--- In IBDI@y..., Helen Borrie <helebor@d...> wrote:
> No matter how many websites there are or whether they are red,
> yellow or sky-blue-scarlet, we can't release a product until the
> QA is done.

I would put this the other way round:

Firebird shall not release its product (even if the QA is done) as
long as there isn't an acceptably looking Firebird website.

The success of a product depends on how it is perceived in public.
For the moment Firebird is new and doesn't have a reputation to
produce quality products. That's why a professional presentation of
the community will contribute a lot to the success. And the first
impression is the most important!

However, I absolutely agree with opinions expressed by Reed, Claudio
and yourself, that first of all it's the technical things that
matter. That is the same for the "marketing" aspect: Firebird should
present itself as a community, where one concentrates on doing a good
job in coding, QA, support etc. and not try to impress peoples with
a "stunning" website. Such a website would be contra-productive.

On the other hand Firebird needs a website with content organized to
give a good presentation of itself to the rest of the world. For this
purpose a site like Pavels isn't apropriate. Here is why:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IBDI/message/2554

As for the web design: Since Firebird is new, nobody expects
a "polished" web presence. And since it's a non-profit venture nobody
will even expect a polished website in the future, it would only be
irritating. In the best interest of Firebird is a website which
dispenses with all the gimmicks and concentrates on well structured
and informative content.

Jeff has put up this design comparison page and I have set the domain
FirebirdSQL.com to point to it, just to fascilitate the access.

However, this makes the whole thing look like a competition. I don't
really want to compete against anyone. All I want is that Firebird
gives itself a professional look. The easiest way to obtain this, is
by being simple. The site design I suggested is simple: It doesn't
play with colours, font size ant type or anything else. It's plain
text. Of course other forms are possible and it's possible to improve
it with carefully chosen graphical elements. But that shouldn't be a
priority for Firebird in its first days, nor should Firebird present
itself as if it had such priorities.

The design suggested by Damian has much improved over his first
version, but still contains many obvious flaws and, generally, does
not follow what in my opinion is advised for Firebird in its current
situation: Being simple!

For the background colour: One can say that white is the standard
among the big sites on internet: Google, Yahoo, Excite, AltaVista,
Microsoft, Apple, IBPhoenix, InterBase2000, MySql, PostgreSQL,... ;)
Why is that? Simply because white is neutral and gives best contrast.
Don't do anything different if there aren't good reasons to do it.

For Firebird I cannot see any reasons for another background colour.
But if an alternate colour should be chosen, it should be something
complementary to the logo colour, in order to preserve the contrast.
Probably a very light blue or light gray would look ok. But as I
said, there's no reason to do such things. Therefore don't do it!

Along with the logos there was also a little discussion about the
title font. The best solution so far, I think, is this Gill Sans HV,
provided by Ed Malloy. This font should of course be used for the
title of the website.

Links are usually blue and underlined, so everyone knows it's a link.
Therefore why depart from this convention? In "polished" websites
this underscore is sometimes removed, especially in navigation menus.
But it is usually replaced by some sort of mouse over effect to bring
back the impression of an "active" (clickable) area. These
black "buttons" without mouse over effect are bad for this reason.
But more generally they are not what I call being simple.

Another important question is, who shall be the webmaster. Since this
is going to be the official site, I agree with Reed that it's
important to give redactional competence to Firebird core members. I
would however prefer if this wasn't just one member, but rather a
little team. There are other tasks which actually could well be
handled by such an "administrative" unit. One is, that the official
site should give some contact information, at least an email address.
So there's the question who shall receive this email. For this as
well, I would prefer a little team of "trusted members", rather than
one single person. This team would not "own" Firebird, but only have
some (rather limited) administrative tasks. It would be an interim
solution, to be replaced by something more formal (a Firebird
Association) in the future. Being the redactors of FirebirdSQL.org,
this team would be the official voice of Firebird. It is therefore,
in my opinion, important to choose the right persons for it. One
point is, that they should promise to do their best in the interest
of an independent and not for profit future of the Firebird
enterprise and to discuss important issues in the community (which, I
guess, goes by itself). Another point is, that it should be active
members of the community, who have proven their commitment to the
project. I would like to see Ann in this team, plus at least 2 other
persons to ensure independence from IBPhoenix.

So, I suggest a team of at least 3 members. Basically the smaller the
team, the easier it can work. But I don't know the persons inside
Firebird enough to give any recommendation about this. If there are
(by chance) 3 peoples who clearly stand behind Firebird and merit
this position (again, with competences limited to administrative
tasks), maybe you could somehow arrange to create this team? An
impair number of team members would have some advantage. I think 7
members should be the maximum, preferably 3 or 5. It really depends,
you probably know better than I...

This team would (in my opinion) organize itself in a separate
(closed) discussion group and email to Firebird would go to that
group.

Just an opinion...

What do you think?

Best regards
Markus