I think we should adapt the welcome panel a bit to give people options to do these things with one click:

-) Read a full introduction page (with video) about the lab
-) Create an AXIOM Beta Feature Wish (task) button
-) See all open polls button

inviting backers to the lab is a very good idea, whishlist also. Polls - excellent idea, noticed only one ...

To avoid collecting wishes concerning decisions already been made, I suggest clarifying, which "options" are already "fixed" and will be ( or will not be ) built. I could imagine, that numerous decisions ( call them architectural decisions or design principles ) are already made up for the beta, just think about the transition path from beta to gamma.

And - invite to the lab - virtual or real ( AFK ) ?

• physical location of workshop(s) - organize an event - possibly in the ( not so far ) future
  • personalized invitation by e-mails
  • food & drink
  • music
  • presentations, discussions & talks

or

• (virtual) locaton of web pages - create some sort of linklist ( extended sitemap ) to find ones way to "internal" and "external" resources:
  • internal:
    • 1. irc archive
      2. phabricator
      3. forums
      4. (open ) Polls ( already mentined above )
      5. wiki, ... all pages
    • anything missing?
  • external: other contributions, references & pointers ( the "real" work ;-))

I really like the idea of physical meetup, I guess it's something to consider for the not too far future.

Now for the virtual lab :

• we could write an article on the site explaining it + video link
• add the lab to the participate menu
• we cannot add html to phabricator panels and they won't fixed my feature request
• we can however add a simple link to add a wish for the camera (it won't be a button)
• we can also link to the lab introductory video - might need some editing and publication on youtube

Instead of buttons and video embedd on the lab front page panel what about a custom full HTML landing page for the lab with a short introduction what the lab is, the shortcut buttons, YouTube video and the obvious big "continue to lab" link button?

I would better have an article then, else we'll all have this introductory page each time we visit the lab. We could simply link to the article instead of the lab (in the mailing and on the apertus "participate" menu), and put a big button on the article saying "Ok, I understood, bring me to the lab !"

Blender getting involved page is good :

• General page : http://www.blender.org/get-involved/
• For developers http://www.blender.org/get-involved/developers/

Work in progress article and page content: https://docs.google.com/document/d/166vGn7aFN0c-HXmEYWbwhNUciJsI6TJe0lVmFnVC7IE/edit

mostly done here : https://apertus.org/node/359