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Congratulations. I just unsubscribed from the |
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gwn-feedback-alias after reading your mail. |
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* Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@g.o> [06/06/10 04:28 +0100]: |
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> 1. Reliability. The GWN claims to be a weekly publication, yet it |
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> frequently fails to publish without prior warning. There was no edition |
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> this week, and Patrick Lauer says that it is "unknown" whether there |
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> will be an edition next week as Ulrich Plate is AWOL. |
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Several times Kurt or I took over the job of publicing the |
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GWN when Ulrich asked us. So, there is a backup, but he |
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didn't asked for this week. |
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> 2. Permissions. Although it could be considered flattering that the GWN |
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> should choose a developer's blog as inspiration for an article, they |
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> should ensure that they have the developer / author's permission before |
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> quoting them (see previous complaints by brix, ciaranm and others). |
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> |
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> I also believe that when posting an article or interview, a copy should |
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> be sent to the relevant people to ensure that they are ok with what is |
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> being posted (my dev of the week interview, for example, was rather |
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> screwed up and misrepresentative). When someone contacts GWN to have |
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> something corrected, it would be appreciated were the GWN staff to at |
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> least deign to acknowledge receipt, even if for some reason they choose |
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> not to honour the corrections or post a retraction (although refusing to |
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> publish corrections is extremely insulting to those wronged). |
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And I expect the same from you. You should ask the affected |
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people first before starting a discussion about them on our |
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public mailing lists. This is a device I can give you for |
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further userrelations-activities. |
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> 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given. |
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It is. Either as "Author" or "Contributor". |
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> Another thing that concerns me is the way the articles are written. It |
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> is blatanly obvious that the GWN writers are not native English speakers |
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> as both the grammar and the flow of the articles is far from attractive. |
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> Having read through the archives, I notice that there was once a time |
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> when the GWN was a great publication, and I would like to think that it |
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> could become great yet again; in its current state, though, it is doing |
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> more harm than good. |
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It's quite interesting to see, that the GWN and also |
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Debian's Weekly Newsletter is run by Germans mostly. Is |
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there a problem with native speakers to run a periodically |
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newsletter for a long time (> 3 years)? |
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> Lack of content and poorly written or incorrect articles are often |
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> justified by the GWN team on grounds of overwork and insufficient |
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> manpower. When I asked why they were not recruiting, I was informed that |
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> no-one has any interest in contributing. Upon speaking with others, |
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> however, I find that this is not the case -- people are interested, but |
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> fear (and rightly so) that their work will be edited in such a way that |
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> it is no longer something with which they want to be associated. |
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Subscribe to the gwn-feedback-alias and read or comment the |
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submissions to the GWN. Make sure that every user will |
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receive and answer. And forward questions to the |
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arch-teams. Isn't that userrel's job? I didn't saw your |
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contributions there yet. |
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Regards, Lars |
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