nodejs
The great content removal project
In an effort to make nodejs.org and nodejs.dev maintainable (and aligned so that they can become one website in my lifetime), here is my list of things that (in my opinion) should be removed from nodejs.org. Presumably, nodejs.dev would do the same.
- All of the knowledge base articles. Put in redirects to MDN or whatever as appropriate. One or two (particularly around postmortem and debugging) might be sensible to either keep or move to Node.js core and we can point people there in the API docs or something. But for the most part, the knowledge base is outdated and unmaintained.
- The About menu content should be shrunk down to a single item or maybe even no items at all and the relevant content moved to the front page. I have a very conservative idea about what is "relevant". Like, about/governance can probably be removed entirely.
- Get rid of the Get Involved menu items. It's mostly outdated and hard to read. (For example, it mentions the Node.js Foundation, the Node.js Collection, and the Community Committee. Two of those don't exist anymore and the third one is as close to "doesn't exist anymore" as we've been able to reasonably make it.)
- Under Docs, get rid of the ES6 and Beyond document, Guides, Dependencies, and probably the main Docs page. (Not sure about that last one--I have to review its content.) We probably only need the API docs.
@nodejs/website I've opened this in nodejs.dev but it's work that would need to be agreed upon and happen in both places.
For many of these things, redirects might be simple. Like, the About pages can all redirect to the front page if we remove them all, or to the one remaining About page if we remove everything but that.
For Guides, it gets a little harder. I don't believe we have usage stats readily available, but if we have to crunch some logs, that might be worth doing to get an idea of prioritizing.
For Guides, it gets a little harder. I don't believe we have usage stats readily available, but if we have to crunch some logs, that might be worth doing to get an idea of prioritizing.
Would there be opposition to adding some tracking script for a month or so to see which pages are used the most?
The same could be done for the /learn pages
Would there be opposition to adding some tracking script for a month or so to see which pages are used the most?
I don't know. In the past, there were some folks who were adamant that we should not track any information about users at all ever beyond what is in our web server log files, and that we should especially not transmit that info to a 3rd party (like Google if using Google Analytics). However, more moderate viewpoints might prevail now. Someone (probably me) would likely have to take this up with the TSC and/or Build and/or Website teams.
I would not be opposed.
Would there be opposition to adding some tracking script for a month or so to see which pages are used the most?
The same could be done for the /learn pages
We don't necessarily need to use any established tracking tools. We could do a simple script that records this data. But anyhow, it's not just about tracking, but cookie banners and stuff. It might be too much of a big effort, for something small. I don't believe we have that much traffic that removing these pages would hurt. Worst scenario, we create redirects.
I did a quick search on this and found a few web analytics apps that don’t require setting up gdpr banners.
For Guides, it gets a little harder. I don't believe we have usage stats readily available, but if we have to crunch some logs, that might be worth doing to get an idea of prioritizing.
From what I have noticed in the last year, there have been discussions about /learn content on community platforms like Reddit, and we have also had issues that came from the conversation there. The worst part is the learn section is one of the top results when searching something like learn nodejs.
IMHO, we need concrete metrics before we can remove the section altogether.
One option is to add redirects for all the /learn pages to some concrete sources like MDN if we don't want to keep or maintain the section.
I cannot explain how +1 I am to this, it's sorely needed. I've had this on my mind for some time, glad I don't have to be the one to put the issue together anymore.
Expanding on this a bit, I am a huge +1 that Guides should be removed. Learn is IMO an objectively better replacement, but even separate from Learn those guides aren't particularly strong as educational content and are more likely to cause frustration for end-users than be something that's joyous. I deeply appreciate the work that went into them, but I think we've found they're not something that we'll continuously invest in as time passes.
IMO docs should... just go to API docs.
why? (i googled "node dev learn" and see that most of the content isn't there. freaked out ) the learn page is/was my reference for understanding the node(+ nodejs beyond the basics + digital ocean tutorial). Okay, it confused me sometimes, but I learned so many things from it. some keywords, and sentences which opens the door for further research.
I guess, over the years and based on your knowledge, you guys have forgotten, understand abstractions which a system is made of is hard.
I guess, over the years and based on your knowledge, you guys have forgotten, understand abstractions which a system is made of is hard.
Please, avoid accusations.
why? (i googled "node dev learn" and see that most of the content isn't there. freaked out ) the learn page is/was my reference for understanding the node(+ nodejs beyond the basics + digital ocean tutorial). Okay, it confused me sometimes, but I learned so many things from it. some keywords, and sentences which opens the door for further research.
If you're talking about learn content, there's another issue to keep track of things there. I would please ask to read that issue before jumping to conclusions.
I'm locking this issue to avoid "spam" from non-members. If you want to raise your voice and give your opinions, the "Discussions" tab is more appropriate for it.