URGENT: create landing/splash page
goob
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There's been a huge influx of people since the PRISM revelations (I see the numbers mounting up from the Diaspora HQ account, to which everyone is added when they sign up).
About 95% of these people have signed up to joindiapsora.com. This is because, I think, historically it was the pod which was publicised by the founders, and is the one which is being used in a lot of articles recommending Diaspora, such as http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/06/17/identi_ca_diaspora_and_friendica_are_more_secure_alternatives_to_facebook.html
At the moment there is no page we can direct people to. The diasporaproject.org site is hopelessly out of date, and the wiki front page is rather forbidding, and doesn't give a 'getting started' guide.
To this end I've bug up a design by Laci Videmsky (https://www.joindiaspora.com/u/lacividemsky) which he created about 18 months ago to replace the outdated project site. I've written text which is I hope simple and straightfoward, and tells people what the need to do to sign up, and also how they can get involved with developing etc.
It's a real rough-and-ready attempt, and needs improving. However, it is something! And we could slap it up on the root of diasporafoundation.org just for now, until we can create something better.
You can see a draft at [link removed]
I must admit I found some of Laci's html and css to be a bit opaque and not as simple as it could be - but this might be partly because of my own lack of expertise, and also because he was creating the page as part of something more complex. However, again I'm sure it can be vastly improved in the future.
However, can we slap this up now and ask people who are blogging about Diaspora, and those articles already written, to link to this page at diasporafoundation.org and not to joindiaspora.com? What do you think?
ps: I don't want my personal domain publicised - I've put it there only so that you can see it.
Flaburgan Mon 24 Jun 2013 8:56AM
@goob I think this "contributor" part should be added later when it'll be clean. I'm also not really in favor of your new logo (sorry :p), gradients...
I have other remarks too: there is too many things before "Want to get started". What about put it at the top of the page? If people wants to know more, they'll continue reading. Also, although "Welcome to Diaspora" and the earth image are great, it takes too much place (the screen contains only that when you are at the top of the page).
I propose to reduce a little bit the height of the image and superpose the text on it, and also use this image for the logo, this would allow to reduce the height of the black header.
goob Mon 24 Jun 2013 7:04PM
Fla, I'm happy to change the logo, but I really don't think we should go back to the old logo from the pre-alpha days. I remember the core team changed the font to Roboto a while ago, so I've made a logo in that font. The one you link to below is horribly pixellated when I tried to use it, as it's too small an image.
Remember that these pages are simply something to replace immediately the almost-two-year-old diasporaproject.org site, which is where diasporafoundtion.org currently redirects. These pages aren't perfect, but at least they are a lot better, in terms of the information they present, than those ancient pages. I'm still waiting to hear from @seantilleycommunit or @dennisschubert about getting them on the site. Once they're there, we can discuss a more long-term solution, but I think Sean and Dennis are already working on that. These are simply to have up-to-date information available to new and prospective users NOW, while there's a massive influx. A lot of new users are confused, and about 95% of them are signing up to jd.com because they don't understand about the different pods and decentralisation, which is why these updated pages are so necessary right now, not in a few weeks' time. jd.com is groaning under the strain of new users signing up - I keep getting the 'we're over capacity right now' warning - and proper information is needed to encourage people to sign up to a range of pods, so that the network is more balanced and no one pod is over-stretched.
For this reason I think it's important to have the decentralisation explanation above the sign-up, but for those who want to go straight to the sign-up information, there is a 'Sign up' button in the header bar. Reducing the image height and therefore the black bar height is fine, but this requires fiddling around with the CSS files (simply reducing the bar height creates a nasty line under it as the masthead doesn't move up). I simply don't have time to do that at the moment.
I took off the 'getting involved' and 'supporters' pages, but Sean asked me to reinstate them.
Let's get these short-term pages up NOW so that people at least have access to proper information before signing up to Diaspora (usually to jd.com), and then we can discuss what to do for a brand new site for the future.
Sean Tilley Mon 24 Jun 2013 7:58PM
Hey @goob
@dennisschubert and I are working on the project site. We should have the copy-editing infused into the new project site this week. If all goes according to plan, hopefully we can have it up either by the end of this week or sometime next week.
Either way, I don't think it will take very long. :)
goob Mon 24 Jun 2013 9:15PM
Hi @seantilleycommunit , I know you and Dennis are working on a new site. But is there any reason not to put up these pages for the thousands of people who will come to Diaspora in the meantime? (It's several hundred per day at the moment, 95% of whom are signing up to jd.com, going on the numbers of those who 'start sharing' with the DHQ account each day.) If we have something available for those people while you and Dennis put the finishing touches to your new site, it will be a massive help and help to take the load off jd.com.
Flaburgan Tue 25 Jun 2013 7:33AM
I also think this should be on line now and not in few weeks. It's not hard to upload that, what's the problem?
Flaburgan Tue 2 Jul 2013 2:13PM
UP!! This is urgent..
@dennisschubert @seantilleycommunit
goob Tue 2 Jul 2013 3:09PM
Indeed. It's been two weeks now since I put up the updated pages, and still diasporafoundation.org is pointing to the disastrously out of date diasporaproject.org site...
Sean Tilley Tue 2 Jul 2013 6:08PM
@fla @goob: I am happy to report that all of the updated content is in the git repo for the Diaspora project site rewrite that DenSchub is working on. I'm currently waiting on @dennisschubert to merge it into the main code.
Due to the delay, I'm going to update the existing project site while we wait to hook up the new one. Sorry for the delay, everyone. :C
goob Tue 2 Jul 2013 7:05PM
Great! And I'll be very happy to see my temporary pages superseded by yours and Dennis's new (and better) site soon!
goob · Sun 23 Jun 2013 10:21AM
@dennisschubert , can I get these files to you? Or can someone help me get them onto GitHub so others can pick them up? I'm keen this updated information get on to the site asap.