From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Apr 23 08:05:32 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Mon, 23 Apr 2007 08:05:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Hg06N-0002jb-Mm for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 08:05:19 -0700 Received: from anchor-post-33.mail.demon.net ([194.217.242.91]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Hg05f-0002hn-0Z for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 08:05:00 -0700 Received: from mailgate.denbridgemarine.com ([83.104.25.50]) by anchor-post-33.mail.demon.net with esmtp (Exim 4.42) id 1Hg04f-0003ch-9p; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 15:03:31 +0000 Received: from strontium.elements (support.denbridgemarine.com [83.104.25.51]) (using SSLv3 with cipher EXP1024-RC4-SHA (56/128 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mailgate.denbridgemarine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id C45225085E; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:02:30 +0100 (BST) From: Colin Wright Organization: Denbridge Marine Ltd To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: language sites Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:02:29 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 References: In-Reply-To: Cc: lojban@solipsys.co.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200704231602.29511.colin.wright@denbridgemarine.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 X-Spam-Score-Int: -24 X-Spam-Bar: -- X-archive-position: 4372 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: colin.wright@denbridgemarine.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners AP> Take a look at http://www.interlingua.com/ and http://www.uea.org/ AP> to see a credible attempt at doing what's needed. CW> Hate them. Turned me off instantly. Stevo> What didn't you like about them? A good question that deserves a careful answer. Let me begin by saying that it was a "first impression" reaction, so finding reasons and reasoning may be a fruitless quest. However, I'll try. Also, this response will be the result of introspection, and hence will not necessarily reflect that real first impression. Also remember that I'm regarded by friends, colleagues and acquaintances as being slightly odd. In this community, that might not be so unusual. Finally remember that this is not intended to be a rant. Trying to recall or recreate first impression necessitates a certain "stream-of-consciousness" feel. Now, having said all that ... ---- The Interlingua site: http://www.interlingua.com/ The immediate impression is that the animated graphic at the top keep drawing my eye and distracting me from trying to find anything useful. The second thing I noted is that in the "Communicationes official" column the dates don't seem to be in order. It feels crowded, but quite likely if it were in English I mightn't feel that. On the other hand, I don't have any problem reading it, so that's most likely not contributing as much to my instant reaction as it might. I'm finding that graphic really annoying. It doesn't feel welcoming. I feel like I'm being harangued, and the links are over-whelming. They are well-organised, and clearly some thought has gone into their arrangement. I'd like to see fewer "second level" links. ---- Remember these are reflections as to why I think the first impression was so negative. I'm finding it hard to suggest a better option, except to put all the links behind a few, well-chosen, clear images with text. ---- OK, Esperanto: http://www.uea.org/ This suffered a lot from being viewed immediately after the interlingua site, and therefore from my negative frame of mind. It's more open, cleaner, clearer, and less busy. It also doesn't have a bloody annoying animated graphic. It, like the Interlingua site, suffers from the fact that I don't read Esperanto and hence it feels crowded, but much less so. It does have the problem that when I click through to the English parts the pages are quite long and don't read easily. They are clearly just simple documents, with no clickable contents list, or other benefits from being on the web. Having said all that, my second impression of the UEA site is much less negative. I think I was mostly in a bad mood from having been shouted at by the Interlingua site. ---- Remember, these are reflections on first impressions. Feelings and reactions are not amenable to reason, although they are amenable(ish) to analysis. ---- Finally, I observe that http://www.lojban.org loads 22 images, feels similarly shouty, similarly crowded, and similarly unwelcoming. I think there would be some merit in a cleaner, more open, less cluttered, faster loading home page as our portal on the world. I also observe that there're a lot more posts on the lists than there are edits on the wiki. Is that observation worth anything? I'd like to make some constructive suggestions, but perhaps I've said enough for now. Colin