I'd like to propose a few updates to the guide.xsl file. First: One of our sponsors is wanting to update his image for the ad. Along with this, it was suggested on the trustee mailing list to take out the ad text below the ads as most are redundant and not needed. I wanted to adjust the order for the ads too since its been the same way for a while. It would be nice to be able to make the order more random, but for now we can just try rotating things every few months for fairness. In the next week I'll be getting new ads for the other two sponsors (sevenl and tek) so that will just need an image update. I also propose we also take out the store ad since Daniel is shutting down the store in a few days. Second: Change all the store links to point to the new cafepress store thats about to open. I've made these changes and posted them on my test site for you guys to see: http://www.gentoo.ramereth.net:8001/
Created attachment 59571 [details, diff] guide.xsl.patch Patch for guide.xsl changes.
Created attachment 59572 [details, diff] guide.xsl.patch Just had a comment from Mark (mm@vr.org) about taking out the text links. For him its very important to have at least a text link instead of relying on the image as a referrer on search engines. So I updated the patch and my page to reflex that. I don't see much of a problem with at least having those links in there like that.
As a Sponsor the primary benefit we get from being listed on g.o isn't from the graphic ad, but from the text link providing added search engine wieght. The end result isn't anything under-handed (like what happened w/ wordpress a few months back) but a fair residual exchange for the tens of thousands per year we spend in bandwidth and hardware supporting the project. A longer term suggestion to reduce clutter and improve the look of g.o would be to remove the graphics all together, and replace them with a small (1inch tall or so) text box labaled "Sponsors" and only have the text links on the site w/ exception of the primary sponsors page.
The idea of text-ads (single-direction link exchange :) does sound like a nice future direction, yet I'm not in favor of rushing things so let's first take a look at this guide.xsl patch :) Looks good. Also glad to see that there's no linking to a page that doesn't exist (or exists but sais that "the action is over" or "under construction") as was the case a few ago.
Created attachment 59585 [details] vr-ad.png Forgot to include the new image on the bug. Here ya go!
The store link needs to be changed to http://www.cafepress.com/officialgentoo. The box ad for the store can be removed as well
Yeah, thats included in my patch. Swift: Can you please make this change anytime now? Daniel will be stopping taking orders tonight so it would be nice to get that changed soon!
Committed. Chapter closed :)
You forgot to update the png image for vr.org ;-). see attached vr-ad.png for the new image.
No I didn't, but you'll need to refresh to get the old image out of the cache. See http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/xml/images/vr-ad.png?root=gentoo&rev=1.2&sortby=date&view=log
Ok, so I lie! Sorry for being an idiot :P I'll make a separate bug for the other two image updates. Thanks again :)
