Re: Press Release -- Just Waiting for Tom - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

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> Last-minute copy edits, please, people?

Be careful what you ask for! :) Away we go...

The names at the top should indicate what country each person
is in, perhaps next to the phone number in parenthesis.

The "Contact: " should be on its own line, and perhaps say
"Contacts:" since it refers to both Justin and Mark.

"the best has gotten even better!" sounds pretty dorky.

I'd move "freely available" to another sentence as it is wordy
enough already.

"version" should be spelled out - those reading may not naturally
know what v7.3 means.

We may want to simply call it a RDBMS, as it will be more familiar
to the press than the ORDBMS acronym. Tough call.

The first paragraph should probably have a little more emphasis
on ideas like "features", "maturity", "stability", and "powerfulness"
and a little less on the cost/savings angle.

> saving business and government millions of dollars each year.

Should this be "businesses and governments"? Perhaps simply
"saving businesses millions...."?

The quote attributions should have some sort of delimiter immediately
before them, such as a single or double dash.

Some of the quotes have bad grammar (esp. the Mohawk one) but if it
is a verbatim quote, there is not much that can be done. A period
after "ODBC" and a capital "W" might be acceptable however?

> The worldwide PostgreSQL community is very excited about this release,
> which includes numerous modifications and enhancements thanks to the
> contributions of 573 developers and thousands of volunteer testers
> from more than 30 countries.

I think an abstract number for the developers would sound better
and be more truthful: "over 570 developers". I also didn't like
the fact that my previous parsing only found 38 countries, so I
did some more digging in the email lists and we can definitely say
"over 50" if the number is including "testers" as well as "developers".
I found: fi, pt, cl, hr, in, lk, sg, py, tb, and many others to easily
boost the number to over 50. :)

> "This is a quote from Tom Lane about the
> new version," said Tom Lane, a PostgreSQL Core
> Developer.  Among the advances in version 7.3  are:

The "Among" should probably begin a new paragraph. Maybe the Tom
quote as well, depending on its length.

> PostgreSQL now joins the handful of ORDBMSs to support

The paragraph is good, but the "handful of ORDBMs" sounds awkward.
Also, we should avoid English colloquialisms if possible due
to the international nature of the site.

Aside: "ORDBMSs" can be written as "ORDBMS's" - an apostrophe is
acceptable usage as a plural when using an acronym ending
in the letter S.

> 7.3 has greatly simplified returning result sets of rows and columns in

The product should be consistently referred to as "PostgreSQL" or
"PostgreSQL 7.3", or even "Version 7.3", but not simply "7.3".

>        Oracle applications to PostgreSQL.

"Oracle" will need a copyright symbol and a disclaimer on the bottom
to be totally legit.

> In response to community demands, PostgreSQL has added schema,
> function, and other permissions and settings to increase the database
> administrator's granular control over security.

A bit awkward, but not too bad.

>   Other Enhancements
>        Version 7.3 also includes:

The double indent looks a bit odd. Perhaps simply saying:
"Other enhancements in version 7.3 include:"?

> - Dozens of bug fixes and performance enhancements to maintain
>  PostgreSQL's leading position in ORDMBSs.

This is the first time in this article that we have mentioned
that we are in the "leading position" and it seems odd to throw it
out here, at the bottom of the new features list. Also, the "dozens
of bug fixes" implies dozens of bugs, so that could possibly
be left out.

> Source for this release is available on all mirrors under:
>   http://www.postgresql.org/pub/source/v7.3

This is a bad URL to give out. The URL as entered above into a
browser returns a 404 error. (ideally it should return a list of mirrors
and then redirect, but that's an issue for another day). In addition,
the casual reader may not understand the concept of "mirrors".

>               http://advocacy.postgresql.org

This should have a trailing slash on it.

> A complete list of changes in v7.3 can be found in the HISTORY file,
> included with the release, or available from all ftp mirrors as:
>               http://www.postgresql.org/README.v7_3

Same problem as above (404). In addition, the sudden mention of
"ftp" mirrors could be confusing. Maybe we can redirect everything
through the advocacy site? Linking to a page on advocacy that states
the latest versions, how to get them, and links to the history file
might be one way.

> .. With it's long time support

This should be "its"; it's is used only as a contraction.

> .. triggers, and subqueries PostgreSQL

Should be a comma after "subqueries"

> is being used by many of todays most demanding businesses.

"today's" should have an apostrophe.

> Corporations such as BASF, Red Hat, Afilias Inc (managing the .org
> and .info domains), Cisco, Chrysler, and 3Com rely on

Afilias is a limited corporation, and should be written as
"Afilias Limited" or simply "Afilias". The others have more
official names (e.g. "Red Hat, Inc.") but the short names
used above should be fine for a press release.

> For more information on PostgreSQL, please visit
> http://advocacy.postgresql.org.

The URL should be on its own line, and include a trailing slash.

Greg Sabino Mullane  greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200211171757

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