Re: Alternate PostgreSQL.org Design

On Fri, 2004-11-12 at 13:37, Gavin M. Roy wrote:
>
> >Not on -advocacy. That list does not, and has never contributed
directly to the web stuff. That's what we have -www for.
> >
> >Regards, Dave
> >
> The idea here, and I know that people don't agree, but websites are
> the public marketing front for projects like this.  Advocacy has as
> much to do with that as the people on www that make it happen.  While
> documentation and such are important, one can argue that those are
> marketing tools, since users would be less apt to use PgSQL if the
> website didn't have the info.  The website is one of the things that
> new users evaluate, even subconsciously, before making a decision.
> The more professional we look in web presence, the more comfortable
> users will be with PgSQL at an Enterprise level.
>

I don't necessarily disagree with you on these items, but the same
argument could be said for including ODBC/JDBC Drivers, PgAdmin Gui
Tool, or Slony, into the main postgresql product. Database customers
generally "expect" those things to be include in their software package,
yet no one seems to be up in arms over -core's decision to toss those
things out of the main code base.

Besides, of the folks heavily involved in advocacy (of which I happen to
be one), the majority of those folks follow this list, so there concerns
are not being ignored.

> Ultimately I also think we need to take the vote out of the hands of
> the implementors and into the hands of a potential test market as they
> will be more representative of user impression.  I would even go as
> far as to suggest the radical idea of offering the vote to
> pgsql-general and letting the active community at large decide.
> </marketing_hat>
>

Sorry, but the site has goals of things it needs to accomplish and that
goes beyond "looking cool". I've worked in usability and information
architecture and know the things that need to be accomplished with an
organizations main website and if you leave it up to the general public
your looking for trouble.


Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL