1045796 - Pull down Dev Derby

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(developer.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Demo Studio / Dev Derby, defect)

Description

[ali spivak]

What feature should be changed? Please provide the URL of the feature if possible.
==================================================================================
Three things:
1. Take down the Dev Derby page (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/devderby)
2. Remove the Dev Derby graphic/link from the Demo Studio page (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/)
3. Remove the Dev Derby box from the Demo Submit page (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/submit)

What problems would this solve?
===============================
Dev Derby has been on "hiatus" for over a year - the community would eventually like to revise the contest on another server, but they are not ready to at this point. We've agreed it makes sense to pull the contest page from MDN at this point. 

Who would use this?
===================
This is helping users who might be confused by the old contest content. 

What would users see?
=====================
Nothing :-)
It would redirect to the Demo Studio page

What would users do? What would happen as a result?
===================================================
Users would still be able to see & submit demos, but the old Derby content would be removed to reduce any confusion. 

Is there anything else we should know?
======================================

Comment 1

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

> Three things:
> 1. Take down the Dev Derby page
> (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/devderby)
> 2. Remove the Dev Derby graphic/link from the Demo Studio page
> (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/)
> 3. Remove the Dev Derby box from the Demo Submit page
> (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/submit)

I agree we should do this. 

Are there any outstanding questions about what needs doing? The 3 items above seem clear.

If those 3 make sense, can we get an estimate of effort for them?

Comment 2

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

While trying to estimate this, I ended up trying it a few different ways:

* waffle switch: https://github.com/groovecoder/kuma/compare/devderby-switch-1045796?expand=1
 - urls would still need a code update & restart to redirect devderby landing to demos

* waffle flag: https://github.com/groovecoder/kuma/compare/devderby-flag-1045796?expand=1
 - has a bug that would need some help to fix [1]

* just pull it down: https://github.com/groovecoder/kuma/compare/devderby-pulldown-1045796?expand=1
 - it's already done, it's just not very smart about waffle :/


If we're okay with "just pull it down", then this is done and I'll submit the PR.

If we want to make it smarter, it's LOE:2

[1] https://github.com/groovecoder/kuma/compare/devderby-flag-1045796?expand=1#diff-2f6d5548e721857eb3820d2e69f67d00R56

Comment 3

[Robert Nyman]

I answered this in the e-mail thread but add it for reference:

I don't think they should be removed. Many times we've been creating things, run it for a while and then it's gone and no one can find it anymore and we break a lot of links on the Internet. I think we should keep the pages at their current URLs, update them with a banner saying that it's possibly old/outdates material and remove the links from MDN.

Comment 4

[Janet Swisher]

At the very least, info about past contest winners should be preserved, out of respect for their efforts.

There is a group of volunteers focused on re-launching the DevDerby, though progress has been slow since nobody's on it full time. Here's an etherpad with links to related bugs: https://devderby.etherpad.mozilla.org/site-design-first-steps

Comment 5

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

I should clarify:

The "just pull it down" approach only re-directs the dev derby *landing* page to the demo studio home. Links to the specific competitions [1] are preserved.

It's an easy update to keep the derby landing page in place, and just remove the links to it.

:hoosteeno - what do you say? Keep the landing page for posterity, and just remove the links? Or get rid of all of it?


[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/devderby/2013/july

Comment 6

[Robert Nyman]

(In reply to Luke Crouch [:groovecoder] from comment #5)
> I should clarify:
> 
> The "just pull it down" approach only re-directs the dev derby *landing*
> page to the demo studio home. Links to the specific competitions [1] are
> preserved.
> 
> It's an easy update to keep the derby landing page in place, and just remove
> the links to it.
> 
> :hoosteeno - what do you say? Keep the landing page for posterity, and just
> remove the links? Or get rid of all of it?
> 
> 
> [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/devderby/2013/july

Ah, thanks for clarifying! My vote at least would be to keep the landing page and update it with some text saying that it's not in use anymore but all links and material are linked and accessible from there.

Comment 7

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

It has that text:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/devderby

It's just not well designed so it's not obvious at all. :/

Comment 8

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

> Ah, thanks for clarifying! My vote at least would be to keep the landing
> page and update it with some text saying that it's not in use anymore but
> all links and material are linked and accessible from there.

From what I can tell, devderby page gets 0.01% of MDN's traffic, which is a small number of users to spend a lot of time supporting. However, this traffic seems to be biased toward new users visiting from somewhere off-site. So if we can do something easy to make their experience a smooth one, we might entice a few to stick around. 

Suggestion: Pull all functionality and "derby-internal" navigation off the Derby page, except the list of prior challenges. Add a clear message explaining that the derby is over. Get rid of code made crufty by this change.

Suggested Text:
Dev Derby has ended
From 2011 until 2013, web developers created more than 450 demos for the Dev Derby! Find them below, or [visit the Demo Studio](/demos) for many more. 

PR on Luke's branch accomplishing this, I think: https://github.com/groovecoder/kuma/pull/8/files

Comment 9

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

Attachment: Screenshot of solution in comment 8

Screenshot of solution in comment 8

Comment 10

[Robert Nyman]

Yep, seems fair. I assume old links would work then, but removed from the page navigation itself.

Comment 11

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Updated https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/pull/2665 ...

Comment 12

[[github robot]]

Commits pushed to master at https://github.com/mozilla/kuma

https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/commit/ba3bfe60a09192b10859d4c16f839fc5f1fe8b0d
fix bug 1045796 - remove/redirect links to derby

https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/commit/0b0c1412b4df9a28fe2496d32142950d1b5b317f
[bug 1045796] keep derby page, change derby content

https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/commit/1ee7e893ef605c3d7a6f3238c67b3c2a1c135d4b
fix bug 1045796 - pull down devderby

fix dupe listing on landing page

update previous challenges config value to include all previous challenges

https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/commit/a06af63cff0676fee3df7606c72da9d605170f80
Merge pull request #2665 from groovecoder/devderby-pulldown-1045796

fix bug 1045796 - remove devderby links