Change "Who to follow" page to Twitter lists

[petetalksweb]

The "Who to follow" page seems a little unruly. I think it might be better to change it to a Twitter list maintained by the A11y Project Twitter account or separate Twitter lists for people, companies, and Meetups.

This would have the added benefit of allowing users to follow/unfollow the whole list at once, rather than going through and doing it piecemeal.

[scottaohara]

I don't disagree with this.

For context, the list was largely a port of Joe Watkin's top people to follow in web accessibility.

That list has also continued to receive updates that haven't flowed through to here.

I think we should noodle on this some more, as I agree with you that there's probably a more efficient way to at least organize this information, if not make it less of a manual process to update.

[petetalksweb]

If the list is mostly a port of this other repo, should we just link to it?

Have the page just be 3 sections:

• Follow the official A11y Project twitter, and link to the RSS feed for the site
• List out the author info from authors.yml to encourage readers to follow them on the link they provide in authors.yml
• Say something like "for more great content checkout..." and link to the Joe Watkin's repo

The other repo seems pretty active, so anyone who wanted to add links could just make a PR or issue on that one instead of ours, and we wouldn't have to worry about keeping our list in sync.

[scottaohara]

I think this makes sense / like the proposal, but want others to weigh in on the idea.

Added this to the content updates milestone for 2019, being an audit of hosted content n' all ;)

[ericwbailey]

Yeah, this sounds like a more pragmatic solution. To me, the cons to this approach would be hiding the larger community behind a link we hope people click, but listing the authors might help with that.

Another thing I've been discussing for the upcoming redesign is a way to put a more human face on the project. I'd love to have a monthly/bi-monthly showcase of someone doing good work in the field as a way to promote their efforts.

[ericwbailey]

I have initial work here that captures what we've been discussing: https://github.com/a11yproject/a11yproject.com/blob/2019-redesign/eleventy/follow/index.njk

The design and content aren't finalized, but I figured I'd update this thread with progress for those who are interested.

[ericwbailey]

We should also make sure that we submit a PR to Joe's list that includes anyone we have that he dosen't. @alexroseb, could I tap you to review them when you have a moment?

[alexroseb]

@ericwbailey will do! I’m on vacation now but will be able to get back online in the new year.

[ericwbailey]

Totally, thank you! Enjoy your time off :)

[alexroseb]

Done! https://github.com/joe-watkins/top-people-to-follow-in-web-accessibility/pull/41

[ericwbailey]

Awesome! Thanks!

[ericwbailey]

So, it's been a bit, and the PR has yet to be merged.

So here's a question: should we create that Twitter list on our A11Y Project Twitter account and use Joe's as a starting point? We can credit him on the site as the list's originator.

[ericwbailey]

We have deprecated who to follow. There's an orphan page to not break existing links that links to Joe's list.

[darekkay]

Unfortunately, Joe's list isn't updated anymore. The PR from Alex linked above has been open for almost 2 years now. I've been contributing to awesome-a11y and there you can find an updated list of people to follow.

Do you think changing the link to a more recent list (whether awesome-a11y or something different) or coming back to hosting the list on the a11y project would be a good thing? I can open a new issue (and also take it up) if this change is welcome.

[ericwbailey]

@darekkay I'd be happy pointing towards a more actively maintained resource. If you want to create and issue and tackle the PR I'd be more than happy to merge it.