Talk:Main Page

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Downtime/ Time Zones

Maybe in downtime notices you could also include a time zone. Something like See your Time Zone

Ricdiogo 09:04, 21 October 2006 (EDT)

Website Translations

As some of you might have noticed there's already a non-English in progress version of the website. These are the rules I've used for my Portuguese translation:

Don't know if this was the "right" or the "wrong" way--that was just the only way I've figured out of separating both types of content while making all the info available for those who can't unfortunately understand the original FAQ's.
Just thought this message could be useful for any other crazy person like me who may start translating docs for their own native languages, which I'd personally enjoy a lot to see.
Ricdiogo 22:48, 12 December 2006 (EST)

Holiday Main Page

How about a xmas decoration for the main page? Only the next few days. Putting up the image on the Christmas Bookshelf page (or a better one). Also the photo for the tip could be taken down down for some time (or permanently). It gives the impression of a commercial.

Another idea is to take the Reader's Choice box from the Christmas Bookshelf page and place it on the Main Page driven by a script to show the top download. Robert Marquardt 09:16, 23 December 2006 (EST)

Main Page too big

I find the Main Page too big. People coming to the site for the first time get lost in all that info and links. Maybe we should use subpages instead (The Online Book Catalog, About Us, Volunteering, and The Project Gutenberg Wiki) with some descriptive text. The subpages could have the links which are now in the main page or some others. We could create a Site Map link in the sidebar with the todays Main Page content. Similar thing to Volunteers' FAQ and Volunteers' Voices, which take a lot of time to load. Ricdiogo 10:44, 21 January 2007 (EST)

I dislike the big image of the Palm a bit. It is disruptive because it is not clear why it is so prominently placed. It should be developed into a gallery of uses aka "what is this site about".
I would also like to see some seasonal decoration of the main page with images. This is always a nice indication that the website is cared for. The images should contain books to tell what this page is about. It is not about phones or PDAs.
How about creating an orphaned page to illustrate the proposed changes?
Robert Marquardt 11:09, 21 January 2007 (EST)
I think the image of the PDA is much more appropriate for PG than an image of paper books. I never managed to download a paper book from PG. OTOH I have downloaded and read many hundred ebooks on my PDA (pictured). People download 150,000 plucker books a month. That's why the picture is prominent. Marcello 14:49, 21 January 2007 (EST)
I agree. A good way of representing ebooks is using PDA, laptop or back-DVD pictures (composed with old paper books, why not?). That will depend on the photographer. Ricdiogo 16:33, 21 January 2007 (EST)
Most people go straight to the catalog. There are 23 times as many hits on the catalog as on the wiki. If we want to make it easy for people we just ditch the main page and put up the catalog instead (with a tiny link to the wiki somewhere at the bottom, but not too big so people don't get distracted from downloading more books). I don't want to make it easy for people. I want them to realize there is more to PG than just grab a book and run.
The plan is to have a main page like wikipedia with featured sections. Some ideas for sections are:
Marcello 14:49, 21 January 2007 (EST)
«I want them to realize there is more to PG than just grab a book and run.» I see your point. I just don't think a site map is a good tactic. You can have a tiny text and people still getting interested in reading more about it. On the other hand, you can have links listings that won't do any good because people get tired after reading or cliking the 3rd one.
My point is just how to organize info. I guess the secret is "show less, tease more, save your reader's eyes". Or it gets... boring. People need to control the info they get or they won't be willing to get any (specially in the main page).
The featured sections plan is a good idea. Things will be better organized. What about a /main-page-sandbox, or Main Page/main-page-sandbox? Ricdiogo 16:33, 21 January 2007 (EST)


In fact i do not want to remove the PDA image. It is just not integrated in the text flow. I want more images, ie a gallery to illustrate the uses of the ebooks. The decoration with images should not be photos but illustrations and be rather small. The idea is to subconciously remind the user what the website is about. The PG logo is not good enough for that.
I think a top bar like the tip on the "recent books" page should be the way to go. Marcello, can you create one? Simply "Free Books for All" as text and remove the "Main Page" title. In fact all the text including "2 million books downloaded each month" could go into it. Thjere we could also add the decorative images. Maybe a simple bookshelf to the left and some electronic equivalent to the right. Robert Marquardt 02:17, 22 January 2007 (EST)


Most of the details about the wiki (Inappropriate content etc.) really only apply to anyone actually logged in and able to edit: perhaps a better location would be on an intro page that you see when logged in, as that stuff is irrelevant to 99% of users, and helps make the Main page look too busy. Malcolm Farmer 06:32, 23 January 2007 (EST)

DP 10,000 Celebration

Will the PG Main Page include something special for DP's 10K?

Can the light-bulb "You can help" that appears on catalog pages be changed for the celebration?

Buku 12:40, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Good idea. Marcello will have to do that though. Maybe discreetly getting the "10.000th unique book logo" from DP Robert Marquardt 13:47, 6 March 2007 (EST)
Can you point Marcello here or to DP's forum discussion about this? I don't know how to contact him. Thanks! Buku 14:04, 6 March 2007 (EST)
You can edit Marcello's talk page.Ricdiogo 15:20, 6

March 2007 (EST)

And, anybody with a slashdot ID can vote on the announcement showing up there. The announcement explains, the first time slashdot mentioned DP there was a wonderful influx of new folks.


The e-books

The set of e-books released for DP's 10K celebration is:

Thank you

Thanks to Marcello for the page-top change to help celebrate.

Many thanks to white-washers David Widger & greentea! Their herculean efforts to upload 15 books at once allowed this to happen!

And, last but not least, thanks to everybody for contributing to DP's first 10,000 titles!

If you would like to join the party at DP, we're celebrating by trying to proof at least one page in every active project today. Here is the list of projects yet to be done. --Buku 13:23, 9 March 2007 (EST)

change of legal warning

I think the original text was better. It now sounds like an EULA which everyone ignores. You cannot redistribute without first downloading. Robert Marquardt 11:34, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Some jurisdictions may allow you to download but not to distribute the ebook. Ricdiogo 14:01, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Then at least use or instead of / it sounds too stilted Robert Marquardt 00:58, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Convertor to PDF

While I agree that plain text is a best way to store books for a long time it costs me a lot of effort to convert Guttenberg's book to a more readable format (like PDF). And it must be even more complicated for a common user (without LaTeX knowledge).

I consider to start a small university project to make a "Guttenberg2pdf" converter. Is there already something like that? (I do not want to reinvent a wheel). I would appreciate any tips or hints.

Petr (simecek @aaat@ gmail @dottt@ com)

Maruskay 14:31, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

I don't know any. Which doesn't mean there ain't any. If you want to keep the line endings as they are, its easy to build. If you want to rewrap the text to make it look good, then the problem pretty soon becomes decidedly nontrivial. Marcello 19:26, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

Someone please take over for me

My cancer treatment get really hard and i am unable to add the new books to the bookshelves. Mainly i keep the Periodicals up-to-date. Gweeks handles the SF bookshelf well enough. I do not know how long it takes, but it may well be next year before it get better. Robert Marquardt 12:02, 12 October 2007 (EDT)

Robert I hope you get better soon. We all give you a very big hug and hope you come back as soon as possible. Remember that many of us depend on you great work at PG website. Ricdiogo 16:25, 14 October 2007 (EDT)

Dear friends of Robert Marquardt, this morning my brother Robert died. His work must remain unfinished and questions to him will remain unanswered. Please understand his request as his last will. Rolf Marquardt 16:30, 29 December 2007 (CET)

My most sincere condolences, Rolf. Your brother's work will last forever and we will never forget how hard he worked in the past year for science fiction fans. I think PG will be a weaker project without his presence. I am very very sad. Ricdiogo 15:12, 29 December 2007 (EST)
He will certainly be missed, both for his work and his friendly, helpful presence at the project. I really appreciate you letting us know of his passing, but am quite sorry to hear of it. Good luck in this hard time. JesseW 20:24, 4 January 2008 (EST)
For any bystanders, you may also wish to see the memorial page for Robert at Distributed Proofreaders.

Spanish

Spanish version (Portada) under construction . You can help. --Mac 19:23, 13 October 2007 (EDT)

Bienvenido Mac ;) Maybe the Website Translation How-To can give you some help. Ricdiogo 16:32, 14 October 2007 (EDT)
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