Home page design issues & priorities

[whartung]

Originally Posted by matt

Hi Will. We've slimmed down the billboard sized author picture to something that is roughly half the size. Hope this helps. We're still working on some of the other issues.

-Matt

Thanx Matt, it's much better.

Weekly content audit. (Is there a way to change the timezone for time display? I don't know what times we have shown on the site.)

Microhoo? or Yacrosoft! What will it be? -- General Interest, front page, maybe. It's not really Java related, so I'm so-so on this one.

Winners of IntelliJ IDEAL Plug-in Contest Announced -- Announcement

So... Are You Speaking At JavaOne? -- Blog (most folks simply aren't submitting to Java One and this is really directed at those people rather than the community at large)

Seam 2.0.1 released, Is Seam or Spring the best way to write JSF/JPA based applications? -- Front Page

Vote for OSGi integration with Java Modules -- Blog

Lightweight meets Heavyweight: Spring, Groovy and the enterprise -- Article

FEST-Reflect 0.3: Java Reflection Simplified -- announcement.

Maven and Ant - the eternal debate -- blog

Gosling on Closures -- Blog

Workarounds for five Maven 2 design issues -- article/blog

ItsNat Java Web Framework: DHTML on the Server -- Interview/Article (don't recall an interview category on JL)

JPPF Updates Java Grid Computing Toolkit -- Announcement

GDS Ships FOSS Alternative to Adobe LiveCycle DS -- Announcement

Disable the automatic mails and get a token -- blog

Sun Open Sources SPOT -- Announcement

ONE definitely front page worth articule IMHO, another 1 or 2 borderline.

Here's the bad news. Average of 2 comments per story, and that's being VERY generous, as most don't have any. Oldest story on the front page is 36 hours old. TheServerSide links to the "Why aren't you using EJB 5" story, and they have 34 comments on it. How many comments does JL have? I dunno -- it's not on the front page. If it's not on the front page, the story is dead.

Now, again, this may be what y'all want. What I look for in a Community site is, well, a Community. I look for comment traffic, because that's where the Community is. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of silent lurkers. Not very interesting IMHO.

Simply put, it appears (APPEARS) to me that traffic has come to a screeching halt, I don't know what the truth is. I see stories being read but that's not interesting to me either.

FOURTEEN "Leaders" now. You need 1 or 2 LEADERS, let the rest be "reporters" and let the Leaders edit the site -- IMHO again. Still tastes like a blogging roll to me.

Since there's no "10 ten DZone" "portlet", I never go there any more. FYI.

In general, I hate these forums. I don't know what's going on, where the stories are, what the traffic is, etc. If I didn't notice the highlight of this one thread on my casual glance after clicking the forums link, I'd never have seen your response Matt. That was just dumb luck.

I have no idea what other threads are running in the forums. (To be fair, I spent almost no time in the original JL forums.)

Still don't know anyones name...

[gdboling]

Originally Posted by whartung

Still don't know anyones name...

This has to be one of my largest complaints. I have no idea who tf45Gr4T is. It is difficult to engage with someone when their identity is unknown. JavaRanch requires a first and last real sounding name. What looks better?

whartung or Will Hartung

Granted, after some time, you'd get to know. But its more difficult and doesn't ooze professionalism. Just my 2-cents.

[matt]

We should have this corrected today for those that choose to show their real name with their posts.

[whartung]

I can only suggest that it be an "opt-out" option, frankly. The default should be their name (the site should encourage it).

[matt]

Hi Will. We've applied the real name feature to the content communities. It's not even an option to turn it off currently, but probably will be next week. The forums don't have this option, and we've also seen people prefer to just have usernames in our bookmarking community as well. For the content communities, it certainly is right to have it be real names

[whartung]

Looks good in the content.

I don't know what "seen people prefer to just have usernames in our bookmarking community as well" means, but I will say there will be a disconnect between "Bob Barker" in the content side being "bb13421" on the forum side.

To me it just goes back to consistency in presentation and integration etc. vs some haphazard "mashup".

(But recall that I don't see a clear difference between the content communities and the forum communities, service wise they're the same IMHO, even if presentation and rule wise they're different (who can post topics, etc.).)

[gdboling]

Originally Posted by whartung

Looks good in the content.

I don't know what "seen people prefer to just have usernames in our bookmarking community as well" means, but I will say there will be a disconnect between "Bob Barker" in the content side being "bb13421" on the forum side.

To me it just goes back to consistency in presentation and integration etc. vs some haphazard "mashup".

(But recall that I don't see a clear difference between the content communities and the forum communities, service wise they're the same IMHO, even if presentation and rule wise they're different (who can post topics, etc.).)

Will, I 100% agree with you on the disconnect between the forums and the content community.

With regards to the differences between the two, typically, forums are more Q&A. I don't know how to do something so I think I'll post a question in the forums. However, if I just want to discuss something I'll blog about it. That's how I see it anyway.

[whartung]

Of course Gregg. That wasn't phrased well, but there was earlier context. What I meant was basically why we were using different technologies between the forums and content communities. Why aren't the two using the same BBoard system, when they're both essentially posting services with commenting.

Sure, they could be formatted different, and they could have different posting guidelines. But separate systems?

That whole "MVC" thing we Java coders have tattooed on our arms...

As I recall the original JL was a single forum system underneath it all.

[rick]

Originally Posted by whartung

Of course Gregg. That wasn't phrased well, but there was earlier context. What I meant was basically why we were using different technologies between the forums and content communities. Why aren't the two using the same BBoard system, when they're both essentially posting services with commenting.

Sure, they could be formatted different, and they could have different posting guidelines. But separate systems?

That whole "MVC" thing we Java coders have tattooed on our arms...

As I recall the original JL was a single forum system underneath it all.

I think we may be talking about apples an oranges here, Will. It is true that you can comment on virtually anything at any of the DZone sites (which range well beyond Javalobby), so perhaps that's what you mean when you suggest they are essentially the same. I don't think this similarity makes them essentially the same, however. IMO, they are quite significantly different.

DZone.com, for example, is a social bookmarking site with collaborative filtering. It's dominant content type is a link referral to a url someplace else. DZone.com is like a reflector that sends developers elsewhere (sometimes to other DZone sites.) Developers visit DZone.com looking for someplace to go, they quickly find what they want, and they leave to go there. Lucky for us, they also seem to to come back. DZone.com is our largest and fastest growing service, sending nearly a million visitors to other sites each month.

The new "zones" sites, on the other hand, are topically-focused content destination sites where you actually read the content at the zone. These zones support several distinct content types already. A "book review" is not the same as an "announcement" is not the same as a "how-to article" and so on. You should expect them to be enhanced to support significantly more - each with type-appropriate structure and metadata. Additionally, there are groups of individuals who have taken responsibility for helping to lead these content community sites and to contribute content regularly. The content management system that powers the zones is totally separate from the social bookmarking engine that drives DZone.com.

Pure forums are still another type of service, defined entirely by topically categorized discussions such as this one. Forums need sufficient structure and organization to help users locate the areas which may be of interest, require little or no editorial oversight, and are well suited for general Q&A and discussion. (BTW, I am not suggesting this isn't all obvious to you or anyone else.)

DZone is operating ALL of these types of services and more (jobs, code snippets, etc.) I feel like you think it is simpler than it really is, as if they could all be lumped together into the same thing in a satisfactory way. If so, then I really don't agree. We try not to work harder than we have to, but we have to work really hard to make these services work and deliver new ones. It may be a bigger picture than you're recognizing, especially since you have such a long history of viewing it mainly from a Javalobby point of view.

I sincerely want to understand and address your concerns as much as I reasonably can, so please don't think I take issue with criticism. I just don't want the scope of the real challenge oversimplified.

Rick

[ryan]

Originally Posted by gdboling

Will, I 100% agree with you on the disconnect between the forums and the content community.

With regards to the differences between the two, typically, forums are more Q&A. I don't know how to do something so I think I'll post a question in the forums. However, if I just want to discuss something I'll blog about it. That's how I see it anyway.

Perhaps a way to promote the forums to the other parts of the community such as blog posts is to refer back to the forums to discussion on that particular blog post. Forums are more then just help vehicles, if given time and energy they can turn into great discussion tools that will thrive. But thats up to the community to do. /2 cents