Posted by senpai on December 30, 2011 at 9:51pm
I cannot find a recently updated policy for the promotion of posts to the homepage of drupal.org, so I thought I should start this discussion in order to bring together all the past policies and threads under one roof in an effort to distill something that's relevant, accepted, and less than three years old.
Go! :)
[EDIT] Found this link to Front Page Schedule - aka - How to get your story on the front page but it doesn't have a 'last updated on' published so people can see how recent it is.
Comments
*sigh*
As a site maintainer who's been doing some of the promoting lately, this has been on my radar for a while. And frankly, I'm a bit frustrated by the lack of participation regarding users who has written up posts about their own "Sites Made With Drupal." And I'm waiting to see what happens with Build Drupal Case Studies and how that will fit in with the front page promotion/news.
I'll take some responsibility for not having the Front Page Schedule page updated.
(I just had an idea that everyone will hate - in the tabbed section next to the map on the front page, remove the section of commits and replace it with the recently promoted Groups posts. Or a section about Group events that could get more eyes on it. Probably has been brought up before, but I'm just thinking out loud.)
Our Current Policies:
What I'm thinking is to create a new page for "Front Page Promotion Guidelines" and separate that from the schedule itself.
Except for "Sites made with Drupal" is there anything specific that you're concerned about? Of course, since the redesign, "Front Page" doesn't mean what it used to.
The front page schedule link
The front page schedule link above is the current policy; it has been tweaked and refined over the last couple of years by various folks, including myself. Siverwing's summary of our current policies is also pretty accurate.
I posted some thoughts about how to streamline/improve the process with regard to case studies earlier this year (http://drupal.org/node/948062#comment-4225650), but have not had much time to work on this since that time.
In the meantime, I understand that Lisa Rex and others have been working on a larger content strategy for drupal.org would would presumably include more defined standards for promotion of content to the homepage of drupal.org, but I don't know what the current status is of those efforts.
Also, I just found this issue (http://drupal.org/node/357378) which I assigned to myself back in April 2010 to present a proposal to improve the home page promotion process. If we are able to put together a proposal to do so in this group, I'd suggest it get posted there for review by the other members of the webmaster team.
I was once much more active
I was once much more active in front-page activity, but personal and family matters have drawn me away in recent months. That happens for everyone, which to me speaks to the need for a clear policy around which the many webmasters can work. We can't continue to depend upon heroes' stepping up to own a fuzzy corner of such an important part of Drupal.org.
Perhaps a tangential discussion could be had around how to promote submitting to the front page, once this policy is fleshed out and/or reconfirmed. A great stream of promoted content comes from great content to promote.
(As a side note, I feel it's important that we recognize how the concept of "front-page post" has evolved since the redesign. We went from a river of news to a structured layout. That has reduced the visibility and impact of what we call front-page activity. It would be nice to entertain ideas for ways to increase the impact of news announcements and great case studies (which combined comprise the vast majority of "front page" material). Again, perhaps too tangential for this discussion?)
PINGV | Strategy • Design • Drupal Development