Re: IAOC Seeks Community Input on IETF Website Revamp SOW

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Lemon" <ted.lemon@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Eric Burger" <eburger-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2014 4:58 PM
On Mar 17, 2014, at 12:12 PM, Eric Burger <eburger-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Agreed. We don't need flashy(tm) stuff. We need easy to access and
find stuff. Mobile sites are really easy if the site itself is simple,
compact, and NOT using the proprietary flavor of the month for fancy
display.

While we certainly don't need a web site that doesn't continue to fill
the needs of its existing community, it's worth asking if "we" really
means what various people who have weighed in on this think it means.
What is the target audience for the web site?   Is it IETF attendees?
The press?   People who use our protocol specifications?   The open
source community?   Young geeks learning about networking?
Governments?   Other standards bodies?

Nearly 100% of the time when I go to the IETF web site it's to look up
when the next meeting is, or when a previous meeting was.   Everything
else I tend to access through the datatracker.   Am I a typical user?
Are you a typical user?

I don't know what the answer to these questions is, but I suspect that
if you look at this effort strictly from the perspective of "what would
work for me," you probably are narrowing the scope way too much to be
useful.

<tp>

I was concerned when I first heard of this that it would result in a
website that would call for flashy software on a gee-whiz device to
be able to carry on participating in the work of the IETF.  I note,
however, that while the SOW talks of getting the work done, the SOW is
limited to www.ietf.org.  Checking History, I find I last used that when
planning to attend IETF89 and before that, I cannot recall when.

So if www.ietf.og was made gee-whiz and flashy, it would not affect me;
and perhaps that website, which is what the innocent browser would most
likely stumble across in a search for the IETF, should be gee-whiz and
flashy to advertise better who we are and what we do, to give us more
street cred..

Of course, if graphics, moving images and incredibly clever java
(that always misguesses what I am about to do) were to mission creep in
the direction of the datatracker, then that would be disastrous for me;
but as long as this is only www.ietf.org, then it could be a good thing.

Tom Petch





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