[theforum] movement for redesign

[William Anderson]

Jeff Howden wrote:
> william,
>
> [snip]
> structure needs to be discussed, but not details like whether or not to
> use subdomains, whether or not we're going to throw away pagerank, etc.

The current subdomain structure needs to be addressed, e.g. tips under leo,
while nominally accurate as tips are harvested from the lists, means it
seems to sit a little outside the immediate focus of the evolt.org core, the
articles.  By enlarging the focus to include tips, deo, we increase the
audience for them.  By discussing a change to the subdomain structure here,
it gets done in the relevant environment, because doing so is a *big*
change.

> > <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> > Have the domains alias if need be so that evolt.org =
> > www.evolt.org = work.evolt.org if it will sate the need
> > to kowtow to pagerank so much,
> > <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
>
> i think several of us have tried patiently to explain the importance of
> not messing around with our position, pagerank, etc.  if you don't
> believe us or understand what we're talking about fine.  however, please
> accept the fact that perhaps others know a tad bit more about this than
> you do.  please ditch the inflammatory attitude and the things like
> "kowtow", "desperate to retain google's attention", "cope fine", etc.

Oh, good grief.  We *are* kowtowing to pagerank if we pay any credence to it
whatsoever, regardless of how useful/useless it is.  We have absolutely zero
control over how pagerank works, or addresses our data.  Someone at google
could decide "evolt.org appears to be a blog site, let's reduce their
pagerank to, um ... [rolls D10] ... 3, cool" - it will probably never
happen, but can *you* guarantee that?

So in future, please do not attempt to be condescending towards me on a "we
know more than you" basis.  *None* of us have anything more than an
empirical knowledge of how pagerank works - for an authoritative view, I
afraid I would only accept the word of a Google employee directly involved
in the algorithm.

As for my suggestion above which you immediately decided to condescend, I
did not suggest redirection, but aliasing, so that www.evolt.org/foo/bar
would still be www.evolt.org/foo/bar, but work.evolt.org/foo/bar would show
exactly the same page.  This would allow for a) pagerank to be fully
preserved, since none of us appear to know precisely what would happen were
we to initiate a www->work redirect, and b) the structure to be slowly but
surely migrated over time.

But you decided not to ask for clarification - a simple "what did you mean
by that, the same as you've been talking about the last day, or something
different?" would have sufficed, but you instead decided to talk down to me
as though I had only been using the web for a week or two.

> i want to make this process work, but i can't if you insist on having an
> opinion about everything,

Oh no, developer has opinion!  Quick, run for the hills!  Excuse me for
having a *brain*! :)

> use inciteful/emotional/passionate/inflammatory
> words and phrases, etc.  please help nip this stuff in the butt before it
> gets out of hand and we end up getting *nothing* done, as usual.

I want to be involved in this process, but I can't if all I'm told will
happen are "problems".  Do my emotional phrases scare you?  It's because -
$deity forbid - I'm passionate about what I do.  evolt.org isn't another
project to be case studied a year downrange, another bunch of code to be
recycled a project later.

Now, let's at this point in time accept that:

a) I have brought up a relevant point re: structure, and that
b) you don't agree with it

because frankly I can't be arsed arguing with you.  Now, if you want to be
condescending to me further, I'd appreciate it if you went offlist to do it.
If you want to increase the number of existing requirements and size of
plans, *please do so*, so that we *can* move on and just Get Stuff Done
(tm).

-- 
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