Subject: replace training blurb with upcoming pug meetings?

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 12:18:20 -0400

In an effort to give more visibility to the pugs, one idea that was floated 
around was replacing the training blurb on the main site with an "upcoming 
pugs" section, modeled after the upcoming events.  The training blurb would 
then be changed to a direct link saying "looking for training?" (or similar) 
which would take you to the full training page.  There are some logistical 
issues that would need to be worked out to make this happen, but before we go 
down that path, I wanted to get a general consensus on the idea. thoughts? 

-- 
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 09:36:32 -0700

> down that path, I wanted to get a general consensus on the idea. thoughts? 

I would be amenable to that. I would like to see .Org focusing a bit
more on its "community".

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: "Selena Deckelmann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 10:12:18 -0700

> down that path, I wanted to get a general consensus on the idea. thoughts?

I like it!

But I already said that.

-selena

-- 
Selena Deckelmann
United States PostgreSQL Association - http://www.postgresql.us
PDXPUG - http://pugs.postgresql.org/pdx
Me - http://www.chesnok.com/daily

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 19:47:01 +0200

Robert Treat wrote:
> In an effort to give more visibility to the pugs, one idea that was
> floated around was replacing the training blurb on the main site with
> an "upcoming pugs" section, modeled after the upcoming events.  The
> training blurb would then be changed to a direct link saying "looking
> for training?" (or similar) which would take you to the full training
> page.  There are some logistical issues that would need to be worked
> out to make this happen, but before we go down that path, I wanted to
> get a general consensus on the idea. thoughts? 

Any way we can have both? I agree it's a good idea to get upcoming
pugs, but I'd like to keep the training info somehow.

Do we get an RSS feed off the pugs site that you were planning to use?

//Magnus

---

From: "Selena Deckelmann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 10:55:16 -0700

[sorry i sent that to you directly, magnus]

> Do we get an RSS feed off the pugs site that you were planning to use?

Not yet.  That's the "logistical issues" Robert is referring to.

I think I know what to do - there's an iCal microformat we can use,
and I'd just need to add a few fields to the default blog entries.

Probably will take me a few days to get to.

-selena

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 10:58:09 -0700

> pugs, but I'd like to keep the training info somehow.

I think it is a matter of deciding the purpose of the space. IMO .Org
should be all about community, not all about advertising for commercial
providers. That isn't to say we shouldn't help the people who help us
(obviously) but it is to say that a PUG should come before CMD, EDB or 
any other commercial entity listed.

That being said, we have a problem in that the front page is remarkably
cluttered. It is trying to tell people entirely too much all at once.
Something has to give if we are going to add PUGS. Training or Latest
News seems the most appropriate. 

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 17:26:00 -0400

> Probably will take me a few days to get to.

right, but there's no sense putting in the work untill we know it's going to 
be used.

---

From: Simon Riggs <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 23:11:19 +0100

> News seems the most appropriate. 

Yes, it is cluttered, so I think we should scroll down the page and make
more space for ourselves.

The community includes commercial people too. And the commercial people
only exist because they are wanted and needed. 

The suggestion to have a list of PUGs over training could go the other
way too. We could say "Want a PUG?". If they do, they'll click. That is
of course fairly silly, but then so is "Want training?", which hides
anything interesting and unusual and effectively kills it. If we do that
I may as well pack up and just offer one course called "Training".

People want a way to scan all things that might be of interest, not one
category or another. Yes, we need a way to expand the PUGs.

-- 
 Simon Riggs           www.2ndQuadrant.com
 PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support

---

From: "Guido Barosio" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 19:15:25 -0300

"Shortcuts": seems nasty there, and IMHO too big for a shortcut list.
I am sure that we can find a better place for it!
"Support us": How much support do we receive via this link? :s

Between both *dialogs* we can create a new place for upcoming pugs, though.

gb.-

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 7:11 PM, Simon Riggs <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Sent via pgsql-www mailing list ([email-masked])
> To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-www
>

-- 
Guido Barosio
-----------------------
http://www.globant.com
[email-masked]

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 21:10:54 -0400

> I may as well pack up and just offer one course called "Training".

See, to me the current training blurb is already devoid enough of content that 
I think it is only marginally better than a direct link pointing people 
towards the full training.  Adding in a list of PUG meetings helps highlight 
the growing regional presence and international communities for postgres 
around the world.  I feel this used to be accomplished by the training 
listing, but there was so much gamesmanship between the training companies 
that we had to mold it into it's current, less than exciting, format. I don't 
expect that gamesmanship from the PUGS.

---

From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 21:55:49 -0400 (EDT)

> expect that gamesmanship from the PUGS. 

Agreed.  While we need a training page, it is hard to argue we need to
show any training details on the main page.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <[email-masked]>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

---

From: Peter Eisentraut <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 12:14:02 +0200

Robert Treat wrote:
> pugs" section, modeled after the upcoming events.

I think this would probably be a very skewed listing.  Some user groups never 
have real meetings, at least not outside of yearly events that are listed 
anyway.  Others might meet weekly for pub night.  There would need to be a 
fair amount of researching and policy making before such a listing could be 
produced in a fair manner.

---

From: "Selena Deckelmann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 07:31:22 -0700

Hi Peter,

I imagine you're fully recovered from your race at this point! :)
Nice to meet you at PgCon.

> produced in a fair manner.

The policy is simple: list events from groups that are having upcoming
meetings.  PgDays and conferences should still be listed under Events,
rather than under PUGs.

The primary goal in presenting PUGs on the front page is to show to
outsiders how much growth there has been in user group activity. It's
an indicator that "people like me" use PostgreSQL. Listing these on
the front page is also a not-so-subtle encouragement to PUGs that we'd
like more regular meetings.

Here's a rough indication of events:

There are five groups in the US that are having monthly meetings. Last
I heard, the Moscow group was meeting monthly.  Several groups have
just had their first meeting in the last two months. I think UKPUG is
the only group ambitious enough to suggest a weekly pub night, but I
would love to be proved wrong. The other groups, I will contact and
find out how frequently they meet.

-selena

---

From: "Dave Page" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 15:35:44 +0100

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 3:31 PM, Selena Deckelmann
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>  I think UKPUG is
> would love to be proved wrong.

Weekly is not strictly accurate - that's just Greg and I trying to
escape from the office on a Friday :-p. We were thinking of every few
months.

-- 
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com

---

From: "Selena Deckelmann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 07:38:08 -0700

> escape from the office on a Friday :-p. We were thinking of every few

To be honest, I think that's the best reason to have a meeting "about"
PostgreSQL I've heard. ;)

Some other group, then, will need to take up the Weekly Pub Challenge.
Sweden, perhaps?

-selena

---

From: Peter Eisentraut <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 22:59:07 +0200

> like more regular meetings.

I'm always a fan of the concept that information is put on a web page with the 
intent of giving people useable information.  As opposed to the concept that 
information is put up with the intent of encouraging people to produce more 
information of the same kind.

Note that we are talking about the front page here.  "Kuala Lumpur PG user 
group meets tonight" is never of interest to sizeable portion of the people.  
A link "Find a local user group" might be.

---

From: "Selena Deckelmann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 15:03:20 -0700

> information of the same kind.

I'm encouraging behavior rather than information production, but fair
enough ;)

And if by usable you mean 'actionable' - regardless of *where* an
event is, most of the topics being discussed are decidedly *not*
local. We're going to have someone give a Materialized Views talk in
Portland this August that many people will be interested in, for
example. Slides (and maybe by then audio) will be available!

PUGs provide insight into our community and people in a way that the
mostly static Training blurb does not. And I think other folks in this
thread have agreed that replacing the static blurb, but keeping a link
to training would be ok. Peter, are you opposed to that?

> A link "Find a local user group" might be.

Perhaps it is not interesting because you can't attend that particular
a meeting, but it is certainly interesting that there would be enough
people in Kuala Lumpur for a meeting.  The meeting in Morocco was a
great example of this.

Also, a person might assume that because of their location (Oklahoma)
that there would never be a user group, but in fact, Emilie is
starting a group there. Along the same line of thinking, if you *do*
see Kuala Lumpur in there, you may think, "Wow, I live in Peru. If
there's a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, then there might be a meeting in
Peru!" and go looking for it. Generally speaking, uncommon things are
*very* interesting to people - so interesting that they are a basic
element of news!

We encourage serendipity in having the user group events scrolling by
on the front page. It indicates action and people, rather than
reference and machines. And while there are a few of us that prefer
the machines, people still tend to like other people :)

-selena

---

From: Chander Ganesan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:10:34 -0400

> expect that gamesmanship from the PUGS. 
I'd have to whole-heartedly agree.  We saw a lot more interest in 
training when there were a few courses listed on the main page (those 
few being the ones that we would tend to get the most calls about).  
With the shift to not showing any courses on the main page (due to event 
spam of sorts), the interest has really waned (though its difficult to 
determine if this is due to economic factors as opposed to page 
changing, I think it has to do a little with both).

I think a single link to training in a spot of its very own would 
provide a bit more visibility than being cluttered with some text and a 
link.  Perhaps we can have some list of the number of events as well?  
Want training (22 events coming up!)?

-- 
Chander Ganesan
Open Technology Group, Inc.
One Copley Parkway, Suite 210
Morrisville, NC  27560
919-463-0999/877-258-8987
http://www.otg-nc.com

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:26:29 -0700

On Tue, 2008-06-03 at 17:10 -0400, Chander Ganesan wrote:

> provide a bit more visibility than being cluttered with some text and
> a link.  Perhaps we can have some list of the number of events as
> well?  Want training (22 events coming up!)?

One option would be to remove events, news, training, and planet
listings and instead have larger and nicer representation for direct
links:

Find a User group!
Get Training!
Latest News!
Our community Blogs!

Each of those would be direct links respectively. This would
significantly reduce the noise on the page.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 09:09:38 +0200

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > provide a bit more visibility than being cluttered with some text
> > and a link.  Perhaps we can have some list of the number of events
> > as well?  Want training (22 events coming up!)?
> 
> 

Or we just remove the frontpage completely? ;-)

IMHO this would significantly reduce the value of the information
there. If anything should be removed, it's IMHO the shortcuts and
"support us" sections. Second to that is training. All the others are
IMHO much more important than the usergroup listings (which doesn't say
that the usergroup listings aren't important, of course).

I'm sure a lot could be done to reduce the clutter-factor though, but I
think most of that can be solved by applying a better layout for
things. (No, I'm not volunteering to do that, because I suck at that
kind of work :-P)

//Magnus

---

From: Simon Riggs <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:07:23 +0100

> that the usergroup listings aren't important, of course).

Hmmm. I think its hard to say which are the more popular links.

Many people would never click on training, but if there was a training
course they wanted they would go. But how would they ever know? Same
with user groups. Many people wouldn't be interested, but open a user
group in their local area and suddenly they care? But how would they
ever know?

So I suggest two things:

* move the suggested topics to detail pages. Give prominence to what
turns out to be most popular. Look at hits, don't speculate or argue.

* have a way of bubbling up information from details to front page. Do
this fairly randomly, so the front page is fresh and exciting each time
you visit.

I think people are interested in new and interesting things, however we
categorise them. Running the same course title monthly for a year is not
news, but then neither is the 5th meeting this year of the Pugtown PUG.
Nor is writing multiple blog entries on the same day.

We just need a way for proactive and/or innovative people to get
attention for their activities, without being swamped by bulk marketing
activities by the overzealous. Cool blogs, new courses, new PUGs etc are
what people want to know about.

Can we review again the reasons for keeping all on one page? Why not
allow the screen to scroll down?

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 10:20:47 +0200

Simon Riggs wrote:
> > > > I think a single link to training in a spot of its very own
> > > > would provide a bit more visibility than being cluttered with
> > > > some text and a link.  Perhaps we can have some list of the
> > > > number of events as well?  Want training (22 events coming up!)?
> > > 
> > > 
> > > listings and instead have larger and nicer representation for
> > > direct links:
> > > 
> > > Find a User group!
> > > Get Training!
> > > Latest News!
> > > Our community Blogs!
> > > 
> > "support us" sections. Second to that is training. All the others
> > are IMHO much more important than the usergroup listings (which
> > doesn't say that the usergroup listings aren't important, of
> > course).
> 

Right. A look at things now show on google analytics for the frontpage:

Between 150 and 600 clicks on each news item, depending on how
interesting it was (0.1%-0.2% of clicks)
About 500 clicks on the news archive (0.2%)
About 50 clicks on each event (<0.1%)
About 500 clicks on the events archive (0.2%)
About 18,000 clicks on the planetpostgresql links (6.5%)

> this fairly randomly, so the front page is fresh and exciting each
> time you visit.

That's kind of what we're doing now, no? News + planet + events?

It keeps the site updating. Just keeping static links to subsections
will make the page static and uninteresting.

> I think people are interested in new and interesting things, however
> we categorise them. Running the same course title monthly for a year
> is not news, but then neither is the 5th meeting this year of the
> Pugtown PUG. Nor is writing multiple blog entries on the same day.

Agreed, except actually multiple blog entries on the same day can
certainly be interesting, if they're about different and interesting
topics.

> attention for their activities, without being swamped by bulk
> marketing activities by the overzealous. Cool blogs, new courses, new
> PUGs etc are what people want to know about.
> 

The screen already scrolls, because we increased the length of each
section. (Well, it depends on your screen resolution of course, but
in for example 1024x768 (not untypical since a lot of people don't
use maximized browser windows) it does).

I think it's fine to have the screen scroll, but it'd be good if we can
keep the headlines on the initially visible part so that people know to
scroll. (It does that now at 768 lines at least)

//Magnus

---

From: Simon Riggs <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:39:38 +0100

> certainly be interesting, if they're about different and interesting

I agree, but I think we need a reasonable cut-off point.

> scroll. (It does that now at 768 lines at least)

Agreed.

---

From: Chander Ganesan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:56:13 -0400

> About 18,000 clicks on the planetpostgresql links (6.5%)
Perhaps a bit of experimentation?  Make a small change to the site and 
see how that affects things.  Obviously, we want people to stay there 
longer and click on more "stuff".  It seems that since the blog links 
are so popular they might be something to draw more attention to...same 
with the news archive.

I didn't realize there was an events archive?  Or is that the list of 
events that are coming up that isn't on the front page?  Are there any 
stats for the training archive?  How about before the changes were made 
to the page to remove the three recent events?  Having such information 
would give us a clue as to whether its better to move all events 
elsewhere, or leave them where they are.  It would also give us 
information about the expected usefulness of putting PUG events on the 
main page versus just hosting a link to said events.

I would think we'd want to know:

Of people who looked at the event archive (< .1%) how many people 
clicked on an event (which would give us a guesstimate as to how many 
people actually click on events using the event archive).
Pre training page change, how many people clicked on front page training 
events, versus how many clicked on an event via the "training archive" page?

chander

---

From: Chander Ganesan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:00:43 -0400

> turns out to be most popular. Look at hits, don't speculate or argue.
+1
> this fairly randomly, so the front page is fresh and exciting each time
+1
> Nor is writing multiple blog entries on the same day.
+0

I think while that might be true of blogs and pugs, its not true of 
training.  People want to know where and when they can get a class.  New 
courses are interesting, but I'll bet the vast majority of people who 
look for training aren't looking for a performance tuning, or some kind 
of HA course - they are interested in Administration or basic SQL, since 
thats often what they need to do their job.  Let's not discount the 
value of the "news" portion of the page, which brings attention to "new 
and exciting" for vendors.

Running the same admin course monthly might not be of interest to a PG 
admin with 5 years of experience, but its definitely of interest to a 
new PG person, and is definitely (IMHO) a core component to building the 
community.  I'd argue that you're more likely to lose the new guy that 
can't get training than the experienced guy who lives for exciting new 
PG product offerings.
> what people want to know about.
To paraphrase a response I got from this list about a similar topic 
"Isn't that what the News link is for?"  On a side note, I've brought up 
the "bulk marketing activities by the overzealous" several times in the 
past...which I think might be part of the reason things look the way 
they are now.

I fought the battle of trying to limit what commercial vendors can do on 
the training side (limiting the number of listings, locations, etc) in a 
wide range of ways last year...no dice, since unless there's a clear 
indicator that someone is doing something that is wrong, unethical, or 
misleading...there isn't much the community can do.  I'm as upset as you 
are about what I percieve to be "overzealous" marketing, and we have 
been forced to change a bit of our business model to be competitive 
(such as offering courses in other cities).  I think we do it in a 
fairly ethical way though ...for example... We're running (at a loss, 
I'll add) a PostgreSQL Admin course in Santa Clara later this month.  
There are 3 people enrolled in it, yet I'm renting a facility and flying 
out an instructor to teach the class (we advertise a minimum of 5 to run 
a course there).  If you know anyone that might be interested... ;-)

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 09:29:05 -0400

I see a lot of speculation in this thread about what are and are not
popular links, with exactly zero reference to actual page hits.  Don't
we collect statistics on what pages people visit?

A
-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
+1 503 667 4564 x104
http://www.commandprompt.com/

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 09:39:35 -0400

> we collect statistics on what pages people visit?

I spoke too soon -- Magnus referred to some in the next message I
read after posting this.  I'll shut up now.

A

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:51:10 -0700

> Or we just remove the frontpage completely? ;-)

No that isn't what I said, let's not get silly.

> there. If anything should be removed, it's IMHO the shortcuts and

I would argue it would make it much more valuable by making it actually 
useful versus a big pile of pasta on a screen.

> "support us" sections. Second to that is training. All the others are

Support us takes up too much space, I agree. It should be a nice little 
donate button somewhere on the top right or bottom right.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:13:09 +0200

> donate button somewhere on the top right or bottom right.

I'm eagerly awaiting a screendump of how you think it should look :-P

//Magnus