[CoLoCo] new t-shirt / help idea

Fri Oct 12 05:39:47 BST 2007

Regarding the fear of the site fading away, personally I don't see that as a
problem. For me, since my domain registrations are very cheap (less than two
shirts will cost, for a decade) and automatically renew, the bigger problem
is remembering to cancel domains I don't want anymore. In fact, I am sitting
on a dozen unused domains from the 90s simply because I keep forgetting to
cancel them. So, if I end up registering the domain for us, we won't need to
worry about "some damn advertising site grabbing it up".

I do agree that _any_ web site does take a certain degree of maintenance,
however. But, if we KISS (Keep It Simple...), avoid re-inventing the wheel,
and essentially create a simple, consumer oriented, user friendly portal to
other resources (pages on the official ubuntu site, videos on youtube,
helpful resources, etc) perhaps we can likewise keep maintenance to a
minimum.

I personally have had a great deal of experience with drupal, and though my
free time is limited, I could carve out time to help with drupal
installation & configuration. I couldn't help much with most other CMSs such
as wordpress, however. And frankly, I'm just fine with just replacing the
front page of our existing site with something for Joe User as Neal
suggests, if that is the consensus. That is even simpler I would guess. We
could even register an additional "friendly" domain and point it to the
existing site or a page on the existing site.

Take a look at http://www.grandcentral.com/ and http://mymilemarker.com/.
Both of these sites are very user friendly, simple and to the point. They
use the "rule of three" like David Willson suggested, and they have nice big
friendly pictures. Since ubuntu itself is gaining popularity due to its ease
of use and simplicity compared to other linuxes, I feel a site promoting
Ubuntu should also be easy to use and simple. The masses are a finicky lot,
and easily scared. Anything we can do to ease them into a transition would
help solve bug #1 by increasing conversions.

I'll wear a shirt, but I personally don't have the patience or the time to
physically walk users through installs and provide user tech support. I'm a
developer, and not much of a people person (though I'm trying to improve
that). I'm a firm believer that folks should play their "long suit", which
in my case at least is development. If I can't help in this way, perhaps
I'll look at contributing to the Ubuntu code base in some way. I was
attempting to figure out how I could best help the effort, and since drupal
web development is one of my specialties, I thought it might be a good way
to get involved locally.

Alex

On 10/11/07, Neal McBurnett <neal at bcn.boulder.co.us> wrote:
>
> > On 10/11/07, Neal McBurnett <neal at bcn.boulder.co.us> wrote:
> >     On Thu, Oct 11, 2007 at 02:50:32PM -0600, Alex Comer wrote:
> >     > Futhermore, I vote for the formation of a small web group within
> our
> >     ubuntu
> >     > group to tackle the web end of this problem, since it sounds like
> a few
> >     folks
> >     > have an interest. So far, I'm hearing that currently Darrin,
> myself,
> >     Phillip?
> >     > others?
> >     >
> >     > My company leases a dedicated Linux server which runs a handful of
> web
> >     sites.
> >     > I'll be happy to donate the hosting and domain registration if
> need be.
> >     This
> >     > sounds like an interesting project to me, I say we roll with it
> while we
> >     have
> >     > momentum! Can we get consensus on a domain name?
> >
> >     If we're really doing tshirts I think we should stick with a site
> that
> >     will be around a long time, maybe with a catchphrase about colorado
> >     ubuntu support.  Using our coloco address sounds much more widely
> >     usable and beneficial to me, and if we don't like it we can change
> it.
> >
> >     -Neal
>
> On Thu, Oct 11, 2007 at 03:28:28PM -0600, Alex Comer wrote:
> > If by "our coloco address" you mean http://coloco.ubuntu-rocks.org/, I
> would
> > disagree, unless we're going to paste a giant green button on it that
> says "if
> > you are here for free support click here" right in the middle of the
> top. http:
> > //coloco.ubuntu-rocks.org/ is a community site for our group, while this
> > proposed site, if I am understanding the idea, would be more of a
> marketing
> > site, to market the idea of switching to ubunu, promote the feasibility
> of the
> > idea to people. This is a different goal than
> http://coloco.ubuntu-rocks.org/
> > has, which is more about connecting a network of geeks. It seems to me
> that the
> > site referred to on the shirt should definitely link to our group site
> (ie:
> > sponsered by ubuntu colorado team, click here:
> http://coloco.ubuntu-rocks.org/
> > ), but it has a distinctly different purpose. Joe Schmoe wouldn't know
> what to
> > do next at http://coloco.ubuntu-rocks.org/ . The proposed site would
> need to
> > be, in my mind at least, insanely easy to understand for the common user
> with a
> > clearly targeted goal of converting computer users into ubuntu users.
> >
> > Just my $0.02
> > Alex
>
> [I'm also a fan of bottom posting, and even more so of getting rid of
> the stuff that isn't relevant to your reply.  Like the 787 (!) lines
> of previous conversation that I just got rid of, and should have
> gotten rid of with my first reply....]
>
> One thing I'm trying to say is that I don't want yet another t-shirt
> with a site on it that will fade away like so many sites do.  It takes
> a lot of effort to keep a site current, inviting and functional
> enough, and _marketed well enough_, to matter.  And remember that if
> you put our advertising and reputation into a new domain name, you
> don't want that domain name to EVER expire.  Or else you'll end up
> with some damn advertising site grabbing it up and from then on anyone
> linking to our site will curse our memory....
>
> I also think some attention to our "sphere of influence" would help.
> The main thing WE can influence with this team is Ubuntu in Colorado.
>
> There have been a bunch of posts about how to create the latest
> greatest advocacy site ever for Ubuntu and free software.  My guess is
> that there are already sites out there that have taken each approch
> that folks are suggesting here.  I'd suggest some more surfing to see
> if there are existing sites, with which we can partner or give input.
>
> In the end, I'd ask what our goal as a loco is.  Is it to hang out as
> a group, and have a web site that caters to us?  Or is it to fix Bug
> #1 by helping our fellow Coloradans??
>
> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1
> Bug #1 in Ubuntu: Microsoft has a majority market share
>
> Well, I imagine different folks have different takes on that, but what
> if we designed the front page of the web site to fix bug #1 for
> Coloradans, with the sort of content and design that others have been
> talking about, and advertised that, and then had a link on there that
> would let the more clued-in folks find our coloco collaboration part
> of the site, perhaps that would be more effective.
>
> I'll also pass along this reference for advice on Ubuntu Loco-specific
> configuration of Drupal, Wordpress etc.
>
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCreatingWebsite
>
> And if we don't think our URL is the best, this is a good time to fix
> that....
>
> Cheers,
>
> -Neal
>
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-- 
Alex Comer
alex at platinumcode.com
720-883-5493
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