Freedom2Support Redevelopment - Everybody Please Read!

[Freedom2Support]

Dear All,

You may have noticed some changes around Freedom2Support this afternoon. This is part of a complete restructure, refresh, and redesign of the way we do things in order to take our site forward.

Why Are We Changing?
Since Freedom2Support's Foundation in 2002, the site has always offered the very best in user based support for freedom2surf customers across many products and services. Freedom2Support has been an inspiration to many other user based ISP Support Sites.

We have achieved many things during this time, however we recognize that in the past 12 months our standards have fell somewhat short of what you would expect from us, so we are undergoing a complete restructure in order to serve our users better and to re-establish our place at the forefront of user based support sites.

What is Changing Today?

• New Team Structure
  As from this afternoon, a three member management team has been created Justin will be moving back up to the position of Project Leader, with Adam acting as Assistant Project Leader whilst Rachel will move up to Freedom2Support Administrator. I'm sure you will congratulate all of the above for their promotions.
  
  Karl Prince, and Steven Logan will head up the newly created 'Freedom2Support Knowledge Team' This team will be chiefly responsible for using their expertise to help users on the forums using their extensive knowledge as well as be responsible for new articles, support documents and resources for the Freedom2Support website. We will shortly be inviting applications to join the team to help us drive our website to the next level.
  
  
• Forums Clean-Up
  As from this afternoon as part of a reorganization of the forums, we have merged the Database and Webspace forums due to the similar nature of these topics that often cross over, this will also be reflected in the new website.
  
  The Voice Over IP forum has been renamed in view of the recent freedom2surf product launches, whilst descriptions of several forums have been tweaked slightly to reflect their current usage.
  
  
• Removal of Main Site Links
  Because of the inaccuracies that now are present on the Fredom2Support site due to changes both with freedom2surf and the industry in general, we have removed links to the various product areas from the forums and main site. We have however left the pages up at their old URL's for historical purposes.
  
  The Mailing List, RSS Feed and Service Status along with all pages in the about section still remain, and will be able to be accessed from each other both on the main site and forums.

What is Changing Soon?

• Content Refresh
  Due to the changes to both freedom2surf products and services and the changes within the industry as a whole over the past 18 months the main website has become somewhat out dated and insufficient for our users needs, due to this the entire content base on Freedom2Support will be rebuilt from scratch. The Freedom2Support knowledge team will work with the newly created management structure in order to drive things forward with articles that really are relevant to f2s customers.
  
  
• New Design
  The current Freedom2Support design was invoked in May 2004, and whilst minor tweaks have taken place since then, many have commented the design looks rather old. We are now working on a new design of the website, that allows better content placement and the access to the resources you need all in one place. With the content refresh already in a works, we thought it would be best to invoke a new better cross browser compatiable design at the same time. An example screenshot from the work in progress can be found as an attachment below.
  
  
• Addition of New Knowledge Team Members
  Shortly we will be advertising for new members to join our newly formed Knowledge Team to help improve and create new resources for the Freedom2Support Website. So if you have an interest in writing articles, Tutorials or technical guides, and want to help Freedom2Support grow further, these posts may very well suit you. More details will be revealed in the second half of June.

This is the most ambitious project ever undertaken by Freedom2Support since the foundation of the site over five years ago, and we are determined to make it succeed to ensure Freedom2Support returns to the forefront of User based ISP Support Sites. A long road is ahead, but we are sure that it will ultimately result in a superior experience, for the most important people, our users.

Please find attached a preview screenshot of the new design currently in develop

[Freedom2Support]

New Knowledge Team Members
As of today, we would like to welcome three new team members to Freedom2Support. we am sure you will all extend a warm welcome to Chaz, John, and StephenC as part of the Freedom2Support Knowledge Team created to help improve content on the Freedom2Support Website. We are sure all three members will be great additions to the team here.

Thanks to Outgoing Members
In addition, we would like to put on record my thanks to outgoing team members Matt, who was part of the founding team in May 2002, and John R who have offered magnificent assistance, both to users via the forums and the running of Freedom2Support in general.

[Freedom2Support]

We are pleased to release another update in the redevelopment of Freedom2Support.

New Logo Design
We are pleased to say the quest to find a new logo for Freedom2Support is going well, we have received several entries so far, and are expecting to receive further ones in the next few days, we hope to have a new logo ready and decided upon in the next fortnight.

Forums Skin and New Site
We are pleased to confirm that good progress is being made both on the new site and the new forums skin.

The new forums skin is 95% complete, and should be completely finished by the end of next week, although will not be fully introduced until the new logo is inserted following it's completion. Along with the new blue and white scheme, we will also offer the new, modern design with a green background for a classical look. See Attachments for a preview.

The new site design is also going well, after a lot of concept images you may have seen we can reveal that several changes for the better have been made, and the base design and the basic layout of the pages should be finalised by this time next week. The focus will then move on to modifying the design where possible to suit every type of page but at the same time keeping a consistent and clean layout. Attachments below show the current pre-beta version of a product index, and an article page.