I am not quite happy about how we handled announces in the past few months. People would have something to announce, and then just went ahead and posted it to a random subset of {fink-devel, fink-users, fink-beginners, fink-announce, the web site}. Also, in a few cases the announces then had to be followed up with clarification emails because of mistakes made in the original mail. Also, cross posts where done instead of using the BCC field...

Hence I would propose that we establish a policy on how to go about making announces (be it announces of new fink releases, of new gnome2 / kde /tetex / openssl / ... packages, security issues or problems with 3rd party programs, or whatever).

Some suggestions of what I feel is important:

1) Always first send a draft of your announce to fink-devel, with the comment that you plan this announcement. Possibly wait for a go/no-go by the leads (drm, rangerrick and me), or at least some other fink developers agreeing to it.
There are almost no situations I can imagine that might warrant an exception of this rule, i.e. something which can't wait a couple more hours. I can't recall any such situation throughout the history of Fink in fact, but anybody feel free to refresh my memory :-)

2) Make sure you post it to *all* appropriate destinations. Not just fink-users and fink-devel (there might be exceptions in which it is sensible to post only to these two lists, but I think they are very rare). Beginners should be warned about problems, too. And the website should be updated because not every fink user is on one of the fink list. And fink-announce, as the name indicates, is made for the purpose of announcing stuff there (but right now only dmalloc (our PR guy) and I can post there; I can easily extend that to drm and rangerrick of course).

3) Verify the accuracy of your email. Nothing is worse then an announcement that turns out to be wrong or unfounded. See also rule 1 - asking others first often avoids this embarrassing situation.

4) Run a spell check over it. Bad spelling or grammar certainly is not one of the most important things in life, but to many people it makes a bad impression if you repeatedly make obvious mistakes, no matter how unfair that may seem. Again, rule 1 helps.

5) Make sure you include all relevant information? E.g. describe exactly who is affected, provide link to more information. If it's a warning announcement, try to include information on how to solve the problem etc. (again, rule 1 helps ensure this)

6) Use clear language. Employ full sentences instead abbreviated ones, even though it takes more time, it will make it much easier for others to understand what you want. Do not expect the subject to be read as the first sentence of the email - any information in the subject should be repeated in the body, too.

7) Don't cross post by using multiple recipients in To:/CC: - if you have to cross post an announce, do it via Bcc:

8) If the announcement is long, put a brief abstract first. Maybe put the full description on the web site only and provide a link to it.


There are more things I could list I guess, and probably you can do so as well. For me especially rule 1 is something I'd like to see followed more often.



Cheers,

Max


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