[ILUG] content required for YOUR WEBSITE

[Michele Neylon :: Blacknight Solutions]

Paul O'Malley <> said on 02 December 2005 08:55:

> Timothy Murphy wrote:
> snip
> 
>> I looked at this site,
>> and it seemed to me to contain quite a lot of material that might
>> well be found useful and interesting.
>> 
>> 
> This is not the issue.
> 
>> Most of the material I looked at did not seem very ancient to me.
>> 
>> 
> snip
> 
> Hi Tim,
> 
> I dispute your use of the word most.
> Starting on the home page and work on from there.
> 
> http://www.linux.ie/articles/
> 
> Articles from 2000-2005
> 2004 and 2005 by the same guy (Well done Mr Neary they are good) but
> to be honest the rest of the stuff has aged. 
> Two belong in presentation space.
> 
> We should give this http://www.linux.ie/download/ To archives.org and
> close it :-) Here we offer dead links, pages for the purpose of
> archive, and redirects.  
> 
> Don't get me wrong it means there are people out there that do a lot
> of stuff. 
> 
> http://www.linux.ie/projects/
> Just explore this one, I am not going to comment.
> 
> http://www.linux.ie/community/
> Not bad, excellent when compared with above.
> 
> http://www.linux.ie/newusers/
> Just have a look at these.
> Some of them are relevant, but the install page needs to be culled
> and from there grab Niall W's comments and start with them. 
> 
> http://www.linux.ie/newusers/beginners-linux-guide/directory-structure.php
> A classic, not what a new user needs to be addressing any more.
> But it should be taken and expanded, I know that Niall W did try to
> contact the original author to see if he was still interested in
> doing something with it, but did not get anywhere.  
> 
> And scoil.linux.ie is not linked from the front page at all, from
> projects. 
> 
> What about the regional lugs, very little work on their sites, time
> for a rethink. 
> 
> I am of the opinion that we need to change the way it is done or let
> Mr Guest and Mr Walsh archive it and say this lug is now a mailing
> list.  
> I could go on and on and on, while I know Mr Moen has put serious
> work into maintaining his site and the links off it to other
> locations so I would not be in favour of breaking that, for him or
> anyone else.   
> 
> So before it gets consigned to the bin again I ask a simple question,
> anyone say no to a wiki, or some other better suggestion? 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Paul

Paul 

The site is very popular and while I would agree that certain areas of it
could do with being replaced/updated or revamped, I would not agree with the
idea of taking it offline entirely.

The idea of redirecting it to google is simply offensive.

There are a couple of issues that I would have with this wiki idea.

Unlike SpamAssassin and other OSS projects linux.ie does not have hundreds
of active participants. There may be 600+ email addresses (or whatever the
figure was) subscribed to the mailing list, but that does not mean that
there are either 600 people or that the people are in anyway active.
A wiki might work for certain areas of the site, but they are open to abuse,
spam etc., and may not really bring anything of value to anyone expecially
considering the aforementioned.
Over the last year there has been talk of various projects etc., but they
tend to fizzle out. I'm not interested in criticising anyone about these
projects, but I can see a wiki going the same way very easily.

The current website has some very useful information:

http://www.linux.ie/vendors/  - that was revamped by Ken over the last few
months

http://www.linux.ie/community/ - it may need some fresh photos etc., but it
seems to be "alive"

http://www.linux.ie/projects/ - not really sure if that are is alive

http://www.linux.ie/download/ - seems a bit dead. Maybe links to more active
software archives??

http://www.linux.ie/articles/ - I would agree that more fresh content here
would be good. 

Why isn't http://planetilug.linux.ie/ more prominently linked from the main
page? 

http://www.linux.ie/newusers/ - Newer articles would be good, but it's still
a useful resource


Michele




Mr Michele Neylon
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