[lojban-beginners] Re: language sites

[Colin Wright <colin.wright@denbridgemarine.com>]

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