The SciFi CD prominently on the front page is nice. I didn't realize it as there. Maybe it's a new addition? I guess my initial reason for this was my hope to make five things easy to find and clear to all our readers, based on information present, but buried in PG:
1) What is PG, and what books can you find there?
2) How do I find the SciFi collection?
3) How do I find the bookshelves?
4) In general, what ways can I search or browse the books?
5) At a "For Dummies" level - what's the basic idea with respect to copyright, and rules for using/reformatting/distributing books from PG?
I guess that also just happens to be closely related to what I think should be easily accessible in general from the main site page, so while I guess you are right - I'm really sort of making suggestions about the home page. I just didn't realize it because I was only interested in the site more accessible to MR readers, plus wondering where these mysterious Bookshelves were (that link is included below, but I didn't try to put in all the relevant links because this is just a sketch).
Okay, in rough terms, let me lay out the basic elements that I think a newer user might want to see on a front page. Not sure if it's better or worse than the current front page topics, but I guess it's the info I looked for there in the past. Specifically, the "Getting Started" part was really what I felt I would like to see and that others would also want to see. But again, this is just one person's perspective, so I may be way off base for the general population of visitors. But I think that it's possible some people are giving up or missing out partly because it's not very clear to the newcomer. And that would be a real shame because it's one of the most awesome resources on the web!
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So... any thoughts? Is there any part of this that might be helpful to the average site visitor? Is it even helpful, maybe, to some of our MR readers to get another view of what's there at PG?