[gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Chris White]

It has made somewhat painfully obvious as of late as to the lack of a 
centralized source of updates for users.  This has recently become true 
moreso with the apache2 config file changes and the step to php5.  A couple 
of things I'd like to bring out:

1) Currently, our gentoo.org front page is very, well, slim.  Afaik, I only 
see major site updates, mailing lists notices, gdp updates, and of course the 
GWN.  In a way I think we're underestimating our frontpage.  When someone is 
first introduced to gentoo, they are most likely directed immediately to the 
frontpage, www.gentoo.org.  If they notice things such as major updates and 
what not, chances are they'll most likely keep viewing it throughout their 
Gentoo usage (at least I'd hope).  However, it becomes somewhat combersome to 
check the page every now and then for some, which comes to the second point.

2) The front page also has a nice RSS feed.  This can be utilized for people 
that would rather have convient RSS feeds avaliable on demand.  Considering 
that rss readers are avaliable pretty much in every form nowdays, it would be 
considered a good idea to update the front page more for this reason as well.  
This would give users the chance to have news feed to them in a convient and 
functional manner (after all, that is the point of RSS).  Of course, maybe 
people are more tune with email, which comes to point three.

3) I think it would be a good idea for gentoo-announce to also include front 
page announcements.  This would work well for people that are more email 
oriented (they use email a lot for business) and would keep things 
centralized for them.  This would also be best promoted on the front page, 
maybe stickied in some form or another.

So in conclusion, front page should get more updates, which would propigate to 
rss, and maybe link gentoo-announce to the front page as well.

Chris White