[Sugar-devel] Suggestions for GSoC 2019

[James Cameron]

Amaan Iqbal wrote:
> > I don't expect revamping a website to be a _goal_.
> 
> Without a proper website with the latest content, how can we expect
> the activities to reach the audience?

You replied to me, but that wasn't me you quoted, it was Rahul.

At the moment activities generally reach the audience through OLPC OS,
Fedora SoaS, activities.sugarlabs.org and Sugarizer.  Almost never the
web site.

> > Even if we add a project for improving the website, 2 years down
> > the line we might again face a similar email pointing out the
> > drawbacks of the new model and another revamping of the website.
> 
> This doesn't mean that we will have the same website with the old
> foundation 10 years down the line. Web technologies and standards
> have changed significantly in the past 2-3 years and its
> recommended we too keep our components updated.  The main reason
> would be similar to why we are updating our activities. Fixing/
> Updating activities has to do with more engagement with current
> users and improving the website, to try for more new users. I guess
> both are equally important. 

That wasn't me you quoted, it was Rahul.

Web site components can be kept updated by using a maintained open
source theme and not tweaking it as incessantly as we have been doing
with airspace.

While it is similar in general to how we update our activities, this
is not relevant, because the web site is not an activity.

> > Having less projects does not imply our failure in any sense, lack
> > of existing contributors might indicate that
> 
> I agree, but it will be underutilization of potential of an
> organization which has participated in GSoC for last 10 successive
> years. We might consider having few more mentors this time if proper
> mentoring was the issue last time. Even if we are not having this
> project, we should think of utilizing GSoC to the fullest with tasks
> related to all the activities wherever significant work is
> pending. Further, even if we desire to have some new activities, we
> should think of including that too.

That wasn't me you quoted, it was Rahul.

I'm not worried about underutilisation of potential; there is plenty
to do, and if anyone is attentive and dutiful toward it they will
easily find what to do without having to do any updates to the web
site.  I'm also not worried about having less active projects for this
GSoC, because we certainly have less active developers, and the last
thing we want is mentors who aren't active developers, as it leads to
under-mentoring; project never properly defined, mentor has little
idea of what the student is doing, and ultimately the student produces
code that isn't useful, or disappears.  See Google Summer of Code
Guides, What Makes a Good Mentor?

https://google.github.io/gsocguides/mentor/what-makes-a-good-mentor

Of course, our thanks to all those developers who have made small
updates to our software in the past few weeks, I appreciate it.

> > I added why a user should get sugar.
> >
> > It’s still a work in progress as I figured even the last design
> > that’s under development now Wouldn’t really solve the problem. We
> > need MORE call to action buttons, more exciting colors, a better
> > navigation processes.
> 
> That's what. I would too suggest improving the color palette we are
> currently using. The current color palette is not that pleasing at
> first sight. Also call to action and download buttons on the main
> page itself would be a good idea to improve the conversion
> rate. Further better and clearer navigation is also missing. 

That wasn't me you quoted, it was Peace.  However, it would be wrong
to set expectations of colourful software by adding lots of colour to
the web site.  Cart before horse error.  First, we need Sugar and
Sugarizer to switch to using colour.  Then can we increase the colours
on any web site that describes them.  We also need to remain
accessible for vision impaired.

Also, whether colours are pleasing is subjective, and dependent on
culture and environment.  While you might not like the colours, they
have been accepted for some time, so you might provide more convincing
evidence than your own opinion of the colours.

> >  Hoping to move most primary information from wiki to the site,
> > instead of breaking their section on the site to go to wiki(it
> > lost them totally)  
> 
> This is the most important point. I strongly agree with this. Our
> website should only have the important information instead of the
> wikis. It breaks the flow and makes the user end up getting
> confused.

That wasn't me you quoted, it was Peace.  However, this content could
be placed in frames or transformed from GitHub or Wiki using a script.
We continue to have people who maintain GitHub and the Wiki and won't
maintain the web site.  Content that has been copied to the web site
has languished unmaintained.

> > This is as important as improving Sugar Labs tools. Without an 
> > actionable site our tools won't reach our potential users. We need
> > the users (students parents, school administration) to be able to
> > download and use Sugar and every other Sugar Labs tools
> > effectively without stress then we can record an increase in
> > downloads of these tools we put in so much to build.  
> 
> This is why I thought of this idea. My primary intention is not to
> get anything revamped but to improve the way we present our
> activities to the user. Also for better maintenance, it is required
> that we keep our site up to date and consistent with the standards.
> 
> Ultimately I would suggest that we should utilize GSoC to the
> fullest in any way we can, be it only with improving the activities.
> 
> I will leave further discretion to the board members.

That wasn't me you quoted, it was Peace.

Activities for Sugar are presented by activities.sugarlabs.org and by
Fedora SoaS.  Activities for Sugarizer are pre-bundled, not presented;
you'll see the https://sugarizer.org/ web site is much better at
getting people to engage with the software.

GSoC isn't there for us to abuse or on-sell, it's there to help us
with our goals.

I'm sure the board will continue to listen to what people think.  As
chair, nobody in the board has proposed any motion in relation to the
web site, but you've heard from Samson, Walter, and myself.

> On Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 6:18 AM James Cameron <[1]quozl at laptop.org> wrote:
> 
>     Thanks.  But my vote is no.
> 
>     It's not three months of coding.
> 
>     It doesn't solve a problem we have with our software products; Sugar,
>     activities, Music Blocks, or Sugarizer.
> 
>     Our problem with the web site is with the content, in turn because we
>     have had few content producers, and too many people proposing style and
>     layout changes instead.
> 
>     Last month, or November, we had a team formed to do A/B testing, but
>     the A/B testing has not yet begun.  I'm guessing they are too busy.
>     Perhaps it is time for more people to speak up in order to slow it
>     down even further.
> 
>     On Mon, Jan 21, 2019 at 07:44:28PM +0530, Amaan Iqbal wrote:
>     > Hello,
>     >
>     > I see we only have 6 projects so far in our Ideas list in comparison to
>     11
>     > which were selected in GSoC last year. Being a successful Open Source
>     > organization, I sincerely hope we have the potential of having many more
>     > projects in GSoC this year(most probably 15+ if we can come up with such
>     > promising ideas).  
>     >
>     > Here I would suggest an idea for the renovation of our Website, [1]blog,
>     and
>     > creation of a customized/integration of existing CMS to our website from
>     where
>     > admins can create articles directly. Also some other web pages can also
>     be
>     > added to this list if I am missing something. The end product will be
>     expected
>     > to have :
>     >
>     >   • Material Designed 
>     >   • no/minimal redundancies in code
>     >   • faster load time
>     >   • Use of latest website standards
>     >   • Wider reach in terms of accessibility
>     >   • Faster and easier updates from the admins to the website
>     >   • Elimination of device specific issues
>     >   • Removal of most of the issues on [2]www-sugarlabs
>     >   • Easy setup for a new contributor
>     >
>     > After mentoring for few design tasks in GCI and collaborating with
>     several pull
>     > requests I found that the website was mostly constructed with many
>     components
>     > placed forcefully in their places including a search box in the navbar,
>     such
>     > that website looks somehow decent. But the design is not at all generic
>     and so
>     > as a result there use to be many small issues with looks and behavior of
>     > components on different devices. Also, the website is not updated to the
>     latest
>     > web standards. 
>     >
>     > Further, publicity in the best way with appropriate [3]accessibility of
>     the
>     > website is important for any organization and I sincerely hope this idea
>     has
>     > that potential.
>     >
>     > Looking forward to hearing your opinion on this before sending a Pull
>     Request
>     > on the GSoC ideas list.
>     >
>     > Regards,
>     > Amaan
>     >
>     > References:
>     >
>     > [1] [2]http://planet.sugarlabs.org/
>     > [2] [3]https://github.com/sugarlabs/www-sugarlabs/issues
>     > [3] [4]https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/HTML
> 
>     > _______________________________________________
>     > Sugar-devel mailing list
>     > [5]Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>     > [6]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> 
>     --
>     James Cameron
>     [7]http://quozl.netrek.org/
>     _______________________________________________
>     Sugar-devel mailing list
>     [8]Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>     [9]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> 
> References:
> 
> [1] mailto:quozl at laptop.org
> [2] http://planet.sugarlabs.org/
> [3] https://github.com/sugarlabs/www-sugarlabs/issues
> [4] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/HTML
> [5] mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> [6] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> [7] http://quozl.netrek.org/
> [8] mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> [9] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.netrek.org/