[darcs-users] darcs patch: Resolve issue1563: official thank-you page.

Eric Kow kowey at darcs.net
Sat Oct 31 08:22:47 UTC 2009


On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 18:33:13 +1100, Trent W. Buck wrote:
> Why HTML?  Is this something that goes in the repo, but actually is only
> ever used for the darcs.net copy?

Trent, I realise you'd prefer to put the entire web content on the wiki.
We've been through the "why HTML" question before (pointers to previous
discussion appreciated).

But here we go.  I think there should be a very limited core set of
'official' web pages, ie.  the front page, donations and thank-you.  I
don't expect this set to grow very fast (most things should go on the
wiki).  For these pages, I think it's important to (A) present
[apparently] strict control over the content and (B) actually assert
control over that content and (C) pay attention to the appearance.

So the answer to "why HTML" is (C), because for a small subset of
pages I think looks are more important than convenience.

> I actually find it slightly annoying that the darcs.net front page is
> part of the code repo -- if it belongs in a repo, I kinda feel that it
> should go in the wiki one.  I'm not keen on adding more such webpages
> into the code repo.

Now for A and B: I like wikis (honest!), but I still feel that for some
official documentation (again, a very *limited* subset), we should have
fairly static content that goes through a review and approval process
(rather than just the sort of tacit acceptance of "nobody has reverted
it yet").

- Front page : this is the first impression we give people

- Donations  : dealing with other people's money

- Thanks : well okay maybe a bit tenuous, but still feels right
           that they know this really comes from the team and
           not from well-meaning third parties

Am I just being old-fashioned and stupid?

I guess I care a little bit more about (A) and (C) than (B).  By this, I
mean that visitors to the homepage don't see the underlying approval
process anyway (unless they actually pay attention to how we work, or
the pages get vandalised -- DACRS SUX; USE GIT -- which gets reverted
fairly quickly).

It does feel a bit dishonest to care about (A) without caring about (B)
though.  Also: I care most about (B) for the donations page, less so for
the front page and further less so for the thank-you page.

I've hesitantly created a homepage/ directory in wiki.darcs.net with our
html files (this is the idea of caring about (A) without (B)).  I have
linked it up yet, because the whole idea still makes me nervous...

See what I'm getting at?  To be clear, I think anybody should be able to
edit these pages -- the notion of Darcs Team is very permeable one --
just that for this *very limited and unlikely to grow* core set, we
should practice more rigorous control over the content.

-- 
Eric Kow <http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/home/Eric.Kow>
PGP Key ID: 08AC04F9
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