Another vanishing reply from yesterday.
-------- Forwarded Message -------- > From: Christel Dahlskjaer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org > Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item > Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:44:02 +0100 > > On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:56 +0200, Patrick Lauer wrote: > > On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 03:28 +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote: > > > I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and > > > future of the GWN at their next meeting. > > I don't think you have to escalate that far. We should be able to discuss > > things without the thermonuclear option ;-) > > I have no idea, I asked people, they suggested the Council. It may be > the wrong place :) > > > > 1. Reliability. The GWN claims to be a weekly publication, yet it > > > frequently fails to publish without prior warning. There was no edition > > > this week, and Patrick Lauer says that it is "unknown" whether there > > > will be an edition next week as Ulrich Plate is AWOL. > > We have tried to get a backup structure working, Halcy0n for example > > offered to help. Ulrich never responded to these offers. He usually has > > a good reason for not doing the GWN (like no Internet access, broken > > notebook etc), but I also find this quite unsatisfactory. > > I am sure his reasons are good, and I agree there should be a backup > structure in place. > > > > 2. Permissions. Although it could be considered flattering that the GWN > > > should choose a developer's blog as inspiration for an article, they > > > should ensure that they have the developer / author's permission before > > > quoting them (see previous complaints by brix, ciaranm and others). > > As far as I'm aware this has been taken care of. But with the GWN quite > > understaffed it is not easy to get everything done well. > > I'd appreciate some more support from others, but sadly my recruiting > > experiments usually ended after one contribution (for example summary of > > the -user ML). > > Which is why I am hoping that by bringing it up elsewhere, someone may > have some ideas of how to recruit people, or just attract people enough > for them to make the occasional contribution. > > > > I also believe that when posting an article or interview, a copy should > > > be sent to the relevant people to ensure that they are ok with what is > > > being posted (my dev of the week interview, for example, was rather > > > screwed up and misrepresentative). > > My fault. > > Ok, thank you. > > > > When someone contacts GWN to have > > > something corrected, it would be appreciated were the GWN staff to at > > > least deign to acknowledge receipt, even if for some reason they choose > > > not to honour the corrections or post a retraction (although refusing to > > > publish corrections is extremely insulting to those wronged). > > The reason for that is that the GWN is mostly sent out by mail. This > > makes corrections a bit more difficult, but I think having a sane policy > > for that would be helpful. > > > > > 3. Misinformation, misquotations and outright fabrications. Sure, > > > there's freedom of the press, but that shouldn't be used as an excuse > > > for deliberately making up quotes and printing intentional > > > misinformation. > > I don't know what exactly you are talking about here. But it shouldn't > > happen. > > > > > 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given. > > Yes. > > > > > From a PR perspective, Gentoo could benefit greatly by better > > > utilisation of the GWN. I believe that as it stands, however, the GWN is > > > discouraging people from contributing and damaging Gentoo's credibility. > > The problem with the GWN is the lack of reliable useful contributions. > > There was a time when the GWN was ~80% written by me, but that took more > > time than I could afford in the last weeks. > > See, if you spent less time arguing with that elitist bastard Chri... > er, no :P Yes, I think what the GWN needs the most is more hands at the > deck. > > > > Another thing that concerns me is the way the articles are written. It > > > is blatanly obvious that the GWN writers are not native English speakers > > > as both the grammar and the flow of the articles is far from attractive. > > Help is appreciated :-) > > The GWN has become a german thing, we have jokingly discussed writing it > > in german and letting someone translate it to english. > > I don't think thats a bad bad idea, that is, maybe someone could atleast > vamp it up a bit before it goes live. > > > > Having read through the archives, I notice that there was once a time > > > when the GWN was a great publication, and I would like to think that it > > > could become great yet again; in its current state, though, it is doing > > > more harm than good. > > Agreed. > > > > > Lack of content and poorly written or incorrect articles are often > > > justified by the GWN team on grounds of overwork and insufficient > > > manpower. When I asked why they were not recruiting, I was informed that > > > no-one has any interest in contributing. > > There's a big difference between one-off articles and continuous > > contribution. Also those that I found most willing to contribute had the > > biggest language problems - what we need is support from the native > > speakers. > > Nod. I presume for some contributing weekly is rather difficult (finding > something to write about, finding the time to draft, re-draft, clean, > tidy, send off for feedback, double check, stand on their head etc etc) > however I guess it would be possible to rotate if there was enough > 'freelance editors' on the uh, payroll. > > > > Upon speaking with others, > > > however, I find that this is not the case -- people are interested, but > > > fear (and rightly so) that their work will be edited in such a way that > > > it is no longer something with which they want to be associated. > > > > > > Another complaint is that the GWN rejects any writing style which has > > > any degree of character or levity. Any attempt at dececnt writing (the > > > kind that would make it into publication in English newspapers or > > > magazines, for example), is met with the claim that "the GWN is not a > > > humorous publication". > > Blame the flamefests of the past. Whenever attempts were made to give > > the GWN more dynamic it was flamed down (because ze german humor is not > > funny! Nein! ;-) ) > > So the consensus was to keep the silly jokes out of the GWN since always > > someone misunderstands or complains. I'd like to have it a bit more > > open, funny, enjoyable ... but there's only so much I can do. > > So, what brought on the "This is not a humorous publication" attitude > was infact outsiders rather than the GWN team, as in, it was reactional > rather than a case of you guys just deciding fun was bad? > > > > I would like to see discussion about the way the GWN is > > > (mis)representing Gentoo, how we can better actualise its full potential > > > and what can be done to address the concerns listed above. > > Sounds good. I hope at some point Ulrich responds. > > I hope so too, I also hope that anyone who may have some ideas will > speak up rather than everyone just telling me how horrible I am for > bringing these issues up! :) > > > Thanks for bringing this up, > > Thank you for pointing some of them out. >
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