Page on how to join Diaspora

Website, Documentation, and Discourse
1

I hate to be falling into the category of making suggestions for other people to do, but I was having a look at the site and when you click “Join Us” then “Find Out More” under “Choose a Pod” you get taken to a page on the Wiki.

Could we create a page that’s a slightly improved version of that Wiki content on the main site? It’s confusing to be sent to a different domain with a different, less friendly layout.

Also I’m pretty sure this has been discussed before but would it be possible to create a page that dynamically relays a list of pods from podupti.me but with less information? That site does a great job but sending people who are not D enthusiasts there as a means of choosing a pod is not very friendly.

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2

Yes, this would be good and has already been suggested.

There is a more user-friendly (I think) guide in the tutorials section of the project site, but that is not currently linked to the home page. I’m not sure it should be linked there, but there should definitely be a simpler explanation that the wiki page.

The plan is to combine the functionality of Pod Uptime with that of the statistics hub and place this in a user-friendly form on the main site. But it’ll take some work, and no one who can do this has yet been able to put aside the time for it.

3

Speaking about that, I asked a french deaf to work on translating a text about how to join to french sign language.

4

As some of you know, I’ve been working on a new version of the Diaspora Foundation site, and I suggested (as I think others did) to include the pod selection and uptime in the main page. I’ll be investing both development and design time to it.

This may need a little work, but since we are doing a new Foundation site, we may get to include at least a better version of a “how-to” page in the first release.

First release will be probably a slightly enhanced version of the current site with emphasis on identity and design, but then we can start improving the content, so its a great opportunity to start sketching these things for real.

Can any of the most experienced Diasporans try to draw some sketch or a few words to make it as easiest as possible?

@goob what do you think about sketching that “uptime + statistics” page (in any format, even pen and paper will work)?

5

For a pod list, feel free to use my hub JSON endpoint: http://pods.jasonrobinson.me/pods.json

It doesn’t have uptime, but it does drop pods out after 3 days off failures, which IMHO is better than showing a percentage that only confuses users.

I’d like to add ping times but that would need a global multi-server solution, pinging from one place only wouldn’t really have much point.

6

Hi Pablo, sorry it’s taken me a long time to respond. I’ve been occupied by other things. I’d like to help with this, but I’m not sure what I’ll usefully be able to do at this point.

I think before doing any UI sketches it would be good to discuss how best to present the information cognitively, e.g. do we present a list as per PodUptime or do we ask a few questions such as ‘Do you want a pod running stable or develop?’, ‘Do you want a pod based near where you live, or in another specific location (perhaps one in a jurisdiction with strong data protection policies)?’, ‘Do you want to be on a small, medium-sized or large pod?’ and so on, and then provide a list of 3 to 5 pods which match the criteria given. (Those questions are a little bit off the top of my head; I’m suggesting we consider approaches such as that, rather than those particular questions.)

I think it would be best to hammer out these kinds of issues first and then to work on how it’s going to look.