Re: download page updates post-experiment (part 1)

On Tue, Sep 22, 2020 at 9:24 PM Jonathan S. Katz <jkatz(at)postgresql(dot)org>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> As Dave mentioned in some earlier thread, we've been conducting an
> experiment over the outbound links on the downloads page so we can
> further optimize layout. We've collected several months of results, and
> per analysis of that, we have a few proposed changes.
>
> As this is effectively "release eve" and the lag between "discussion of
> experiment" to "implementation of patches" was longer than I wanted, I
> wanted to propose the least invasive, best for our user patches that
> would require limited discussion.
>
> (I will publish a proposal for the ones that require more discussion
> later).
>
> As such, the goal of this patchset is to make things even clearer for
> our users on what they can download and ensuring that it is a good
> experience.
>
> Without further ado, here are five patches:
>
> * Remove the "Build from Source" section on each of the Linux package
> pages. The traffic to those pages overwhelmingly (> 99+%) went for some
> form of pre-built package; people who wanted the source code would grab
> it based on the URL off of the main downloads page (which had a much
> higher clickthrough rate).
>
> * URLs to the BigSQL packages are removed as the website is no longer
> available.
>
> * Retitle the Linux distro packages to "native packages"; removed Debian
> backports section due to lack of traffic.
>

I think that's a bad name. Native packages is in my experience normally the
term used to refer to e.g. DEBs and RPMs in comparison to things like
installers, tarballs and source installs. And per that definition, that
would include both both the distro built-in and th ones from our projects.

+1 for the removal of the explicit backports reference thouhg.

* Shorten the description on the macOS page and reorder the installers
> based on the overall traffic numbers.
>
> * Remove cross-platform Linux installer due to lack of outbound traffic
> relative to the content on the pages.
>
> Unless strenuous objection, my plan is to publish this prior to the
> release.[1]
>

And +1 for the other suggested changes.

//Mangus