get.fedoraproject.org redesign

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 10:19:37AM -0700, John Poelstra wrote:
> Sorry, I lost the original thread to reply to.
>
> Could one of the requirements of the new site be to encompass  
> information currently found at wiki pages like this?  
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Download
>
> It seems that we have this information spread out in a lot of different  
> places, including some of the official documentation.  Having to  
> maintain it in fewer places seems like a better way to go.

I agree, this is one of those common problems with a wiki that is
tolerable because of the ease of collaboration and flexibility it
offers.  You end up with too many pages duplicating information and in
many cases aging badly.

I note that in one of Mo Duffy's mockups, there's a clearly defined
link that would be seen after starting a download:

http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/temp/woot/page3.png

Look at the leftmost widget ("What should I do with this ISO file?")
and you'll see where the link would come from.  I think incorporating
this information onto a page on the website makes sense, since it
doesn't need to change often.  That page shouldn't need to reflect
release-specific information or links to downloads.  (You'd be looking
at the new page *subsequent* to downloading.)

It bears pointing out that the information most important to end-users
is already maintained by the Documentation team here:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/installation-quick-start-guide/f11/en-US/html/
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f11/en-US/html/

The first one is where you'd want most new users to go, esp. in light
of the simplified route to the default Live image.  The second
contains all the information needed to use Anaconda in the case of a
general installation.

That [[Download]] wiki page seems like an evolution of an old page
from the original Fedora site that always had significant problems.
It tries to hit too many targets at once and falls short of a lot of
them at this point, because it's been overtaken by other routes to the
same information.  A well designed website shouldn't require most of
what's on that page.  It should be easy to download Fedora, verify the
disc with the functions already on the image, and run it right away
without having to drill down into link farms.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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