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Alec Warner wrote: |
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> On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 1:30 PM, AllenJB <gentoo-lists@××××××××××.uk> wrote: |
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>> Hi all, |
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>> |
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>> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with |
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>> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe this |
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>> is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These issues are |
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>> apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo website to make it |
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>> easier to navigate and help the project appear more active than is reflected |
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>> by the current front page. |
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>> |
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>> If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then perhaps |
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>> more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what they entail |
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>> (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics on who to talk |
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>> to for those interested). |
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>> |
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>> The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me |
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>> wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value obtained |
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>> from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for newsletters, |
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>> etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to convert articles to |
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>> GuideXML and get the newsletters published? |
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> |
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> So you go on to describe issues with thew Newsletter. |
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> |
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> What kind of issues? |
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> Is there not enough content? |
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At the moment the newsletter isn't getting published at all. If this is |
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because there's not enough content being submitted, then I think more |
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needs to be done to encourage submissions and/or actively seek out and |
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write articles. |
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|
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This comes back to the number of editors the newsletter currently has, |
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which is influenced by the skills required to work on the newsletter |
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(currently CVS, GuideXML and knowledge of the scripts used to generate |
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standard content). |
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|
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> Is GuideXML in fact a barrier for submission (do we get complaints about it?) |
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If there isn't enough content being submitted to actually produce one, |
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then tell the community this. As said above, perhaps mroe needs to be |
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done to actively seek out and create content. |
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|
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> Are there insufficient translators? |
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I can't see that translators is an issue, because even the English |
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version isn't getting published. |
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|
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> Are the editors not posting content quick enough? |
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> Are the editors editing properly? |
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> Are there enough posters in general? |
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> |
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>> Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or |
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>> web-only. |
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>> |
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>> Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then copied |
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>> and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously require |
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>> minimal formatting work. |
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> |
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> Ok, but if the problems are with finding material; changing how the |
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> material is posted will not help. |
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The idea behind this was to reproduce the amount of work involved in |
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taking a plain text submission (which I would guess is the form most |
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submissions come in) and getting it published in the newsletter. This |
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method removes the need for conversion to GuideXML. |
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|
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> |
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>> My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think |
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>> would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter would |
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>> become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS. |
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>> Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would just |
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>> be released as soon as they are produced. |
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> |
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> Why does a new shiny CMS enable this? Certainly we could provide |
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> access to news/ to a broader audience? |
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> You seem to think the target audience cannot author GuideXML though. |
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> |
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>> The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be |
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>> easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly |
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>> done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can publish |
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>> from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the website |
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>> without any intervention. |
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> |
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> This is covered by index2; so I'll ignore it ;) |
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You're assuming index2 ever goes live. From what I've seen it's been |
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hanging around for at least 6 months in a "ready to go live" state, so |
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I'm not holding any hopes of this happening any time soon. =P |
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> |
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>> As above, articles would be published as and when they are ready. Instead of |
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>> just 1 editor, this website-based setup would be able to have multiple |
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>> editors with little collaboration required (just to mark submissions as |
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>> being worked on when an editor picks them up, which should be easily doable |
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>> using a ticket-based system (bugzilla) or mailing list). |
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> |
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> Does the current news have only 1 editor? I am on PR but I tend not |
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> to commit news or approve things. |
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Why do you not tend to commit news or approve things? |
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|
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It may not be just the 1 editor, but I suspect the problem is a general |
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lack of active editors. From what I've read, current GMN publishers |
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require knowledge of how to run all the scripts to generate the standard |
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content and write GuideXML to a pretty good standard. I suspect this is |
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all quite time consuming (from the little I've done in GuideXML, I |
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certainly find that time consuming). |
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|
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This suggestion would: |
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1) Drop the skill requirements for news article publishers to being able |
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to operate a CMS |
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|
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2) Require minimum collaboration between multiple editors, allowing the |
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number of editors to be easily increased. Inactivity shouldn't be an |
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issue in this system, because no single editor is responsible for |
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collecting everything together and publishing. |
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|
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> |
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> I would propose an alternative alias or subject tag that will single |
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> your post request out from the other trash that gets sent to pr@; that |
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> way it might actually receive some attention. |
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> |
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>> An advantage, as I see it, of the website-based system is that it could be |
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>> expanded to include features not currently easily possible with the current |
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>> newsletter - categorized archiving of articles (not just be publish date) |
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>> and user comments. While I haven't looked, it's probably possible to even |
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>> find a CMS which includes email notification of new articles as a feature. |
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> |
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> This is a bad sell; we could certainly expand the current one as well |
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> (with cool new features!) except we have no staff for that (in either |
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> system). Talk about what you will do; not what you plan to do in the |
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> nefarious future when you have copious amounts of free time ;) |
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The problem with the current GuideXML system is that anything like this |
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would have to be coded from scratch most likely. With a standard, |
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popular CMS, you'd basically get many of these features for free simply |
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by installing a pre-written plugin or enabling the right option. |
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> |
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>> |
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>> AllenJB |
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>> |
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>> PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda item, |
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>> but I couldn't stop writing. |
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>> |
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>> PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a developer, I |
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>> just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. That'll hopefully |
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>> change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job. |
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>> |
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>> |
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> |