$Id: Webpage-Structure.txt,v 1.3 2004/08/01 13:08:59 now3d Exp $ FSF Europe Web page structure ----------------------------- Introduction: ************* This document describes the directory/organisation structure of the FSF Europe web pages. Maintaining a consistent and clear structure is important. Since the web page is a central point of disseminating information about Free Software and the activities of the FSF Europe and its associate organisations, we need to make our best effort to make sure people can easily find what they are looking for. If they get lost or confused, they will feel stupid, which is something no one likes, so they will (at best) give up or (at worst) assume that Free Software is not worth the effort to get into it. Please try to make sure that everyone working on the web page knows this document and tries to maintain the consistent structure. If you feel something is not clear or are not sure where to put something, please feel free to ask web@fsfeurope.org and/or team@fsfeurope.org at your discretion. About expanding the document: ***************************** This document will always remain work in progress. Whenever you believe the structure should be modified or expanded in some way, please feel free to suggest your ideas to web@fsfeurope.org. If people on web@fsfeurope.org agree this is a useful addition, please prepare a patch to this document. Before making changes to this document final, please mail your intended patch to team@fsfeurope.org and let them know where to find the discussion that preceded this patch so people will be able to understand why you feel this patch has become necessary. For each of these processes, there should be at least a week (better: two weeks) allowed feedback time in order to allow people to comment. General notes: ************** - We try to provide every page in as many languages as possible, regardless of where it is published. Of course we will not always have all translations at once, so things are being published when we have them and translated over time. If this means that a European document is only available in Italian, German or French, then so be it. It is better to get active publishing things than to discourage ourselves by demanding translations that we currently are not willing or able to do. Of course we should aim to always have English versions of all pages and preferably write things in English for the European purpose, but this is a recommendation, not a strict rule. To give potential translators ideas, /help/translation should contain a priority list of things that we would like to see translated first. - Some of the directories are global to the whole FSF Europe, others will be supplemented with country-specific branches to contain information that is country specific (whenever applicable). Those "Countrified" branches will be put under // in the main directory to allow creating ".fsfeurope.org" to map to it. Example: The /projects tree will contain projects specifically European, so the specific localised tree for France will be located under /fr/projects The most important point about navigation will be to provide several overview pages based on the interest-focus of the web-page visitors that allow easy overview & navigation between the country projects and European projects. Although this document speaks of countries and localisation, the boundaries of such a region do not have to be identical to political borders. It is possible that some countries will bundle themselves together or divide themselves up based on political/ cultural/language identities. We do not seek to define who people feel close to - so if enough people feel a certain "grouping" makes sense, we should go along with it. Creating duplicities should be avoided in order not to confuse people. Web site structure: ******************* Global/European directories: (please keep this list alphabetical) /about This directory contains the introductory documents into the background, goals and structure of the FSF Europe. It also contains all legal documents like constitutions of the Hub and the Chapters and the Chapter template-constitution. Also contained is a list of members and speakers. /about/graphics Sub-directory containing logo, artwork & other FSF Europe things that people sometimes need for web pages(links) and such. /associate Directory of associate organisations, containing a list of associate organisations and some contact information on the top level. Also, page(s) explaining the associate status and giving information on how to become an associate organisation should go here. /associate/ Sub-directory for the specified associate organisation, containing text, information, material, brochures by the respective associate organisation. All pages in here should contain some sort of visible sign that this information was provided by the associate organisation (other than the directory location, that is.) /associate/other Sub-directory containing texts/initiatives/projects that we perceive to be well-written or useful written by people neither in a formal associate organisation nor member of the FSF Europe. /documents This directory contains all documents about Free Software and related topics published by the FSF Europe. Also one-time initiatives like open letters and such. Generally speaking, only documents that will probably be useful to read/refer to for the next 2 years should go in here. /events This directory contains information about events the FSF Europe or one of its representatives is present at. Contains overviews of future events. /events/ Sub-directories for the different years containing overview over the events in that particular year. Also, this avoids directory cluttering of main events directory. Sub-directories for the different events should be made when there are pictures, presentations or several files to be put online. /help This directory contains all information about how to help the FSF Europe, how to donate and so on. For information on how to get involved, people should be referred to /contact. /help/translation Sub-directory containing information about how to get involved in the translation process and also TODO lists of things that need translation. /help/webpage Subdirectory containing all the technical information for the web page and information on how to get involved. /links Directory containing linkpages to other organisations, initiatives and such. Potentially sorted by topic. /material Directory containing brochures, information material and other "formatted material" that people may want to print out themselves and/or distribute to colleagues/friends/whoever. A subdirectory per brochure/flyer seems useful. /order Information on how to order FSF Europe brochures, flyers and such as well as information on how to order merchandise. /search Navigation page(s) for the search engine go in here. Should contain sitemap.html with a sitemap explaining the layout and directory structure from a users perspective. Localised directories: (please keep this list alphabetical) /contact Directory containing contact information, information about mailing lists and how to get involved. /news Directory for one-time events, actions and news. This level contains the overview pages for new & old news. /news/ Sub-directories for the different years to avoid directory cluttering. If something contains pictures or multiple files, please create subdirectories for the entry. /press Directory containing overview-pages geared towards journalists, trying to make it easier for them to get to the relevant information fast. Should also contain information about press-release mailing lists. This directory will probably contain little in terms of additional information, it will more or less try to provide a different type of communicating the information that will be more useful to journalists. /projects Directory structure containing projects in sub-directories depending on their focus. A project normally will be something that goes over a long period of time (potentially forever), so one-time actions should not go here but rather be put in /news. /projects/technical Subdirectory containing the technical projects in their own subdirectories. /projects/legal Sub-directories containing the legal projects/activities, each within their own sub-directory. /projects/awareness As above, for projects concentrating on building awareness for Free Software. /projects/other As above, for all that do not fall in one of the categories above. Navigation paradigms: ********************* Following the most likely way users will want to perceive/use the page, the general navigation paradigm is that sections (topics) supersede localised sections of the site. In all localised sections, the navigation pages should always contain the localised entries PLUS the Global/European ones. That way someone who selected the localised page for one region will not miss the Global/European information. Whenever a user who selected a localised version asks for a section that is Global/European only, the Global/European pages should be served silently without loss of overall localisation. Localisation can be maintained / preserved over several hops by host name (i.e. .fsfeurope.org). That way people can enter the web page directly through a certain pre-selected localised link or they enter the web page globally. Either way they can select the topics of interest and browse the whole page while maintaining their localised version of site selection. The navigation should allow them to go back to the European level and whenever there are other localised selections available, the user should be able to switch between localisations. Language selection can be done through content negotiation or explicitly. If possible, language selection should be preserved even through a missing translation.