Though I'm only a marginal Python hacker and thus consider it unlikely that I could contribute at this point in my development to the code base, I've continued to be interested in things like outreach, particular improving the Python web site.

The current Python website continues to be a terrible first stop for new-to-Python visitors, despite this very issue being discussed at length at recent PyCons. Compared to the excellent Git and Ruby sites, for instance, it's really second rate from a design, navigation and identity perspective.

However I haven't pursued contributing to the site. Here's why:

1. Contribute to the website options on Python.org seem limited to "bug fixes". The "SiteImprovements" page is a mess. The whole site design and identity is a bug, unfortunately.

2. The stagnant design (only a marginal improvement over the previous iteration) implies that there is either a serious design-by-committee problem when it comes to the site or a serious lack of good-design-sense from whomever is actually running it.

I'm not trying to be a grouch about this, but the site needs strong direction in terms of visual identity, navigation, presentation, etc., not just incremental fixes.

I'll put my time/money where my mouth is on this. If there really is a chance to radically improve the site and contribute, I'm there. Point me in the right direction. If there is a roadblocker committee issue that needs to be sorted first.

I actually completely agree with you, and your final point is what I want to drive towards.

Do you mean ruby-lang.org? The problem is, what you consider excellent, other people may hate. I have far less problems navigating python.org than ruby-lang.org and I find the design of ruby-lang.org cheap.

My all time personal favorite project website is openbsd.org.

One thing I'd suggest is finding people to mentor new contributors and sort of take a bit of joint ownership of the patch until it's at the point where it's very likely to be merged.

After one experience like this most people would be ready to submit patches on their own...

I think it would be cool to have the community provide this sort of "training wheels" to help people get past all of the roadblocks and not feel relegated to dealing with bug report paperwork (as valuable as that is)...

The conundrum with projects like Python is that the people talented enough to submit useful patches are usually not the ones who have the time to do so.

No problem ;)

As for me, I find it is a lot easier to contribute to smaller, less developed projects. There is more to do, and I feel I can have a bigger impact. Also, its less intimidating than big projects, you don't need as much ___domain specific expertise with smaller projects.

Thanks

For me, with Ruby, it's that I only know Ruby. I don't know the underlying C. So I figured that anything I tried to look at would be complete C gibberish.

Though I have looked at Rubinius (Wishing they had a better name :/)

"For me, with Ruby, it's that I only know Ruby. I don't know the underlying C."

Most of the standard library is written in Ruby, and my guess is that there are things in there that could use some love.

Python is in the same boat, by the way. Core is writen in C, but there's a huge number of things to be done in the stdlib.

Wow, really? Then I'll have to check it out, thanks!