[OWW-Discuss] OpenWetWare.org: identity problem/identity feature?

[julius.lucks]

I do think it's a good idea to put a 'Join OWW' button somewhere  
prominent on every page.  Even when I have told collaborators to  
join, I searched for 'join' to find the join page - i.e., it wasn't  
obvious where the join page was from some button or link.  A  
prominent join button/image/link that says 'Join OWW' other than the  
'create an account/log in' link would both advertise who we are, and  
give people an easy way to join (esp. those not familiar with the  
mediawiki links in the top right).

Cheers,

Julius

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On Mar 31, 2008, at 1:54 PM, Austin Che wrote:

>
>> Once they click on the link to go to OWW, Barry pointed out that  
>> when they
>> land on one of our pages other than Main_Page or one of a dozen or  
>> fewer
>> other pages, there's nothing on the top of the page or in the  
>> sidebar to
>> identify the site. We become anonymous. The viewer has to scroll  
>> to the
>> bottom of the page to find a small link for "about openwetware.org".
>
>     I think people are familiar enough with looking at the url in
>     their browser to know what site they're on. Also, the title of
>     every page clearly includes OpenWetWare. Every browser I know
>     includes this as part of the browser window title.
>
>> Our first attempt to address the problem will go online soon.  
>> We're adding a
>> one-time display of the text from the OWW main page telling users  
>> who we are
>> and inviting them to join. Once they have a cookie from our site,  
>> they will
>> never see it again. If they visit once and see a link that's not  
>> relevant to
>> them, the nxt time they visit and get wowed by our info, they may not
>> connect the fact they found value at OWW and thus fail to look  
>> around on the
>> site.
>
>     This seems like a nice idea to try.
>
>> Does anyone have any thoughts about other ways to address this?  
>> Even in UMS,
>> every page has a banner identifying the site as OWW.
>
>     I don't think this is a problem.
>
>> We can add a banner to the skin over the white area of the page.  
>> This banner
>> would not ever be displayed on hosted lab's sites since the  
>> dewikify app
>> doesn't export the skins. I'm no artists. If anyone has a simple  
>> and clear
>> way to express who we are to visitors in an unobtrusive but clear  
>> way, I'd
>> love to hear about it.
>
>     I don't think we should waste screen space for banners advertising
>     who we are. Anyone who cares (i.e. if there's useful content and
>     they're looking for more) will have no problem finding the main
>     page.
>
> -- 
> Austin Che           <austin at csail.mit.edu>          (617)253-5899
> _______________________________________________
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> discuss at openwetware.org
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/oww-discuss

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