Proposed changes to openfirst.org

[Timothy D. Ginn]

Hey,

I'm considering changing the news system a bit on http://www.openfirst.org/ (not the news module itself that's distributed). What I was thinking is perhaps setting up Hackergotchis (see: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wouterverhelst/21322.html if you're not familiar with them-- my avatar is another example) beside the posts, and generally making it seem more friendly looking and less plain-text based.

I'm thinking that at the same time developer profiles, etc. could have the friendly little Hackergotchis displayed beside them. Are there any thoughts about that?

Oh, and for the news; I'm also considering setting it up so that I'm not the only one who can post news, and hoping that'll make it more frequently updated. Basically what I'm hoping for is to open things up a bit more and make the project visually look more inviting to join. Any comments/questions/discussion?

Tim

[Timothy D. Ginn]

Well, I've got the first bit of the news reworked, and the Hackergotchi stuff has been added. For those who are interested, the Contributor's HOWTO has been updated in CVS, so, the next time the site updates (overnight) those docs available at http://openfirst.org/doc/tut/howto/ will contain the new information too.

I've also done a bit of cleaning up of the Developer Profiles page (and renamed it on the page itself to say Volunteer Profiles... since that's what we eventually evolved it into anyway). Hackergotchis are there, too. Those of you on the team who want one, but don't have the time/patience to create one, I can do it for you, but I'll need you to send me a picture that would be appropriate for cropping,etc. (Generally speaking ones taken against a solid colour wall that's nowhere near skin colour work best-- Blue/Green should be good for that).

I haven't yet tried to change the permissions for the news posting system; but I will post back here when that's done (then maybe there'll be some other smiling Hackergotchi face on the main page besides mine).

[Timothy D. Ginn]

...

I haven't yet tried to change the permissions for the news posting system; but I will post back here when that's done (then maybe there'll be some other smiling Hackergotchi face on the main page besides mine).

As of a few minutes ago everyone who's been added to the project member list on SF.net can now post news. More site updates should be coming soon, and maybe some more documentation (developer and end-user oriented)... because that's always a good thing :-)