wiki is the timeconsuming
> bit. One online community I have been involved in openmoko.org actually
> hired someone full time to cleanup the wiki, at the same time, maybe it
> shouldn't be cleared up in DFEY's case - notes about stuff don't really
> benefit from a 3rd party jumping in and suggesting that their page &
> link structure is semantically wrong.

As I have said, I would happily take on the role of maintaining whatever
wiki we decide to use in terms of content (and I wouldn't exactly call
myself a "3rd party", for what its worth).  At the moment the DFEY-NW
wiki does not have any real structure (something I've tried to ensure
from the start with DFEY-SE), and is a mix of outside facing content,
and internal meta stuff.

>> There is also not a huge amount of content that would be unique
>> to each wiki.  With this in mind I think it makes sense to have a single
>> wiki.
>
> Well I don't know, I think if you start looking at it from a local
> level, then it's not necessarily desirable...

As I have said, it takes a lot of effort to actually maintain a wiki and
you need someone who is willing to spend a significant amount of time
keeping it in order and dealing with any vandalism.  Something that
won't neccesserily be persent in every single branch, and I've seen many
times before wikis that are not usable at all because of this. MediaWiki
has an enormous feature set which makes organising content in to
different local groups quite possible.

>>  There was talk about using the DFEY-SE wiki as a base for this
>> and gradually moving content from the DFEY-NW wiki (and actually keeping
>> it in a nice condition this time).  I'm happy for this to happen, and
>> will gladly take responsibility for keeping it in shape, what does
>> everyone else think?
>
> Maybe have it a bit like the fsf groups wiki?
>
> http://groups.fsf.org
>
> The lower bits are essentially organised but its up to you how you mess
> up your actual patch?

We can essentially do anything we want, so yes - this is possbile and
I'd be happy to help implement it on whichever wiki we decide to
designate as the primary one.

>>> Logo's
>>>
>>> I imagined dfey.org using the vanilla DFEY logo and local groups
>>> using a  template of the logo with then the region they revolve
>>> around underneath  in text. Take a look at this page to see what I
>>> mean.
>>> http://nw.dfey.org/wiki/Press_resources
>>
>> Seems to already be implemented. :)
>
> Yup! thanks for doing that!

Robert

--
Richard Thompson

[Isabell Long]

On 15/07/2009, Robert Leverington <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On 2009-07-15, Tim Dobson wrote:
>> Robert Leverington wrote:
>>> On 2009-07-13, Tim Dobson wrote:
>>>> Lets start with mailing lists.
>>>>
>>>> Hopefully, lists would be provided by the Savannah project,
>>>> www.nongnu.org - mailman servers are really really hard to run well
>>>> and  the guys at Savannah do a great job at making our lives as easy
>>>> as possible.
>>>>
>>>> We should be able to, on request, set up new mailing lists for new
>>>> localgroups (hopefully dfey-*-discuss format).
>>>>
>>>> I think there should be a dfey-general-discuss for general
>>>> non-geographical discussion and perhaps dfey-admin-discuss for
>>>> non-geographic administration boringness. :)
>>>
>>> This makes sense to me, maybe avoid dfey-admin-discuss for now as we are
>>> not at the stage where there is such a high volume that this is
>>> distracting.
>>
>> Hmmm. well I'm begginng to notice that the people who don't filter their
>> mail - people who use hotmail for instance - aren't really looking at
>> emails because there are so many and most of them aren't relevant for
>> people who just want to meet each other and aren't really interested in
>> getting involved in any organisation aspects.
>>
>> I think the sooner we can get administration discussions onto an opt-in
>> mailing list, the better. :)
>>
>> As mailing lists are a priority, I should really sort this ASAP.
>
> It seems to me that it would be better to separate off the e-mails about
> meetups on to separate list also in this case.  For example have
> dfey-nw-meetups, dfey-se-meetups, etc.  Perhaps in conjunction with
> dfey-admin-discuss and, of course, dfey-nw-discuss, and dfey-se-discuss.
> Under your scheme there would still have to be admin stuff for
> individual branches going to people who don't want it.

Why have dfey-nw and dfey-se meetups on separate lists?  Surely one
list, possibly named dfey-meetups would be easier for people to follow
and just put either NW or SE in the subject line?  It would keep lists
to a minimum and as, possibly, DFEY gains some other regional groups
like SW, it would be easier to keep track of than having separate
meetup mailing lists.

>
>>>> DFEY.org
>>>>
>>>> The DFEY.org home page would be fairly simplistic, concise and low on
>>>>  text content, linking one to several other main pages (again,
>>>> concise,  small amounts of text) and a "more" page containing links
>>>> other content.
>>>>
>>>> On the three main pages, perhaps we would describe DFEY, talk about
>>>> local groups and mention how you can get involved. (The last two seem
>>>>  very similar - maybe not those two!)
>>>
>>> Something simillar was discussed, but the general consensus was that
>>> there would not be sufficient content to span multiple pages - at least
>>> for the time being.  This is always something that can be added on
>>> eventually.
>>
>> There's plenty to write about!
>>
>> I mean, if I can talk about DFEY for 20+ minutes without notes, then I
>> think we can write what would amount to 1/2 a page of A4 across three
>> pages. How should people find out information about why we exist or what
>> DFEY's here for or how to get involved and help out?

You could put that information on the pages of the wiki though, people
may not want to trawl through the blog posts.
>
> This is my thought too, I was just echoing the general consensus from
> IRC.  Whatever CMS we choose will allow multiple pages so it's hardly
> difficult to implement either way once we actually have a site.
>
>>>> *.dfey.org or dfey.org/

The latter, dfey.org/northwest or dfey.org/nw or something along those lines.
>>>>
>>>> In my opinion, local groups should have their own web presence. It
>>>> shouldn't be forced, but a local DFEY group in Kent and in Glasgow,
>>>> as  much as they might all wish to meet face to face, probably aren't
>>>> going  to, and would probably like to design their own region
>>>> specific DFEY sites.

Yes, I agree with that, but it's not a priority as we only have one
established regional group and one in the process of getting together.
 Maybe when there is more interest.

>>>
>>> This is fair enough, probably something for individual groups to focus
>>> on of course.  For now I don't think this should be a priority as it can
>>> easily be added at any time.
>>
>> Absolutely, it's not a priority, but the principle is the really the bit
>> that is important.
>>
>>>> Wiki's
>>>>
>>>> I don't know about wiki's. Wiki's are great for adding ideas  to,
>>>> collaborating on stuff, planning meeting, discussing stuff...
>>>> But you have to work VERY hard to make them work as a homepage as the
>>>>  important info gets hidden in links that don't appear too be
>>>> obvious.
>>>> I can see the benefits for having a unified wiki for local groups,
>>>> but  at the same time there's a lot to be said for running one's own.
>>>>
>>>> The DFEY-NW wiki needs a cleanup; there is no doubt about that.
>>>
>>> As you say running a wiki involves a significant amount of work, and I
>>> doubt there will be people in every DFEY branch that enjoy that sort of
>>> thing.
>>
>> Running a wiki is easy. Actually tidying the wiki is the timeconsuming
>> bit. One online community I have been involved in openmoko.org actually
>> hired someone full time to cleanup the wiki, at the same time, maybe it
>> shouldn't be cleared up in DFEY's case - notes about stuff don't really
>> benefit from a 3rd party jumping in and suggesting that their page &
>> link structure is semantically wrong.
>
> As I have said, I would happily take on the role of maintaining whatever
> wiki we decide to use in terms of content (and I wouldn't exactly call
> myself a "3rd party", for what its worth).  At the moment the DFEY-NW
> wiki does not have any real structure (something I've tried to ensure
> from the start with DFEY-SE), and is a mix of outside facing content,
> and internal meta stuff.
>
>>> There is also not a huge amount of content that would be unique
>>> to each wiki.  With this in mind I think it makes sense to have a single
>>> wiki.
>>
>> Well I don't know, I think if you start looking at it from a local
>> level, then it's not necessarily desirable...
>
> As I have said, it takes a lot of effort to actually maintain a wiki and
> you need someone who is willing to spend a significant amount of time
> keeping it in order and dealing with any vandalism.  Something that
> won't neccesserily be persent in every single branch, and I've seen many
> times before wikis that are not usable at all because of this. MediaWiki
> has an enormous feature set which makes organising content in to
> different local groups quite possible.
>
>>>  There was talk about using the DFEY-SE wiki as a base for this
>>> and gradually moving content from the DFEY-NW wiki (and actually keeping
>>> it in a nice condition this time).  I'm happy for this to happen, and
>>> will gladly take responsibility for keeping it in shape, what does
>>> everyone else think?
>>
>> Maybe have it a bit like the fsf groups wiki?
>>
>> http://groups.fsf.org
>>
>> The lower bits are essentially organised but its up to you how you mess
>> up your actual patch?
>
> We can essentially do anything we want, so yes - this is possbile and
> I'd be happy to help implement it on whichever wiki we decide to
> designate as the primary one.
>
>>>> Logo's
>>>>
>>>> I imagined dfey.org using the vanilla DFEY logo and local groups
>>>> using a  template of the logo with then the region they revolve
>>>> around underneath  in text. Take a look at this page to see what I
>>>> mean.
>>>> http://nw.dfey.org/wiki/Press_resources

That is nice, I like that though maybe the North West/South East could
be centered as right aligned isn't so noticeable in my view.

--
Regards,
Isabell Long.  <[hidden email]>
[[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects.

[Robert Leverington]

On 2009-07-15, Isabell Long wrote:

> On 15/07/2009, Robert Leverington <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > It seems to me that it would be better to separate off the e-mails about
> > meetups on to separate list also in this case.  For example have
> > dfey-nw-meetups, dfey-se-meetups, etc.  Perhaps in conjunction with
> > dfey-admin-discuss and, of course, dfey-nw-discuss, and dfey-se-discuss.
> > Under your scheme there would still have to be admin stuff for
> > individual branches going to people who don't want it.
>
> Why have dfey-nw and dfey-se meetups on separate lists?  Surely one
> list, possibly named dfey-meetups would be easier for people to follow
> and just put either NW or SE in the subject line?  It would keep lists
> to a minimum and as, possibly, DFEY gains some other regional groups
> like SW, it would be easier to keep track of than having separate
> meetup mailing lists.

This would be good to.

FWIW I agree that we should be working to integrate the branches rather
than separate them.

Robert

[Isabell Long]

On 15/07/2009, Isabell Long <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>> On 2009-07-13, Tim Dobson wrote:

>>>> *.dfey.org or dfey.org/
>
> The latter, dfey.org/northwest or dfey.org/nw or something along those
> lines.

Though, having thought about it a bit more, the current URL of
*.dfey.org seems alright and it wouldn't be very useful to change it
when there is no obvious problem.

--
Regards,
Isabell Long.  <[hidden email]>
[[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects.

[Richard Thompson-2]

Yeah, but if hosting on one server, there is little point in having sub-domains.

Would  be much nice to have dfey.org/*

2009/7/15 Isabell Long <[hidden email]>

On 15/07/2009, Isabell Long <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>> On 2009-07-13, Tim Dobson wrote:

>>>> *.dfey.org or dfey.org/
>
> The latter, dfey.org/northwest or dfey.org/nw or something along those
> lines.

Though, having thought about it a bit more, the current URL of
*.dfey.org seems alright and it wouldn't be very useful to change it
when there is no obvious problem.

--

Regards,
Isabell Long.  <[hidden email]>
[[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects.

--
Richard Thompson

[Robert Leverington]

On 2009-07-15, Richard Thompson wrote:
> Yeah, but if hosting on one server, there is little point in having
> sub-domains.
>
> Would  be much nice to have dfey.org/*

On the other hand, subdomains allow the possibility of hosting on
different servers if one branch decides to do so - and there is no
advantage of /* apart from pretyness.

Robert

[Richard Thompson-2]

2009/7/15 Robert Leverington <[hidden email]>

On 2009-07-15, Richard Thompson wrote:
> Yeah, but if hosting on one server, there is little point in having
> sub-domains.
>
> Would  be much nice to have dfey.org/*

On the other hand, subdomains allow the possibility of hosting on
different servers if one branch decides to do so - and there is no
advantage of /* apart from pretyness.

Robert

I like pretty :) Also another advantage is /* is easier to work with than sub-domains
--
Richard Thompson

[Robert Leverington]

On 2009-07-15, Richard Thompson wrote:

> 2009/7/15 Robert Leverington <[hidden email]>
>
> > On 2009-07-15, Richard Thompson wrote:
> > > Yeah, but if hosting on one server, there is little point in having
> > > sub-domains.
> > >
> > > Would  be much nice to have dfey.org/*
> >
> > On the other hand, subdomains allow the possibility of hosting on
> > different servers if one branch decides to do so - and there is no
> > advantage of /* apart from pretyness.
> >
> I like pretty :) Also another advantage is /* is easier to work with than
> sub-domains

In what way?

Robert

[Connor Smith]

On IRC we concluded:

We will rent a VPS with BitFolk. This will cost £8/m. Robert has agreed
to contribute £4/m, Richard £2/m; this means we would need £2/m more.
Robert could be responsible for handling billing and collecting
payment. This would result in a discount, too.

To begin with the VPS will run Debian Squeeze have an Apache2, MySQL,
and maybe some other stuff. It will have a wiki and blog at
http://dfey.org/wiki/ and http://dfey.org/blog/. The wiki will have
both NW and SE pages. Eventually further daemons may be used, such as a
mail server.

Accounts will be given to anyone in DFEY. Sudo access will be available
to Tim, Connor, Ben, Robert, and Richard to begin with.

It may be considered "overkill", but if there are people who are
willing to administer it and would like it (which there are), and there
is some benefit (which there is - greater flexibility), then this is
not an issue. Furthermore, the money is being spent solely by people
who want this to happen.

Signed,

Robert Leverington
Isabell Long
Joe MacMahon
Connor Smith
James Stoker
Richard Thompson
Ben Webb

[Richard Thompson-2]

2009/7/16 Connor Smith <[hidden email]>

On IRC we concluded:

We will rent a VPS with BitFolk. This will cost £8/m. Robert has agreed
to contribute £4/m, Richard £2/m; this means we would need £2/m more.
Robert could be responsible for handling billing and collecting
payment. This would result in a discount, too.

To begin with the VPS will run Debian Squeeze have an Apache2, MySQL,
and maybe some other stuff. It will have a wiki and blog at
http://dfey.org/wiki/ and http://dfey.org/blog/. The wiki will have
both NW and SE pages. Eventually further daemons may be used, such as a
mail server.

Accounts will be given to anyone in DFEY. Sudo access will be available
to Tim, Connor, Ben, Robert, and Richard to begin with.

It may be considered "overkill", but if there are people who are
willing to administer it and would like it (which there are), and there
is some benefit (which there is - greater flexibility), then this is
not an issue. Furthermore, the money is being spent solely by people
who want this to happen.

Signed,

Robert Leverington
Isabell Long
Joe MacMahon
Connor Smith
James Stoker
Richard Thompson
Ben Webb

As I've already stated on IRC, I do not think we should be using Debian Squeeze on a server unless there is a valid and specific reason, and by specific I mean, we *need* version x of this server and there is *no* way to get it running on Debian Lenny

Thanks

--
Richard Thompson

[Connor Smith]

On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:08:59 +0100
Connor Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

> To begin with the VPS will run Debian Squeeze have an Apache2, MySQL,

s/Squeeze/Lenny/

[Robert Leverington]

On 2009-07-16, Richard Thompson wrote:
> As I've already stated on IRC, I do not think we should be using Debian
> Squeeze on a server unless there is a valid and specific reason, and by
> specific I mean, we *need* version x of this server and there is *no* way to
> get it running on Debian Lenny

Sure, I agree FWIW.  I just assumed you had actually read the text file we
were working on before saying you supported what it said.  Sorry for the
confusion.

Robert

[Tim Dobson-2]

Robert Leverington wrote:
> On 2009-07-16, Richard Thompson wrote:
>> As I've already stated on IRC, I do not think we should be using Debian
>> Squeeze on a server unless there is a valid and specific reason, and by
>> specific I mean, we *need* version x of this server and there is *no* way to
>> get it running on Debian Lenny
>
> Sure, I agree FWIW.  I just assumed you had actually read the text file we
> were working on before saying you supported what it said.  Sorry for the
> confusion.

Which text file?

Tim

[Robert Leverington]

On 2009-07-17, Tim Dobson wrote:
> Robert Leverington wrote:
>> Sure, I agree FWIW.  I just assumed you had actually read the text file we
>> were working on before saying you supported what it said.  Sorry for the
>> confusion.
>
> Which text file?

On IRC we discussed and created a proposal, since many of us were
frustrated that the decision was taking so long to be made.  A pastebin
was used, the final copy is as it is in the e-mail.

Robert

[Tim Dobson-2]

Connor Smith wrote:
> To begin with the VPS will run Debian Squeeze have an Apache2, MySQL,
> and maybe some other stuff. It will have a wiki and blog at
> http://dfey.org/wiki/ and http://dfey.org/blog/. The wiki will have
> both NW and SE pages. Eventually further daemons may be used, such as a
> mail server.

Not quite what I'd do, but ok, lets give it a go.

I was just thinking, the GNU project has a shell server, fencepost,
which various people involved in the project have accounts on.

Maybe we can give the VPS as unique hostname so that if at some point in
the future we wished to retire it from webserving duties, we could
continue to use it as a shell server.

What do you think?

Obviously "fencepost" is probably not the ideal name for our server
anyone got any ideas of uncontroversial but good hostnames?

Tim