[Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!)

[Roy Smith]

On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 07:55  AM, A.M.Kuchling wrote:
> The draft is as always at www.amk.ca/python.org.html.

A few random comments;

The "ANNOUNCEMENTS" headline is in a different font  and style (center 
vs. flush left) from all the other headlines ("Top documentation 
links", etc).  I find this visually jarring.

The "Welcome to the official website for the Python programming 
language" line really doesn't add anything to the page.  See this 
week's AlertBox colum for more on this 
(http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030811.html).

Does "www.python.org website hosted by XS4ALL" have to get the 
prominent place it has now? I don't know who XS4ALL is, but I'm 
assuming from the acknowledgement that they're donating web services.  
This is nice,  and deserve acknowledgement, but is it really the most 
important thing on the page that it needs to be where it it, taking up 
the most valuable visual real-estate on the page?  Could it be moved to 
the bottom somewhere?

The "Documentation" section in the sidebar parallels the "Top 
documentation links section in the main part of the page.  But not 
quite.  Many of the items are the same, but it's not clear how it was 
decided to promote certain items to the sidebar.  Neither is a proper 
subset of the other.  Overall, it's confusing.  Where do I find 
documentation?  Well, some stuff is in one place, some stuff is in the 
other?  It's difficult to build a mental picture of how to navigate 
these pages.

Why do we have a "Developers" link on the nav bar?  The target audience 
for this is the group of people who maintain the language itself.  This 
is a very small group of people.  Important, but small.  They are also 
the most tuned-in and sophisticated.  Do we really need to devote some 
of the most expensive real estate on every page in the entire site to 
telling the developers how to find SourceForge?  Perhaps just a "how to 
get involved" link somewhere on the home page would be enough?

I've come into the conversation somewhat late.  Forgive me if some of 
the above comments have been brought up before.