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Ok, not sure where to post this so Moderator, feel free to place this where it will do the most good.

Now, how many times when opening up a new Joomla! site have we seen the news item about the new way of spelling, or that corny item about the RAM going out on strike? How many times do we need to see the item that starts;
"Written by Web Master   
Saturday, 12 June 2004 
If you've read anything at all about Content Management Systems (CMS), you'll probably know at least three things: CMS are the most exciting way to do business, CMS can be really, I mean really, complicated and lastly Portals are absolutely, outrageously, often unaffordably expensive."

When folks compare Joomla! against other CMS offerings what are they going to see that really is different? Certainly not the dummy articles. All that has been changed is the Joomla! name has been swapped in.

Folks, the time has come for Joomla! to not just work differently, to actually look and feel differently, and I believe these pithy news items have got to go.

We have more than enough folks here who can write some funny news items. There should be plenty who can wax lyrical about the features that set Joomla! apart form the crowd that is trying to play catch up.

In 2004 it was OK to say, "Joomla! is set to change all that ... Joomla! is different from the normal models for portal software."
It is 2006 and high time we got an item or two that really showed how we are different, like that we are fully open source, that we have high levels of quality and auditing built in before changes are made and updates released. There are a lot of good things can be said, and need to be said, about how Joomla! is different.

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy" isn't what we are about so how about we start to say what we are about and put our words into the opening articles so others can see just for themselves?

Money_where_my_mouth_is time: I'm seriously thinking of things I could write for a dummy article. What about others taking a shot at this as well so the Team have some good stuff to choose from?

 

Lorem Ipsum? http://www.lipsum.com/ 

ilox wrote:Money_where_my_mouth_is time: I'm seriously thinking of things I could write for a dummy article. What about others taking a shot at this as well so the Team have some good stuff to choose from?

No arguments from me on this one. And I am sure the core team would welcome any new dummy articles and newsflashes

Brian

Ok, good point, in the dummy pages there are a couple of News items already using Lorem Ipsun. I believe we need real-looking news items, items that say to the new site builder, this Joomla! can help you produce items as good as these.

I also believe that we need to be as proactive as we can be to use the dummy items as further selling points on just how good Joomla is. Why not, we have a captive audience. The new user has just started off his/her new Joomla site and receives messages designed to reinforce that they have made a good decision to look at what Joomla can do.

That's also why I think the articles need to be a realistic as they can be. As bright and upbeat as they can be, and even using graphics in a sensible and easy to repeat manner.

Ian,

i think it would be most productive if you actually wrote a sample item. i'm a writer--but i don't have a full grasp of what type of think you're talking about. i always considered a demo site a demo site and didn't give a rip what the content was.
so i do suggest you write a news item and post here, and perhaps others can then write other suggestions as well.

ilox wrote:I also believe that we need to be as proactive as we can be to use the dummy items as further selling points on just how good Joomla is. Why not, we have a captive audience. The new user has just started off his/her new Joomla site and receives messages designed to reinforce that they have made a good decision to look at what Joomla can do.

Good idea! Besides describing the pros of Joomla, we could promote the different Joomla! sites (Main, News, Help, Forum, Extension, Developers, Forge) by writing different articles about their purpose.

Feel free to contact the Documentation Team. I know for a fact that they are working on new 'dummy data' for 1.1 and would appreciate the help.

How about a few sample articles complete with different text formats, image insertions, page pagination and so forth? How about adding live RSS feeds from the news, forum or extension sections? The less 'static' it feels is a more accurate representation of the power of Joomla. Let's not hold back on showing everyone what is available. The better we showcase Joomla's built-in features hopefully the more people join the party. Good suggestion.

although this fits more into the demo-cd thats floating somewhere around this forum (I think you had something to do with that Brian?), I would like to see two templates that are as completely different as possible with the same content. Probably something thats not the standard 3 column design... I'm not very creative and I had a hell of a time to get my site look something even remotely presentable, but something that is not this "standard crap" would really be nice.

Hackwar

P.S.: If anybody wants to look at the layout, visit http://www.mypapenberg.de (There is no content at the moment, still working on that one...  )

Good point

I think we are getting beyond a demo site just being a default vanilla install but instead should have some real content and creative design to show the power, flexibility and range of joomla

Brian

brian wrote:I think we are getting beyond a demo site just being a default vanilla install but instead should have some real content and creative design to show the power, flexibility and range of joomla

Yes Brian, I am right with you on that. We have a captive audience, lets give them a good show

An example of what I think when I say we need to be different. (It is just an example, not an excuse to fight for different distros)

There are countless flavours of Linux, many will open up and look similar to whatever they started out as before they were modified into a different distro. Linspire (as Lindows) started out the same as others but they worked hard on their opening screens, on the icons, on the layout and especially on the technology they used. When you first install Linspire you don't just get an opening screen, you get an audiovisual presentation that starts teaching you about using the distro. They have built a good range of 'movies' that describe all the fine tuning and operation. It is that easy that I bet you even my Mum could follow it, and she's 83!

Straight away you get the impression that you are dealing with something very different from the vanilla that other distros provide.

While we don't need to go so heavily down that road we do need to make sure that anybody opening up Joomla! knows straight away that they are using something that is different. We don't just say it, we show it!

We need a much nicer template, sorry but what we have at present doesn't do a darn thing for me. It sucks for colour theme, style and content. Not that it is a bad template at all, just that it doesn't suit what we should be showcasing as a starter IMHO.

We need to show a range of things that are easily obtainable within Joomla! but show them in such a way that showcases why we think Joomla! is the best CMS in the market.

And we need this to come out with 1.1, not something later on.

I am not sure what the timetable for 1.1 is but how about setting up a special team to focus on this so the time doesn't pass us by? It needs input from across the board. It needs to be multi-disciplinary, not just a part of the focus of a present team who are already battling with their own pressures. My hand is up.