[Design] Banners on the Front Page

[Kai Krueger]

Ignoring for the moment whether it is an OSMF event or not (and whether 
local chapters are part of OSMF), does it really make sense to have a 
banner on the main page advertising a conference at all?

A conference is something quite specific and is rather resource intense 
(be it time commitment or paying for your stay). So I'd be surprised if 
it has any relevance to anyone other than "hard core OSMers" or those 
who work / want to work with OSM professionally. (which is reflected in 
that about 300 or so people in a community of 1 million actually attend) 
All of those are, however, likely able to be targeted through the 
various other communications channels and I would guess everyone who 
might be considering coming, knows about the conferences anyway. I mean 
it is unlikely that someone who just discovered OSM will say: "Oh cool, 
there is this 2 day conference on the other side of the planet about 
technical details of OSM, let me quickly by a plane ticket, conference 
tickets, hotel rooms and some holiday for this topic I knew nothing 
about until last week"?

Having a permanent general banner / message area in control of local 
chapters as Richard suggested on the other hand does make a lot of 
sense. If used for actual mapping projects, i.e. things like the project 
of the week / month would they would probably get much more participants 
if they were on the osm homepage. If local chapters then decide to use 
this space for a short while to make people aware of a local (or the 
main OSMF) conference, then that is of course fine as well.

Kai


On 03/22/2013 09:52 AM, Steve Coast wrote:
> The other SOTMs are not OSMF events and we've decided in the past not 
> to advertise them.
>
> Steve
>
>
>
> On Mar 22, 2013, at 8:32 AM, Shaun McDonald <shaun at shaunmcdonald.me.uk 
> <mailto:shaun at shaunmcdonald.me.uk>> wrote:
>> How about a rotating banner that rotates round showing all of the 
>> upcoming SOTMs? This would then minimise the vertical space needed.
>>
>> Shaun
>>
>> On 22 Mar 2013, at 14:06, Harry Wood <mail at harrywood.co.uk 
>> <mailto:mail at harrywood.co.uk>> wrote:
>>
>>> I need to kick off a public discussion to do with banners appearing 
>>> on the OpenStreetMap Front Page. It's a discussion we've had within 
>>> the Communications Working Group back in October last year, and 
>>> which was escalated the Management Team, but there isn't really a 
>>> good reason to have the discussion in private, though perhaps these 
>>> groups will need to vote or otherwise decide on a final policy.
>>>
>>> Perhaps this (very quiet) mailing list is a good place to discuss 
>>> it, because it's a principally an issue of design aesthetics and the 
>>> use of screen real-estate on the OpenStreetMap front page. It would 
>>> be wonderful if this 'design' list became a place where some bunch 
>>> of people somehow devise a solution to the eternal problem of the 
>>> front page design. I don't want to get into that just now. Working 
>>> on the assumption that we'll be sticking with our current design for 
>>> a while...
>>>
>>> ...we have a strip down the left, and this screen real-estate is 
>>> valuable space. Here more than anywhere users are eyeballing the 
>>> graphics, text, and user interface elements we choose to put there. 
>>> We have in the past chosen to put graphical banner ads promoting 
>>> State Of The Map conferences and some other events, in the run up to 
>>> these events.
>>>
>>> We need to decide when to do this, for which events, how big the 
>>> banners should be.
>>>
>>> Usually the banners are enthusiastically designed by people running 
>>> the events, so it's a question of when and what banners are 
>>> "allowed" onto the front page by the sysops. TomH is in charge of 
>>> this bit, but I think he would prefer be in charge of just deploying 
>>> things guided by a clear policy. So that's what we need to formulate.
>>>
>>>
>>> There is a history to this discussion.
>>>
>>> SOTM.EU <http://sotm.eu/> in Vienna requested a banner. This was 
>>> eventually rejected, because the annual foundation conference was 
>>> also approaching. A clash of demands on the banner screenspace and 
>>> more fundamentally, a clash of interests in which event to 
>>> promote. There was some indecision and to-and-fro'ing from the 
>>> board. A clear policy would've been good.
>>>
>>> As mentioned CWG discussed it back in October. Buried in the minutes 
>>> here:
>>> http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/CWG_meeting_2012-10-08
>>> http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/CWG_meeting_2012-10-15
>>> I think that was kicked off by a request from TomH for a policy, 
>>> because he was asked to put the SOTM PDX banner on there. We didn't 
>>> decide on anything in time, but there was a feeling (my feeling in 
>>> particular) that the green banner had been a bit too obtrusive. It 
>>> was on the front page for too long, and was too big, particularly 
>>> given that SOTM PDX was a smaller event than the annual conference. 
>>> ...but it is a matter of opinion and a matter of design.
>>>
>>> In an attempt to lay down a clear policy. CWG's recommendation was 
>>> that we only have banners for the official annual foundation event. 
>>> Part of the reasoning too, was that we need to nip in the bud any 
>>> trend towards a situation where there is constant rolling programme 
>>> of banners on the homepage without any quiet time in between. But in 
>>> discussion with Management Team a number of people felt that was too 
>>> strict, and the we should give over the screenspace for regional 
>>> events on occasions
>>>
>>> Straight off the back of that, in fact *while* we were discussing, 
>>> SOTM Scotland wanted a banner. They ended up with a smaller more 
>>> understated banner, and placed there only for a few days in the run 
>>> up to the event. I think that may point the way to a more balanced 
>>> policy.
>>>
>>> Today the organisers of SOTM US have presented a design for a banner 
>>> for this years event, requesting that it be posted on there 
>>> immediately today, to help with their promotions three months in 
>>> advance of the conference.
>>> https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/217
>>>
>>> As mentioned on there, I feel quite strongly that we shouldn't be 
>>> slapping a large graphically intense banner ad on the OpenStreetMap 
>>> front page three months ahead of this regional event. If we follow 
>>> CWG's initial recommendation, there'd be no banners for SOTMUS on 
>>> there. A simple and straightforward policy, but maybe too strict.
>>>
>>> ...discuss
>>>
>>>
>>> Harry Wood
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> design mailing list
>>> design at openstreetmap.org <mailto:design at openstreetmap.org>
>>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/design
>>
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