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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:27 +0200, George Shapovalov wrote:
> субота, 10. червень 2006 04:28, Christel Dahlskjaer Ви написали:
> > I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and
> > future of the GWN at their next meeting.
> Hah? What has concil to do with this? Is it going to mandate "GWN be better"
> and it magically turns into some other thing? Why do you think there is
> malicious intent here at all?

I was hoping the council, whom I understand to be built up of people who
genuinely care for Gentoo, would look at whether there was any ways of
helping the GWN become better. Say, look at alternative ways of
recruiting/ attracting contributors. It may have been the wrong place to
bring it up, but its the place that was suggested to me when I asked
people who have been around a lot longer than I have.

> [skipping the listing]
> All these problems can be explained very simply - a lack of manpower. As I
> understand, GWN now is a one-man endeavour and Ulrich was pointing this out
> himself and literally yelling for help! Many many times! Over approx last 6
> month or so..

As Ulrich doesn't reply to my e-mails, I haven't had a chance to discuss
with him, I have, however, spoken to Patrick at great length and I
understand that the GWN finds it difficult to recruit, or even attract
contributors. And I agree, the main problem appears to be manpower,
which is why I am hoping that by creating some discussion people may
come up with new / different ways of attracting people to the GWN. 

> Do we want a more reliable and representative GWN? Of course!
> How we can get there? Well, stand up and help! Involving council is not going
> to do anything besides starting yet another pointless burocratic endeavor.
> Well, I suspect it won't do even that - I am pretty sure council is going to
> just throw out this "claim" even if you officially start it. They can of
> course mandate some more action, but what would be the point? If there are no
> people willing to stand up, then who will listen to it?

If the council chooses to throw it aside and not look at ways of helping
the GWN then well, that sucks. But atleast I tried. 

> So, to conclude this thing. The only way GWN is going to improve, is if some
> more people will "join the ranks" and start writing/editing GWN entries. I'd
> say a team of 3 people is usually sufficient, but we need more like 7 so that
> three are "available" for more than a first month :) (this is based on my
> experience with organazing Russian transation team in its early days), plus a
> steady stream of at least one new dev joining/two month, to compensate for
> people droppig out. This should also have an effect of draft GWN published at
> least a day in advance, instead of a few hours, so that the rest of us will
> be able (and will ;)) take a look at it and make corrections..

I agree with the above, and as stated before, I am hoping that the
Council, or hell, just discussion on -dev may result in someone jumping
up and saying "I have an idea, why don't you..." or "Have you tried.."
as what would be great is if people could come up with ideas and ways of
attracting people.