[vos-d] thinking about a new web site

[Peter Amstutz]

I'm thinking about revamping the web site -- while I still want to 
eventually write the next generation hypervos ("Interreality Web"?), 
this is depends on the s5 work.  Editing the current hypervos through 
mesh is rather cumbersome, and quite a lot of information on the site is 
varying degrees of out of date (and therefore misleading for new users).  
I think it would be a good idea to retire s4 hypervos for the main site 
in favor of a more prepackaged solution for the time being.

I think the site primarily needs the following collaboration tools:

- Wiki: Probably stick with MoinMoin.  This is suitable for doing simple 
static pages like the entry page, about, download page, etc; as well as 
permitting user-contributed pages.

- Bug tracking: Probably reinstall bugzilla, unless you have any other 
suggestions.

- Mailing list + web forum: I think a lot of casual visitors are more 
likely to read and post to a web forum than join the mailing list.  
People will also use forum activity as a measure of the "liveness" of 
the project.  I think the best of both worlds will be if we can find 
either an integrated forum+mailing list manager (I haven't really found 
anything yet) or a forum that supports cross-posting with an existing 
mailing list (which I've found one so far - Phorum - which appears to 
have a plugin that can do that.)

So I'm proposing:
 - Rework the MoinMoin-based wiki to serve as the main page, shuffling 
the current content onto other pages (and/or deleting out of date 
stuff).

- Set up bugzilla again.

- Set up forum software (Phorum, or maybe something else) and tie it to 
vos-d.  This means email to vos-d shows up on the forum, and forum posts 
go to vos-d.

One other thing worth considering would be some kind of blog+comments 
feature for news.  This may be possible with the right forum software 
(and/or using the forum module of some larger CMS...)

I'm not 100% committed to this plan, but it is likely the easiest path 
since we largely continue using the software we already have running on 
the site.  The goal is to spend thursday doing new site in preparation 
for the interreality3d prototype release on friday, so that people have 
a shiny new site to come to.  By increasing the promenence of the wiki 
and adding a forum, this should encourage more participation and 
feeback.

-- 
[   Peter Amstutz  ][ tetron at interreality.org ][ peter.amstutz at gdit.com ]
[Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet]
[ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ]
[ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey:  pgpkeys.mit.edu  18C21DF7 ]

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