Forum OpenACS Development: Does OpenACS.org need a fresh look and user experience?

I haven't been participating on http://www.OpenACS.org for a while. So, when I look at the site after a long time and start navigating around. I find it a bit out-moded. I am not sure if I am the only one feeling so, but while the community is engaged in improving the toolkit, isn't it time to also redesign the site and the user experience it provides?

For the non-geek, www.OpenACS.org site is the online ambassador of the software being developed and promoted here. And, if first impressions count and the tooklkit gets a fair bit of tech-evangelism it deserves, there are a few small things that could make it all the more lively.

Design and Usability
1. A new design (The blueish-grey seems a bit like an old Trabant')
2. Add new features available on OpenACS to the site. Why don't we leverage OpenACS features for www.OpenACS.org itself. Shared bookmarks, ratings (for articles & forums), Directory (enhance it to capture more details about participants)
3. Ehance the Community with a needs and offers 'Market place'.
4. an OpenACS Blog
5. A section to profile the OCT.
6. Profile projects more explicitely.
7 Profile packages more explicitely. A look at www.drupal.org shows how packages are profiled and contributors given credit.
8. User AJAX to make the user experience on this site cool.

Culture-wise
- Make the site a lot more flexible where contributors can edit their own information. Ruby on Rails has a simple Wiki. Any user can go and add and edit their details about services he or his company might offer etc. OpenACS seems very closed and bureaucratic in this sense.

Content-wise
1. Seek new articles on performance, case studies, comparison studies etc. and publish them here.
2. Actually allow people to post their articles and edit them as well.
3. Archive outdated articles.

Technology-wise - should one be using an OpenACS wiki as any other better one would be blasphemy? If this can be looked beyond, one might as well set-up a MediaWiki for the OpenACS community.

I am not sure, there are more things to do, but I just wanted to post some notes as a starter. I am sure if anyone is interested, there will be more notes here, and out of that the OCT will decide on a few things.

Hello Venkatesh,

Thanks for your post, and yes, you are right, we need a new site, and your ideas seems good to me plus do not seem hard to achieve.

Also, I would like to see:
1. Short-tutorials about what you can do with openacs (short demos)
2. New information for new people about the openacs technology
3. Get a new openacs.org website design (that might also included in the openacs distro)

I'm planning to work on #1 & #2 in my weekends, but still need to find someone who can contribute a "new design for openacs.org"

How should discussions on this topic proceed? Do we collaborate on a Wiki and lay down a plan? Or will someone from the OCT facilitate this process?

On the design and usability front, how should the conversation and ideas be taken forward? Who is responsible for the Website www.OpenACS.org?

i'm the new user in openACS
hope u all can teach me! :D