Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
On 23:35 Sat 31 Jan , Alec Warner wrote: > On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 10:20 PM, Donnie Berkholz > wrote: > > Yes, it would be a good idea to put expectations wherever people find > > our contact info. Here's roughly what they are: One other thing. Media requests will get quick responses. > I'll try and transcribe these somewhere; email is not a good place for them. Probably http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/contact.xml#pr -- Thanks, Donnie Donnie Berkholz Developer, Gentoo Linux Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com pgpXXlACbhXwQ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 10:20 PM, Donnie Berkholz wrote: > On 01:55 Tue 27 Jan , Alec Warner wrote: >> Getting Index2 live is I think a different operational issue (that >> changes to the website are very slow) and really has nothing to do >> with PR aside from them not nagging someone to commit it ;) > > In this case, Xavier had it ready in early January, and I was blocking > on it for the last 2 weeks to write up an announcement. > >> PR@ is a nghtmare of spam and what I'll term 'crap.' having real >> things marked as such with informative subjects would be useful. >> having some kind of rotation would be useful having some kind of vague >> 'we will read and respond within 3 days unless its a holiday' would be >> useful. >> >> Right now the expectations of pr@ are non-existent and apparently >> think the mail is read and answered quickly. In reality only Donnie >> reads it and replies; he has a busy as hell personal life and I'm >> surprised he manages to read it at all. >> >> So I would like to set expectations ;) > > Yes, it would be a good idea to put expectations wherever people find > our contact info. Here's roughly what they are: > > 1. If it is a prewritten news item that needs editing, it will get a quick > response. > > 2. If it is news that is not accompanied by a draft of some sort, no > estimated response time. This point is where I think we have the biggest > opportunity for improvement. > > 3. If it is an additional vendor listing for CDs, no estimated response > time. These generally get batched and done at extended intervals. > > 4. If it is a user support request, no estimated response time. > Occasionally someone will respond to say that we don't do support at pr@ > and point at appropriate places like forums, lists, IRC. I'll try and transcribe these somewhere; email is not a good place for them. -Alec > > -- > Thanks, > Donnie > > Donnie Berkholz > Developer, Gentoo Linux > Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com >
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
On 08:42 Tue 27 Jan , AllenJB wrote: > If you have some insight as to why these are apparent issues, please > teach me. I would not have posted this thread if it were not for the > fact that several developers also seem to think there is a problem and > there seems to be no discussion going on that I can see as to what the > causes of the problems are and how to solve them, so I decided to start > one. > > PR has the dubious honor of being probably the most publicly visible of > all the Gentoo projects, so maybe the issues are being blown out of > proportion, but without any discussion there's no way to discover > whether or not this is the case. I guess this is the part that really gets on my nerves. If you have a complaint like this, directly contact the person or group responsible and try to work things out with them. Don't go to the entire developer community as if the sky has fallen. -- Thanks, Donnie Donnie Berkholz Developer, Gentoo Linux Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com pgp7Kl9RpJ2jw.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
On 01:55 Tue 27 Jan , Alec Warner wrote: > Getting Index2 live is I think a different operational issue (that > changes to the website are very slow) and really has nothing to do > with PR aside from them not nagging someone to commit it ;) In this case, Xavier had it ready in early January, and I was blocking on it for the last 2 weeks to write up an announcement. > PR@ is a nghtmare of spam and what I'll term 'crap.' having real > things marked as such with informative subjects would be useful. > having some kind of rotation would be useful having some kind of vague > 'we will read and respond within 3 days unless its a holiday' would be > useful. > > Right now the expectations of pr@ are non-existent and apparently > think the mail is read and answered quickly. In reality only Donnie > reads it and replies; he has a busy as hell personal life and I'm > surprised he manages to read it at all. > > So I would like to set expectations ;) Yes, it would be a good idea to put expectations wherever people find our contact info. Here's roughly what they are: 1. If it is a prewritten news item that needs editing, it will get a quick response. 2. If it is news that is not accompanied by a draft of some sort, no estimated response time. This point is where I think we have the biggest opportunity for improvement. 3. If it is an additional vendor listing for CDs, no estimated response time. These generally get batched and done at extended intervals. 4. If it is a user support request, no estimated response time. Occasionally someone will respond to say that we don't do support at pr@ and point at appropriate places like forums, lists, IRC. -- Thanks, Donnie Donnie Berkholz Developer, Gentoo Linux Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com pgpY0GwXSlcj3.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
Oo Envoyé avec BlackBerry® d'Orange -Original Message- From: AllenJB Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:30:34 To: Subject: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues Hi all, The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These issues are apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo website to make it easier to navigate and help the project appear more active than is reflected by the current front page. If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then perhaps more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what they entail (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics on who to talk to for those interested). The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value obtained from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for newsletters, etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to convert articles to GuideXML and get the newsletters published? Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or web-only. Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then copied and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously require minimal formatting work. My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter would become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS. Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would just be released as soon as they are produced. The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can publish from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the website without any intervention. As above, articles would be published as and when they are ready. Instead of just 1 editor, this website-based setup would be able to have multiple editors with little collaboration required (just to mark submissions as being worked on when an editor picks them up, which should be easily doable using a ticket-based system (bugzilla) or mailing list). An advantage, as I see it, of the website-based system is that it could be expanded to include features not currently easily possible with the current newsletter - categorized archiving of articles (not just be publish date) and user comments. While I haven't looked, it's probably possible to even find a CMS which includes email notification of new articles as a feature. AllenJB PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda item, but I couldn't stop writing. PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a developer, I just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. That'll hopefully change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job.
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
Man Shankar wrote: > On 23:51 Mon 26 Jan , Alec Warner wrote: > [snipped] > > >> A long time ago I suggested some sort of pr-onduty role where >> basically for a set period you are the prime pr contact and if someone >> has news it is your job to review and post it or reject it. This was >> never implemented; but may be a good idea if we are limited by commit >> access. One of the main problems with posting to an alias is that you >> can always not reply and it will become someone else's problem(TM) >> until no one replies and the message is ignored. >> > +1 > Recently, i had started a thread here on -dev regarding the newsletter. > I was asked to post to gmn-feedback. Sorry, haven't heard from them as > yet. I wonder a pr-onduty may have worked! > > >> I for one almost never read pr@ because it is mostly spam and it is >> difficult to locate useful requests from crap. It may be useful to >> tag important items with NEWS ITEM or UPDATE or something. >> >> If GuideXML makes it hard to post we can perhaps develop a technical >> solution. >> >> If there is not enough content I'm sure we can brainstorm ideas on >> what we could do (index2 covers this area pretty well IMHO). >> > > I doubt lack of content to be the real issue. As the OP mentions, if such a > problem exists why not ask for help from the community in a more direct way. > Maybe, something like the monthly reminders we get for the council-meeting. > To back up the fact that lack of content should be a non-issue is the > following excerpt from the thread i mentioned: > > Nathan Zachary wrote: > I would be happy to help out with the newsletter, especially > with the "one article." > > So, see, people are willing to help with the content. Their prowess needs > to be utilized and channeled, i guess. > >> But mostly I want to address concrete problems. >> >> -Alec >> >> > > The more I look at the discussion lists, the less I want to contribute. I understand that correcting someone for posting to the wrong list is expected, but the way that it is done is equally as important. For instance, saying "Firstly, it's wonderful that you'd like to help with project X. You might get a better response if you offer a submission to such and such list instead." is radically more beneficial than "Wrong list; check the website before cluttering the discussion lists." I joined the forum staff because I had not witnessed that type of superiority there. Rather, I had seen a willingness for users and developers to help each other out with questions, comments, or concerns. I'm hoping that this trend doesn't continue. Regarding the original topic, I think a reminder on the forum and on the mailing lists would be great for the newsletter. At my place of employment, there is an email sent out to everyone saying something along the lines of "don't forget to submit your ideas for the January newsletter," and so on. If such a reminder is sent out a few days beforehand, there might be a better response to submission requests. --Zach
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
Alec Warner wrote: > > Why do you not tend to commit news or approve things? > > PR@ is a nghtmare of spam and what I'll term 'crap.' having real > things marked as such with informative subjects would be useful. > having some kind of rotation would be useful > having some kind of vague 'we will read and respond within 3 days > unless its a holiday' would be useful. > > Right now the expectations of pr@ are non-existent and apparently > think the mail is read and answered quickly. In reality only Donnie > reads it and replies; he has a busy as hell personal life and I'm > surprised he manages to read it at all. Oh, it's not only Donnie - there's also Kurt replying and sometimes it's even me and some other people as well. I'm following the pr@ alias for quite some years, mainly looking for things or questions having something to do with European events, things and $whatever. I don't have commit access to the website part of our CVS though - I did ask for commit access exactly one month ago when Donnie asked for someone posting the January Bugday news item. Simply put: there are other people following the pr@ alias. > So I would like to set expectations ;) One expectation would be to build some pr *team*. Another thing would be to have an issue tracker like rt or otrs. This would make sure items are answered (and if it's only a quick reply stating "we did receive your mail, but we need to look at your questions and will reply in the next $number of days") and would allow to use boilerplates to answer "standard" questions. This would also allow some kind of escalation for tickets which are due. Another thing I'd like to see are regional pr contacts - guess it's the third or even fourth time I'm suggesting this over the years :P What's also missing and that's the topic the most questions to pr@ are about is a process on when and how someone is getting added to the "Where to get Gentoo" page [1] (mostly CD distributors). Anyways, that'll all be nice things - but it all comes down to a PR *team* which is obviously missing. Tobias [1] http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml signature.asc Description: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
On 23:51 Mon 26 Jan , Alec Warner wrote: [snipped] > A long time ago I suggested some sort of pr-onduty role where > basically for a set period you are the prime pr contact and if someone > has news it is your job to review and post it or reject it. This was > never implemented; but may be a good idea if we are limited by commit > access. One of the main problems with posting to an alias is that you > can always not reply and it will become someone else's problem(TM) > until no one replies and the message is ignored. +1 Recently, i had started a thread here on -dev regarding the newsletter. I was asked to post to gmn-feedback. Sorry, haven't heard from them as yet. I wonder a pr-onduty may have worked! > > I for one almost never read pr@ because it is mostly spam and it is > difficult to locate useful requests from crap. It may be useful to > tag important items with NEWS ITEM or UPDATE or something. > > If GuideXML makes it hard to post we can perhaps develop a technical solution. > > If there is not enough content I'm sure we can brainstorm ideas on > what we could do (index2 covers this area pretty well IMHO). I doubt lack of content to be the real issue. As the OP mentions, if such a problem exists why not ask for help from the community in a more direct way. Maybe, something like the monthly reminders we get for the council-meeting. To back up the fact that lack of content should be a non-issue is the following excerpt from the thread i mentioned: Nathan Zachary wrote: I would be happy to help out with the newsletter, especially with the "one article." So, see, people are willing to help with the content. Their prowess needs to be utilized and channeled, i guess. > But mostly I want to address concrete problems. > > -Alec > -- Thanks & Regards, Man Shankar
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 12:17 AM, AllenJB wrote: > Alec Warner wrote: >> >> On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 1:30 PM, AllenJB >> wrote: >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with >>> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe >>> this >>> is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These issues are >>> apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo website to make it >>> easier to navigate and help the project appear more active than is >>> reflected >>> by the current front page. >>> >>> If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then perhaps >>> more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what they >>> entail >>> (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics on who to >>> talk >>> to for those interested). >>> >>> The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me >>> wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value >>> obtained >>> from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for >>> newsletters, >>> etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to convert articles >>> to >>> GuideXML and get the newsletters published? >> >> So you go on to describe issues with thew Newsletter. >> >> What kind of issues? >> Is there not enough content? > > At the moment the newsletter isn't getting published at all. If this is > because there's not enough content being submitted, then I think more needs > to be done to encourage submissions and/or actively seek out and write > articles. > > This comes back to the number of editors the newsletter currently has, which > is influenced by the skills required to work on the newsletter (currently > CVS, GuideXML and knowledge of the scripts used to generate standard > content). > So in short, we have no idea why the newsletter has not been published. Lets ask the GMN folks (added to the CC) as I am curious as well. >> Is GuideXML in fact a barrier for submission (do we get complaints about >> it?) > > If there isn't enough content being submitted to actually produce one, then > tell the community this. As said above, perhaps mroe needs to be done to > actively seek out and create content. > sounds good; I agree we need to be more vocal here. >> Are there insufficient translators? > > I can't see that translators is an issue, because even the English version > isn't getting published. > >> Are the editors not posting content quick enough? >> Are the editors editing properly? >> Are there enough posters in general? >> >>> Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or >>> web-only. >>> >>> Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then >>> copied >>> and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously require >>> minimal formatting work. >> >> Ok, but if the problems are with finding material; changing how the >> material is posted will not help. > > The idea behind this was to reproduce the amount of work involved in taking > a plain text submission (which I would guess is the form most submissions > come in) and getting it published in the newsletter. This method removes the > need for conversion to GuideXML. Hrm, I assume s/reproduce/reduce/ here. I personally think transcribing the text to guideXML is a fairly simple process and y'all are a bunch of whiners (and I am too; work has HTML documentation and it sucks). But its what we have and it works fairly well and I think a lot of folks are annoyed when people pop in to redesign everything. We resist change ;) > >> >>> My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think >>> would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter >>> would >>> become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS. >>> Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would >>> just >>> be released as soon as they are produced. >> >> Why does a new shiny CMS enable this? Certainly we could provide >> access to news/ to a broader audience? >> You seem to think the target audience cannot author GuideXML though. >> >>> The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be >>> easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly >>> done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can >>> publish >>> from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the >>> website >>> without any intervention. >> >> This is covered by index2; so I'll ignore it ;) > > You're assuming index2 ever goes live. From what I've seen it's been hanging > around for at least 6 months in a "ready to go live" state, so I'm not > holding any hopes of this happening any time soon. =P Getting Index2 live is I think a different operational issue (that changes to the website are very slow) and really has nothing to do with PR aside from them not nagging someone to commit it ;)
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
Donnie Berkholz wrote: On 21:30 Mon 26 Jan , AllenJB wrote: The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. It's easy to complain and harder to take action to actually improve things. From my point of view, it seems like you've got an awful lot of time for the former and none for the latter. Regarding the parts of PR besides the newsletter and events, let me know once you've done something useful like do the work to close a few PR bugs, and we'll talk then. I submitted a newsletter item a couple of months ago in GuideXML format.[0] I have some ideas forming for more, but I'm kind of dissuaded by the lack of actual publishing of the newsletter or any news about why it is not being published. [0] http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gmn/20081130-newsletter.xml As I said in my opening post, I currently don't believe I have the time to commit to being a full time developer, but intend to as soon as I do. If you have some insight as to why these are apparent issues, please teach me. I would not have posted this thread if it were not for the fact that several developers also seem to think there is a problem and there seems to be no discussion going on that I can see as to what the causes of the problems are and how to solve them, so I decided to start one. PR has the dubious honor of being probably the most publicly visible of all the Gentoo projects, so maybe the issues are being blown out of proportion, but without any discussion there's no way to discover whether or not this is the case. Perhaps things would be better if we did not discuss this at just let the status quo stand? AllenJB
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
Alec Warner wrote: On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 1:30 PM, AllenJB wrote: Hi all, The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These issues are apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo website to make it easier to navigate and help the project appear more active than is reflected by the current front page. If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then perhaps more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what they entail (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics on who to talk to for those interested). The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value obtained from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for newsletters, etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to convert articles to GuideXML and get the newsletters published? So you go on to describe issues with thew Newsletter. What kind of issues? Is there not enough content? At the moment the newsletter isn't getting published at all. If this is because there's not enough content being submitted, then I think more needs to be done to encourage submissions and/or actively seek out and write articles. This comes back to the number of editors the newsletter currently has, which is influenced by the skills required to work on the newsletter (currently CVS, GuideXML and knowledge of the scripts used to generate standard content). Is GuideXML in fact a barrier for submission (do we get complaints about it?) If there isn't enough content being submitted to actually produce one, then tell the community this. As said above, perhaps mroe needs to be done to actively seek out and create content. Are there insufficient translators? I can't see that translators is an issue, because even the English version isn't getting published. Are the editors not posting content quick enough? Are the editors editing properly? Are there enough posters in general? Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or web-only. Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then copied and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously require minimal formatting work. Ok, but if the problems are with finding material; changing how the material is posted will not help. The idea behind this was to reproduce the amount of work involved in taking a plain text submission (which I would guess is the form most submissions come in) and getting it published in the newsletter. This method removes the need for conversion to GuideXML. My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter would become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS. Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would just be released as soon as they are produced. Why does a new shiny CMS enable this? Certainly we could provide access to news/ to a broader audience? You seem to think the target audience cannot author GuideXML though. The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can publish from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the website without any intervention. This is covered by index2; so I'll ignore it ;) You're assuming index2 ever goes live. From what I've seen it's been hanging around for at least 6 months in a "ready to go live" state, so I'm not holding any hopes of this happening any time soon. =P As above, articles would be published as and when they are ready. Instead of just 1 editor, this website-based setup would be able to have multiple editors with little collaboration required (just to mark submissions as being worked on when an editor picks them up, which should be easily doable using a ticket-based system (bugzilla) or mailing list). Does the current news have only 1 editor? I am on PR but I tend not to commit news or approve things. Why do you not tend to commit news or approve things? It may not be just the 1 editor, but I suspect the problem is a general lack of active editors. From what I've read, current GMN publishers require knowledge of how to run all the scripts to generate the standard content and write GuideXML to a pretty good standard. I suspect this is all quite time consuming (from the little I've done in GuideXML, I certainly find that time consuming). This suggestion would: 1) Drop the skill requirements for news article publishers to being able to operate a CMS 2) Require minimum collaboration between multiple editor
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 11:17 PM, Ben de Groot wrote: > Donnie Berkholz wrote: >> On 21:30 Mon 26 Jan , AllenJB wrote: >>> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with >>> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe >>> this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. >> >> It's easy to complain and harder to take action to actually improve >> things. From my point of view, it seems like you've got an awful lot of >> time for the former and none for the latter. >> >> Regarding the parts of PR besides the newsletter and events, let me know >> once you've done something useful like do the work to close a few PR >> bugs, and we'll talk then. >> > Allen has real heart for Gentoo and is very active on the forums. He > doesn't deserve to be brushed of like this. He is willing to help, he is > thinking with us and coming up with ideas about how to improve the > distro we all love to use. It is this kind of dismissive behavior that > gives us the name of being arrogant and difficult to work with, at which > point we loose a lot of goodwill from users who are (were) willing to > help. I know you better than that, Donnie. So I'll write it off as a > temporary lapse of judgement. > > There is valid critique on the slow functioning of PR, and we should try > to work this out in our mutual benefit. There is room for improvement, > and I'm happy steps are already being taken into that direction (index2 > especially). Let's see how we can speed things up and spread the load. > Having more people join the PR team would be a logical step, in my opinion. Knowing something is broken is one thing (I think we all agree PR could be better). Knowing why it is broken is another. Trying to come up with a solution when you don't even know the scope of the problem is generally a bad idea. I would be more willing to accept advice and criticism from someone who was on PR for 30 days and then could provide some specific feedback on what works and what doesn't. I think that is partially what Donnie is trying to communicate with his comment. So I say again: Lack of content? GuideXML makes it hard to post? Too few people with posting privs? Other perceived problems? A long time ago I suggested some sort of pr-onduty role where basically for a set period you are the prime pr contact and if someone has news it is your job to review and post it or reject it. This was never implemented; but may be a good idea if we are limited by commit access. One of the main problems with posting to an alias is that you can always not reply and it will become someone else's problem(TM) until no one replies and the message is ignored. I for one almost never read pr@ because it is mostly spam and it is difficult to locate useful requests from crap. It may be useful to tag important items with NEWS ITEM or UPDATE or something. If GuideXML makes it hard to post we can perhaps develop a technical solution. If there is not enough content I'm sure we can brainstorm ideas on what we could do (index2 covers this area pretty well IMHO). But mostly I want to address concrete problems. -Alec > > Cheers, > -- > Ben de Groot > Gentoo Linux developer (lxde, media, qt, desktop-misc) > Gentoo Linux Release Engineering PR liaison > __ > > yng...@gentoo.org > http://ben.liveforge.org/ > irc://chat.freenode.net/#gentoo-media > irc://irc.oftc.net/#lxde > __ > > >
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
Donnie Berkholz wrote: > On 21:30 Mon 26 Jan , AllenJB wrote: >> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with >> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe >> this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. > > It's easy to complain and harder to take action to actually improve > things. From my point of view, it seems like you've got an awful lot of > time for the former and none for the latter. > > Regarding the parts of PR besides the newsletter and events, let me know > once you've done something useful like do the work to close a few PR > bugs, and we'll talk then. > Allen has real heart for Gentoo and is very active on the forums. He doesn't deserve to be brushed of like this. He is willing to help, he is thinking with us and coming up with ideas about how to improve the distro we all love to use. It is this kind of dismissive behavior that gives us the name of being arrogant and difficult to work with, at which point we loose a lot of goodwill from users who are (were) willing to help. I know you better than that, Donnie. So I'll write it off as a temporary lapse of judgement. There is valid critique on the slow functioning of PR, and we should try to work this out in our mutual benefit. There is room for improvement, and I'm happy steps are already being taken into that direction (index2 especially). Let's see how we can speed things up and spread the load. Having more people join the PR team would be a logical step, in my opinion. Cheers, -- Ben de Groot Gentoo Linux developer (lxde, media, qt, desktop-misc) Gentoo Linux Release Engineering PR liaison __ yng...@gentoo.org http://ben.liveforge.org/ irc://chat.freenode.net/#gentoo-media irc://irc.oftc.net/#lxde __
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
On 21:30 Mon 26 Jan , AllenJB wrote: > The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with > keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe > this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. It's easy to complain and harder to take action to actually improve things. From my point of view, it seems like you've got an awful lot of time for the former and none for the latter. Regarding the parts of PR besides the newsletter and events, let me know once you've done something useful like do the work to close a few PR bugs, and we'll talk then. -- Thanks, Donnie Donnie Berkholz Developer, Gentoo Linux Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com pgpv39auqgejI.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 1:30 PM, AllenJB wrote: > Hi all, > > The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with > keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe this > is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These issues are > apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo website to make it > easier to navigate and help the project appear more active than is reflected > by the current front page. > > If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then perhaps > more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what they entail > (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics on who to talk > to for those interested). > > The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me > wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value obtained > from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for newsletters, > etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to convert articles to > GuideXML and get the newsletters published? So you go on to describe issues with thew Newsletter. What kind of issues? Is there not enough content? Is GuideXML in fact a barrier for submission (do we get complaints about it?) Are there insufficient translators? Are the editors not posting content quick enough? Are the editors editing properly? Are there enough posters in general? > > Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or > web-only. > > Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then copied > and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously require > minimal formatting work. Ok, but if the problems are with finding material; changing how the material is posted will not help. > > My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think > would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter would > become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS. > Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would just > be released as soon as they are produced. Why does a new shiny CMS enable this? Certainly we could provide access to news/ to a broader audience? You seem to think the target audience cannot author GuideXML though. > > The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be > easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly > done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can publish > from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the website > without any intervention. This is covered by index2; so I'll ignore it ;) > > As above, articles would be published as and when they are ready. Instead of > just 1 editor, this website-based setup would be able to have multiple > editors with little collaboration required (just to mark submissions as > being worked on when an editor picks them up, which should be easily doable > using a ticket-based system (bugzilla) or mailing list). Does the current news have only 1 editor? I am on PR but I tend not to commit news or approve things. I would propose an alternative alias or subject tag that will single your post request out from the other trash that gets sent to pr@; that way it might actually receive some attention. > > An advantage, as I see it, of the website-based system is that it could be > expanded to include features not currently easily possible with the current > newsletter - categorized archiving of articles (not just be publish date) > and user comments. While I haven't looked, it's probably possible to even > find a CMS which includes email notification of new articles as a feature. This is a bad sell; we could certainly expand the current one as well (with cool new features!) except we have no staff for that (in either system). Talk about what you will do; not what you plan to do in the nefarious future when you have copious amounts of free time ;) > > > AllenJB > > PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda item, > but I couldn't stop writing. > > PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a developer, I > just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. That'll hopefully > change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job. > >
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 6:30 AM, AllenJB wrote: > My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think > would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter would > become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS. > Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would just > be released as soon as they are produced. > > The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be > easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly > done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can publish > from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the website > without any intervention. Allan, firstly I really like and appreciate that you're interested in Gentoo PR. You're not the only one concerned about it :) I also tried to help out with the newsletter a few months ago... not the best experience. However. Besides bugstats and dev join/retires, gentoo.org/index2.xml has already implemented everything you're talking about. It gets news as soon as it's written, has GLSAs and package additions generated automatically (could add removals), plus the blog roll is such a great step toward showing the active side of gentoo. What would be _really_ cool is if the WYSISYG guideXML editor quantumsummers is (was?) working on allowed users and devs alike to submit news stories to the PR team. Anyway, It sounds like your idea is essentially getting rid of the newsletter and adding more automatic stats to the front page. No need to create a new page with a different CMS. Thoughts? -Doug
Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 AllenJB wrote: | Hi all, | | My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter would become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS. Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would just be released as soon as they are produced. | +1 ~ I really like this idea. This could also add more dynamism to the Gentoo Project from the end-user's point of view. Count me in if you need help setting things up!. | | AllenJB | | PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda item, but I couldn't stop writing. | | PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a developer, I just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. That'll hopefully change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job. | Jesús Rivero -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkl+dZgACgkQdIssYB9vBoNmfACfXgVgHyhLoHMfNNSD5OkXkJbx tJ0An13BDjCKqBxirhCUsXIGPk3+nlsI =ZBmJ -END PGP SIGNATURE-
[gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues
Hi all, The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These issues are apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo website to make it easier to navigate and help the project appear more active than is reflected by the current front page. If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then perhaps more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what they entail (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics on who to talk to for those interested). The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value obtained from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for newsletters, etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to convert articles to GuideXML and get the newsletters published? Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or web-only. Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then copied and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously require minimal formatting work. My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter would become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS. Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would just be released as soon as they are produced. The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can publish from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the website without any intervention. As above, articles would be published as and when they are ready. Instead of just 1 editor, this website-based setup would be able to have multiple editors with little collaboration required (just to mark submissions as being worked on when an editor picks them up, which should be easily doable using a ticket-based system (bugzilla) or mailing list). An advantage, as I see it, of the website-based system is that it could be expanded to include features not currently easily possible with the current newsletter - categorized archiving of articles (not just be publish date) and user comments. While I haven't looked, it's probably possible to even find a CMS which includes email notification of new articles as a feature. AllenJB PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda item, but I couldn't stop writing. PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a developer, I just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. That'll hopefully change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job.
