[Lancaster] Website

[Dave Smith]

andy baxter wrote:
> It would be really good to get some views from other members of the group.

Right, I'll play. :)

First off, thanks to both Andy and Ken for taking the time out to put 
together different ideas for posters, and for the subsequent discussion 
that's spawned from it.

I'm afraid I'm going to sound incredibly political and diplomatic when I 
say I think both have them have got application in their own rights, but 
that is pretty much how I see it.

Personally, I've never been much involved / taken much interest in 
detailed approaches to advertising before, and as such, the limited 
forays I've had into it I've been massively in favour of the KISS 
approach, primarily because it requires less effort on my part in coming 
up with the wordy parts!
However, I can appreciate that there are times / locations, where the 
more detailed posters (more like a leaflet, in many ways) are probably 
better received and, to take Andy's idea of where to put his style of 
poster, on the notice board in the Gregson centre is probably one of 
those (in my opinion).
The reason I say that is that inside a building, on a notice board 
(where people go to purposefully search and 'notice' things), I've 
always been of the belief is the sort of spot where people who have 
their eye caught, will be quite happy to stand and read in much more 
detail than a flyer they may pass on a wall or column in the street. 
Sure, they've got to stand up, but other than that they're inside, warm, 
maybe enjoying a lovely beer, etc. and, in short, don't really feel a 
need to rush - they went to the notice board to have a look about, after 
all...
As such, in those sorts of locations, my personal preference leans 
towards Andy's design - perhaps the wording could be changed slightly 
but, fundamentally, I have no problems with it in its current format 
and, in fact, I actually liked the logos top and bottom as it provides 
the bit of colour / imagery in a border role that would catch the eye of 
someone glancing at a notice board enough for them to read further. 
LINUX is clearly prominent there as well to provide the reader with an 
idea as to the subject matter. Either they'll know it, or they won't.

As regards Ken's poster, which I personally see as being applicable (or 
perhaps I should say 'better applied') in an outdoor environment, and is 
closer to the limited amount of advertising I've done for diffferent 
projects before.
It's short, it's to the point, and it has a point of contact (in our 
case, the web address) clearly visible and easily memorable. Whilst it 
doesn't skimp on the details, it keeps things to a bare minimum - 
perfect for catching the attention of someone busily walking to or from 
work / the shops / the pub / school / whatever. It doesn't trouble them 
with having to decide to spend a (relatively) long time reading the 
block of text that explains the poster. Indeed, the majority of readers 
can probably glean the information they want whilst they're walking past.

- - - -

As a more general note, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I 
reckon we should assume a minimum level of knowledge with posters, 
particularly at this time. Whilst we can definitely work on the wording 
of posters to keep things as easily understandable as we want, I think 
we'd need to accept that, at first, we're not realistically going to be 
appealing to complete new users in the majority - perhaps if we had odd 
Install Days or for some of the demos we may get new or soon-to-be-new 
users coming down for them and, indeed, we may get new users on here 
asking questions before getting chance to come down to the meetings, but 
I think we definitely run the risk of being overly cautious if, at this 
stage, we're worrying too much about confusing completely new or even 
non-users.
And, I know, that comes across as a bit rash, but let me explain.
Half of the point of these posters is to advertise the fact that the LUG 
is here to ask questions and share knowledge (take this list, as a prime 
example). We simply don't _need_ to worry about making them _completely_ 
n00b proof. If what's there catches their interest, and they get the 
message that there is a website for them to check (which in turn shows 
the mailing list for discussions), and informs them that they can come 
meet some of us at the Brit on the first Wednesday of every month, then 
they have plenty of opportunities to ask questions about the things that 
confuse them.
Ken, I believe we're both (if not all) in agreement that the sheer 
number of distributions out there can be a source of confusion to people 
trying to move to Linux, but I don't agree that including a few 
distribution logos at the top and bottom of the poster is a huge problem 
(for the Poster that includes a solid wall of text and generally 
requires and expects a bit more reading), particularly with the 
abundance of the Tuxes and GNUs.
At the end of the day, if it gets people here, asking questions and 
promoting more fun discussions both here and at the pub, and ultimately 
leads to different demos, talks and the like then all the better.
I, for one, would love to see a demo from a genuinely new Linux user (of 
any distribution) to see how they've found it - I find it harder and 
harder to guess at how people will perceive things these days after 
spending more and more time in Linux myself.


- - - -

Anyway, I've already gone on much longer than I originally intended, but 
I hope it adds my 2 cents constructively! :)

As mentioned at first, thanks again to both of you for the time put in 
and thanks for the discussion generated - I wanted to get involved 
earlier but also wanted to take some more time to stand back and see how 
it developed.
Wayne - I wouldn't worry too much about lots of emails about a poster - 
it's all well-meaning (as I read it) and it's always better in my 
opinion to see lots of emails firing across the list than it being 
stagnant as it has been for different periods of time in the past!

I'm sure there'll be something I've missed, and when I finally get 
around to re-reading this I'll probably wince once or twice and think, 
'Doh! That could have been phrased better', but there we go - that's the 
nature of the beast when it comes to internet communication!

As a final note, here's a little reminder as to why we love Linux so, 
and perhaps why we're all here:
http://xkcd.com/196/

:)

Best regards,

Dave