Spread the word!

This is a guide of recipes to show how we can make *.ocamlcore.org websites even more visible.

Why visibility is essential?

One of the important thing about the OCaml Forge and the OCaml Planet is to show that OCaml community exists. There are probably better source code hosting (Google Code, GitHub) around. The point of the OCaml Forge is to have a central place where people can see easily that the OCaml Community is vivid.

If you take the example of Github, OCaml projects are outnumbered by Ruby/Python projects. This somehow makes OCaml projects hosted on Github a little less easy to find and will probably make beginners feel that they should better use Ruby or Python. Projects are still visible of course. Setting up a mirror for the release and news on the OCaml Forge is a great way to have the best of Github and the forge: you get a nice source code hosting and visibility for the OCaml community.

The forge can provide figures to show managers and beginneres that the OCaml Community exists and is working. Just give the number of subscribed developers and projects. This is a start. If we can make these figures rise, we will be able to show that the OCaml Community is alive.

Advertise on your webpage

If you are an OCaml Forge user, you can put one of this logo on your webpage:

<a href="http://forge.ocamlcore.org/">
  <img src="http://static.ocamlcore.org/official/images/logo-forge-128px.png"
         alt="The OCaml Forge"
         style="border: none;" />
</a>

<a href="http://forge.ocamlcore.org/">
  <img src="http://static.ocamlcore.org/official/images/logo-forge-big.png"
         alt="The OCaml Forge"
         style="border: none;" />
</a>

For OCaml Planet users:

<a href="http://planet.ocamlcore.org/">
  <img src="http://static.ocamlcore.org/official/images/logo-planet-128px.png"
         alt="The OCaml Forge"
         style="border: none;" />
</a>

<a href="http://planet.ocamlcore.org/">
  <img src="http://static.ocamlcore.org/official/images/logo-planet-big.png"
         alt="The OCaml Forge"
         style="border: none;" />
</a>

Advertise in your email signature

If you want to advertise for the OCaml Forge or the OCaml Planet, you can put these lines in your email signature:

----------------------------------------------------------
Want to start an OCaml project: http://forge.ocamlcore.org
OCaml blogs:                   http://planet.ocamlcore.org
----------------------------------------------------------

Tell people about the OCaml Forge and Planet

If you find a blog about OCaml, you can email the author to ask him if he wants to be part of the OCaml Planet. Here is an example of such a mail:

Hello,

I have just read your blog at http://example.com and I really enjoy it. I think 
it can be a good idea to ask the OCaml Forge administrators to add it to the
OCaml Planet. 
http://planet.ocamlcore.org

Just follow the instructions on this webpage:
http://www.ocamlcore.org/planet

If you want to start a project or know someone who want to start a project using OCaml, you can consider using the OCaml Forge. http://forge.ocamlcore.org