Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Corey Shields]

On Monday 31 October 2005 09:17 am, Lance Albertson wrote:
> Implementing --news will take time. Implementing more news on our site
> now takes little work and can be easily done. Outside of these two
> options, what is better? I'd say a constant reminder in the GWN would be
> helpful. Maybe we could add a big news warning in the next minor portage
> update that when you tells you about the new news features (perhaps a
> big einfo after you upgrade.
>
> I know thats not the best solution either, but I dont' foresee --news
> becoming a reality for a while.

I disagree that beefing up website news will get the word out.  The people who 
complain to me personally about major changes that they did not know about 
are the type of people who are not checking this sort of thing anyway. The 
last time I remember paying attention to the website news myself was to 
double check a post that I had made..  long ago.

Something like --news is bound to reach every admin and sounds like the best 
way to go.  Adding more news to the site is just going to push news that 
really matters off the front page quicker and cause possible problems with 
more and more people committing broken xml news items.  

What are going to be the criteria for posting such a news item?  We could have 
20+ posts a day just saying "Version bump, w00t!".

As for the earlier comment on this thread:  "Yes it will, because when a new 
users visits the front page for the first time to install Gentoo, they will 
see the important notices there and put a note in the back of their heads 
about it." (Chris White) What are you going to do to inform the people 
upgrading their system that they installed 3 years ago?  Sure, they may have 
read the front page when they installed it.  Are they going to want to have 
to read a web site on -every- upgrade?  no.

-C

-- 
Corey Shields
Gentoo Linux Infrastructure Team
Gentoo Foundation Board of Trustees
http://www.gentoo.org/~cshields