Files
fsfe-website/contribute/web/Webpage-Structure.txt
2008-02-11 19:02:25 +00:00

327 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext

$Id: Webpage-Structure.txt,v 1.1 2008-02-11 19:02:21 reinhard Exp $
FSF Europe Web page structure
-----------------------------
Introduction:
*************
This document describes the directory/organisation structure of the
FSF Europe web pages. Maintaining a consistent and clear structure is
important.
Since the web page is a central point of disseminating information
about Free Software and the activities of the FSF Europe and its
associate organisations, we need to make our best effort to make sure
people can easily find what they are looking for.
If they get lost or confused, they will feel stupid, which is
something no one likes, so they will (at best) give up or (at worst)
assume that Free Software is not worth the effort to get into it.
Please try to make sure that everyone working on the web page knows
this document and tries to maintain the consistent structure. If you
feel something is not clear or are not sure where to put something,
please feel free to ask web@fsfeurope.org and/or team@fsfeurope.org at
your discretion.
About expanding the document:
*****************************
This document will always remain work in progress. Whenever you
believe the structure should be modified or expanded in some way,
please feel free to suggest your ideas to web@fsfeurope.org. If people
on web@fsfeurope.org agree this is a useful addition, please prepare a
patch to this document.
Before making changes to this document final, please mail your
intended patch to team@fsfeurope.org and let them know where to find
the discussion that preceded this patch so people will be able to
understand why you feel this patch has become necessary.
For each of these processes, there should be at least a week (better:
two weeks) allowed feedback time in order to allow people to comment.
General notes:
**************
- We try to provide every page in as many languages as possible,
regardless of where it is published.
Of course we will not always have all translations at once, so
things are being published when we have them and translated over
time.
If this means that a European document is only available in
Italian, German or French, then so be it. It is better to get
active publishing things than to discourage ourselves by demanding
translations that we currently are not willing or able to do.
Of course we should aim to always have English versions of all
pages and preferably write things in English for the European
purpose, but this is a recommendation, not a strict rule.
To give potential translators ideas, /help/translation should
contain a priority list of things that we would like to see
translated first.
- Some of the directories are global to the whole FSF Europe, others
will be supplemented with country-specific branches to contain
information that is country specific (whenever applicable).
Those "Countrified" branches will be put under
/<country TLD>/
in the main directory to allow creating "<country>.fsfeurope.org"
to map to it.
Example: The /projects tree will contain projects specifically
European, so the specific localised tree for France will be located
under /fr/projects
The most important point about navigation will be to provide
several overview pages based on the interest-focus of the web-page
visitors that allow easy overview & navigation between the country
projects and European projects.
Although this document speaks of countries and localisation, the
boundaries of such a region do not have to be identical to
political borders. It is possible that some countries will bundle
themselves together or divide themselves up based on political/
cultural/language identities.
We do not seek to define who people feel close to - so if enough
people feel a certain "grouping" makes sense, we should go
along with it.
Creating duplicities should be avoided in order not to confuse
people.
Web site structure:
*******************
Global/European directories:
(please keep this list alphabetical)
/about
This directory contains the introductory documents into the
background, goals and structure of the FSF Europe. It also
contains all legal documents like constitutions of the Hub and
the Chapters and the Chapter template-constitution.
Also contained is a list of members and speakers.
/about/graphics
Sub-directory containing logo, artwork & other FSF Europe
things that people sometimes need for web pages(links) and
such.
/associate
Directory of associate organisations, containing a list of
associate organisations and some contact information on the
top level. Also, page(s) explaining the associate status and
giving information on how to become an associate organisation
should go here.
/associate/<name of associate organisation>
Sub-directory for the specified associate organisation,
containing text, information, material, brochures by the
respective associate organisation.
All pages in here should contain some sort of visible sign
that this information was provided by the associate
organisation (other than the directory location, that is.)
/associate/other
Sub-directory containing texts/initiatives/projects that we
perceive to be well-written or useful written by people
neither in a formal associate organisation nor member of the
FSF Europe.
/documents
This directory contains all documents about Free Software and
related topics published by the FSF Europe. Also one-time
initiatives like open letters and such.
Generally speaking, only documents that will probably be
useful to read/refer to for the next 2 years should go in
here.
/events
This directory contains information about events the FSF
Europe or one of its representatives is present at. Contains
overviews of future events.
/events/<year>
Sub-directories for the different years containing overview
over the events in that particular year. Also, this avoids
directory cluttering of main events directory. Sub-directories
for the different events should be made when there are
pictures, presentations or several files to be put online.
/help
This directory contains all information about how to help the
FSF Europe, how to donate and so on. For information on how to
get involved, people should be referred to /contact.
/help/translation
Sub-directory containing information about how to get involved
in the translation process and also TODO lists of things that
need translation.
/help/webpage
Subdirectory containing all the technical information for the
web page and information on how to get involved.
/links
Directory containing linkpages to other organisations,
initiatives and such. Potentially sorted by topic.
/material
Directory containing brochures, information material and other
"formatted material" that people may want to print out
themselves and/or distribute to colleagues/friends/whoever.
A subdirectory per brochure/flyer seems useful.
/order
Information on how to order FSF Europe brochures, flyers and
such as well as information on how to order merchandise.
/search
Navigation page(s) for the search engine go in here.
Should contain sitemap.html with a sitemap explaining the
layout and directory structure from a users perspective.
Localised directories:
(please keep this list alphabetical)
/contact
Directory containing contact information, information about
mailing lists and how to get involved.
/news
Directory for one-time events, actions and news. This level
contains the overview pages for new & old news.
/news/<year>
Sub-directories for the different years to avoid directory
cluttering. If something contains pictures or multiple files,
please create subdirectories for the entry.
/press
Directory containing overview-pages geared towards
journalists, trying to make it easier for them to get to the
relevant information fast. Should also contain information
about press-release mailing lists.
This directory will probably contain little in terms of
additional information, it will more or less try to provide a
different type of communicating the information that will be
more useful to journalists.
/projects
Directory structure containing projects in sub-directories
depending on their focus.
A project normally will be something that goes over a long
period of time (potentially forever), so one-time actions
should not go here but rather be put in /news.
/projects/technical
Subdirectory containing the technical projects in their own
subdirectories.
/projects/legal
Sub-directories containing the legal projects/activities,
each within their own sub-directory.
/projects/awareness
As above, for projects concentrating on building awareness for
Free Software.
/projects/other
As above, for all that do not fall in one of the categories
above.
Navigation paradigms:
*********************
Following the most likely way users will want to perceive/use the
page, the general navigation paradigm is that sections (topics)
supersede localised sections of the site.
In all localised sections, the navigation pages should always
contain the localised entries PLUS the Global/European ones. That
way someone who selected the localised page for one region will not miss
the Global/European information.
Whenever a user who selected a localised version asks for a section that
is Global/European only, the Global/European pages should be served
silently without loss of overall localisation.
Localisation can be maintained / preserved over several hops by
host name (i.e. <localised-region>.fsfeurope.org).
That way people can enter the web page directly through a certain
pre-selected localised link or they enter the web page globally.
Either way they can select the topics of interest and browse the whole
page while maintaining their localised version of site selection.
The navigation should allow them to go back to the European level and
whenever there are other localised selections available, the user
should be able to switch between localisations.
Language selection can be done through content negotiation or
explicitly. If possible, language selection should be preserved even
through a missing translation.