Re: FW: New W3C Web Site Launched

Ah, touché. Public rants instead of constructive criticism are really
not nice, sorry. So, first, congrats for aiming at a more streamlined 
site!

Some (hopefully helpful) comments:
* The emboss effect on the logo is nice and trendy, but totally 
  destroys the nifty 3D effect of the "C" in W3C.
* We are all using non-semantic CSS "cheats", but the W3C really 
  shouldn't. Try to get rid of @class values such as "tPadding0" to
  not give annoying nitpickers like me an opportunity to complain ;)
  (Keith Alexander even found <h3 class="h4"> on the site, ahem.)
* I'd try to avoid boilerplates. Maybe only make the (completed) 
  site sections public, and wait with activating navigation items 
  until the associated pages are done. You could still have a 
  "list of incomplete pages" to gather community input.
* Speaking as a semweb "lobbyist": If the Semantic Web is a core
  objective of the W3C, and if it has any value outside of Life 
  Sciences, Gov, or Intelligence areas, then the site should utilize
  it, too. Why can't I sparql for all Widget-related W3C specs, or 
  subscribe to a feed about progress in the CSS/WAI/Mobile/XML realm?
  What about RDF export? We RDFers are regularly accused of being 
  snake oil salesmen. The new site as it stands now proofs them 
  right.
* The hCalendar microformats are broken: some have proper ISO 
  dates but the wrong item flag (@class=event instead of vevent),
  others have vevent, but no ISO dates.
* What about switching to HTML5? This would surely have a huge 
  marketing effect. And maybe even with embedded Microdata/RDF? 

I don't know if there is any budget for this type of stuff, but 
I'd love to contribute some RDF export capability (you seem to 
be using PHP for the templates?). This could be done from the 
existing templates, too, btw. If the templates are somewhat stable,
we wouldn't need RDFa or Microdata to write an RDF extractor. This
could be done separately and you'd only have to include a link tag
into the HTML templates. http://www.w3.org/TR/ could then for 
example be enhanced with a faceted browser (filter by year/tech/...)
to increase usability and show some SemWeb tech in action.


Kind regards,
Benji

--
Benjamin Nowack
http://bnode.org/
http://semsol.com/


On 14.10.2009 08:50:51, Michael Hausenblas wrote:
>FYI ...
>
>------ Forwarded Message
>From: Michael Hausenblas <michael.hausenblas@deri.org>
>Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:50:09 +0100
>To: Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>, <site-comments@w3.org>
>Cc: <chairs@w3.org>, W3C Members <w3c-ac-members@w3.org>
>Conversation: New W3C Web Site Launched
>Subject: Re: New W3C Web Site Launched
>
>
>Ian,
>
>Indeed, very nice job re design and usability. However, I think we should
>also take into account what our 'customers' think [1], [2]:
>
>"so, are #semanticweb standards too complicated when even the new #w3c site
>doesn't use them? #stopsnakeoil"
>
>"@iand apparently all of them: No (obvious) RDF export, no SPARQL API. Just
>some (broken!) hCalendar items."
>
>This is indeed a poor message we send out - why don't we eat our own
>dogfood? We have a couple of nice standards (RDFa, GRDDL, etc.) in this area
>and should well be able to demonstrate that we are able to use them, IMHO.
>
>Sorry for spoiling the party, but given the broad uptake of semantic
>technologies in the governmental area (US, UK), the eCommerce domain
>(GoodRelations), linked data stuff and Google and Yahoo! processing
>structured data, I can't seriously explain to my colleagues or other W3C
>customers why we don't have structured data (preferably in RDF) available at
>the new W3C site.
>
>Thoughts, anyone?
>
>Cheers,
>      Michael
>
>[1] http://twitter.com/bengee/status/4856670048
>[2] http://twitter.com/bengee/status/4856830531
>
>-- 
>Dr. Michael Hausenblas
>LiDRC - Linked Data Research Centre
>DERI - Digital Enterprise Research Institute
>NUIG - National University of Ireland, Galway
>Ireland, Europe
>Tel. +353 91 495730
>http://linkeddata.deri.ie/
>http://sw-app.org/about.html
>
>
>
>> From: Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
>> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:07:47 -0500
>> To: W3C Members <w3c-ac-members@w3.org>
>> Cc: <chairs@w3.org>
>> Subject: New W3C Web Site Launched
>> Resent-From: <chairs@w3.org>
>> Resent-Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:07:53 +0000
>> 
>> Dear Advisory Committee Representatives and Chairs,
>> 
>> Today W3C launched its new Web site:
>>   http://www.w3.org/
>> 
>> We also launched the new Member site:
>>   http://www.w3.org/Member/
>> 
>> I hope that you will find the new sites more usable. You will notice
>> that some pages are missing content; we plan to continue to add
>> content over time and invite your contributions (especially from
>> Working Groups).
>> 
>> I expect that over the next few days we will be fixing bugs in style
>> sheets, and so forth. Feel free to send comments to site-
>> comments@w3.org.
>> 
>> Thank you,
>> 
>> Ian Jacobs, Head of W3C Communications
>> 
>> --
>> Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
>> Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447
>> 
>> 
>
>------ End of Forwarded Message
>

Received on Wednesday, 14 October 2009 09:07:45 UTC