[ZWeb] A tree in the Forest: Zopelabs

alan runyan alan runyan" <runyaga@runyaga.com
Thu, 28 Feb 2002 09:37:05 -0600


Lennart,

we have gone over this.  the conclusions seemed to be:
* more zope sites equate to a healthy zope community.
* the new zope.org development effort is a 'open' process and if you want to
contribute
   I believe they are letting people have CVS access so they can contribute.
if you think of
   ZOPE like PHP then things like zopelabs, and zopezen are themselves
indepedant of ZOPE.ORG...
* if nothing does what you want, make your own.  (but be prepared to stick
to your guns)

php.net is merely the latest happenings in PHP and documentation.  with some
links to helpful sites.
this is kinda where I see zope.org.  zope.org is pretty 'all inclusive'
thing: its the freshmeat, the sourceforge,
, the devshed and the community HUB for All Things Zope.

Speaking from my experience contributing to zopelabs:
  * its very difficult to launch a successful zope community site (update
DAILY!)
  * the site obviously has to support a niche that is not fulfilled by
either zope.org or any other zope site
  * its very difficult to get the word out unless its listed at zope.org
__on the frontpage__
       and even then people dont goto zopelabs! although they *do* want
recipes!
  * your Information Archicture (I dont like that word) should be sound.
All elements of the website should be easily
    accessible and have many paths to get to your content.  zopelabs has
become a victim of its success (like zope.org)
    its design/IA does not scale and now suffers from problems on getting
information.  if you see the need in the future
    for adding categories or changing your site, DO IT SOONER than LATER.

zopelabs is now successful.  when it gets its new face life, I believe it
will be even more successful.
traffic increases each month, http://www.zopelabs.com/stats/ -- these are
very healthy metrics for zope community.
what is zopezen's traffic? zopenewbies traffice?  my-zope's traffice?  this
data is very valuable.

on another idea.  it would be nice for all of us to implement a banner
system.  I know AndyM has shown disapproval about this.  but we need to
'seem' like a normal thriving community and one element of that is
cross-pollinating with banners.  I'm pretty anti web-ring as they are not
graphic oriented.  Banners provide 'random blips of informative data' and
links to where the source of that data resides.  Maybe one day we can even
share banners with other web development sites ;)  controlled
cross-pollination like this is *good*.  RSS is just as *good* but I believe
banners add
a sense of tangible linkage that RSS, Web-Rings, or Hyperlinks just miss out
on.

if you want to re-arrange the forest.  help out with the new.zope.org
effort.

~runyaga