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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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Is GuideXML in fact a barrier for submission (do we get complaints about it?) |
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Are there insufficient translators? |
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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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> |
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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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|
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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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> |
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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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|
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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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|
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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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> |
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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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|
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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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> |