[Gimp-web] website proposal

[Ronnie Tucker]

Hi all,

From years of using Photoshop i've recently switched to Gimp (which is an 
amazingly powerful piece of free software) but I feel that the website is far 
too 'techy' and thus confusing and discouraging for the 'ordinary user' (eg: 
Pulp Fiction in the 'About' page, if you don't explain it, most people won't 
get the connection).

I'd like to propose that the site be redesigned, by me, with the 'ordinary 
user' in mind. I have some free web space (which I pay for) that I would be 
more than willing to donate if need be and realise that this is a voluntary 
position.

My proposal is this ;

1) The site is based on a foundation of Joomla. Why Joomla? Because it is open 
source and would allow the main developers (or team leaders) to each have a 
log-in and be able to post news and information to the index page.

2) The site should have a specific page detailing how people should go about 
volunteering to help Gimp. I know from recent experience that it is 
incredibly difficult to offer to help. The 'normal user' may not understand 
nor want to use mailing lists and irc, I feel this wards off potential help.

3) With Joomla, people who wish to write articles can easily be 
assigned 'Author' attributes where they can write articles directly onsite. 
Rather than publish potentially incorrect data all articles would be offline 
until...

4) Documentation leaders, assigned as 'Publishers', proof read the articles 
and simply tell Joomla to display the article(s).

5) The site should be far more friendly. This woud, i feel, encourage more 
downloads and, hopefully, more people to come forward and voluteer.

6) A more structured 'About' page which could possibly have screengrabs of the 
early versions of Gimp. Not just 'about' gimp but more of a 'history of gimp' 
page.

Yes, Joomla has a somewhat arcane interface at first, but I would be more than 
willing to write short tutorials for each 'department' to show them how to 
post news, add/remove users, write articles, publish articles and so on. 
Effectively the site would be updated by all contributors/developers rather 
than one single webmaster.

I currently administer an art related site which uses Joomla and is an example 
of how Joomla can be used to allow anyone to alter the site as and when 
needed.
http://www.theartistsnetwork.org
(PLEASE NOTE: it is a relatively new site at the moment)

I don't wish to offend anyone and if there is a redesign in progress or a 
current webmaster in place then I most certainly don't want to barge in and 
step on anyones toes!

-- 
All the best,
Ronnie

e : ronnie at RonnieTucker.co.uk
w : www.RonnieTucker.co.uk