Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

The reply appears to have disappeared into a black hole.

-------- Forwarded Message --------
> From: Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@g.o>
> To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
> Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:26:31 +0100
>
> On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:07 +0200, Lars Weiler wrote:
> > Congratulations.  I just unsubscribed from the
> > gwn-feedback-alias after reading your mail.
> >
> > * Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@g.o> [06/06/10 04:28 +0100]:
> > > 1. Reliability. The GWN claims to be a weekly publication, yet it
> > > frequently fails to publish without prior warning. There was no edition
> > > this week, and Patrick Lauer says that it is "unknown" whether there
> > > will be an edition next week as Ulrich Plate is AWOL.
> >
> > Several times Kurt or I took over the job of publicing the
> > GWN when Ulrich asked us.  So, there is a backup, but he
> > didn't asked for this week.
>
> I am glad to hear that backup has been used in the past, and I hope that
> it will be again.
>
> > > 2. Permissions. Although it could be considered flattering that the GWN
> > > should choose a developer's blog as inspiration for an article, they
> > > should ensure that they have the developer / author's permission before
> > > quoting them (see previous complaints by brix, ciaranm and others).
> > >
> > > I also believe that when posting an article or interview, a copy should
> > > be sent to the relevant people to ensure that they are ok with what is
> > > being posted (my dev of the week interview, for example, was rather
> > > screwed up and misrepresentative). When someone contacts GWN to have
> > > something corrected, it would be appreciated were the GWN staff to at
> > > least deign to acknowledge receipt, even if for some reason they choose
> > > not to honour the corrections or post a retraction (although refusing to
> > > publish corrections is extremely insulting to those wronged).
> >
> > And I expect the same from you.  You should ask the affected
> > people first before starting a discussion about them on our
> > public mailing lists.  This is a device I can give you for
> > further userrelations-activities.
>
> I have actually contacted Ulrich on several occasions, he chose not to
> get back to me. And I have spoken a fair bit with Patrick, and from
> speaking with Patrick it is quite obvious that the GWN could do with
> some help, and I am hoping that my addressing the problems we can pool
> together and find ways of helping them.
>
> > > 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given.
> >
> > It is.  Either as "Author" or "Contributor".
>
> Or it is totally lacking, like in the above mentioned blog scenario.
>
> > > Another thing that concerns me is the way the articles are written. It
> > > is blatanly obvious that the GWN writers are not native English speakers
> > > as both the grammar and the flow of the articles is far from attractive.
> > > Having read through the archives, I notice that there was once a time
> > > when the GWN was a great publication, and I would like to think that it
> > > could become great yet again; in its current state, though, it is doing
> > > more harm than good.
> >
> > It's quite interesting to see, that the GWN and also
> > Debian's Weekly Newsletter is run by Germans mostly.  Is
> > there a problem with native speakers to run a periodically
> > newsletter for a long time (> 3 years)?
>
> No, there isn't a problem with it. However, as I understand it the GWN
> is translated into N languages, and I would presume the german version
> to be the one which reads better. Could it be an idea to have someone
> whos first language is English look over and improve upon the English
> version? I know we already dot the i's and cross the t's, maybe it would
> be of benefit if someone worked a bit on how it flows.
>
> > > Lack of content and poorly written or incorrect articles are often
> > > justified by the GWN team on grounds of overwork and insufficient
> > > manpower. When I asked why they were not recruiting, I was informed that
> > > no-one has any interest in contributing. Upon speaking with others,
> > > however, I find that this is not the case -- people are interested, but
> > > fear (and rightly so) that their work will be edited in such a way that
> > > it is no longer something with which they want to be associated.
> >
> > Subscribe to the gwn-feedback-alias and read or comment the
> > submissions to the GWN.  Make sure that every user will
> > receive and answer.  And forward questions to the
> > arch-teams.  Isn't that userrel's job?  I didn't saw your
> > contributions there yet.
>
> I wasn't aware the gwn-feedback alias was public, if it is then I would
> be more than happy to subscribe to it and read and comment to every
> user. Would I be stepping on anyones toes by doing so? And if the GWN
> would like to off-load some stuff onto Userrel, then userrel would be
> more than happy to help. We already have a GWN representative and he
> knows that several of the userrel team would jump at the chance to help
> out with various GWN related bits.