Very nicely put positive ideas phitsc
Many of the concrete suggestions you are making are ideas that are very seriously being considered.. The front page suggestions in particular have been discussed very recently
here; the front page *will* be changing soon -- the open question is whether to make it a much more dynamic page of recent things on the site (a la techsupportalert.com) or whether to go in opposite direction for minimalism, and have a SEPARATE "news" page which collects all new stuff on the site.
But regardless, a change is coming that will do a much better job at showing recent new stuff on the site from all people.
Believe it or not, the main reason that i only update the main page with my software updates is that its a damn pain to update that page -- its all done manual html editing and ftp, and it's just not set up to make it easy for others to add updates about other releases on the site (coding snacks, mini reviews, etc.). So no matter which option we choose for the front page, i'm going to make the recent content areas wiki-editable by moderators on the site, so we can update it much better. That should be in place before the end of the month.
I think the growth of the coding snacks area argues strongly that we also need to revamp the software listing jump page -- to make it easier to find software. Right now there are a ton of different pages on the site that collect different things (
Coding Snacks page,
MiniReviews page) but it's too disorganized, and needs to be better presented.
The point about the site domain name.. has been problematic from day 1, but i have a habbit of messing up naming issues and this is no exception and its hard to fix at this point. BUT a much more dramatic "fix" would be to have the site actually "bifurcate" somewhat into two different sister sites -- one for reviews and general software discussion, and one more of a repository and home for donationware authors -- set up using a proper cms that would allow everyone equal standing.
Edit: To answer more directly -- there are some real ways on this site that my large applications are treated differently than other apps. This is largely a reflection of, on one hand, the historical artifact of the history of the site and it's momentum -- when i really didn't envision so much participation. And on the other hand the lack of a good infrastructure currently to really help other authors and make it easy to present full large applications and use the license key system -- and frankly a complete lack of interest by other coders in this (probably because it's pretty clear how hard a road it is to try to make a real go of donationware). But that second part is a self-fulfilling vicous cycle -- where the lack of interest and the lack of infrastructure feed on each other. I *would* like to expand the site to make it possible for other serious authors to make DC their home and host their applications on an equal footing with my large applications (providing they are willing to make the same maintenance commitments as members expect) -- I suppose that's the third reason it hasn't happened yet, that i remain a bit nervous about other people changing their mind after a while and "withdrawing" an app from DC based on less than desired support from users, resulting in disapointment on all sides.
Lots to talk about in more depth here.. Bottom line is -- i am very happy to let this site evolve to as the members want it to evolve. I do not have a fixed set vision of what direction i think DC should go -- im happy to let the community decide the general course.
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