Due to my wrong operation, Jos has replyed directly to me. So I forward his email to the list. ;-)
On Friday 29 October 2010 06:51:52 Satoru Matsumoto wrote: >> (2010/10/29 4:43), Jos Poortvliet wrote: >>>> On 2010-10-28 Satoru wrote: >>>>>> From one of the editors point of view, it is not so easy >>>>>> to determinewhether an article is appropriate for our >>>>>> Weekly News or not. In otherwords, whether an article is >>>>>> just a neutral report onwhat's going on orauthors opinion >>>>>> isn't sometimes quite clear. And, the borderline >>>>>> betweenconstructive opinions and offensive criticisms is >>>>>> often vague. >>>> Oh absolutely. That is also why I send this mail - to try and >>>> let us figure out those lines a bit more clearly. It will >>>> never be completelyclear - but having a goal in mind (like >>>> informing community members whatis going on in openSUSE; or >>>> marketing openSUSE to users and visitors tothe site) can help >>>> in the decision making. >>>> >>>> Please note that what I am trying to say is not that you guys >>>> made a wrong choice. It simply depends on what you think the >>>> Weekly news is for, what the goal is. And as you guys are >>>> making it, that is very muchyour decision. If you want to >>>> inform the community about what is goingon, then something >>>> like Nelson's blog might belong in there. If you wantto be a >>>> marketing tool, then it doesn't. As I don't think that choice >>>> has been made you have done nothing wrong ;-) Hey Satoru! >> Yet another strategy discussion for Weekly News here. :-D >> >> Just as we have to define who are our customers when we discuss >> about strategies for marketing, we have to define who are the >> supposed readers when we edit Weekly News. Yup! >> ATM, our teams objective is: "The openSUSE Weekly News are the >> newsletter of and for the openSUSE community. The aim of the >> newsletter is to summarize everything that is happening in and >> around the openSUSE Community. (...)" >> http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Weekly_news >> >> Of course this can be revised if needed. But currently, I mainly >> focus on readers: >> >> - who are already involved in openSUSE project/community >> (including casual users) - who are interested in trends of openSUSE >> distribution, Linux and FLOSS >> >> And my selection criteria for articles are as follows: >> >> - whether the information in the article should be widely shared >> by readers or not - whether the article is interesting and/or >> useful for readers or not >> >> Those may be a little bit different from what Sascha and other >> team mates have in their mind in detail, but I believe they are >> much alike. >> >> If we focus much more on marketing element of Weekly News than >> ever, many things need to be drastically overhauled. How we can >> effectively use Weekly News as a marketing tool should be further >> discussed and I want to hear as many ideas as possible from >> marketing team guys. But in any case, what I am mostly concerned >> about is, whether Weekly News are interesting for readers and they >> can have fun with reading them or not. I will never be interested >> in creating a mere 'free paper for advertising of little interest >> to anyone'. ;-) Of course not! We are a Free Software community, more importantly, one of our tag-lines is "have fun". So it should always be fun to read and interesting for sure. It is all about balance, as you said before. As I come from the KDE's dot editor team I have had the same dilemma's - and I like the personal note and slightly informal and light tone in Free Software communication. So I don't think we should do any drastic things - if anything, a small move towards slightly more positive news would be more than enough. But only if you guys feel like changing anything at all - the current goals clearly state the weekly news is for contributors, thus not a marketing tool. I personally think KDE's dot.kde.org has a nice balance there. It surely aims to inform the contributors about what is going on - at the same time, it does try and be a marketing tool, presenting a positive image. It has arguably been very successful in this as the dot is well known and has a very good reputation, being picked up by many major linux news sites like LWN. >> Meanwhile, I am also a translator of Weekly News in addition to >> being an editor. In translators point of view, (translating) Weekly >> News has one more important role. >> >> As you know, recently an announcement titled 'Advance >> discontinuation notice for openSUSE 11.1' was posted to -announce >> list (and to several other lists). >> http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-announce/2010-10/msg00008.html >> >> I think it is a very important information which *every* openSUSE >> user should share. But unfortunately, such kind of announcements >> are usually posted only in English, that is, there are few chance >> for users who are not good at reading English to know the >> information if they are not translated by someone. >> >> I think translating Weekly News will be helpful for solving this >> problem, because Weekly News always include such kind of important >> announcements. Agreed! >> Like this, Weekly News can have several roles. We can include a >> role as a marketing tool in roles of Weekly News, but IMHO, >> limiting the role to marketing (or advertising) is not a good idea >> (at least, neither interesting nor attractive for me). Nope, it shouldn't be too extreme in any direction anyway. It is about balance - hugely negative things could be skipped but constructive critisism and realistic analysis of what is going on should be in there. Marketing in FOSS should be honest, in my opinion. I hope we can find each other - and even if you guys want to keep it as-is, that's no problem. I just wanted to get some thinking about this, not change anything per-se. Cheers, Jos >> Best, -- _/_/ Satoru Matsumoto - openSUSE Member - Japan _/_/ _/_/ Marketing/Weekly News/openFATE Screening Team _/_/ _/_/ mail: helios_reds_at_gmx.net / irc: HeliosReds _/_/ _/_/ http://blog.zaq.ne.jp/opensuse/ _/_/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
