--On Tuesday, July 18, 2017 11:02 +0100 Tim Chown
<tjc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> I mention that here because I think it's a very general
>> point. I've entered tickets for some details, and I would
>> encourage everybody to do that, because inevitably there will
>> be errors in content conversion, and the more eyes looking
>> for them, the better.
>
> The response I got was basically "come and discuss it in
> person in Prague" - the new site designer(s) are here, near
> the registration desk. It's not clear what feedback is
> sticking, or not :)
Especially for a web page that has to be used by the entire
participant community to do work (independent of whatever other
functions it serves), I am increasingly convinced that we need a
front/home page that is basically and index, which nothing but
(maybe slightly annotated) links. If we need to have a
marketing- or PR-oriented page (I can see the argument for it
but am not sure I'm convinced), the participant-oriented page
might be at partcipant.ietf.org or even useful.ietf.org, either
of which would pass an "easy to remember" test.
Drawing comments in some other notes together, I think the
criteria for that page should be ability to be rendered in a
single panel on a normal screen (i.e., no scrolling required)
and should strive for zero images and dynamic content or a least
rendering well in a text-only browser.
I don't think the current Datatracker page does that job.
Because it is basically a search page with a sidebar, its use of
screen real estate is very poor for a index-like or
dispatching-like home page (including requiring scrolling) and
when, for example, I'm looking for the membership list and
contact info for the IESG, unlike the sidebar on the current
IETF home page, I have to know to scroll to the bottom, find the
"IESG" link, and then use it to pull up a page than then permits
me to get the the Member list. IMO, that is a scrolling effort
and several clicks too many.
That is not a criticism of the Datatracker page as such -- I
think it is rather good for its purpose -- only the notion that,
as it currently stands, it is a good approximation to an ideal
home page for getting work done.
Finally, our usual assumption is that the participant list for
the IETF is the union of the number of people who attend
meetings, plus many of most of those on the IETF discussion
list, plus many or most of those on all of the active WG and
former WG lists. That is a very large number compared to the
set of people who happen to be present in person at give f2f
IETF meeting. My guess is that even the number of people who,
in the course of a year, contribute to at least one WG mailing
list, review at least one document, or author an I-D is many
times larger than physical meeting attendance. If I am right
about that, if "come and discuss it in person in Prague" was
actually a response, it is fairly insulting to most of the
community as well as a violation of the spirit of our "decide on
the mailing list" rules. So I hope that Tim misinterpreted the
response he got and that, whoever the "new site designer(s)"
are, they are following comments on this list very carefully.
john