[rfc] notes on a bazaar homepage refresh

[Martin Pool]

beuno, jml, and I talked about refreshing the bazaar homepage to make
it more attractive and to better address our audience.

Some notes are below; comments welcome.
-- 
Martin

new homepage

functional requirements:
 * if we split from a wiki, we want the web site to still be easy to update
 * in particular want it to be easy to update for new downloads
 * want a good news feed, and this too could be taken from launchpad
 * easy to update both the style and content
 * new wiki theme without the header, etc, but matching
 * Bazaar brought to you by very large prime numbers :-)
 * could theme the documentation site into this too

questions:
 * how to do this with IS
 * more visibly linked to Canonical
   - move to bazaar.canonical.com?
   - consistent theming? but, don't want to block on that
 * relevant to other open source projects at canonical

use cases:
 * people thinking about using bzr
 * existing users wanting an update

people have different ways to decide what to do:
 * scan the documentation,
   - look for docs that specifically relate to them:
 * social proof - eg who's already using it, and what did they say
 * news and signs of activity
 * just download it and poke at it
 * screenshots
 * screencasts
 * faq or bug lists
 * look at the source code

must:
 * word "Bazaar" and the logo
 * concise explanation of what Bazaar is
 * why Bazaar rather than something else
 * who's using Bazaar
   - high-profile ones, with their icons
   - link to "more"
   - link to
 * commercial support is available
 * community support is available
 * if interested in using bzr, what to do:
   - download it
   - how to start using it
 * download page should be prominent and simple
 * tips & tricks
 * faq
   - in the lp answer tracker?
 * places you can host bzr - launchpad, debian, others
 * plugin directory
 * how does it work
   - in my ide
   - with my language?
   - as a web developer, documenter, etc
   - bug trackers
   - microsoft office, sorry, no
   - build tools
 * bzr branch lp:bzr
 * news and feeds:
   - releases
   - announcements
   - commits to the project
   - feed of commits on all branches

could:
 * tip of the day?

must not:

technicalities:
 * host it in a branch, pull from that branch, then
 * or could use bzr-upload to push changes to the site
 * write our own code to generate this?

team blog?
 * would we generate enough content?
 * would people feel happier doing "official" content there than on a
   personal blog?
 * will it just compete with the planet
 * could get summaries of

call to action(tm):
 * send this to the bzr list - danger of bikeshedding
 * beuno may be able to help with design
 * can do the script in parallel with getting it design
 * or should we use eg Drupal?