--- In IBDI@y..., "Magnus Johansson" <trans-x@a...> wrote:
[... ]
> I think that it's worth very mutch when you have the opportunity to
> show people and guide them around, then they don't care if it's 5
> or 10 sites that has the information they want as long as they feel
> safe.
[... ]

> /Magnus Johansson

Hi Magnus. I agree, many sites are not a problem. But many visitors
will not be in the lucky position to have a personnal guide. Also
those who look into it to eventually choose Firebird for their
business, which usually means an investment (at least of time), will
feel much more comfortable if the community presents itself in a
coherent manner, with an official site as the center. You should be
able to give the URL of the Firebird official site to your students
and they should first of all find all the basic informations about
the product Firebird and its community on that site. Of course there
will be links to other, related websites. But they don't replace a
well structured and complete presentation on the official site.

I know there is much work to be done and the website is only one of
them. That's why I believe it would be wise to keep this site very
simple, both because it can be easily maintained and at the same time
to show the world that at Firebird one concentrates on other things
than website styling.

Distributing the content editing tasks among active community members
is a good idea in this situation I think, because this way we can get
a complete, well structured website and the time it takes each of the
editors to maintain his pages remains acceptable. Be realistic: Most
of the pages of this site aren't going to be modified a lot. It's
more a matter for each of you active members to take a few hours and
fill one or two pages with some content.

Things are fascilitated a lot, if those at the source of information
directly edit the corresponding parts of the site.

I don't want to force anyone in these positions, so I removed all the
names from the "section editors" table on my demo site, except for
Pavel, who I think should be coordinating webmaster.

But it's clear that Pavel cannot "force" anyone to participate in
website editing tasks either. It's up to you all to say if you agree
with such an aproach and to accept to look after a couple of pages on
the site. If the pages are plain, simple HTML, everyone should be
able to edit their content easily and without any particular
utilities.

Now the only important for a smooth operation of this site is, to get
the right peoples for the right pages :)

For the pages in "FAQ" and "About Firebird" I'd like to get a native
english speaker. I read on IBDI that Helen is good at writing and if
she would be available for this little task... The pages don't need a
lot of text, be concise. Of course, from IBDI you (Helen) are more
used to InterBase advocacy type writing. As an editor at Firebird
you'd be no longer independent, somewhere "between the two camps",
you'd express the position of the Firebird developers. You could
still have InterBase advocacy activities at IBDI, but be "Firebird
oriented" and concise when editing the Firebird pages. I'm sure you
could handle this and hope you are available for this job.

Also I know Helen is active in a documentation project and so I
thought she might also want to edit the page of such a project on the
Firebird site.

I had read on IBDI that Mark started organizing the Build group and
so I suggested he could for example look after the Firebird server
project page. I think it would be a good solution, if you're
available.

For the downloads page, maybe someone else from the "build group"
could take that part?

Concerning the News page: This should be limited to news of interest
for the "rest of the world". In a commercial venture that's
the "press releases" ;). On the other hand, news about the current
status of the different projects could be placed either on the
respective project page, or alternatively the project could have
an "announcement list" elsewhere. The Firebird news are released for
publication by the Firebird core team and so one of the team would
ideally look after that page.

The "Documentation" and "Articles" will probably not have much
content in a first time. I suggest to simply invite the public to
submit their articles or Firebird related documentation work if they
want it to be published (or linked to) on the Firebird pages. So that
will be a list which will grow over time. Maintenance of these pages
doesn't really require deep involvement in the project, if anyone has
some spare time for this little job?? ;)

I really think this general concept of distributing editing tasks
would be a reasonable aproach and hope you'll agree to go for it an
make some progress with this website issue.

The site doesn't need to be perfect to go online. Once the editing
roles are distributed and everyone put a first few words on "his"
pages, the site could be set up and can then evolve over time.

There will again be the hosting question. Basically it can be
anywhere, simply all the editors will need a password to get FTP
access to the site. I don't see a need to restrict editors access to
their respective sections, I mean, we're all adult persons and, for
the worst case, there will be a backup...

So, the only thing that matters for the hosting is the performance of
the internet connection. The faster the better :) Well, I have
nothing against SourceForge...

Now, let's just go foreward.

Pavel, do you agree with the concept?

All the others: Please be available for these little editor jobs,
it's little work for you, but an important step for a coherent
presentation of Firebird.

Regards
markus


which is slightly different from what the Firebird official site
needs, but I think you understand the position of still think you'd
be the right person for these pages