[eclipse.org-project-leadership] Your project's description in the new E

[Wayne Beaton <wayne@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am posting this note on behalf of Eric Rizzo. Eric's name is mostly 
likely very familiar to you if you spend any time in the newsgroups or 
the new forums. Eric works tirelessly to help people find their way 
around Eclipse. I am grateful to Eric for taking this initiative.

--
Now that Denis has deemed the new web forums "ready for prime time" I 
wanted to point out that many of the projects need to update their 
newsgroup descriptions in the portal (there is a "description" field in 
the "newsgroup" entry). Many of the current descriptions are 
non-descriptive and don't give the casual reader any idea of what the 
project or its newsgroup/forum are about.

Project leads, please take a minute to see what your project's newsgroup 
description looks like on the web forums page 
(http://www.eclipse.org/forums/) and update it as necessary. Something 
that I, personally, find annoying in newsgroup descriptions is the lack 
of an explanation of what acronyms stand for (acronyms are often used 
for Eclipse project names); similar for names like Glimmer or Hibachi, 
which don't tell the user anything about the projects. (not to pick on 
Glimmer or Hibachi; they just happen to be ones near the top of the list 
that don't have descriptive descriptions).

Also remember that users might likely use their browser's search 
function to find your group in that long list, so keep that in mind when 
crafting the description.

An example of one that I think is good is JDT's description: "Questions 
and technical discussions about how to use the Java development tools 
(JDT)"

Again, the description text needs to be edited in the portal, NOT the 
forums micro-site.

Any questions can be directed to me or Denis; I'm not subscribed to this 
list so please copy me directly on any follow-ups.

Thanks,
Eric
Your Friendly Eclipse Community Volunteer