polyhack.net - polling for input

[nicholasf]

Hey guys,

I've registered polyhack.net. I've been wanting to create a membership site for ages so we can introduce what the channel is about to newcomers and keep a membership list.

We've been hanging out in #polyhack for a year and a half, I think. I have an email I sent out to a list of peeps about making the channel - I'll dig up the date but I think it was August 2012. So we have a kind of birthdate.

Anyway, I'd like to keep the site really simple - maybe a quick introduction to what the channel is about and who its members are. Just a plain HTML document to start with, we can think about hooking up blogs, etc., later on, but starting out simply is appealing.

If you think there'd be something good to include on the site, let me know. If you want to help out, let me know. I'll create some text and run it by the channel so there's a rough democratic process going on here.

Cheers, Nick

[nicholasf]

O yeh, totally need help with design. And logo, etc.. If you have a design eye please shout out. Or if you have any design opinions weigh in. Just weigh in, actually.

(I think it'd be cool if we could get something like the slackware aesthetic - slackware.com).

[deoxxa]

Longish-term stuff I can think of off the top of my head would be:

• github feeds from members (maybe limited to "important" stuff only - tags? PR events? etc)
• what people are working on (maybe from recent github/npm/manual entry?)
• some sort of interactivity between IRC and the website (polyhackbot is the obvious place for this)

There's no end to the possible stuff that could end up on a website for a group of people who like hacking silly things though (ha!), so we'll probably want to keep some kind of order in place.

EDIT: I want to make clear that my second point isn't just "display everyone's feed" - it'd be better if it were a little smarter, maybe just displaying a couple of recently touched projects/packages.

[aussiegeek]

I really like the idea that you add yourself.. with a pull request and a hunk of JSON perhaps.

And please :thumbsdown: to slackware design

[Curia]

Hey.

SomeoneWeird pointed me to this, I'm a web dev, having done a bit of work with SomeoneWeird himself. I'm keen to join in on the project if possible and help out with it. Will join the channel and have a chat soon.

[nicholasf]

Hi Curia,

Thanks for putting your hand up. I’ll get in touch soon with some more details about content. It will be a very simple site, perhaps just one page with a few sections. I can create the content and hand it to you, and we can discuss a design that would suit it.

Cheers, Nick

On 4 Jan 2014, at 1:49 pm, Curiad notifications@github.com wrote:

Hey.

SomeoneWeird pointed me to this, I'm a web dev, having done a bit of work with SomeoneWeird himself. I'm keen to join in on the project if possible and help out with it. Will join the channel and have a chat soon.

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[tjstebbing]

What concepts should a polyhack logo embody?

[nicholasf]

Multiple languages mapping to a shared AST?

On 9 Jan 2014, at 1:01 pm, Pomke Nohkan notifications@github.com wrote:

What concepts should a polyhack logo embody?

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[tjstebbing]

You mean .net CLR? D:

[nicholasf]

Haha, someone was just mentioning .net CLR to me in another context just now.

No, I don’t mean anything to do with Windows. :P

On 9 Jan 2014, at 2:12 pm, Pomke Nohkan notifications@github.com wrote:

You mean .net CLR? D:

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[tjstebbing]

mono CLR ?? D:

[nicholasf]

Just make a logo. :P

On 9 Jan 2014, at 2:25 pm, Pomke Nohkan notifications@github.com wrote:

mono CLR ?? D:

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[cgiffard]

I spent less than five minutes making two super shitty logos and one that was so shitty I didn't want to share it. But they demonstrate the general idea I had, which I'm still convinced can work.

I like the second one.

Did anybody watch fr.08 (the produkt?) The .word aesthetic speaks volumes to me about code in general.

[nicholasf]

I think maybe even incorporating the full #polyhack in the logo might be cool as it's an IRC channel-centric idea.

[cgiffard]

Yep, I'll have a play with that tonight.

[wolfeidau]

Love the concept needs some colour, are we really that grey?

[cgiffard]

You focus on colour after you've worked out form. :)

[sporto]

@cgiffard those ideas are pretty good, the bottom one is simple and elegant, but I like the idea of the intersection of multiple polygons in the top one.

[sporto]

Here some more ideas

[nicholasf]

I think this is moving in a good direction. I like the evolution of @cgiffard's idea for the polygon. The last two logos are really hitting strong points. I like the simplicity of the two polygons intersecting and I like the new shape which emerges from the five polygons intersecting - it expresses the idea of the channel, I think.

I feel we should use the address of the channel in the logo - #polyhack . There's a kind of text aesthetic which happens on IRC and the name in the logo with the hash symbol would reflect that.

:thumbsup:

[cgiffard]

I wonder if you can create the hash symbol by intersecting polygons. I've got another idea though. Maybe it sucks. Playing in photoshop now.

[cgiffard]

A polygon in the centre of the hash symbol looks shitty. Don't try that one.

[cgiffard]

I felt the italic text added dynamism that wasn't present in previous concepts.

I tried adding the # symbol, both on the top of the stack of polygons, and just in the text with the name. Both really overcomplicated it — and helvetica's # is really ugly for some reason too. I think if we're going to include the #, we need to use it as the actual logo somehow, or create a logo with a form that is evocative of the symbol without directly including it.

[sporto]

--color

[cgiffard]

Can the grey shape, or colour the intersections between the shapes differently.

[nicholasf]

This is looking great. I think we should use the same type, etc. for poly and hack (one is bolded, the other isn’t). I like the simplicity of the red, grey, white and black. The multi coloured polygon intersection is also cool.

On 10 Jan 2014, at 10:33 am, Sebastian Porto notifications@github.com wrote:

--color

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[cgiffard]

Personally, I like the differently weighted text.

[hughsk]

If you guys want to use Calibre or National, I have spare copies - also, +1 for multiple weights :)

[sporto]

@hughsk those are nice fonts, but I would prefer if we stick to fonts that are completely free / open source, this might avoid issues in the future (when someone cannot find the used font)

[nicholasf]

Agreed.

Sent from my iPhone

On 10/01/2014, at 11:12 AM, Sebastian Porto notifications@github.com wrote:

@hughsk those are nice fonts, but I would prefer if we stick to fonts that are completely free / open source, this might avoid issues in the future (when someone cannot find the used font)

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[hughsk]

Sure no worries :)

[Curia]

Have a look at "Source Code Pro" on the google fonts api, its pretty much the same font used in editors etc. Not sure how it would come out in a logo at a larger size but, Safest option for a font type would be Open Sans, as it comes up nicely across the different weights, at all sizes.

[Curia]

Let me know on some colours you guys like, and I will make up a nice colour theme before I start making some site mock ups

[sporto]

Another one, will simplifications requested by @nicholasf

[nicholasf]

Thanks dude.

I’m going to create a simple html document with content for Curia using this as a logo.

On 20 Jan 2014, at 8:39 am, Sebastian Porto notifications@github.com wrote:

Another one, will simplifications requested by @nicholasf

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[sporto]

More

[nicholasf]

3 :D

On 20 Jan 2014, at 8:46 am, Sebastian Porto notifications@github.com wrote:

More

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[nicholasf]

I'm leaving this open in case we ever want to explore the logo further.

[nicholasf]

Now Im closing it.

[SomeoneWeird]

cough cname the damn domain cough