On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:27:47 +0400 Thwarth Wrhalthssen wrhalthssen@ya.ru wrote:
I think the mirrors page should be redesigned a little. What is the purpose of displaying all outdated and non-accessible mirrors? The owners of such mirrors are barely interested in maintaining them, so, I think, the best option is just to remove or hide them from the list. If owner of such mirror is interested in running it updated, he'll notice, that his site isn't listed anymore, he'll update it and his mirror will show up again in the list. Additionaly, it would be great to add a Javascript code to the list to make it possible to filter mirrors by country and services accessible (and a tiny country flags, just for lucidity).
Mostly because people find the mirrors in search engine results, and when it links to our page, they find they're out of date. This is a hint to not use them.
Frankly, the whole mirroring system needs a rewrite and update.
The second issue is the access to the mirrors page. For now you need to scroll down to the bottom page and find a tiny 'Mirrors' link in the 'Get Involved' section. Isn't it difficult enough? The Tor software is blocked in variety of countries and the mirrors are essential part of maintaining Tor website accessible, so isn't it right to make a link to the mirrors list somehow more accessible? I mean, for example, put 'Mirrors' list in the top navigation section ('Home', 'About Tor' etc). I believe lot of people failed to find this list just because it's location on the site is non-obvious. Maybe a crucial part of them are simply don't know the mirrors list exist.
Mostly because we know people find the mirrors via search engines, not linking to our site. If torproject.org is blocked, finding the mirrors page isn't going to help you.
We're open to ideas here.