Re^9: Site facelift?

[JavaFan]

I'm failing to understand why it has to be an either or scenario. Will improving the design take away from the content? Do you think that people will stop contributing to the site? If I and/or a few others volunteer our time to work on this would it ruin your perception of the site? Would you stop using it?

No, I'm not saying that at all. Please start reading from the top of this thread.

All I'm saying is that the appearance of this site is insignificant when it comes to how often Perl is "picked over PHP". Even if I were to believe there's an earth shocking "decline of Perl" (which people have been claiming for at least a dozen years - even before Perlmonks existed), I still do not think the appearance of this site plays any role in that. People will not ditch Perl for PHP if perlmonks becomes slower, or started used blink and pre as the only markup. Nor will Perl gain any noticeable marketshare if we'd all agree on what the best appearance is, and it would be implemented overnight.

Do whatever you want with the site. Just don't pretent this site is that important. That's what I'm arguing about, the feel of self-importance.

[luis.roca]

OK, fair enough. I appreciate the clarification.

We are all arguing whether or not this site is a turn off to potential adopters of Perl. The internet is a funny place. Someone does a search for a Perl topic, finds this site and...

The truth is we have no idea if they visit, get turned off by the design, then look to PHP/Ruby/Python or go bake cookies and forget the whole thing. The only possible way to measure success is when we see people sign up and participate. (I'm not even sure how easy that is to measure since I don't work under the hood of the site.) Otherwise we really have no clue.

So in some respects, you're right, this would be, at least in part, a vanity project. However, we'll just disagree (without a way to prove either case) on whether or not this will help the site itself and the perception of Perl as a whole.

Luis

[chromatic]

The truth is we have no idea if they visit, get turned off by the design, then look to PHP/Ruby/Python or go bake cookies and forget the whole thing.

Sure we do.

Anyone whose primary concern for choosing a technology is whether you think the design of a website discussing that technology is shiny enough is a lousy technologist and is unlikely to create anything interesting.