Steven, You put a lot of work into this! It's hitting on a lot of pain points that do need to be addressed. There is only so much that can be done at one time and it needs to be prioritized.
On Tue, May 06, 2025 at 07:56:03AM -0400, Steven wrote: > it certainly is not a plan but I hope it is the first step towards one (if > everyone feels there is a need for a one)! Like you said on the call, the project lacks focus. I think not having a plan is why the PR is the way it is. From where this thread has gone and general complaints I've read on the web, the following are projects that I can think of, in order of priority (or feasibility): 1. Update the wiki content 2. Update the website content 3. Create a new, default theme for GNUstep 4. Redesign the website 5. Create a developer subdomain 6. Get the word out! Updating the content includes cleaning up many dead links, outdated guides, etc. and will drive the structure and visual design. All of these work together, and some of the rest of this email explains why I think this order should be used in a little more detail. Please let me know if I've missed something that should be on this list. > The GNUstep project clearly states what GNUstep is and isn’t I don't think it is described effectively. There's a lot of conflicting information and confusion about GNUstep on the Internet, and I believe that's mostly due to GNUstep's own marketing. > The existing site contains a lot of content that stands to benefit from a new > refreshed look and feel. This I believe would be the first step to creating a > foundation for promoting the project. I think the more important part is updating the information first (1. and 2. above). The looks don't matter if the content doesn't communicate effectively. Navigation seems to be part of design in your document, but I view that as separate from the theme/look. Maybe for clarity, we can discuss these two elements as the visual design (the colors, themes, typefaces; the UI) and the structure (navigation, how pages are organized; the UX). The structure can certainly be simplified and pages can be combined. Nevertheless, the bigger visual design issue lies within GNUstep itself (see the next point). > Official GNUstep YouTube channel containing organized playlists This sounds great. A video demo could even be put on the main page of the website: look at how [CoreObject][1] did this. Within a few minutes of first visiting that site, I wasn't confused about what CoreObject could do. It took me hours to figure out what GNUstep can do. Most people won't spend this much time researching GNUstep. However, the default theme for GNUstep is repulsive to nearly everyone who isn't a NeXT enthusiast. Media would be best to update and display after GNUstep apps look attractive, _by default_. One of the most common criticisms about GNUstep is that it looks stuck in the 90s. People don't care that it can be themed, because all they see when they search for it is the classic NeXT look. > Restart GNUstep Twitch channel This doesn't make sense to me, as I think of Twitch as a streaming platform for video games. The audience on YouTube is larger, and that style makes more sense for a software development environment. > Enhance GNustep announcements A main "Blog" section on the website would help immensely with news, announcements, and articles (see my final comment). Although, someone would need to be responsible for managing the posts in this section. If the developer blogs were unified, it would consolidate quality content that can educate others on GNUstep and its progress. > DistroWatch (applicable?) I don't think this is applicable, since GNUstep isn't a distro. If there are GNUstep-based distros out there that want to be on DistroWatch, that's up to them to do. > Re-launch the [objc retain] campaign Sounds good, but as far as I know, this wasn't part of the GNUstep project officially, so it's up to the original authors on that. > Increasing the consistency of look and feel for all pages The general feeling that I get is that a redesign of the site was started, but never completed. This makes the website feel worse than just sticking with the old design throughout. It failed, and another redesign is now desired. > Given the rough idea of who the primary GNUstep users are... An additional thought... The main audience that will hit the GNUstep website now is developers: the average end user never does a web search for "Cocoa" or "Qt" to find apps. Power users might look it in time, but that won't happen until more GNUstep apps are created. > I believe this makes a strong case to create a developer.gnustep.org section. The content I see on the developer.gnustep.com site is documentation (API reference, tutorials, etc.), but my gut feeling is that this is _a lot_ more work than improving the main website. Developers won't care about the documentation if the website doesn't give them a compelling reason to spend the time to look at it. > Create a PR discussion thread on the gnustep-discuss mailing for more > discussion and planning. > Formalize a plan for what work needs to be done and who would like to join in > on the effort. Now I see why you brought up the other thread I started, "Wiki Updates". This certainly seems to go in line with that, as I am trying to find out how and where to start organizing projects and tasks for the website and wiki. I guess I thought the discussion part of this thread was done and the planning needed to move to something more actionable and accountable than an email thread. The problem with mailing lists is that things get talked about ad nauseam, but action isn't taken on what was discussed. > ... a reorganization of the information architecture supporting this would > benefit the project as well. This reminds me of a sketch that I started and need to finish on the sections and navigation of the website. I'll open a new thread for that soon. [1]: https://coreobject.org/ -- Luke Lollard
