[Web Comm] Focus

[Jason Birch]

Arnulf, I warned you...   :)  
 
In my best-case scenario, we would have two options:
 
- delegating the projectname.osgeo.org subdomains to the projects to use on their own servers, with a recommendation for some kind of consistent styling and branding.  So, your current mapbender.org server would be accessible as mapbender.osgeo.org.  I don't really envy you the task of skinning mediawiki though.
 
- having projects build their entire presense on projectname.osgeo.org, where the main styling is pretty much impossible to escape from
 
The more I think about this, the less tenable it seems though.  Delegating the subdomain to another server would mean that accessing the osgeo.org resources (svn, mailing lists, etc) would be difficult, and existing projects will likely not want to move to a structure that doesn't supply anything like a CMS or wiki.  
 
As much as the project "splash" pages at projectname.osgeo.org seem a bit kludgy, they may actually be the most flexible approach.  Using these as the info pages might also work, but I would have concerns about enforcing a nonpartisan marketing message across these pages, especially for projects that have their entire presense hosted there, such as MapGuide.
 
I do see Gary's point about consistent styling across projects.  Even if we can't host them all on the osgeo.org domain (it would actually be pretty easy if we had full control over the infrastructure) some kind of move towards a consistent styling would be a good idea.  
 
I'd like to see a revision of the styling of the main osgeo.org site before that though.  It needs more colour, and tie-in with the compass theme.  I unfortunately have neither the access nor the talent to redesign the site.
 
Jason
 
 
________________________________

From: Arnulf Christl [@ccgis.de]
Sent: Fri 2006-06-30 6:58 AM
Subject: Re: [Web Comm] Focus



Jason Birch wrote:
> This is what I had in mind for the project info pages:
> 
> https://www.osgeo.org/content/projects/mapbender.html <https://www.osgeo.org/content/projects/mapbender.html>
> 
> Feedback?  (other than bawling me out for using <font> tags... )

This is great.

@Gary: You see - this is what a project can get out of OSGeo. It (the
project) does not have to hack their own HTML with static <font> tags
but a professional team takes care of it. (Jason, i say this only
because I am such a very funny person...)

> I'd really like to see something done about the domains and look/feel.  Can we either:
> 
>  - Not require that projects have a presence under the osgeo.org domain structure or
> 
>  - Figure out how to delegate these subdomains to the individual projects so they can continue with their current infrastructure?

Are you suggesting to drop the mapbender.osgeo.org and only keep
www.mapbender.org ("mapbender" always just as an example) and this new
info page?

Regards, Arnulf.