Re: PHP.net Update

On 4-Oct-09, at 11:19 AM, Hannes Magnusson wrote:

We have events and conferences, quick reference tips, where to get help, mailinglists, how to contact 'us'.. All of these pages are missing tons of info though, and we also lack an very important page: "how to contribute" :(

I agree, "how to contribute" is important.

There is a sitemap available on http://php.net/sitemap.php but not even that contains all webpages or hidden gems. I have no idea how do organize it or how to present all this :]

It might be good to take a look at some other open source projects and see how they organize their pages. Mozilla.org provides a nice example. I particularly like how they dedicate space to a large "get involved" graphic.

You are damn right though, the manual and download/release info is the most important things and we really need to do something with the download page. The manual pages is a bit more problematic. We can't do very much there other then adjust the CSS and improve the TOC/manual notes. The actual markup of the _manual_ pages (excluding notes, TOC, and everything around it) is pregenerated as you can see by clicking 'view source' on any manual page.

I find that the manual pages work pretty well for my needs.

I don't agree that a new identity is needed at all. The currently logo is quite "famous" and I don't consider it to be awful enough that the top priority should be to replace it. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to brush it up a bit, but creating a totally new one is not something I think we can do, nor is it "within our rights" :]

I'm sorry to hear that. Who has the "right" to update the logo?

Unsure how I feel with making the mascot into the logo.. I'd much rather prefer to brushup the current one a little.

If we removed the oval background from the current logo we could make it work with a more contemporary design. We still have a problem though. It is very dull. There is a perception that PHP is stagnant and we need to counter that perception with something that is fun and fresh! Perhaps if we developed a stylized version of the elephant we could incorporate it into the site; not to replace the logo, just to give some life to the page.

We don't have any prizes to offer unless we get some company to sponsor it.. That could quickly turn into political nightmare though :]

I should think that marketing departments would be happy to offer prizes. You might be right though. Perhaps I am overly optimistic. Stew