Fedora web site. The "I'm feeling lucky" test.

[Naoki]

Don't flame me, just making an observation and voicing an opinion ( and
we all know about those ).

I typed the following terms into google and hit "I'm feeling Lucky" and
this is what I felt about the results..

"mandriva"  - Looks clean, but driven by a marketing team.
"centos" - Perfectly functional to me.
"ubuntu" - Neat, clean, works.
"suse" - Pretty good, typical corporate site.
"xandros" - Much the same comment I have for Suse.
"yellow dog" - And again, but more slick.
"knoppix" - Lots of penguins, not pretty, but info and download links
are easy to find.
"slackware" - Very basic, which suits what slackware is actually.
"turbolinux" - Easy enough to find what I need, not the nicest looking
by far though.
"red flag linux" - Works for me.
"redhat" - Nice, good layout of information, get quickly into the area I
want.
"debian" - Not pretty at all, but works.
"fedora" - Without doubt the most disappointing, and least exciting
result of the bunch.

Of the fedora sites I tend to lean towards fedoraproject.org being the
nicest, fedora.info coming in second, while fedora.us is down for me so
I can't tell.

I tend to think the same as Bill Hicks when it comes to marketing but it
would be nice if Fedora was better represented.

Is anybody working on perhaps improving the situation or would this be
deemed low priority / unimportant ?

Cheers.

[Patrick W. Barnes]

On Wednesday 07 June 2006 05:17, Naoki  wrote:
> Don't flame me, just making an observation and voicing an opinion ( and
> we all know about those ).
>
> I typed the following terms into google and hit "I'm feeling Lucky" and
> this is what I felt about the results..

...
> "fedora" - Without doubt the most disappointing, and least exciting
> result of the bunch.
>
> Of the fedora sites I tend to lean towards fedoraproject.org being the
> nicest, fedora.info coming in second, while fedora.us is down for me so
> I can't tell.
>
> I tend to think the same as Bill Hicks when it comes to marketing but it
> would be nice if Fedora was better represented.
>
> Is anybody working on perhaps improving the situation or would this be
> deemed low priority / unimportant ?

There's not too terribly much more we can do about this.  Google's results are 
largely determined by their PageRank formulas a few other automated factors, 
and the standing of results can change at any time.  fedora.redhat.com was 
long the official Fedora website, and the migration to fedoraproject.org has 
been slow in many regards.  As more people and websites begin pointing to 
fedoraproject.org instead, that domain will rise in the results.  Having the 
external references split between the two domains has a negative impact on 
the standings of each.  If you want to help, the best thing you can do is 
tell people to direct their links to the fedoraproject.org domain.

[Naoki]

> There's not too terribly much more we can do about this.  Google's results are 
> largely determined by their PageRank formulas a few other automated factors, 
> and the standing of results can change at any time.  fedora.redhat.com was 
> long the official Fedora website, and the migration to fedoraproject.org has 
> been slow in many regards.  As more people and websites begin pointing to 
> fedoraproject.org instead, that domain will rise in the results.  Having the 
> external references split between the two domains has a negative impact on 
> the standings of each.  If you want to help, the best thing you can do is 
> tell people to direct their links to the fedoraproject.org domain.
> Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes

Right on brother, definitely need to promote the site as much as
possible. I was wondering if perhaps some meta-tag tweaks or something
might help, or links off fedora.redhat.com?

[Irving Bennett]

> On Wednesday 07 June 2006 05:17, Naoki  wrote:
> > Don't flame me, just making an observation and voicing an opinion ( and
> > we all know about those ).
> >
> > I typed the following terms into google and hit "I'm feeling Lucky" and
> > this is what I felt about the results..
>
> ...
> > "fedora" - Without doubt the most disappointing, and least exciting
> > result of the bunch.
> >
> > Of the fedora sites I tend to lean towards fedoraproject.org being the
> > nicest, fedora.info coming in second, while fedora.us is down for me so
> > I can't tell.
> >
> > I tend to think the same as Bill Hicks when it comes to marketing but it
> > would be nice if Fedora was better represented.
> >
> > Is anybody working on perhaps improving the situation or would this be
> > deemed low priority / unimportant ?
>
> There's not too terribly much more we can do about this.  Google's results
> are
> largely determined by their PageRank formulas a few other automated
> factors,
> and the standing of results can change at any time.  fedora.redhat.com was
> long the official Fedora website, and the migration to fedoraproject.org
> has
> been slow in many regards.  As more people and websites begin pointing to
> fedoraproject.org instead, that domain will rise in the results.  Having
> the
> external references split between the two domains has a negative impact on
> the standings of each.  If you want to help, the best thing you can do is
> tell people to direct their links to the fedoraproject.org domain.
>
> --
> Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
> [e-mail]
>
> http://www.n-man.com/
>
> LinkedIn:
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/nman64
>
> Have I been helpful?  Rate my assistance!
> http://rate.affero.net/nman64/
> --
>
> --
> Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list

I believe Naoki was referring to the quality of the Fedora sites. The
Fedora sites do not have nearly as much information and documentation as
the other sites. We know that much of the excellent Redhat documentation
applies to Fedora as well, but within the Fedora sites there is almost no
documentation. For example, there is no "Fedora User Guide" in the Fedora
sites. Also, if you take a look at Recent Changes in the Fedora Project
site, most of the activity has to do with this group. There is very little
activity in the "real information" area.

As a long time Fedora user, I have often turned to other places to find
information on how to run my Fedora Linux systems. Most often I turn to
Redhat, or tldp.org. Very seldom do I find answers in fedora.redhat.com,
or fedoraproject.com... The answer, of course, is that some of us have to
pick up that ball, and run with it!

Saludos,

Irving Bennett
Panama

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Irving Bennett wrote:
> I believe Naoki was referring to the quality of the Fedora sites. The
> Fedora sites do not have nearly as much information and documentation as
> the other sites. We know that much of the excellent Redhat documentation
> applies to Fedora as well, but within the Fedora sites there is almost no
> documentation. For example, there is no "Fedora User Guide" in the Fedora
> sites. Also, if you take a look at Recent Changes in the Fedora Project
> site, most of the activity has to do with this group. There is very little
> activity in the "real information" area.
>
> As a long time Fedora user, I have often turned to other places to find
> information on how to run my Fedora Linux systems. Most often I turn to
> Redhat, or tldp.org. Very seldom do I find answers in fedora.redhat.com,
> or fedoraproject.com... The answer, of course, is that some of us have to
> pick up that ball, and run with it!

My $0.02:

People go to Google first, in just about every case.

RHEL developers, when they're trying to figure out something weird, put 
their error messages straight into Google.

Newbies, when they're trying to figure out how to get MP3s to work on 
Fedora, Google "Fedora MP3".

If we put the best information on fedoraproject.org, over time 
fedoraproject.org will become the authoritative site.  That's just how it 
will work.

--g

-------------------------------------------------------------
Greg DeKoenigsberg || Fedora Project || fedoraproject.org
Be an Ambassador || http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors
-------------------------------------------------------------

[Jeremy Hogan]

Not to mix quality of th esite with Google results, but you can improve the
"I'm feeling lucky" results by improving your Google page rank. That goes up
the more people click your site when they type in keywords that match your
meta or site contents mixed in with the number of folks that link to you.
Plus a dash of pepper, and what I think is nutmeg.

For what it's worth, "fedora", "fedora core" and "fedora linux" take me to
fedora.redhat.com (fedora.info is second to fedora.redhat.com in pagerank)
"fedora extras" takes me to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras.

--jeremy

On 6/7/06, Irving Bennett  wrote:
> > On Wednesday 07 June 2006 05:17, Naoki  wrote:
> > > Don't flame me, just making an observation and voicing an opinion ( and
> > > we all know about those ).
> > >
> > > I typed the following terms into google and hit "I'm feeling Lucky" and
> > > this is what I felt about the results..
> >
> > ...
> > > "fedora" - Without doubt the most disappointing, and least exciting
> > > result of the bunch.
> > >
> > > Of the fedora sites I tend to lean towards fedoraproject.org being the
> > > nicest, fedora.info coming in second, while fedora.us is down for me so
> > > I can't tell.
> > >
> > > I tend to think the same as Bill Hicks when it comes to marketing but
>
> it
> > > would be nice if Fedora was better represented.
> > >
> > > Is anybody working on perhaps improving the situation or would this be
> > > deemed low priority / unimportant ?
> >
> > There's not too terribly much more we can do about this.  Google's
>
> results
> > are
> > largely determined by their PageRank formulas a few other automated
> > factors,
> > and the standing of results can change at any time.  fedora.redhat.comwas
> > long the official Fedora website, and the migration to fedoraproject.org
> > has
> > been slow in many regards.  As more people and websites begin pointing
>
> to
> > fedoraproject.org instead, that domain will rise in the results.  Having
> > the
> > external references split between the two domains has a negative impact
>
> on
> > the standings of each.  If you want to help, the best thing you can do
>
> is
> > tell people to direct their links to the fedoraproject.org domain.
> >
> > --
> > Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
> > [e-mail]
> >
> > http://www.n-man.com/
> >
> > LinkedIn:
> > http://www.linkedin.com/in/nman64
> >
> > Have I been helpful?  Rate my assistance!
> > http://rate.affero.net/nman64/
> > --
> >
> > --
> > Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>
> I believe Naoki was referring to the quality of the Fedora sites. The
> Fedora sites do not have nearly as much information and documentation as
> the other sites. We know that much of the excellent Redhat documentation
> applies to Fedora as well, but within the Fedora sites there is almost no
> documentation. For example, there is no "Fedora User Guide" in the Fedora
> sites. Also, if you take a look at Recent Changes in the Fedora Project
> site, most of the activity has to do with this group. There is very little
> activity in the "real information" area.
>
> As a long time Fedora user, I have often turned to other places to find
> information on how to run my Fedora Linux systems. Most often I turn to
> Redhat, or tldp.org. Very seldom do I find answers in fedora.redhat.com,
> or fedoraproject.com... The answer, of course, is that some of us have to
> pick up that ball, and run with it!
>
> Saludos,
>
> Irving Bennett
> Panama
>
> --
> Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Irving Bennett escribió:
> > On Wednesday 07 June 2006 05:17, Naoki  wrote:
> > > Don't flame me, just making an observation and voicing an opinion ( and
> > > we all know about those ).
> > >
> > > I typed the following terms into google and hit "I'm feeling Lucky" and
> > > this is what I felt about the results..
> >
> > ...
> > > "fedora" - Without doubt the most disappointing, and least exciting
> > > result of the bunch.
> > >
> > > Of the fedora sites I tend to lean towards fedoraproject.org being the
> > > nicest, fedora.info coming in second, while fedora.us is down for me so
> > > I can't tell.
> > >
> > > I tend to think the same as Bill Hicks when it comes to marketing but it
> > > would be nice if Fedora was better represented.
> > >
> > > Is anybody working on perhaps improving the situation or would this be
> > > deemed low priority / unimportant ?
> >
> > There's not too terribly much more we can do about this.  Google's results
> > are
> > largely determined by their PageRank formulas a few other automated
> > factors,
> > and the standing of results can change at any time.  fedora.redhat.com was
> > long the official Fedora website, and the migration to fedoraproject.org
> > has
> > been slow in many regards.  As more people and websites begin pointing to
> > fedoraproject.org instead, that domain will rise in the results.  Having
> > the
> > external references split between the two domains has a negative impact on
> > the standings of each.  If you want to help, the best thing you can do is
> > tell people to direct their links to the fedoraproject.org domain.
> >
> > --
> > Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
> > [e-mail]
> >
> > http://www.n-man.com/
> >
> > LinkedIn:
> > http://www.linkedin.com/in/nman64
> >
> > Have I been helpful?  Rate my assistance!
> > http://rate.affero.net/nman64/
> > --
> >
> > --
> > Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>
> I believe Naoki was referring to the quality of the Fedora sites. The
> Fedora sites do not have nearly as much information and documentation as
> the other sites. We know that much of the excellent Redhat documentation
> applies to Fedora as well, but within the Fedora sites there is almost no
> documentation. For example, there is no "Fedora User Guide" in the Fedora
> sites. Also, if you take a look at Recent Changes in the Fedora Project
> site, most of the activity has to do with this group. There is very little
> activity in the "real information" area.
>
> As a long time Fedora user, I have often turned to other places to find
> information on how to run my Fedora Linux systems. Most often I turn to
> Redhat, or tldp.org. Very seldom do I find answers in fedora.redhat.com,
> or fedoraproject.com... The answer, of course, is that some of us have to
> pick up that ball, and run with it!
>
> Saludos,
>
> Irving Bennett
> Panama

I was thinking about this the other day, and I think that
fedraproject.org should also host the "international" sites of Fedora,
in other words a single place for all things Fedora. For me searching
on Google's "I feel lucky" for Fedora took me to fedora-es.com, so not
that deviated (as I'm a natural Spanish speaker and my Fedora is in
Spanish), but still having all fall under the fedoraproject.org/[lang]
umbrella would be better, IMO.
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFEhxK2XM+XOp70dwoRAruYAJ92M/M4r/v3RVgTrP0tXiU1FCMIzQCfdGlk
> nrG1ASAh37zYG9LVhcq5nRs=
> =QhQa
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Dimitris Glezos]

Gian Paolo Mureddu wrote:
> I was thinking about this the other day, and I think that
> fedraproject.org should also host the "international" sites of Fedora,
> in other words a single place for all things Fedora.

That wouldn't be a bad idea at all. The french team is doing something
like that:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/fr_FR

and he greek team is thinking about doing it as well.

Furthermore, I'd agree with Naoki about the quality. I believe it's
important to give more weight on marketing and what the user needs. The
first impression is important, and also important is finding (as a user)
what you need, quickly.

An idea is to separate a bit the development part from the user part on
the website. The first pages should be carefully designed and organized.
And this can be done from inside the wiki as well (we don't have to do
it outside /wiki/ I mean).

An example of good/simple design for a frontpage is the mozilla.org
website. And of course, the clean design of fedora.redhat.com is nice.

D.

[Bryan Elliott]

Naoki wrote:
> Don't flame me, just making an observation and voicing an opinion ( and
> we all know about those ).
>
> I typed the following terms into google and hit "I'm feeling Lucky" and
> this is what I felt about the results..
>
> "mandriva"  - Looks clean, but driven by a marketing team.
> "centos" - Perfectly functional to me.
> "ubuntu" - Neat, clean, works.
> "suse" - Pretty good, typical corporate site.
> "xandros" - Much the same comment I have for Suse.
> "yellow dog" - And again, but more slick.
> "knoppix" - Lots of penguins, not pretty, but info and download links
> are easy to find.
> "slackware" - Very basic, which suits what slackware is actually.
> "turbolinux" - Easy enough to find what I need, not the nicest looking
> by far though.
> "red flag linux" - Works for me.
> "redhat" - Nice, good layout of information, get quickly into the area I
> want.
> "debian" - Not pretty at all, but works.
> "fedora" - Without doubt the most disappointing, and least exciting
> result of the bunch.
>
> Of the fedora sites I tend to lean towards fedoraproject.org being the
> nicest, fedora.info coming in second, while fedora.us is down for me so
> I can't tell.
>
> I tend to think the same as Bill Hicks when it comes to marketing but it
> would be nice if Fedora was better represented.
>
> Is anybody working on perhaps improving the situation or would this be
> deemed low priority / unimportant ?
>
> Cheers.
>
> --
> Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list

I personally think that the only way you are going to drive up stats the 
fedoraproject.org site and get better rankings is if the  
fedora.redhat.com goes away. Right now having two sites is splitting the 
traffic that would otherwise go to the one single site. Would it be 
possible to get the fedora.redhat.com site redirected to 
fedoraproject.org? and over time phase the redhat sub-domain out?

That being said I believe that to a new user the fedora.redhat.com site 
is a lot less intimidating that the fedoraproject.org site. Again these 
are just my ideals for what they are worth.

Bryan Elliott

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Bryan Elliott wrote:
> I personally think that the only way you are going to drive up stats the
> fedoraproject.org site and get better rankings is if the
> fedora.redhat.com goes away. Right now having two sites is splitting the
> traffic that would otherwise go to the one single site. Would it be
> possible to get the fedora.redhat.com site redirected to
> fedoraproject.org? and over time phase the redhat sub-domain out?

It's in the plan -- but since we're not getting much traction on the plan 
here at RH, the plan is likely to, very soon, become:

"We're turning f.r.c off on this date.  If you have a problem with this, 
well... you've been warned."
> That being said I believe that to a new user the fedora.redhat.com site 
> is a lot less intimidating that the fedoraproject.org site. Again these 
> are just my ideals for what they are worth.

Yeah, I agree, and it's part of the difference between small informative
sites and wikis.

--g

-------------------------------------------------------------
Greg DeKoenigsberg || Fedora Project || fedoraproject.org
Be an Ambassador || http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors
-------------------------------------------------------------

[Max Spevack]

> > That being said I believe that to a new user the fedora.redhat.com site
> > is a lot less intimidating that the fedoraproject.org site. Again these
> > are just my ideals for what they are worth.
>
> Yeah, I agree, and it's part of the difference between small informative
> sites and wikis.

I think what we need to do is clean up the front page of the wiki a little 
bit, and then we can more easily serve both crowds.  First impression is 
one of organization and a "professional" face, but when you start to dig 
in, you see all the wiki goodness.

--Max

[Bryan Elliott]

Max Spevack wrote:
> > > That being said I believe that to a new user the fedora.redhat.com site
> > > is a lot less intimidating that the fedoraproject.org site. Again these
> > > are just my ideals for what they are worth.
> >
> > Yeah, I agree, and it's part of the difference between small informative
> > sites and wikis.
>
> I think what we need to do is clean up the front page of the wiki a 
> little bit, and then we can more easily serve both crowds.  First 
> impression is one of organization and a "professional" face, but when 
> you start to dig in, you see all the wiki goodness.
>
> --Max

I would agree with that. You have to have a good first impression or you 
intended audience is never going to dig in to the site to see what you 
have to offer. It don't matter what you're doing it is very hard to make 
up for a bad first impression. In a lot of cases you will not have the 
opportunity to.

Bryan Elliott

[nicola .:kOoLiNuS:. losito]

Hi list,
on the wiki aspect of the Official Fedora site has to be given a serious
thinking.

I am coming from 6 months experience with openSUSE site, which is a wiki
driven one, and it's been difficoult to introduce and "keep up" running
many aspects of it.

Still i don't have understood completely the relations (legal and
commercial ones, at least) that we have between www.redhat.com ->
http://fedora.redhat.com -> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/

When the roles are clearly defined we can successfully manage the last
2, and decide on localization in a way to gather local teams
effectively.

I find the Ubuntulinux.org site as an illuminating example to look at.
To me they've started from the beginning as a wiki but with a core team
being in control of the overall design, the core info, the official
announcements and the "official doc". Then there was a part given to
choosen people which coordinates reasonable portion of it and the
contribution that began to come in.

For the local sites i can take here the italian example, some started a
local wiki, with our own logo and color palette. Then two or three
prominent contributors became "the" local Lo-Co team reference for italy
to deal with the core group. It has been stated that the local site had
to look more and more similar to the Official one, and there is going
some (controlled) interaction on what happens to Ubuntu-Forum and the
wiki.

This way of proceeding has revealed to be successfull (look at the
number of arguments in both ubuntu forums/wiki).

The openSUSE experience was, for me - obviously, a bit frustrating since
there was and already strong but crystalized community around SUSE and
the openSUSE site has lacked to gather enough momentum around himself
(again too many times I've read "we're waiting for a Novell answer /
solution / whatever). That will be also the answer for Fedora ? I hope
not, since i've joined you again on the core 5 release (and the
discovery of the fedoraproject wiki).

To summon up. Maybe now with fedoraproject.org growing we should think
about the roles of "the wiki" and of "the site". The latter of which,
for me, is at the moment fedora.redhat.com.

Hope not being dull or boring. If so, excuse me, please.

Ciao