Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 15:00:36
Message-Id: 1150041102.4289.24.camel@gaspode
1 Another vanishing reply from yesterday.
2
3
4 -------- Forwarded Message --------
5 > From: Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@g.o>
6 > To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
7 > Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
8 > Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:44:02 +0100
9 >
10 > On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:56 +0200, Patrick Lauer wrote:
11 > > On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 03:28 +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote:
12 > > > I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and
13 > > > future of the GWN at their next meeting.
14 > > I don't think you have to escalate that far. We should be able to discuss things without the thermonuclear option ;-)
15 >
16 > I have no idea, I asked people, they suggested the Council. It may be
17 > the wrong place :)
18 >
19 > > > 1. Reliability. The GWN claims to be a weekly publication, yet it
20 > > > frequently fails to publish without prior warning. There was no edition
21 > > > this week, and Patrick Lauer says that it is "unknown" whether there
22 > > > will be an edition next week as Ulrich Plate is AWOL.
23 > > We have tried to get a backup structure working, Halcy0n for example
24 > > offered to help. Ulrich never responded to these offers. He usually has
25 > > a good reason for not doing the GWN (like no Internet access, broken notebook etc), but I also find this quite unsatisfactory.
26 >
27 > I am sure his reasons are good, and I agree there should be a backup
28 > structure in place.
29 >
30 > > > 2. Permissions. Although it could be considered flattering that the GWN
31 > > > should choose a developer's blog as inspiration for an article, they
32 > > > should ensure that they have the developer / author's permission before
33 > > > quoting them (see previous complaints by brix, ciaranm and others).
34 > > As far as I'm aware this has been taken care of. But with the GWN quite understaffed it is not easy to get everything done well.
35 > > I'd appreciate some more support from others, but sadly my recruiting
36 > > experiments usually ended after one contribution (for example summary of
37 > > the -user ML).
38 >
39 > Which is why I am hoping that by bringing it up elsewhere, someone may
40 > have some ideas of how to recruit people, or just attract people enough
41 > for them to make the occasional contribution.
42 >
43 > > > I also believe that when posting an article or interview, a copy should
44 > > > be sent to the relevant people to ensure that they are ok with what is
45 > > > being posted (my dev of the week interview, for example, was rather
46 > > > screwed up and misrepresentative).
47 > > My fault.
48 >
49 > Ok, thank you.
50 >
51 > > > When someone contacts GWN to have
52 > > > something corrected, it would be appreciated were the GWN staff to at
53 > > > least deign to acknowledge receipt, even if for some reason they choose
54 > > > not to honour the corrections or post a retraction (although refusing to
55 > > > publish corrections is extremely insulting to those wronged).
56 > > The reason for that is that the GWN is mostly sent out by mail. This
57 > > makes corrections a bit more difficult, but I think having a sane policy
58 > > for that would be helpful.
59 > >
60 > > > 3. Misinformation, misquotations and outright fabrications. Sure,
61 > > > there's freedom of the press, but that shouldn't be used as an excuse
62 > > > for deliberately making up quotes and printing intentional
63 > > > misinformation.
64 > > I don't know what exactly you are talking about here. But it shouldn't happen.
65 > >
66 > > > 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given.
67 > > Yes.
68 > >
69 > > > From a PR perspective, Gentoo could benefit greatly by better
70 > > > utilisation of the GWN. I believe that as it stands, however, the GWN is
71 > > > discouraging people from contributing and damaging Gentoo's credibility.
72 > > The problem with the GWN is the lack of reliable useful contributions.
73 > > There was a time when the GWN was ~80% written by me, but that took more
74 > > time than I could afford in the last weeks.
75 >
76 > See, if you spent less time arguing with that elitist bastard Chri...
77 > er, no :P Yes, I think what the GWN needs the most is more hands at the
78 > deck.
79 >
80 > > > Another thing that concerns me is the way the articles are written. It
81 > > > is blatanly obvious that the GWN writers are not native English speakers
82 > > > as both the grammar and the flow of the articles is far from attractive.
83 > > Help is appreciated :-)
84 > > The GWN has become a german thing, we have jokingly discussed writing it
85 > > in german and letting someone translate it to english.
86 >
87 > I don't think thats a bad bad idea, that is, maybe someone could atleast
88 > vamp it up a bit before it goes live.
89 >
90 > > > Having read through the archives, I notice that there was once a time
91 > > > when the GWN was a great publication, and I would like to think that it
92 > > > could become great yet again; in its current state, though, it is doing
93 > > > more harm than good.
94 > > Agreed.
95 > >
96 > > > Lack of content and poorly written or incorrect articles are often
97 > > > justified by the GWN team on grounds of overwork and insufficient
98 > > > manpower. When I asked why they were not recruiting, I was informed that
99 > > > no-one has any interest in contributing.
100 > > There's a big difference between one-off articles and continuous
101 > > contribution. Also those that I found most willing to contribute had the
102 > > biggest language problems - what we need is support from the native
103 > > speakers.
104 >
105 > Nod. I presume for some contributing weekly is rather difficult (finding
106 > something to write about, finding the time to draft, re-draft, clean,
107 > tidy, send off for feedback, double check, stand on their head etc etc)
108 > however I guess it would be possible to rotate if there was enough
109 > 'freelance editors' on the uh, payroll.
110 >
111 > > > Upon speaking with others,
112 > > > however, I find that this is not the case -- people are interested, but
113 > > > fear (and rightly so) that their work will be edited in such a way that
114 > > > it is no longer something with which they want to be associated.
115 > > >
116 > > > Another complaint is that the GWN rejects any writing style which has
117 > > > any degree of character or levity. Any attempt at dececnt writing (the
118 > > > kind that would make it into publication in English newspapers or
119 > > > magazines, for example), is met with the claim that "the GWN is not a
120 > > > humorous publication".
121 > > Blame the flamefests of the past. Whenever attempts were made to give
122 > > the GWN more dynamic it was flamed down (because ze german humor is not
123 > > funny! Nein! ;-) )
124 > > So the consensus was to keep the silly jokes out of the GWN since always
125 > > someone misunderstands or complains. I'd like to have it a bit more
126 > > open, funny, enjoyable ... but there's only so much I can do.
127 >
128 > So, what brought on the "This is not a humorous publication" attitude
129 > was infact outsiders rather than the GWN team, as in, it was reactional
130 > rather than a case of you guys just deciding fun was bad?
131 >
132 > > > I would like to see discussion about the way the GWN is
133 > > > (mis)representing Gentoo, how we can better actualise its full potential
134 > > > and what can be done to address the concerns listed above.
135 > > Sounds good. I hope at some point Ulrich responds.
136 >
137 > I hope so too, I also hope that anyone who may have some ideas will
138 > speak up rather than everyone just telling me how horrible I am for
139 > bringing these issues up! :)
140 >
141 > > Thanks for bringing this up,
142 >
143 > Thank you for pointing some of them out.
144 >

Attachments

File name MIME type
signature.asc application/pgp-signature