Rethinking the Front Page and Blog Distinction

In the last few days some shifting has been occurring with the display of this website's content. Some of the blog posts are being promoted to the front page. These posts are those that cover a significant resource rather than a personal experience or anecdote.

Once a "proper" front page article has been published about the resource, the blog post that mentioned it will be demoted and appear only in the blog.

This is being done for several reasons:

1) To promote the good resources as soon and effectively as possible.

2) To allow front page articles that are not fully-integrated into the category structure.

3) To facilitate the growth of the site by publishing as many useful, quality resources as possible to the front page.

The reasons for these reasons can be demonstrated with one simple example: Latin has not yet been added to the list of languages on the site, but a blog post about a podcast for learning Latin should be front page material right away since it is so useful. Once Latin is integrated into the site's complex category structure (as compared to the relatively simple blog tags), a "proper" article will be drafted and published, and the blog post will be demoted.

Eventually, the blog may evolve to be more specifically geared toward user experiences and advice.

One further note - promoting blog posts to the front page also allows for multi-lingual front page resource entries despite the current lack of infrastructure for a truly localized and internationalized site. Articles in Polish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Spanish and French (and other languages) can be front page material.

Plans for localization and internationalization of freelanguage.org are being developed. This is one of our highest priorities.