front page idea

[Murray Stokely]

On 11/19/07, Deb Goodkin <deb at freebsd.org> wrote:
> Here's some history for the request. We have a marketing team helping
> us, from a company who has benefited from using FreeBSD. They have
> offered their services to help us better market ourselves for
> fundraising purposes. They looked at the project's website and said it
> was confusing on how to donate. They also said there was no correlation
> between donating and clicking on the foundation button. A person looking
> to donate might not know what the foundation link means.

Yes, I agree.

> They had suggested to either add a "Donate to the Foundation" or "Keep
> FreeBSD Free" button in a prominent spot on each page of the project.
> That would also create a connection between the two entities.
> Especially, since our whole mission is to support the project. We are
> going to add a section on our website that answers the questions:

I think we could add a button with one of those two slogans to the
bottom of all the second level pages.  To the right of the copyright
information, right-justified.  I think that would look nice and
provide additional links and fundraising visibility.  Do you have any
such graphical buttons created?

> Why is FreeBSD free? or
> Why do we want to keep FreeBSD free?
> Why is this so important?
> What happens if FreeBSD isn't free?
> What happens if it goes away?
>
> This will then tie into why donate to the foundation. We would love to
> have both, the donate button and the foundation link. But, if we had a
> choice of only one, I'd choose a donate button that linked to our donate
> page.

On second look there are actually already two links on the front page
to the foundation.  One in the title nav bar and one in the footer for
the copyright information.  Should we change the title navbar to say
"Donate" instead of "Foundation" on both the front and second level
pages?  Or should we just leave it as "Foundation" but also add a
"Donate to the Foundation" button on all the second level pages in the
footer, right-justified as described above?

There could also be additional places to add links ot the foundation,
such as in the Newbies page linked from the main page.  We could add
some information there about how donations help development.

I also think a newsflash entry whenever you reach a fundraising goal
or set a fundraising goal would be appropriate.  You can just send
text to freebsd-www@ or freebsd-doc@ or one of us personally to add
the notice.

          - Murray