Wiki page for country

[Máirín Duffy]

On Sat, 2010-07-03 at 11:06 -0400, Chris Tyler wrote:
> I see three separate things here; let me sum them up from my POV--

This is a helpful summary - thanks :)
> 
> - A discussion about whether foo.fedoracommunity.org should be permitted
> to point to fedoraproject.org/wiki/foo (the original question). The
> argument for this include making it easy to remember where local content
> can be found, the argument against this is that it loses the original
> meaning attached to fedoracommunity.org, that is, local community-run
> websites outside of the scope of the main Fedora project. My opinion is
> that this distinction is significant and should not be lost -- we should
> not point *.fedoracommunity.org to resources within the main
> fedoraproject.org space.

I don't understand. 

Easy to remember - awesome. That makes sense, sounds like a great
advantage - it also shows all local communities being treated
fairly/equally.

Carefully preserving the original meaning attached to
fedoracommunity.org to the detriment of having a usable URL scheme -
this I do not understand. I don't really think the original meaning of
fedoracommunity.org is obvious, accessible, or important to users. It
seems something that only lawyers or folks who would be potentially
liable (the Board) would appreciate.

> - Paul pointed out during the discussion yesterday that it would also be
> possible to create foo.fedoraproject.org and have it point to a
> particular resource (e.g., wiki landing page). I don't know if this was
> an off-the-cuff observation that this is possible, or a serious proposal
> that we do it. The other possibility, I suppose, would be
> fedoraproject.org/foo, if the intention is simply to create short,
> memorable URLs. Personally, I don't consider these to be a great step
> forward from fedoraproject.org/wiki/foo.

If the *.fedoraproject.org for Fedora-infra-hosted sites were
discouraged - then as a member of a local community I would feel like we
are saying:

"If your community has the time / resources / money / etc to host your
own infrastructure, then you're treated special and given a nice domain.
If you have to rely on our infrastructure, not only are you restricted
to posting content subject to US law, but you are also stuck with a less
desirable / harder to brand URL."

It seems unfair.
> 
> - The idea of a better index page to all of the localized and local
> resources is desirable, perhaps at www.fedoracommunity.org, with links
> to foo.fedoracommunity.org and fedoraproject.org/wiki/foo (or fp.o/foo
> or foo.fp.o) as appropriate. I can't see this as anything but win.

+1!!
> 
> My concern, [badly] expressed in the previous e-mail, is that we run the
> risk of fragmenting the community. "My stuff is under
> baz.fedoraproject.org, that's where *I* contribute" ... "There is no
> bar.fc.o, there must not be any Fedora activity in that country" ...
> "Oh, there's a good resource for NetworkManager, it's in the Estonian
> community site".

To the former concern, I don't really see how anything on the table here
helps that problem. It seems quite realistic that we won't have a site
under any domain for every single country that has Fedora users in it.

To the latter concern, I think that's also something we have no control
over. As it is community-specific sites have resources that aren't
echoed in the main project. Fedora Unity, fedora-fr, various magazines
and other online guides.... It doesn't seem like a solvable problem and
I'm not exactly sure it is a problem.

If this really is a huge concern, you *could* steer the
fedoracommunity.org sites to follow some specific template that
influences the kinds and type of content that would be posted there (see
the spins.fpo individual spin pages for an example of what i mean)
> 
> I would much rather see us concentrate our efforts under the fp.o
> umbrella, and leave foo.fc.o for local initiatives (library rollouts,
> discussions of legislation which will touch open source, national
> installfests, wifi power/channel tables to comply with local
> regulations, localization sprints, ...) and for localized content.

Of course the main focus should be on fpo - I completely agree with
that. If a local community is going to start up their own site anyway,
though, or wants to have their own set of content specific to their
concerns, why not offer that all under a single consistent domain? They
are going to set up a site anyway I am sure in many cases... to solve
the problem you're bringing up here you'd have to ban them from setting
up their own site no matter what URL it lives at, no?

I think what really is mind-bending me here is what appears to me a
strict emphasis on both legality and implementation above all. Legality
and implementation are obviously important, but also - IMHO - overly
complicated to understand logically.

For someone who understands and thinks of the
legal/jurisdictional/whatever requirements that fedoraproject.org is
restricted to, yes, the point of fedoracommunity.org is clear. I fear
that's not a very large population, however. 

However, many current and would-be users do not approach websites from a
legal or implementation-centric perspective. Users seeking out a website
for their area are going to look at the distinction between
fedoraproject.org/wiki/foo or foo.fedoraproject.org (the latter which
you seem opposed to) and foo.fedoracommunity.org and be a little baffled
as to why there isn't a consistency there.

- *.fedoracommunity.org for all local Fedora community efforts.... no
matter what infrastructure any individual site is running on - fthat
makes sense. I think that's easily digestible.

- *.fedoracommunity.org for locales within jurisdictions where things
that are not legal for the United States *are* legal and which are
exclusively *not* hosted on fedoraproject.org infrastructure.... that's
a bit less obvious to the casual observer who does not view websites
from a legal or liability POV.

It also seems the purpose of fedoracommunity.org is to only be for
potentially legally-problematic-in-the-US content to the exclusion of
any other content, yet somehow it seems okay for any other locales to
use it so long as they have their own infrastructure. The conflation
between the legal concerns and the infrastructure concerns has me quite
confused.

It makes sense the impetus/point of the fedoracommunity.org domain was
to enable non US community groups the freedoms they are afforded in
their respective countries without causing a problem for the US parts of
the project, but I still do not understand why it can't be posed in a
much less obtuse manner, using fedoracommunity.org as the home for
locale-specific sites which are going to exist anyway. Adding the
infrastructure issue on top has me very confused. If it's some kind of
legal issue though - the very presence of an fpo domain associated with
a fedoracommunity.org domain legally defeating the purpose of having the
separate domain - then I'll happily leave it alone. I would like to know
if that is why, though, because thus far that explanation has not been
given and it's the only one that makes sense to me.

~m