Re: community managers

[Andre Klapper]

On Mon, 2012-11-12 at 15:17 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> But I am looking for some good people who can fill the role of
> community manager.  Clearly, we have a problem relating to our user
> base and some of the decisions have become more controversial than it
> needs to be.

Could you elaborate a bit more what you expect a community manager to
do, especially refering to GNOME?

andre
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Re: community managers

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 4:12 PM, Andre Klapper  wrote:

> On Mon, 2012-11-12 at 15:17 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> > But I am looking for some good people who can fill the role of
> > community manager.  Clearly, we have a problem relating to our user
> > base and some of the decisions have become more controversial than it
> > needs to be.
>
> Could you elaborate a bit more what you expect a community manager to
> do, especially refering to GNOME?
>
>
Sure.  Here is what I envision:

The community managers are the interface between the general community and
GNOME project.  Primarily, their goal is to communicate GNOME design goals,
address concerns and common mis-characterizations of GNOME.  CM will
monitor mailing lists, blogs, and other places and engage.  I used to do
this quite often back during the 3.0.  I will say that it was somewhat
effective.  It was especially effective with kernel developers who I think
have a better opinion of GNOME than initially, but the contact must be
continual.

Additionally, I want to  add a filter on issues that are relevant or
different than the common complaints we have.  That might require filing
bugs on their behalf or maybe suggesting solutions.  Like I did for Linus
or others.

Another important aspect is that you want to also raise the profile of
community management.  They should have some input in release-team
decisions.

At work, community managers exist for Yocto and are a big part of how Yocto
works and something we take seriously.

CM will need a thick skin, and will probably need to give a steady drumbeat
of information with an even, friendly tone, without getting emotional.

sri

 andre
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>
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Re: community managers

[Dave Neary]

Hi Sri,

On 11/13/2012 12:17 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:

But I am looking for some good people who can fill the role of community
manager.  Clearly, we have a problem relating to our user base and some
of the decisions have become more controversial than it needs to be.


Just for the sake of clarity, it sounds like you're suggesting an unpaid 
volunteer position to co-ordinate the promotion, website maintenance and 
"welcome committee" for the GNOME project. Is that correct?


I like the idea of having some people who give more time to marketing 
and the other tasks. Not sure it would be called a community manager in 
the context of GNOME, and certainly I don't think that a GNOME community 
manager would be quite so invested with authority as Dawn Foster was for 
MeeGo and Tizen, for example.



Let me know if you are interested.  I will make a similar note on
foundation list.


Perhaps this kind of marketing role is something which could be 
fulfilled by the GNOME Foundation? We've paid for interns before, but a 
longer term full-time position under the ED would allow for us to 
structure our efforts, take care of all those "no-one is giving it time 
and love" stuff we all agree needs to get done... it is "only" a 
question of money, I think.


I don't know if we'll have success finding one individual to take on all 
that responsibility as a part-time unpaid volunteer. Perhaps a group 
working together could do it... Or a paid individual.


Cheers,
Dave.

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Re: community managers

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 12:47 AM, Dave Neary  wrote:

>
> Hi Sri,
>
>
> On 11/13/2012 12:17 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>
>> But I am looking for some good people who can fill the role of community
>> manager.  Clearly, we have a problem relating to our user base and some
>> of the decisions have become more controversial than it needs to be.
>>
>
> Just for the sake of clarity, it sounds like you're suggesting an unpaid
> volunteer position to co-ordinate the promotion, website maintenance and
> "welcome committee" for the GNOME project. Is that correct?
>
>
Not really.  I'm suggesting an unpaid volunteer position to talk to users
on various forums like lwn.net, slashdot, reddit, google+ and so forth.

There are common themes and complaints  that seem to come up over and over
again and I would like volunteers to at least filter these complaints
legitimate or otherwise.

As a project, we are having trouble communicating our vision because
everything gets lost in a sea of vitriol due to past actions or perceived
actions.  For instance, removing fallback is seen as yet again the GNOME
project is removing a feature instead of an act of maintenance and
sustainability.

The constant negativity can cost us users and we need to take that
seriously.  In the past, we could ignore it because it was the default
desktop of Ubuntu which has fairly large marketshare.  But now it's a
little harder and we need to strengthen our brand or risk weakening it.  We
do not have data either way, so we should be paranoid all the same.



> I like the idea of having some people who give more time to marketing and
> the other tasks. Not sure it would be called a community manager in the
> context of GNOME, and certainly I don't think that a GNOME community
> manager would be quite so invested with authority as Dawn Foster was for
> MeeGo and Tizen, for example.
>
>
It's a little different than Meego and Tizen.  There is definitely some
authority.  But that doesn't mean we can't have something similar.  After
all, GNOME design doesn't have any authority but is able to convince
maintainers that doing their approach is best for their application.

We can apply a similar structure but between release team, design and
community manager team.

It won't be easy, culturally like every other open source project we like
to do what we want as we see fit.  Nothing wrong with that, but as the
project gets larger we do need to make sure that we are listening to
community concerns and avoid needless conflicts.

Release team and designers of course will be free to accept or not accept
what we hear.  But at least there will be able to get a sanitized feedback
rather than what we have today which is designing within a bubble without
any idea how things are being perceived in the general community.



>
>  Let me know if you are interested.  I will make a similar note on
>> foundation list.
>>
>
> Perhaps this kind of marketing role is something which could be fulfilled
> by the GNOME Foundation? We've paid for interns before, but a longer term
> full-time position under the ED would allow for us to structure our
> efforts, take care of all those "no-one is giving it time and love" stuff
> we all agree needs to get done... it is "only" a question of money, I think.
>
>
We can do interns, but I have had a number of people already interested in
doing what I'm envisioning.  It's no different than what they are already
doing today but they have the power at their descretion to use the royal
"we" as opposed to "I".  (which I sometimes I use for particular people who
I am interested in hearig feedback from)


> I don't know if we'll have success finding one individual to take on all
> that responsibility as a part-time unpaid volunteer. Perhaps a group
> working together could do it... Or a paid individual.
>
>
I'm envisioning a team of 10 volunteers.  10 volunteers who start out as
community managers and then hopefully will be interested in doing other
things within the project.

I currently have four as of right now.  Need to recruit six more!

sri

> Cheers,
> Dave.
>
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> Email: dne...@gnome.org
> Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
>
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Re: community managers

[Dave Neary]

Hi,

On 11/13/2012 06:53 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:

As a project, we are having trouble communicating our vision because
everything gets lost in a sea of vitriol due to past actions or
perceived actions.  For instance, removing fallback is seen as yet again
the GNOME project is removing a feature instead of an act of maintenance
and sustainability.


I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our vision, 
because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of the 
project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision has 
either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not 
got clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For 
instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that 
Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the GNOME 
project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME community 
(and I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors - 
developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).



After all, GNOME design doesn't have any authority but is able to
convince maintainers that doing their approach is best for their
application.


I disagree with your analogy.


I'm envisioning a team of 10 volunteers.  10 volunteers who start out as
community managers and then hopefully will be interested in doing other
things within the project.

I currently have four as of right now.  Need to recruit six more!


Sounds like a plan, and we certainly need to do something to stop the rot.

Cheers,
Dave.

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Re: community managers

[Seif Lotfy]

Hello,
First I love the idea of a community team. KDE already has such a team with
a good mission (http://ev.kde.org/workinggroups/cwg.php).I think studying
their history and experience would be beneficial to the community team.

After discussing this Lydia from KDE, it looks more like a "Public
Relations" team more than a "Community Management" team. Both do have some
common tasks. I think a Community team should encompass a PR team.

Agreed. We have a problem communicating our vision internally and
externally.
Internally it seems like not all of us are on the same page, e.g: "theming
will damage our brand". Or systemd dependencies etc. Do all "high profile"
GNOME contributors agree on this?

Before communicating to the outside world that "XYZ" is a fact we need to
at least agree on it internally. Taking the liberties with ones own modules
without general consensus inside the community leads to friction and
arguments. This is something that a community team should work on, make
people inside the community get along, reduce friction.

As a community team another mission would be working on communication
between devs, on mailing lists and bugs. Damage caused by snarky, arrogant
or dismissive remarks should be controlled and positive communication
efforts have to promoted and praised.

Just my 2 cents
Cheers
Seif

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Dave Neary  wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
> On 11/13/2012 06:53 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>
>> As a project, we are having trouble communicating our vision because
>> everything gets lost in a sea of vitriol due to past actions or
>> perceived actions.  For instance, removing fallback is seen as yet again
>> the GNOME project is removing a feature instead of an act of maintenance
>> and sustainability.
>>
>
> I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our vision,
> because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of the
> project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision has
> either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not got
> clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For
> instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that
> Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the GNOME
> project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME community (and
> I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors -
> developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).


>  After all, GNOME design doesn't have any authority but is able to
>> convince maintainers that doing their approach is best for their
>> application.
>>
>
> I disagree with your analogy.


>  I'm envisioning a team of 10 volunteers.  10 volunteers who start out as
>> community managers and then hopefully will be interested in doing other
>> things within the project.
>>
>> I currently have four as of right now.  Need to recruit six more!
>>
>
> Sounds like a plan, and we certainly need to do something to stop the rot.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Dave.
>
> --
> Dave Neary, Lyon, France
> Email: dne...@gnome.org
> Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
> --
> marketing-list mailing list
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Re: community managers

[alex diavatis]

Hello,

Why don't you try an YouTube channel. A weekly 5' show kinda like:

This week in Gnome...[ie new features]
We cannot support this because .. [ie theming API]
In Gnome 3.. [discuss/explain some features and how to use desktop]
In Gnome 3.. [tech news]

It will take only two hours for each person to do this, and you can rotate
This week, Allan, next week Seif, week after next Sri and so on.

YouTube is by far the most popular media to promote a product, plus you
will have a more "personal"
connection with people.

- alex

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Seif Lotfy  wrote:

>
> Hello,
> First I love the idea of a community team. KDE already has such a team
> with a good mission (http://ev.kde.org/workinggroups/cwg.php).I think
> studying their history and experience would be beneficial to the community
> team.
>
> After discussing this Lydia from KDE, it looks more like a "Public
> Relations" team more than a "Community Management" team. Both do have some
> common tasks. I think a Community team should encompass a PR team.
>
> Agreed. We have a problem communicating our vision internally and
> externally.
> Internally it seems like not all of us are on the same page, e.g: "theming
> will damage our brand". Or systemd dependencies etc. Do all "high profile"
> GNOME contributors agree on this?
>
> Before communicating to the outside world that "XYZ" is a fact we need to
> at least agree on it internally. Taking the liberties with ones own modules
> without general consensus inside the community leads to friction and
> arguments. This is something that a community team should work on, make
> people inside the community get along, reduce friction.
>
> As a community team another mission would be working on communication
> between devs, on mailing lists and bugs. Damage caused by snarky, arrogant
> or dismissive remarks should be controlled and positive communication
> efforts have to promoted and praised.
>
> Just my 2 cents
> Cheers
> Seif
>
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Dave Neary  wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>> On 11/13/2012 06:53 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>>
>>> As a project, we are having trouble communicating our vision because
>>> everything gets lost in a sea of vitriol due to past actions or
>>> perceived actions.  For instance, removing fallback is seen as yet again
>>> the GNOME project is removing a feature instead of an act of maintenance
>>> and sustainability.
>>>
>>
>> I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our vision,
>> because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of the
>> project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision has
>> either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not got
>> clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For
>> instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that
>> Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the GNOME
>> project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME community (and
>> I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors -
>> developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).
>
>
>>  After all, GNOME design doesn't have any authority but is able to
>>> convince maintainers that doing their approach is best for their
>>> application.
>>>
>>
>> I disagree with your analogy.
>
>
>>  I'm envisioning a team of 10 volunteers.  10 volunteers who start out as
>>> community managers and then hopefully will be interested in doing other
>>> things within the project.
>>>
>>> I currently have four as of right now.  Need to recruit six more!
>>>
>>
>> Sounds like a plan, and we certainly need to do something to stop the rot.
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Dave.
>>
>> --
>> Dave Neary, Lyon, France
>> Email: dne...@gnome.org
>> Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
>> --
>> marketing-list mailing list
>> marketing-list@gnome.org
>> https://mail.gnome.org/**mailman/listinfo/marketing-**list
>>
>
>
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>
>
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Re: community managers

[alex diavatis]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:54 PM, alex diavatis wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Why don't you try an YouTube channel. A weekly 5' show kinda like:
>
> This week in Gnome...[ie new features]
> We cannot support this because .. [ie theming API]
> In Gnome 3.. [discuss/explain some features and how to use desktop]
> In Gnome 3.. [tech news]
>
> It will take only two hours for each person to do this, and you can rotate
> This week, Allan, next week Seif, week after next Sri and so on.
>
> YouTube is by far the most popular media to promote a product, plus you
> will have a more "personal"
> connection with people.
>

Oops that was going to previous thread [reddit IAMA GNOME
developer/designer] sooorry :)
- alex

>
> - alex
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Seif Lotfy  wrote:
>
>>
>> Hello,
>> First I love the idea of a community team. KDE already has such a team
>> with a good mission (http://ev.kde.org/workinggroups/cwg.php).I think
>> studying their history and experience would be beneficial to the community
>> team.
>>
>> After discussing this Lydia from KDE, it looks more like a "Public
>> Relations" team more than a "Community Management" team. Both do have some
>> common tasks. I think a Community team should encompass a PR team.
>>
>> Agreed. We have a problem communicating our vision internally and
>> externally.
>> Internally it seems like not all of us are on the same page, e.g:
>> "theming will damage our brand". Or systemd dependencies etc. Do all "high
>> profile" GNOME contributors agree on this?
>>
>> Before communicating to the outside world that "XYZ" is a fact we need to
>> at least agree on it internally. Taking the liberties with ones own modules
>> without general consensus inside the community leads to friction and
>> arguments. This is something that a community team should work on, make
>> people inside the community get along, reduce friction.
>>
>> As a community team another mission would be working on communication
>> between devs, on mailing lists and bugs. Damage caused by snarky, arrogant
>> or dismissive remarks should be controlled and positive communication
>> efforts have to promoted and praised.
>>
>> Just my 2 cents
>> Cheers
>> Seif
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Dave Neary  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>>
>>> On 11/13/2012 06:53 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>>>
 As a project, we are having trouble communicating our vision because
 everything gets lost in a sea of vitriol due to past actions or
 perceived actions.  For instance, removing fallback is seen as yet again
 the GNOME project is removing a feature instead of an act of maintenance
 and sustainability.

>>>
>>> I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our vision,
>>> because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of the
>>> project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision has
>>> either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not got
>>> clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For
>>> instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that
>>> Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the GNOME
>>> project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME community (and
>>> I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors -
>>> developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).
>>
>>
>>>  After all, GNOME design doesn't have any authority but is able to
 convince maintainers that doing their approach is best for their
 application.

>>>
>>> I disagree with your analogy.
>>
>>
>>>  I'm envisioning a team of 10 volunteers.  10 volunteers who start out as
 community managers and then hopefully will be interested in doing other
 things within the project.

 I currently have four as of right now.  Need to recruit six more!

>>>
>>> Sounds like a plan, and we certainly need to do something to stop the
>>> rot.
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Dave.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dave Neary, Lyon, France
>>> Email: dne...@gnome.org
>>> Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
>>> --
>>> marketing-list mailing list
>>> marketing-list@gnome.org
>>> https://mail.gnome.org/**mailman/listinfo/marketing-**list
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> marketing-list mailing list
>> marketing-list@gnome.org
>> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
>>
>>
>
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Re: community managers

[Mathias Hasselmann]

Am Montag, den 12.11.2012, 15:17 -0800 schrieb Sriram Ramkrishna:
> Greetings!
> 
> I know that we have a bunch of new people who joined the list.  We
> haven't done any thing to use you people.  Sadly, an epic failure on
> our part.
> 
> But I am looking for some good people who can fill the role of
> community manager.  Clearly, we have a problem relating to our user
> base and some of the decisions have become more controversial than it
> needs to be.

As you point out, community managers basically work on improving
communication in projects with separated circles of participants,
like silently working in-house developers, and a wider community
of outsiders. Do we really have such situation in GNOME?

What would be the inner circle then? 
How did it happen?

Do we really want to consolidate such unfortunate situation, or should
that inner circle rather be broken again?

Ciao,
Mathias



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Re: community managers

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:23 PM, Mathias Hasselmann <
mathias.hasselm...@gmx.de> wrote:

>
> Am Montag, den 12.11.2012, 15:17 -0800 schrieb Sriram Ramkrishna:
> > Greetings!
> >
> > I know that we have a bunch of new people who joined the list.  We
> > haven't done any thing to use you people.  Sadly, an epic failure on
> > our part.
> >
> > But I am looking for some good people who can fill the role of
> > community manager.  Clearly, we have a problem relating to our user
> > base and some of the decisions have become more controversial than it
> > needs to be.
>
> As you point out, community managers basically work on improving
> communication in projects with separated circles of participants,
> like silently working in-house developers, and a wider community
> of outsiders. Do we really have such situation in GNOME?
>
>
We mostly have a problem externally.  But I think we have a situation
internally.  Resolving the situation will help the community to scale up.


>  What would be the inner circle then?
>

The inner circle would likely be module maintainers.  They are the core
team, followed by the release team,  designers, translators and everyone.
I would like community enthusiastic to be  on equal level with this second
circle.

How did it happen?
>

I think it's a natural organization.  There is nothing wrong with this
model.  We're just trying to get the communication right.


>
> Do we really want to consolidate such unfortunate situation, or should
> that inner circle rather be broken again?
>
>
There is no issue with core team or anything else.  In fact, thanks to
World of GNOME, I know more of what's going on with design and modules than
I ever have.  Our contacts with the general populace needs work.

Do people feel there is a looming issue with how team members communicate
internally?  I never felt that.

sri


>  Ciao,
> Mathias
>
>
>
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Re: community managers

[Fabiana Simões]

I'm not really sure about the effectiveness of this approach. I think
addressing these external problems in such a micro level - as in, answering
comments and pieces of news - is very likely to create more noise and,
possibly, more misunderstanding about the project.

What I think might be a better solution is to, as much as possible, have
one proper, well-thought and cohesive piece of feedback per issue we want
to address. I think it's really important to allow us to take some time to,
given a certain issue, strengthen our position within the community, before
getting ourselves out there in the wild. Maybe it could be good to have
those volunteers mostly "listening" to the buzz and logging it, in order to
more easily measure feedbacks/identify problems, and then properly craft an
"official" answer to them, establishing one "official" communication
channel and, therefore, lessening the noise.

The matter of how to build this understanding within the community (so that
we can turn it into those "official" answers) could also be addressed from
this log, using it as a starting point for analysis and then turning the
main critical points into internal discussions, before giving any feedback
to the external community.

Anyway, this might not be the best solution, but it's just an alternative
to addressing problems in a micro level, what I think might generate more
noise and misunderstandings.

Best,
Fabiana




On 14 November 2012 18:59, Sriram Ramkrishna  wrote:

>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:23 PM, Mathias Hasselmann <
> mathias.hasselm...@gmx.de> wrote:
>
>>
>> Am Montag, den 12.11.2012, 15:17 -0800 schrieb Sriram Ramkrishna:
>> > Greetings!
>> >
>> > I know that we have a bunch of new people who joined the list.  We
>> > haven't done any thing to use you people.  Sadly, an epic failure on
>> > our part.
>> >
>> > But I am looking for some good people who can fill the role of
>> > community manager.  Clearly, we have a problem relating to our user
>> > base and some of the decisions have become more controversial than it
>> > needs to be.
>>
>> As you point out, community managers basically work on improving
>> communication in projects with separated circles of participants,
>> like silently working in-house developers, and a wider community
>> of outsiders. Do we really have such situation in GNOME?
>>
>>
> We mostly have a problem externally.  But I think we have a situation
> internally.  Resolving the situation will help the community to scale up.
>
>
>>  What would be the inner circle then?
>>
>
> The inner circle would likely be module maintainers.  They are the core
> team, followed by the release team,  designers, translators and everyone.
> I would like community enthusiastic to be  on equal level with this second
> circle.
>
> How did it happen?
>>
>
> I think it's a natural organization.  There is nothing wrong with this
> model.  We're just trying to get the communication right.
>
>
>>
>> Do we really want to consolidate such unfortunate situation, or should
>> that inner circle rather be broken again?
>>
>>
> There is no issue with core team or anything else.  In fact, thanks to
> World of GNOME, I know more of what's going on with design and modules than
> I ever have.  Our contacts with the general populace needs work.
>
> Do people feel there is a looming issue with how team members communicate
> internally?  I never felt that.
>
> sri
>
>
>>  Ciao,
>> Mathias
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>> marketing-list@gnome.org
>> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
>>
>
>
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>
>
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Re: community managers

[William Jon McCann]

Hi Dave,


On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 6:38 AM, Dave Neary  wrote:

> I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our vision,
> because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of the
> project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision has
> either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not got
> clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For
> instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that
> Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the GNOME
> project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME community (and
> I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors -
> developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).
>

Let's be clear then. Cinnamon is not GNOME 3. The discussion of brand was
in relation to the stability of extensions and the impact on the user
experience - and was taken out of context. Neither of these have led to
missed opportunities. Continuing to misrepresent or misunderstand what we
are trying to do and trying to say doesn't help us communicate our vision,
does it?

Jon
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Re: community managers

[Emily Gonyer]

I think Dave's point was that we missed an opportunity to keep
Cinnamon as GNOME 3 - because at one point it was GNOME 3.x with
extensions piled on. They have since forked and are truly a separate
project now, but that wasn't always the case. If we had made it clear
that they & their users were still using GNOME 3, we might have been
able to bring them into the larger GNOME tent and kept them from
forking and going their separate way. Just because someone is using
extensions doesn't mean they aren't using GNOME 3, any more than my
use of HTTPS Everywhere, AdBlock Plus, etc in Firefox & Chromium make
them different browsers.

Emily


On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 3:12 PM, William Jon McCann
 wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 6:38 AM, Dave Neary  wrote:
>>
>> I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our vision,
>> because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of the
>> project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision has
>> either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not got
>> clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For
>> instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that
>> Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the GNOME
>> project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME community (and
>> I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors -
>> developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).
>
>
> Let's be clear then. Cinnamon is not GNOME 3. The discussion of brand was in
> relation to the stability of extensions and the impact on the user
> experience - and was taken out of context. Neither of these have led to
> missed opportunities. Continuing to misrepresent or misunderstand what we
> are trying to do and trying to say doesn't help us communicate our vision,
> does it?
>
> Jon
>
>
> --
> marketing-list mailing list
> marketing-list@gnome.org
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
>



-- 
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it. -  Goethe

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't
matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that
counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein
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Re: community managers

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 12:36 PM, Emily Gonyer  wrote:

> I think Dave's point was that we missed an opportunity to keep
> Cinnamon as GNOME 3 - because at one point it was GNOME 3.x with
> extensions piled on. They have since forked and are truly a separate
>


Well, the thing is that GNOME 3 is considered the design and look of GNOME
3.  It's the default package.  You could argue that GNOME 3 + extensions
changing the look is not GNOME 3 from a branding issue.

Consider that Apple's look is very distinctive.  You can look at a computer
running OSX and know it is running OSX.

In this case, Cinnamon is not GNOME 3 from that perspective.  Now, it si
GNOME 3 in that uses the GNOME 3 platform but it's not what its designers
consider GNOME 3.

Now I agree that it would be great to say Cinnamon is based on GNOME 3 as
it shows what a flexible platform GNOME 3 is that it can be modified to be
so distinctive.


> project now, but that wasn't always the case. If we had made it clear
> that they & their users were still using GNOME 3, we might have been
> able to bring them into the larger GNOME tent and kept them from
> forking and going their separate way. Just because someone is using
> extensions doesn't mean they aren't using GNOME 3, any more than my
> use of HTTPS Everywhere, AdBlock Plus, etc in Firefox & Chromium make
> them different browsers.
>
>
We seem to be in a strange place where we are competing against our own
software modified by others - Mate and Cinnamon both who have gotten
marketshare.

sri


> Emily
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 3:12 PM, William Jon McCann
>  wrote:
> > Hi Dave,
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 6:38 AM, Dave Neary  wrote:
> >>
> >> I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our vision,
> >> because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of the
> >> project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision has
> >> either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not
> got
> >> clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For
> >> instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that
> >> Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the GNOME
> >> project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME community
> (and
> >> I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors -
> >> developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).
> >
> >
> > Let's be clear then. Cinnamon is not GNOME 3. The discussion of brand
> was in
> > relation to the stability of extensions and the impact on the user
> > experience - and was taken out of context. Neither of these have led to
> > missed opportunities. Continuing to misrepresent or misunderstand what we
> > are trying to do and trying to say doesn't help us communicate our
> vision,
> > does it?
> >
> > Jon
> >
> >
> > --
> > marketing-list mailing list
> > marketing-list@gnome.org
> > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius,
> power and magic in it. -  Goethe
>
> Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't
> matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss
>
> Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that
> counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein
> --
> marketing-list mailing list
> marketing-list@gnome.org
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
>
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Re: community managers

[Andreas Nilsson]

On 11/15/2012 09:36 PM, Emily Gonyer wrote:

I think Dave's point was that we missed an opportunity to keep
Cinnamon as GNOME 3 - because at one point it was GNOME 3.x with
extensions piled on. They have since forked and are truly a separate
project now, but that wasn't always the case. If we had made it clear
that they & their users were still using GNOME 3, we might have been
able to bring them into the larger GNOME tent and kept them from
forking and going their separate way. Just because someone is using
extensions doesn't mean they aren't using GNOME 3, any more than my
use of HTTPS Everywhere, AdBlock Plus, etc in Firefox & Chromium make
them different browsers.

I think the difference there is that you as the person using Firefox in 
the end are the one adding those extensions on top and not someone 
before you in the chain. This is also why I find extensions.gnome.org 
AMAZING, while it worries me about the possible difficulties when you 
try to debug something when a bug report is coming in from someone that 
have a system that works vastly different from what came with your 
system out of the box.
This does not disallow, or even disencourage you or someone else from 
taking, say Firefox, modifying it in various ways or reuse parts of it 
to build something entirely different, like say, a arcade machine or a 
car UI and spread that to the world. I mean, it's free software and all. 
The question is if the name Firefox makes sense for that amazing thing 
you just built, or if it might make things easier for you and everyone 
else installed to give that a new and unique name.


Keeping a good relationship between a project and the people that take 
the project and end up building something quite different with it is 
always desirable when it benefits both parties. Of course.
Cinnamon specifically seems to make some people happy, and I don't mind 
that at all. I think that's great. That's more people using free 
software instead of, say, getting a mac just because they didn't like 
something in GNOME 3.


That's my personal take on Big Tent vs. Tight Core.
- Andreas
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Re: community managers

[Dave Neary]

Hi Jon,

On 11/15/2012 09:12 PM, William Jon McCann wrote:

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 6:38 AM, Dave Neary wrote:

I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our
vision, because as a project we are not sure what it is.


I think this is the main thing I wanted to say. I have been involved in 
the GNOME project, albeit not as a core developer or module maintainer, 
since 2004. And I do not understand our vision. What is the dream that 
we're selling, and why should I be excited about it?



For instance, the insistence that
theming will damage our brand, or that Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has
led to missed opportunities for the GNOME project, and has not got
grass roots support among the GNOME community (and I'm not talking
about users here, I'm talking about contributors - developers,
translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).

Let's be clear then. Cinnamon is not GNOME 3.


I understand that is your position. And I understand that as the 
maintainer and primary designer of GNOME Shell, you have a lot of weight 
in holding that position.


I think it's a shame that Cinnamon users don't realise, for the most 
part, that they are using GNOME Shell, and the rest of the GNOME 3 
stack. I think that it's a shame that we have apparently gone out of our 
way to put a barrier between ourselves and the Cinnamon/Mint guys by 
saying "you're not GNOME 3". The message we're sending is, "your help is 
not wanted, we don't like what you're doing".


Personally, I think that it'd be cool to have our community be the 
community of people who can go wild on the platform - "let a thousand 
flowers bloom". That the core GNOME project is solid and useful, but 
that we encourage experimentation, respins, freedom for our users. That 
seems inconsistent with the current GNOME messaging.



The discussion of brand
was in relation to the stability of extensions and the impact on the
user experience - and was taken out of context. Neither of these have
led to missed opportunities. Continuing to misrepresent or misunderstand
what we are trying to do and trying to say doesn't help us communicate
our vision, does it?


I certainly misunderstand what you are trying to do. I don't think I 
know what the GNOME 3 vision is. Would you mind helping me understand 
better?


Thanks,
Dave.


--
Dave Neary, Lyon, France
Email: dne...@gnome.org
Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
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Re: community managers

[Emily Gonyer]

I think this comes down to a philosophical difference in ideas about
what GNOME is, as it has before. Is GNOME really just GNOME Shell as
we release it? When other people use our technology, in XFCE,
Cinnamon, Unity, Mate, etc, are they still using GNOME? Do we want to
completely segregate ourselves from them? Is that healthy for our
community? For theirs? Or would we all be better off, recognizing that
we all use many of the same technologies, and that we all have
something to share. Wouldn't we all be better off, if the folks who
work on Cinnamon and XFCE and Mate and GNOME Shell could all sit
around and talk about their problems together, and find solutions that
work for everyone?

I'm not saying we should all combine and just produce one desktop -
that's never going to happen. But recognizing each others' work as
useful, as interesting, as important would go a long ways to repairing
some of the relationships that have suffered. I don't really want to
run Cinnamon, but I don't doubt that there are parts of it that I
would enjoy and find useful. Why can't we find a way to share? A way
to include everyone who uses GNOME technology so that we can all share
what we do and learn from each other and make better software. Isn't
that what GNOME has always been about?

Emily

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 10:50 AM, Dave Neary  wrote:
> Hi Jon,
>
> On 11/15/2012 09:12 PM, William Jon McCann wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 6:38 AM, Dave Neary wrote:
>>
>> I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our
>> vision, because as a project we are not sure what it is.
>
>
> I think this is the main thing I wanted to say. I have been involved in the
> GNOME project, albeit not as a core developer or module maintainer, since
> 2004. And I do not understand our vision. What is the dream that we're
> selling, and why should I be excited about it?
>
>
>> For instance, the insistence that
>> theming will damage our brand, or that Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has
>> led to missed opportunities for the GNOME project, and has not got
>> grass roots support among the GNOME community (and I'm not talking
>> about users here, I'm talking about contributors - developers,
>> translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).
>>
>> Let's be clear then. Cinnamon is not GNOME 3.
>
>
> I understand that is your position. And I understand that as the maintainer
> and primary designer of GNOME Shell, you have a lot of weight in holding
> that position.
>
> I think it's a shame that Cinnamon users don't realise, for the most part,
> that they are using GNOME Shell, and the rest of the GNOME 3 stack. I think
> that it's a shame that we have apparently gone out of our way to put a
> barrier between ourselves and the Cinnamon/Mint guys by saying "you're not
> GNOME 3". The message we're sending is, "your help is not wanted, we don't
> like what you're doing".
>
> Personally, I think that it'd be cool to have our community be the community
> of people who can go wild on the platform - "let a thousand flowers bloom".
> That the core GNOME project is solid and useful, but that we encourage
> experimentation, respins, freedom for our users. That seems inconsistent
> with the current GNOME messaging.
>
>
>> The discussion of brand
>> was in relation to the stability of extensions and the impact on the
>> user experience - and was taken out of context. Neither of these have
>> led to missed opportunities. Continuing to misrepresent or misunderstand
>> what we are trying to do and trying to say doesn't help us communicate
>> our vision, does it?
>
>
> I certainly misunderstand what you are trying to do. I don't think I know
> what the GNOME 3 vision is. Would you mind helping me understand better?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dave.
>
>
> --
> Dave Neary, Lyon, France
> Email: dne...@gnome.org
> Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
> --
> marketing-list mailing list
> marketing-list@gnome.org
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list



-- 
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it. -  Goethe

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't
matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that
counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein
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Re: community managers

[William Jon McCann]

Hey,


On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 10:50 AM, Dave Neary  wrote:

> Hi Jon,
>
> On 11/15/2012 09:12 PM, William Jon McCann wrote:
>
>  On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 6:38 AM, Dave Neary wrote:
>>
>> I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our
>> vision, because as a project we are not sure what it is.
>>
>
> I think this is the main thing I wanted to say. I have been involved in
> the GNOME project, albeit not as a core developer or module maintainer,
> since 2004. And I do not understand our vision. What is the dream that
> we're selling, and why should I be excited about it?
>

I was attracted to the GNOME project because of the vision and because I
was excited by it. I became a core developer, maintainer, and designer. I
understand the vision and I share it. I continue to be inspired by it -
going on 10 years now. Inspired enough to put up with a lot of negativity.

Despite how some would portray it, this vision is shared by the current
core contributors.

You'll find evidence of this everywhere, if you look. That said, we should
do more to make it explicit. Make it clear. Not because of threads like
this but because we are proud of it. Because we want to shout it and we
know people will respond.


>  For instance, the insistence that
>> theming will damage our brand, or that Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has
>> led to missed opportunities for the GNOME project, and has not got
>> grass roots support among the GNOME community (and I'm not talking
>> about users here, I'm talking about contributors - developers,
>> translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).
>>
>> Let's be clear then. Cinnamon is not GNOME 3.
>>
>
> I understand that is your position. And I understand that as the
> maintainer and primary designer of GNOME Shell, you have a lot of weight in
> holding that position.
>

This is not just my position and again trying to characterize this as an
opinion is just silly. I suppose I should refer to you as "Jon" from now
on? Surely the idea that Dave is Jon is absurd. We can be different, have
different ideas, have different goals, and still be friends. Sharing where
it is mutually beneficial but still appearing separate and distinct.
Standing on our own, proudly. With individual rights and responsibilities.

I have absolutely no problem with Cinnamon. I think I give them more credit
than you do. They took a name, on purpose. To differentiate themselves - to
allow people the freedom to choose a different user experience. They have
different goals. A different appearance. Different behaviors. A different
future. And that is fine.

I think it's a shame that Cinnamon users don't realise, for the most part,
> that they are using GNOME Shell, and the rest of the GNOME 3 stack


It is not a shame that users aren't concerned with or interested in
implementation details. That is as it should be. We welcome it.

. I think that it's a shame that we have apparently gone out of our way to
> put a barrier between ourselves and the Cinnamon/Mint guys by saying
> "you're not GNOME 3". The message we're sending is, "your help is not
> wanted, we don't like what you're doing".
>

This is complete nonsense. Why does a fork happen? I don't know why these
particular developers decided to split, but for forks in general I'd guess
it is something like: "we don't like what you're doing." Well not entirely.
There is one more part of the equation to determine if the dissatisfaction
is great enough and the goals are divergent enough to make such a split
worthwhile: "can I do it alone?"

If you can't do it alone then you shouldn't fork. That is the economic
pressure that keeps us all working together towards shared goals.

If you do fork, you can't go complaining about how hard it is. And it is
completely offensive to blame the original project for not wanting to share.

So, again, your characterization of this issue is completely wrong. We are
not sending any message other than:

"We are deeply sorry that we could not agree on goals. We are always
willing to have a conversation about how we may find common ground. We
respect your difference of opinion and your right to identify and
differentiate yourself. We would still like to collaborate on
implementation details and shared technology. Perhaps we can agree on
commonality in the application development experience, and application
delivery and installation."

Suggesting otherwise isn't helping anyone.

Personally, I think that it'd be cool to have our community be the
> community of people who can go wild on the platform - "let a thousand
> flowers bloom". That the core GNOME project is solid and useful, but that
> we encourage experimentation, respins, freedom for our users. That seems
> inconsistent with the current GNOME messaging.
>
>
The open source community is larger than GNOME. This big tent that you talk
about is over us - not in us. We are only one of many possible things. We
have the duty to make something distinct. 

Re: community managers

[Brian Cameron]

Jon/Dave:

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 10:50 AM, Dave Neary  wrote:
On 11/16/12 11:28 AM, William Jon McCann wrote:

I was attracted to the GNOME project because of the vision and because I
was excited by it.  [...]  I continue to be inspired by it - going on 10
years now. Inspired enough to put up with a lot of negativity.


It's good for your karma.  :)


Despite how some would portray it, this vision is shared by the current
core contributors.

You'll find evidence of this everywhere, if you look. That said, we
should do more to make it explicit. Make it clear. Not because of
threads like this but because we are proud of it. Because we want to
shout it and we know people will respond.


I agree GNOME Rocks!


We can be different,
have different ideas, have different goals, and still be friends.
Sharing where it is mutually beneficial but still appearing separate and
distinct. Standing on our own, proudly. With individual rights and
responsibilities.


I very much agree.  You and I, for example, have had many differences
over design choices relating to GDM, yet I also respect the significant
amount of work you do leading the project.  Friendship is more like a
spectrum than an on-off switch, so I think it can mean different things
amongst different people, but I am proud to be associated with so many
brilliant GNOME engineers.

George Lebl, the maintainer of GDM before me, indicated in his source
code comments that the believed that fixing crack gave one a certain
license to introduce more.  Modernizing GDM has broken configuration
features and caused pain for users.

Criticism aside, I do think George would applaud the fact that GDM is
finally ported to using sensible interfaces like D-Bus.  While the
"new" GDM is a step back in certain ways (such as XDMCP support since
you cannot launch the GDM chooser from the GUI anymore), I think it was
overall a step in the right direction.  I am not sure if this lack
of XDMCP chooser support breaks LTSP, though I wonder.

Interfaces like GTK+ and the entire GNOME Platform have had a stellar
ABI stability over the years, yet stability seems to be breaking down
recently.

I think ABI stability and providing existing users important updates
like security fixes are important parts of project management.  GNOME
should accept that interfaces exposed to users, such as theming
interfaces, need to be better supported if we want to build a stronger
relationship with the actual userbase.  GNOME will benefit from the 
stronger interface stability that comes with maturity, but now is

probably a good time to consider what configuration interfaces should
be more stable, such as GTK+ theming, obviously.

In the GNOME 2 cycle, it was GNOME 2.16 before GNOME really started
being usable when HAL started fixing a lot of serious desktop bugs and
GStreamer started being used.  I would say that GNOME 3.6 is already
much farther along than 2.16 was at its stage in the development cycle.
So, there is progress.  :)


I have absolutely no problem with Cinnamon. I think I give them more
credit than you do. They took a name, on purpose. To differentiate
themselves - to allow people the freedom to choose a different user
experience. They have different goals. A different appearance. Different
behaviors. A different future. And that is fine.


Does the GNOME community have a plan for how to deal with providing
GNOME 2 users important fixes like security bug fixes?  By making a
small committment to release new GNOME 2 tarballs with security updates
as needed and making sure that updates to things like D-Bus do not
break the GNOME 2 experience, then I think GNOME maintains stronger
control over the GNOME 2 source code.  People should want to use the
GNOME source code repository if that's where they get security fixes.
Does the GNOME community have any recommendations about how a distro
should deliver a secure GNOME 2 experience?


I think it's a shame that Cinnamon users don't realise, for the most
part, that they are using GNOME Shell, and the rest of the GNOME 3 stack


How could they be expected to realize unless GNOME were to support them
with the GNOME brand.  GNOME provides too little guidance to distros
that use GNOME, such as OLPC, about how to reference the GNOME brand in
their products.  Or do you think GNOME should not work to encourage the
GNOME brand gets effective placement in products that use it?


It is not a shame that users aren't concerned with or interested in
implementation details. That is as it should be. We welcome it.


Users are concerned, though, with brands.  The implementation detail
of how GNOME makes effective use of its brand is something of their
concern.  How do you think Cinnamon should use the GNOME brand?


We are not sending any message other than:

"We are deeply sorry that we could not agree on goals. We are always
willing to have a conversation about how we may find common ground. We
respect your difference of opinion and your right to identify and

GNOME weekly roundup (was Re: community managers)

[Karen Sandler]

On Wed, November 14, 2012 7:58 am, alex diavatis wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:54 PM, alex diavatis
> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Why don't you try an YouTube channel. A weekly 5' show kinda like:

I love the idea of maybe doing a weekly audio recording of this week in
GNOME. I could potentially do this as an interview with a different key
person each week, if it's not too long. Perhaps a half hour each time? I'm
wary of video as I think that will take a lot of work...

Do others think this is a good idea? Alex, would you want to help with it?

karen


>> This week in Gnome...[ie new features]
>> We cannot support this because .. [ie theming API]
>> In Gnome 3.. [discuss/explain some features and how to use desktop]
>> In Gnome 3.. [tech news]
>>
>> It will take only two hours for each person to do this, and you can
>> rotate
>> This week, Allan, next week Seif, week after next Sri and so on.
>>
>> YouTube is by far the most popular media to promote a product, plus you
>> will have a more "personal"
>> connection with people.
>>
>
> Oops that was going to previous thread [reddit IAMA GNOME
> developer/designer] sooorry :)
> - alex
>
>>
>> - alex
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Seif Lotfy  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>> First I love the idea of a community team. KDE already has such a team
>>> with a good mission (http://ev.kde.org/workinggroups/cwg.php).I think
>>> studying their history and experience would be beneficial to the
>>> community
>>> team.
>>>
>>> After discussing this Lydia from KDE, it looks more like a "Public
>>> Relations" team more than a "Community Management" team. Both do have
>>> some
>>> common tasks. I think a Community team should encompass a PR team.
>>>
>>> Agreed. We have a problem communicating our vision internally and
>>> externally.
>>> Internally it seems like not all of us are on the same page, e.g:
>>> "theming will damage our brand". Or systemd dependencies etc. Do all
>>> "high
>>> profile" GNOME contributors agree on this?
>>>
>>> Before communicating to the outside world that "XYZ" is a fact we need
>>> to
>>> at least agree on it internally. Taking the liberties with ones own
>>> modules
>>> without general consensus inside the community leads to friction and
>>> arguments. This is something that a community team should work on, make
>>> people inside the community get along, reduce friction.
>>>
>>> As a community team another mission would be working on communication
>>> between devs, on mailing lists and bugs. Damage caused by snarky,
>>> arrogant
>>> or dismissive remarks should be controlled and positive communication
>>> efforts have to promoted and praised.
>>>
>>> Just my 2 cents
>>> Cheers
>>> Seif
>>>
>>> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Dave Neary  wrote:
>>>
 Hi,


 On 11/13/2012 06:53 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:

> As a project, we are having trouble communicating our vision because
> everything gets lost in a sea of vitriol due to past actions or
> perceived actions.  For instance, removing fallback is seen as yet
> again
> the GNOME project is removing a feature instead of an act of
> maintenance
> and sustainability.
>

 I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our
 vision,
 because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of
 the
 project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision
 has
 either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not
 got
 clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For
 instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that
 Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the GNOME
 project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME community
 (and
 I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors -
 developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).
>>>
>>>
  After all, GNOME design doesn't have any authority but is able to
> convince maintainers that doing their approach is best for their
> application.
>

 I disagree with your analogy.
>>>
>>>
  I'm envisioning a team of 10 volunteers.  10 volunteers who start out
 as
> community managers and then hopefully will be interested in doing
> other
> things within the project.
>
> I currently have four as of right now.  Need to recruit six more!
>

 Sounds like a plan, and we certainly need to do something to stop the
 rot.


 Cheers,
 Dave.

 --
 Dave Neary, Lyon, France
 Email: dne...@gnome.org
 Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
 --
 marketing-list mailing list
 marketing-list@gnome.org
 https://mail.gnome.org/**mailman/listinfo/marketing-**list

>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> marketing-list mailing list
>>> marketing-list@gnome.org
>>> ht

Re: GNOME weekly roundup (was Re: community managers)

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 9:52 PM, Karen Sandler  wrote:

> On Wed, November 14, 2012 7:58 am, alex diavatis wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:54 PM, alex diavatis
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> Why don't you try an YouTube channel. A weekly 5' show kinda like:
>
> I love the idea of maybe doing a weekly audio recording of this week in
> GNOME. I could potentially do this as an interview with a different key
> person each week, if it's not too long. Perhaps a half hour each time? I'm
> wary of video as I think that will take a lot of work...
>
>
slightly off topic:
The youtube channel idea seemed pretty good but it was hard to manage.
Mostly because I had a hard time figuring out how to tag posts for GNOME.
Maybe I'm missing something there.  Design guys are always throwing up
video on their thoughts.  A missing opportunity IMHO.


> Do others think this is a good idea? Alex, would you want to help with it?
>
>
It depends.  I would set it up almost like an RSS feed postcast.  That
would make it more automatic and something people can subscribe to.

sri


> karen
>
>
> >> This week in Gnome...[ie new features]
> >> We cannot support this because .. [ie theming API]
> >> In Gnome 3.. [discuss/explain some features and how to use desktop]
> >> In Gnome 3.. [tech news]
> >>
> >> It will take only two hours for each person to do this, and you can
> >> rotate
> >> This week, Allan, next week Seif, week after next Sri and so on.
> >>
> >> YouTube is by far the most popular media to promote a product, plus you
> >> will have a more "personal"
> >> connection with people.
> >>
> >
> > Oops that was going to previous thread [reddit IAMA GNOME
> > developer/designer] sooorry :)
> > - alex
> >
> >>
> >> - alex
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Seif Lotfy  wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Hello,
> >>> First I love the idea of a community team. KDE already has such a team
> >>> with a good mission (http://ev.kde.org/workinggroups/cwg.php).I think
> >>> studying their history and experience would be beneficial to the
> >>> community
> >>> team.
> >>>
> >>> After discussing this Lydia from KDE, it looks more like a "Public
> >>> Relations" team more than a "Community Management" team. Both do have
> >>> some
> >>> common tasks. I think a Community team should encompass a PR team.
> >>>
> >>> Agreed. We have a problem communicating our vision internally and
> >>> externally.
> >>> Internally it seems like not all of us are on the same page, e.g:
> >>> "theming will damage our brand". Or systemd dependencies etc. Do all
> >>> "high
> >>> profile" GNOME contributors agree on this?
> >>>
> >>> Before communicating to the outside world that "XYZ" is a fact we need
> >>> to
> >>> at least agree on it internally. Taking the liberties with ones own
> >>> modules
> >>> without general consensus inside the community leads to friction and
> >>> arguments. This is something that a community team should work on, make
> >>> people inside the community get along, reduce friction.
> >>>
> >>> As a community team another mission would be working on communication
> >>> between devs, on mailing lists and bugs. Damage caused by snarky,
> >>> arrogant
> >>> or dismissive remarks should be controlled and positive communication
> >>> efforts have to promoted and praised.
> >>>
> >>> Just my 2 cents
> >>> Cheers
> >>> Seif
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Dave Neary  wrote:
> >>>
>  Hi,
> 
> 
>  On 11/13/2012 06:53 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> 
> > As a project, we are having trouble communicating our vision because
> > everything gets lost in a sea of vitriol due to past actions or
> > perceived actions.  For instance, removing fallback is seen as yet
> > again
> > the GNOME project is removing a feature instead of an act of
> > maintenance
> > and sustainability.
> >
> 
>  I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our
>  vision,
>  because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of
>  the
>  project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision
>  has
>  either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not
>  got
>  clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For
>  instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that
>  Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the GNOME
>  project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME community
>  (and
>  I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors -
>  developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).
> >>>
> >>>
>   After all, GNOME design doesn't have any authority but is able to
> > convince maintainers that doing their approach is best for their
> > application.
> >
> 
>  I disagree with your analogy.
> >>>
> >>>
>   I'm envisioning a team of 10 volunteers.  10 v

Re: GNOME weekly roundup (was Re: community managers)

[Emily Gonyer]

Sri, essentially you're talking about setting up a dedicated GNOME
channel on IRC for this sort of stuff, is that right? One anyone could
subscribe to and get updates when they are posted. If we do so (and
I'm not opposed to) we need to ensure we have fresh content, else
it'll become yet another empty message.

One additionall thing we could do beyond simply posting them, would be
to transcribe them. This would benefit us twice - it would serve to
provide subtitles for the videos and could also be posted seperately
for those with slow connections who are interested but don't have the
time to download videos. (Yes, you guessed it right, this does indeed
still include me. xD) Perhaps we could post the transcript to
gnome.org as part of the news release about them.

Emily



On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 1:34 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna  wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 9:52 PM, Karen Sandler  wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, November 14, 2012 7:58 am, alex diavatis wrote:
>> > On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:54 PM, alex diavatis
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hello,
>> >>
>> >> Why don't you try an YouTube channel. A weekly 5' show kinda like:
>>
>> I love the idea of maybe doing a weekly audio recording of this week in
>> GNOME. I could potentially do this as an interview with a different key
>> person each week, if it's not too long. Perhaps a half hour each time? I'm
>> wary of video as I think that will take a lot of work...
>>
>
> slightly off topic:
> The youtube channel idea seemed pretty good but it was hard to manage.
> Mostly because I had a hard time figuring out how to tag posts for GNOME.
> Maybe I'm missing something there.  Design guys are always throwing up video
> on their thoughts.  A missing opportunity IMHO.
>
>>
>> Do others think this is a good idea? Alex, would you want to help with it?
>>
>
> It depends.  I would set it up almost like an RSS feed postcast.  That would
> make it more automatic and something people can subscribe to.
>
> sri
>
>>
>> karen
>>
>>
>> >> This week in Gnome...[ie new features]
>> >> We cannot support this because .. [ie theming API]
>> >> In Gnome 3.. [discuss/explain some features and how to use desktop]
>> >> In Gnome 3.. [tech news]
>> >>
>> >> It will take only two hours for each person to do this, and you can
>> >> rotate
>> >> This week, Allan, next week Seif, week after next Sri and so on.
>> >>
>> >> YouTube is by far the most popular media to promote a product, plus you
>> >> will have a more "personal"
>> >> connection with people.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Oops that was going to previous thread [reddit IAMA GNOME
>> > developer/designer] sooorry :)
>> > - alex
>> >
>> >>
>> >> - alex
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Seif Lotfy  wrote:
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>> Hello,
>> >>> First I love the idea of a community team. KDE already has such a team
>> >>> with a good mission (http://ev.kde.org/workinggroups/cwg.php).I think
>> >>> studying their history and experience would be beneficial to the
>> >>> community
>> >>> team.
>> >>>
>> >>> After discussing this Lydia from KDE, it looks more like a "Public
>> >>> Relations" team more than a "Community Management" team. Both do have
>> >>> some
>> >>> common tasks. I think a Community team should encompass a PR team.
>> >>>
>> >>> Agreed. We have a problem communicating our vision internally and
>> >>> externally.
>> >>> Internally it seems like not all of us are on the same page, e.g:
>> >>> "theming will damage our brand". Or systemd dependencies etc. Do all
>> >>> "high
>> >>> profile" GNOME contributors agree on this?
>> >>>
>> >>> Before communicating to the outside world that "XYZ" is a fact we need
>> >>> to
>> >>> at least agree on it internally. Taking the liberties with ones own
>> >>> modules
>> >>> without general consensus inside the community leads to friction and
>> >>> arguments. This is something that a community team should work on,
>> >>> make
>> >>> people inside the community get along, reduce friction.
>> >>>
>> >>> As a community team another mission would be working on communication
>> >>> between devs, on mailing lists and bugs. Damage caused by snarky,
>> >>> arrogant
>> >>> or dismissive remarks should be controlled and positive communication
>> >>> efforts have to promoted and praised.
>> >>>
>> >>> Just my 2 cents
>> >>> Cheers
>> >>> Seif
>> >>>
>> >>> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Dave Neary  wrote:
>> >>>
>>  Hi,
>> 
>> 
>>  On 11/13/2012 06:53 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>> 
>> > As a project, we are having trouble communicating our vision because
>> > everything gets lost in a sea of vitriol due to past actions or
>> > perceived actions.  For instance, removing fallback is seen as yet
>> > again
>> > the GNOME project is removing a feature instead of an act of
>> > maintenance
>> > and sustainability.
>> >
>> 
>>  I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our
>>  vision,
>>  because as a project we are not sure w

Re: GNOME weekly roundup (was Re: community managers)

[Lucas Rocha]

Maybe it would be simpler to just do a Google+ Hangout?

--lucasr

On 15 November 2012 06:34, Sriram Ramkrishna  wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 9:52 PM, Karen Sandler  wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, November 14, 2012 7:58 am, alex diavatis wrote:
>> > On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:54 PM, alex diavatis
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hello,
>> >>
>> >> Why don't you try an YouTube channel. A weekly 5' show kinda like:
>>
>> I love the idea of maybe doing a weekly audio recording of this week in
>> GNOME. I could potentially do this as an interview with a different key
>> person each week, if it's not too long. Perhaps a half hour each time? I'm
>> wary of video as I think that will take a lot of work...
>>
>
> slightly off topic:
> The youtube channel idea seemed pretty good but it was hard to manage.
> Mostly because I had a hard time figuring out how to tag posts for GNOME.
> Maybe I'm missing something there.  Design guys are always throwing up video
> on their thoughts.  A missing opportunity IMHO.
>
>>
>> Do others think this is a good idea? Alex, would you want to help with it?
>>
>
> It depends.  I would set it up almost like an RSS feed postcast.  That would
> make it more automatic and something people can subscribe to.
>
> sri
>
>>
>> karen
>>
>>
>> >> This week in Gnome...[ie new features]
>> >> We cannot support this because .. [ie theming API]
>> >> In Gnome 3.. [discuss/explain some features and how to use desktop]
>> >> In Gnome 3.. [tech news]
>> >>
>> >> It will take only two hours for each person to do this, and you can
>> >> rotate
>> >> This week, Allan, next week Seif, week after next Sri and so on.
>> >>
>> >> YouTube is by far the most popular media to promote a product, plus you
>> >> will have a more "personal"
>> >> connection with people.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Oops that was going to previous thread [reddit IAMA GNOME
>> > developer/designer] sooorry :)
>> > - alex
>> >
>> >>
>> >> - alex
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Seif Lotfy  wrote:
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>> Hello,
>> >>> First I love the idea of a community team. KDE already has such a team
>> >>> with a good mission (http://ev.kde.org/workinggroups/cwg.php).I think
>> >>> studying their history and experience would be beneficial to the
>> >>> community
>> >>> team.
>> >>>
>> >>> After discussing this Lydia from KDE, it looks more like a "Public
>> >>> Relations" team more than a "Community Management" team. Both do have
>> >>> some
>> >>> common tasks. I think a Community team should encompass a PR team.
>> >>>
>> >>> Agreed. We have a problem communicating our vision internally and
>> >>> externally.
>> >>> Internally it seems like not all of us are on the same page, e.g:
>> >>> "theming will damage our brand". Or systemd dependencies etc. Do all
>> >>> "high
>> >>> profile" GNOME contributors agree on this?
>> >>>
>> >>> Before communicating to the outside world that "XYZ" is a fact we need
>> >>> to
>> >>> at least agree on it internally. Taking the liberties with ones own
>> >>> modules
>> >>> without general consensus inside the community leads to friction and
>> >>> arguments. This is something that a community team should work on,
>> >>> make
>> >>> people inside the community get along, reduce friction.
>> >>>
>> >>> As a community team another mission would be working on communication
>> >>> between devs, on mailing lists and bugs. Damage caused by snarky,
>> >>> arrogant
>> >>> or dismissive remarks should be controlled and positive communication
>> >>> efforts have to promoted and praised.
>> >>>
>> >>> Just my 2 cents
>> >>> Cheers
>> >>> Seif
>> >>>
>> >>> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Dave Neary  wrote:
>> >>>
>>  Hi,
>> 
>> 
>>  On 11/13/2012 06:53 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>> 
>> > As a project, we are having trouble communicating our vision because
>> > everything gets lost in a sea of vitriol due to past actions or
>> > perceived actions.  For instance, removing fallback is seen as yet
>> > again
>> > the GNOME project is removing a feature instead of an act of
>> > maintenance
>> > and sustainability.
>> >
>> 
>>  I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our
>>  vision,
>>  because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of
>>  the
>>  project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision
>>  has
>>  either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not
>>  got
>>  clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For
>>  instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that
>>  Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the
>>  GNOME
>>  project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME
>>  community
>>  (and
>>  I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors -
>>  developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).
>> >>>
>> >