[geeklog-devel] Perception is everything...

[Eric Kingsley]

Just another Lurker on this list putting in their 2 cents.  This is a 
very interesting discussion.

First, I agree with Dirk and Mark.  I think a name change is a bad idea. 
  Way too much effort for far too little result.

Dirk Said:

 >Having said that, I think we should actually take that one step further
 >and remove the news articles almost entirely. Say, let's keep the
 >featured story and the forum block and fill the rest with more static
 >content. A bit more like e.g. wordpress.org.

This struck me.  I do think Geeklog could use a face lift.  The main 
site needs more WOW and less blandness.  It should snap and grab ones 
attention.  Right now it does appear a little more technical than it 
probably should.

The Wordpress example is perfect.  It is brief with a couple snappy 
graphics and draws folks in.

Mark Said:

 >I think the idea of profiling Geeklog sites is a great marketing tool.
 >It also shows off what can be done with Geeklog.  It also shows off the
 >user base, the flexibility and scalability of Geeklog.

I think this is a great idea to add splash to the main home page.  A 
small corner of the site could be dedicated to a "Geeklog Site of the 
Month".  That more than anything could show the versatility of Geeklog.

I currently manage 5 different sites from just a family blog to a club 
site to a Time Share Owners association.  Unfortunately I have yet to 
convince someone to pay me to get them set up but I can't say I've tried 
to do that either.



 From a personal perspective, I love Geeklog.  It has grown tremendously 
in the last several years and there are a few really nice plugins.  When 
I first started I was also running phpBB and Gallery software on my 
sites.  Now I just run with the Forum Plugin and Media Gallery as they 
are both robust enough to stand on their own and in some ways hey are 
superior to the other programs.

Now Geeklog does have its faults.  The documentation needs an update and 
installation for folks without at least a little technical background is 
difficult.  I have seen Geeklog available through Fantastico on several 
hosts but I find this imperfect.  I think this type of service should be 
revisited along with the way Geeklog is packaged in such situations.

I know everyone has been working on getting the configuration settings 
integrated into the site, this is a huge step for folks that would want 
to use a Fantastico software type install.  The problem with folks that 
use services like Fantastico is they want simple one stop shopping and a 
current Fantastico install doesn't give that.  I think that a 
prepackaged version of Geeklog that includes several plugins would make 
Geeklog desirable to the Fantastico crowd.

A Fantastico Type install should include the following...

1.  Geeklog
2.  Forums
3.  Media Gallery
4.  Captcha
5.  Caching Template Library
6.  Chameleon

This gives the non-technical user a way to format their site without CSS 
and the biggest and most important plugins available which they can turn 
on and off at their discretion.  The main issue here would be service 
updates and how you get folks to keep up with service updates after the 
initial install.


Anyway those are some of my thoughts,



Eric