Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Saturday 10 June 2006 10:42, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:56:48 +0200 Patrick Lauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 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. Publish a 'corrections' section in the next edition? and fix the original -mike pgpfL0MzqlxZ7.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 11:37:42AM -0400, Alec Warner wrote: Have the GWN posted to -core in a sane time period prior to it's release. I seriously doubt anyone cares about whether the publication is always on time (whatever that may be). If it's a bi-weekly publication it doesn't always have to go out on the same day, as long as you get it out in the general time period. I sometimes respond with corrections/additions but they never make it because it is released before my mail is sent. Often when I see the core mail I don't even bother reading it since by looking at the timestamp I can guess it's already been mailed. That's one of he things that keeps me away from contributing anything to the GWN. Whenever I've sent something to the feedback address or replied to a draft GWN with corrections, I've never heard back nor have my corrections been made or rejected with a reason. If the GWN wants to be that independent I wont stand in their way. But I do agree with Christel that the GWN today is only a shadow of what it used to be. Regards, Brix -- Henrik Brix Andersen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Gentoo Metadistribution | Mobile computing herd pgpw7Y85R8IH7.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Marius Mauch wrote: On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 01:00:43 +0200 Patrick Lauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 11:37 -0400, Alec Warner wrote: Have the GWN posted to -core in a sane time period prior to it's release. I seriously doubt anyone cares about whether the publication is always on time (whatever that may be). So what would a sane time period be? 12h? 24h? The problem with that is that you need an editor who is available during this period to add corrections, but with the new influx of helpers I think we can manage. It should be sent *at least* 24 hours in advance IMO so everyone gets a chance to check it. Better to send news that's a few days old than to send incorrect news. Agreed. A full day in advance helps ensure that any needed corrections or additions can make it in. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFEi/aQrsJQqN81j74RAu9PAKCFkXjY1/u1s4Xk2y2z8m0RdTwHwACcCm4W RRtsFocJpavIee8jaZpnnWM= =vBld -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
After waiting for my replies for 24+ hours I presume they disappeared into a blackhole while we were lacking lists, so I'm resending. 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 13:13:37 +0100 On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 09:27 +0200, Wernfried Haas wrote: On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 04:28:36AM +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. Council? Why escalate things? Have you talked to Ulrich about the problems mentioned below? Isn't the GWN somehow a userrel issue? ;-) I have attempted, but as it happens I have never ever spoken to Ulrich as he does not respond to my e-mails and does not frequent IRC and I don't have his telephone number or address. And the GWN doesn't come under Userrel, although they do have a representative within Userrel, one whom I understand to be wanting to make some improvements to the GWN. As for why the Council, because thats what people suggested when I asked which route to take when he was unresponsive. 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. I agree there are problems due to Ulrich being awol every now and then, but what can the council do about it? Fire him so the GWN is unmaintained? ;-) No. I don't want anyone fired. However, I believe that the other GWN guy could be provided with sufficient access to make sure it goes out, and I believe that Ulrich could give some warning when possible so that Patrick or whomever can get it out regardless of whether Ulrich is around or not. 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). Why? What makes blog posts different to mailing list/forum threads, new versions being released etc? Do you want to ask people for permission then, too? If you re-read what I said I don't have an issue with the GWN or anyone else using someones blog post as inspiration, I do however believe that when quoting someone and writing the article in such a way that the 'quotee' appears to have spoken to the publication you need to get some consensus before printing. 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). 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). Considering Ulrich is appearently still/again awol, could that be the reason? I have requested small fixes (like wrong email addresses in stuff i submitted) every now and than and got what i asked for. He wasn't awol at the time of my writing my first few e-mails. 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. Huh? Can you back that statement up? To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview, however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend. 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. I have submitted a bunch of articles to the GWN, and it has always worked fine for me. Yes, Ulrich is awol at times and sometimes there are smaller corrections to make in the final article, but i never felt discouraged to submit my stuff. Worst case it takes a few extra days to get published. Ok. I am very glad to hear that not everyone shares the same experiences when it comes to contributing to the GWN. 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. Having read through the archives, I notice
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
The reply appears to have disappeared into a black hole. 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 13:26:31 +0100 On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:07 +0200, Lars Weiler wrote: Congratulations. I just unsubscribed from the gwn-feedback-alias after reading your mail. * Christel Dahlskjaer [EMAIL PROTECTED] [06/06/10 04:28 +0100]: 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. Several times Kurt or I took over the job of publicing the GWN when Ulrich asked us. So, there is a backup, but he didn't asked for this week. I am glad to hear that backup has been used in the past, and I hope that it will be again. 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). 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). 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). And I expect the same from you. You should ask the affected people first before starting a discussion about them on our public mailing lists. This is a device I can give you for further userrelations-activities. I have actually contacted Ulrich on several occasions, he chose not to get back to me. And I have spoken a fair bit with Patrick, and from speaking with Patrick it is quite obvious that the GWN could do with some help, and I am hoping that my addressing the problems we can pool together and find ways of helping them. 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given. It is. Either as Author or Contributor. Or it is totally lacking, like in the above mentioned blog scenario. 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. 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. It's quite interesting to see, that the GWN and also Debian's Weekly Newsletter is run by Germans mostly. Is there a problem with native speakers to run a periodically newsletter for a long time ( 3 years)? No, there isn't a problem with it. However, as I understand it the GWN is translated into N languages, and I would presume the german version to be the one which reads better. Could it be an idea to have someone whos first language is English look over and improve upon the English version? I know we already dot the i's and cross the t's, maybe it would be of benefit if someone worked a bit on how it flows. 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. 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. Subscribe to the gwn-feedback-alias and read or comment the submissions to the GWN. Make sure that every user will receive and answer. And forward questions to the arch-teams. Isn't that userrel's job? I didn't saw your contributions there yet. I wasn't aware the gwn-feedback alias was public, if it is then I would be more than happy to subscribe to it and read and comment to every user. Would I be stepping on anyones toes by doing so? And if the GWN would like to off-load some stuff onto Userrel, then userrel would be more than happy to help. We already have a GWN representative and he knows that several of the userrel team would jump at the chance to help out with various GWN related bits
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
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
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sun, Jun 11, 2006 at 05:50:05PM +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote: As for why the Council, because thats what people suggested when I asked which route to take when he was unresponsive. I see, and that puts your suggestion of conctacting the council in a different angle. [some stuff skipped as it seems to be cleared up] 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. Huh? Can you back that statement up? To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview, however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend. Agreed, that shouldn't happen. 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. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060522-newsletter.xml#doc_chap3 Look at the picture and tell me it's not at least a tiny bit humorous. Agreed, the joke is a bit obvious. I can't quite see how your picture has anything to do with writing style and character of writing. It's something a not humorous publication probably wouldn't print - but whatever. ;-) I am not entirely sure why the council wouldn't be a good place to start a discussion about this. I believe that the council members will wish to help the GWN help themselves sufficiently to solve their problems, whether that be attempting to help them think of new ways to attract contributors or make any other changes. I'm not sure how the council can do something here either, i think discussing it here on the list may probably help solve some issues. cheers, Wernfried -- Wernfried Haas (amne) - amne at gentoo dot org Gentoo Forums: http://forums.gentoo.org IRC: #gentoo-forums on freenode - email: forum-mods at gentoo dot org pgpRTcoRFpF9b.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 09:27 +0200, Wernfried Haas wrote: On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 04:28:36AM +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. Council? Why escalate things? Have you talked to Ulrich about the problems mentioned below? Isn't the GWN somehow a userrel issue? ;-) I have attempted, but as it happens I have never ever spoken to Ulrich as he does not respond to my e-mails and does not frequent IRC and I don't have his telephone number or address. And the GWN doesn't come under Userrel, although they do have a representative within Userrel, one whom I understand to be wanting to make some improvements to the GWN. As for why the Council, because thats what people suggested when I asked which route to take when he was unresponsive. 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. I agree there are problems due to Ulrich being awol every now and then, but what can the council do about it? Fire him so the GWN is unmaintained? ;-) No. I don't want anyone fired. However, I believe that the other GWN guy could be provided with sufficient access to make sure it goes out, and I believe that Ulrich could give some warning when possible so that Patrick or whomever can get it out regardless of whether Ulrich is around or not. 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). Why? What makes blog posts different to mailing list/forum threads, new versions being released etc? Do you want to ask people for permission then, too? If you re-read what I said I don't have an issue with the GWN or anyone else using someones blog post as inspiration, I do however believe that when quoting someone and writing the article in such a way that the 'quotee' appears to have spoken to the publication you need to get some consensus before printing. 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). 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). Considering Ulrich is appearently still/again awol, could that be the reason? I have requested small fixes (like wrong email addresses in stuff i submitted) every now and than and got what i asked for. He wasn't awol at the time of my writing my first few e-mails. 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. Huh? Can you back that statement up? To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview, however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend. 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. I have submitted a bunch of articles to the GWN, and it has always worked fine for me. Yes, Ulrich is awol at times and sometimes there are smaller corrections to make in the final article, but i never felt discouraged to submit my stuff. Worst case it takes a few extra days to get published. Ok. I am very glad to hear that not everyone shares the same experiences when it comes to contributing to the GWN. 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. 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. I disagree. GWN could use some more manpower to improve this and that, but i don't see the harm - at least i could easily come up with lots of stuff happening that does more harm (Not pointing my finger at anyone and leaving it up to everyone's
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:07 +0200, Lars Weiler wrote: Congratulations. I just unsubscribed from the gwn-feedback-alias after reading your mail. * Christel Dahlskjaer [EMAIL PROTECTED] [06/06/10 04:28 +0100]: 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. Several times Kurt or I took over the job of publicing the GWN when Ulrich asked us. So, there is a backup, but he didn't asked for this week. I am glad to hear that backup has been used in the past, and I hope that it will be again. 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). 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). 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). And I expect the same from you. You should ask the affected people first before starting a discussion about them on our public mailing lists. This is a device I can give you for further userrelations-activities. I have actually contacted Ulrich on several occasions, he chose not to get back to me. And I have spoken a fair bit with Patrick, and from speaking with Patrick it is quite obvious that the GWN could do with some help, and I am hoping that my addressing the problems we can pool together and find ways of helping them. 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given. It is. Either as Author or Contributor. Or it is totally lacking, like in the above mentioned blog scenario. 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. 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. It's quite interesting to see, that the GWN and also Debian's Weekly Newsletter is run by Germans mostly. Is there a problem with native speakers to run a periodically newsletter for a long time ( 3 years)? No, there isn't a problem with it. However, as I understand it the GWN is translated into N languages, and I would presume the german version to be the one which reads better. Could it be an idea to have someone whos first language is English look over and improve upon the English version? I know we already dot the i's and cross the t's, maybe it would be of benefit if someone worked a bit on how it flows. 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. 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. Subscribe to the gwn-feedback-alias and read or comment the submissions to the GWN. Make sure that every user will receive and answer. And forward questions to the arch-teams. Isn't that userrel's job? I didn't saw your contributions there yet. I wasn't aware the gwn-feedback alias was public, if it is then I would be more than happy to subscribe to it and read and comment to every user. Would I be stepping on anyones toes by doing so? And if the GWN would like to off-load some stuff onto Userrel, then userrel would be more than happy to help. We already have a GWN representative and he knows that several of the userrel team would jump at the chance to help out with various GWN related bits. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
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
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:56:48 +0200 Patrick Lauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | 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. Good start. Now, are you going to post corrections? | 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. Publish a 'corrections' section in the next edition? | 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. Given that it is doing more harm than good, should it be discontinued until a solution is found? | 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. Christel did not talk about silly jokes. She spoke about decent writing (the kind that would make it into publication in newspapers or magazines, for example). There's a rather large difference (well, if you assume she means *respectable* newspapers and magazines -- good examples for anyone wanting examples are the Times, the Guardian or the Scotsman). I'd imagine the distinction could be not too obvious for some non-native speakers, but it is a large and very important distinction. You don't have to be silly or boring to be considered respectable. Take Jeremy Clarkson, for example. He's frequently rather outrageous, very very funny, prone to using extremely colourful metaphors and writes for the highly respectable Sunday Times, which has such a good reputation not despite having such writers but because of it. -- Ciaran McCreesh Mail: ciaran dot mccreesh at blueyonder.co.uk -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 01:13:36PM +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote: To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview, however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend. One of my blog entries was also over-interpreted and included in the GWN without consulting me first, causing a mail storm in my inbox from angry users of xsupplicant: http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/brix/2005/11/25/wpa_supplicant_vs_xsupplicant Regards, Brix -- Henrik Brix Andersen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Gentoo Metadistribution | Mobile computing herd pgpYZmxDaOU68.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
Henrik Brix Andersen wrote: On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 01:13:36PM +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote: To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview, however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend. One of my blog entries was also over-interpreted and included in the GWN without consulting me first, causing a mail storm in my inbox from angry users of xsupplicant: If errors in the GWN result in large numbers of emails directly to you rather than to the GWN, maybe the developer's email link shouldn't be included in articles and feedback should instead be linked to gwn-feedback. The GWN is a fairly independent publication, so I think it should be free to make its own mistakes as long as it retains journalistic integrity. But perhaps it could benefit from some sort of advisory board of Gentoo developers/staff? Thanks, Donnie signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
Donnie Berkholz wrote: Henrik Brix Andersen wrote: On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 01:13:36PM +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote: To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview, however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend. One of my blog entries was also over-interpreted and included in the GWN without consulting me first, causing a mail storm in my inbox from angry users of xsupplicant: If errors in the GWN result in large numbers of emails directly to you rather than to the GWN, maybe the developer's email link shouldn't be included in articles and feedback should instead be linked to gwn-feedback. The GWN is a fairly independent publication, so I think it should be free to make its own mistakes as long as it retains journalistic integrity. But perhaps it could benefit from some sort of advisory board of Gentoo developers/staff? Er the GWN is currently a Gentoo Project. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/pr/gwn.xml Although apparently the project page needs updating ;) Thanks, Donnie -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 04:28:36AM +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. Council? Why escalate things? Have you talked to Ulrich about the problems mentioned below? Isn't the GWN somehow a userrel issue? ;-) 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. I agree there are problems due to Ulrich being awol every now and then, but what can the council do about it? Fire him so the GWN is unmaintained? ;-) 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). Why? What makes blog posts different to mailing list/forum threads, new versions being released etc? Do you want to ask people for permission then, too? 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). 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). Considering Ulrich is appearently still/again awol, could that be the reason? I have requested small fixes (like wrong email addresses in stuff i submitted) every now and than and got what i asked for. 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. Huh? Can you back that statement up? 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. I have submitted a bunch of articles to the GWN, and it has always worked fine for me. Yes, Ulrich is awol at times and sometimes there are smaller corrections to make in the final article, but i never felt discouraged to submit my stuff. Worst case it takes a few extra days to get published. 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. 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. I disagree. GWN could use some more manpower to improve this and that, but i don't see the harm - at least i could easily come up with lots of stuff happening that does more harm (Not pointing my finger at anyone and leaving it up to everyone's imagination to think of something that does damage Gentoo in a terrible way). 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. 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. I'm sure a solution can be found to that problem - actually Ulrich is quite a nice guy to talk to, so if those people came out of hiding those problems may be solved by talking. 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. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060522-newsletter.xml#doc_chap3 Look at the picture and tell me it's not at least a tiny bit humorous. Agreed, the joke is a bit obvious. 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. I'm still not sure why the council should discuss the issue in the first place, i think everyone agrees that the GWN is a bit understaffed (for whatever reason) and some
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
First of all, someone from infra/recruiters might please revoke my write access to gentoo/xml/htdocs/news/gwn. I'm no longer interested in contributing to the GWN. 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). That's why Ulrich posts a draft to the core mailinglist, both for technical and grammar/spelling review. Also it is (at least it was) expected behavior, to give devs of the week (and devs mentioned or affected in/by other articles) a chance to review the article about them. If this wasn't the case with your article this is a problem we need to address. 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). That's what I did in the past, of course: Only if I knew that there's something which needs to be corrected. (i.e. if there's a mail to the [EMAIL PROTECTED] alias). 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. 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. Once again: We have a draft posted to core to catch grammer/spelling mistakes. That doesn't improve the language used in GWN at all, but as you mentioned, none of us is a native speaker. I'm sorry for not being a native speaker. Finally, reading your mail makes me really angry. I'm seeing myself as a somewhat regular contributor to the GWN and would have expected, that someone who draws a negative picture of the GWN like you, tried to talked to me before posting such a mail. Also I see nothing the Council can decide to improve the GWN, besides stopping further GWN releases. I fully agree that we have lots problems and much room for improvement with the GWN, but I can't agree with the way your trying to achieve this. EOD for me. wkr, Tobias signature.asc Description: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
Congratulations. I just unsubscribed from the gwn-feedback-alias after reading your mail. * Christel Dahlskjaer [EMAIL PROTECTED] [06/06/10 04:28 +0100]: 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. Several times Kurt or I took over the job of publicing the GWN when Ulrich asked us. So, there is a backup, but he didn't asked for this week. 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). 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). 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). And I expect the same from you. You should ask the affected people first before starting a discussion about them on our public mailing lists. This is a device I can give you for further userrelations-activities. 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given. It is. Either as Author or Contributor. 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. 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. It's quite interesting to see, that the GWN and also Debian's Weekly Newsletter is run by Germans mostly. Is there a problem with native speakers to run a periodically newsletter for a long time ( 3 years)? 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. 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. Subscribe to the gwn-feedback-alias and read or comment the submissions to the GWN. Make sure that every user will receive and answer. And forward questions to the arch-teams. Isn't that userrel's job? I didn't saw your contributions there yet. Regards, Lars pgpBLKe0FtQQt.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
субота, 10. червень 2006 04:28, Christel Dahlskjaer Ви написали: I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and future of the GWN at their next meeting. Hah? What has concil to do with this? Is it going to mandate GWN be better and it magically turns into some other thing? Why do you think there is malicious intent here at all? [skipping the listing] All these problems can be explained very simply - a lack of manpower. As I understand, GWN now is a one-man endeavour and Ulrich was pointing this out himself and literally yelling for help! Many many times! Over approx last 6 month or so.. Do we want a more reliable and representative GWN? Of course! How we can get there? Well, stand up and help! Involving council is not going to do anything besides starting yet another pointless burocratic endeavor. Well, I suspect it won't do even that - I am pretty sure council is going to just throw out this claim even if you officially start it. They can of course mandate some more action, but what would be the point? If there are no people willing to stand up, then who will listen to it? So, to conclude this thing. The only way GWN is going to improve, is if some more people will join the ranks and start writing/editing GWN entries. I'd say a team of 3 people is usually sufficient, but we need more like 7 so that three are available for more than a first month :) (this is based on my experience with organazing Russian transation team in its early days), plus a steady stream of at least one new dev joining/two month, to compensate for people droppig out. This should also have an effect of draft GWN published at least a day in advance, instead of a few hours, so that the rest of us will be able (and will ;)) take a look at it and make corrections.. George -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
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 ;-) 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. 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). 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. I would like to see discussion about the way the GWN is
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
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. Have the GWN posted to -core in a sane time period prior to it's release. I seriously doubt anyone cares about whether the publication is always on time (whatever that may be). If it's a bi-weekly publication it doesn't always have to go out on the same day, as long as you get it out in the general time period. I sometimes respond with corrections/additions but they never make it because it is released before my mail is sent. Often when I see the core mail I don't even bother reading it since by looking at the timestamp I can guess it's already been mailed. -Alec -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
Christel Dahlskjaer wrote: I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and future of the GWN at their next meeting. This is an open project. The solution to the problems you raise is incredibly simple: Contribute on a regular basis, or find other people who will do so. Writing hugely demotivating emails, scaring away existing contributors, and wasting the council's time will not help at all. Daniel -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 11:37 -0400, Alec Warner wrote: Have the GWN posted to -core in a sane time period prior to it's release. I seriously doubt anyone cares about whether the publication is always on time (whatever that may be). So what would a sane time period be? 12h? 24h? The problem with that is that you need an editor who is available during this period to add corrections, but with the new influx of helpers I think we can manage. If it's a bi-weekly publication it doesn't always have to go out on the same day, as long as you get it out in the general time period. Well ... it is easier when you work with a schedule. Missing a deadline may happen, but that should not be the usual behaviour. bi-weekly is silly because you forget which week it is and suddenly you skip another week by accident ... I prefer to keep it weekly. And looking at the flood of material we have for the next edition I think it is sustainable. I sometimes respond with corrections/additions but they never make it because it is released before my mail is sent. Often when I see the core mail I don't even bother reading it since by looking at the timestamp I can guess it's already been mailed. Hmmm. That looks like a timing problem - the GWN gets created on european time! I think we should try to have a bigger delay between draft and publication, but I'm not sure how to do it best. Maybe shift the draft to saturday and push the final version on sunday? Patrick -- Stand still, and let the rest of the universe move signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:27 +0200, George Shapovalov wrote: субота, 10. червень 2006 04:28, Christel Dahlskjaer Ви написали: I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and future of the GWN at their next meeting. Hah? What has concil to do with this? Is it going to mandate GWN be better and it magically turns into some other thing? Why do you think there is malicious intent here at all? I was hoping the council, whom I understand to be built up of people who genuinely care for Gentoo, would look at whether there was any ways of helping the GWN become better. Say, look at alternative ways of recruiting/ attracting contributors. It may have been the wrong place to bring it up, but its the place that was suggested to me when I asked people who have been around a lot longer than I have. [skipping the listing] All these problems can be explained very simply - a lack of manpower. As I understand, GWN now is a one-man endeavour and Ulrich was pointing this out himself and literally yelling for help! Many many times! Over approx last 6 month or so.. As Ulrich doesn't reply to my e-mails, I haven't had a chance to discuss with him, I have, however, spoken to Patrick at great length and I understand that the GWN finds it difficult to recruit, or even attract contributors. And I agree, the main problem appears to be manpower, which is why I am hoping that by creating some discussion people may come up with new / different ways of attracting people to the GWN. Do we want a more reliable and representative GWN? Of course! How we can get there? Well, stand up and help! Involving council is not going to do anything besides starting yet another pointless burocratic endeavor. Well, I suspect it won't do even that - I am pretty sure council is going to just throw out this claim even if you officially start it. They can of course mandate some more action, but what would be the point? If there are no people willing to stand up, then who will listen to it? If the council chooses to throw it aside and not look at ways of helping the GWN then well, that sucks. But atleast I tried. So, to conclude this thing. The only way GWN is going to improve, is if some more people will join the ranks and start writing/editing GWN entries. I'd say a team of 3 people is usually sufficient, but we need more like 7 so that three are available for more than a first month :) (this is based on my experience with organazing Russian transation team in its early days), plus a steady stream of at least one new dev joining/two month, to compensate for people droppig out. This should also have an effect of draft GWN published at least a day in advance, instead of a few hours, so that the rest of us will be able (and will ;)) take a look at it and make corrections.. I agree with the above, and as stated before, I am hoping that the Council, or hell, just discussion on -dev may result in someone jumping up and saying I have an idea, why don't you... or Have you tried.. as what would be great is if people could come up with ideas and ways of attracting people. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 11:40 +0100, Daniel Drake wrote: Christel Dahlskjaer wrote: I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and future of the GWN at their next meeting. This is an open project. The solution to the problems you raise is incredibly simple: Contribute on a regular basis, or find other people who will do so. Writing hugely demotivating emails, scaring away existing contributors, and wasting the council's time will not help at all. Wow, thats not quite the response I had expected from you. Rather surprising based on your comments elsewhere. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 09:35 +0200, Tobias Scherbaum wrote: First of all, someone from infra/recruiters might please revoke my write access to gentoo/xml/htdocs/news/gwn. I'm no longer interested in contributing to the GWN. 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). That's why Ulrich posts a draft to the core mailinglist, both for technical and grammar/spelling review. Also it is (at least it was) expected behavior, to give devs of the week (and devs mentioned or affected in/by other articles) a chance to review the article about them. If this wasn't the case with your article this is a problem we need to address. 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). That's what I did in the past, of course: Only if I knew that there's something which needs to be corrected. (i.e. if there's a mail to the [EMAIL PROTECTED] alias). 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. 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. Once again: We have a draft posted to core to catch grammer/spelling mistakes. That doesn't improve the language used in GWN at all, but as you mentioned, none of us is a native speaker. I'm sorry for not being a native speaker. I don't actually have a problem with the GWN being written by non-native speakers, English isn't my first language either. I do however think that we could benefit from improving the flow of the articles somewhat. Finally, reading your mail makes me really angry. I'm seeing myself as a somewhat regular contributor to the GWN and would have expected, that someone who draws a negative picture of the GWN like you, tried to talked to me before posting such a mail. Also I see nothing the Council can decide to improve the GWN, besides stopping further GWN releases. I had no intentions to make anyonee angry. And as you aren't listed on the GWN page I had no idea that you were a GWN team member, to my knowledge the only two people who do the GWN are Ulrich and Patrick, both of which I have attempted to speak with/spoken with. And the last thing I want is for the Council to stop the GWN, I am however hoping that they may choose to help the GWN get back on track. If nothing else I believe the council to be made up of people who care about Gentoo a lot, some of which have been around for some time and still remember the old unifying vision, some of which remembers how the GWN was run when it was 'totally awesome' (to use a blonde-ism) and people who hopefully would take the time to try help the GWN explore new/different ways of improving/growing. I fully agree that we have lots problems and much room for improvement with the GWN, but I can't agree with the way your trying to achieve this. What is wrong with it? Would you rather I attempted to have the current GWN staff replaced? Or the publication shut down? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 01:00:43 +0200 Patrick Lauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 11:37 -0400, Alec Warner wrote: Have the GWN posted to -core in a sane time period prior to it's release. I seriously doubt anyone cares about whether the publication is always on time (whatever that may be). So what would a sane time period be? 12h? 24h? The problem with that is that you need an editor who is available during this period to add corrections, but with the new influx of helpers I think we can manage. It should be sent *at least* 24 hours in advance IMO so everyone gets a chance to check it. Better to send news that's a few days old than to send incorrect news. Marius -- Public Key at http://www.genone.de/info/gpg-key.pub In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, 'Let there be Light.' And there was still nothing, but you could see a bit better. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
George Shapovalov wrote: субота, 10. червень 2006 04:28, Christel Dahlskjaer Ви написали: I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and future of the GWN at their next meeting. Hah? What has concil to do with this? Is it going to mandate GWN be better and it magically turns into some other thing? Why do you think there is malicious intent here at all? [skipping the listing] All these problems can be explained very simply - a lack of manpower. As I understand, GWN now is a one-man endeavour and Ulrich was pointing this out himself and literally yelling for help! Many many times! Over approx last 6 month or so.. Do we want a more reliable and representative GWN? Of course! How we can get there? Well, stand up and help! Involving council is not going to do anything besides starting yet another pointless burocratic endeavor. Well, I suspect it won't do even that - I am pretty sure council is going to just throw out this claim even if you officially start it. They can of course mandate some more action, but what would be the point? If there are no people willing to stand up, then who will listen to it? So, to conclude this thing. The only way GWN is going to improve, is if some more people will join the ranks and start writing/editing GWN entries. I'd say a team of 3 people is usually sufficient, but we need more like 7 so that three are available for more than a first month :) (this is based on my experience with organazing Russian transation team in its early days), plus a steady stream of at least one new dev joining/two month, to compensate for people droppig out. This should also have an effect of draft GWN published at least a day in advance, instead of a few hours, so that the rest of us will be able (and will ;)) take a look at it and make corrections.. George That's true. Ulrich has been asking desperately for help since a few months now. I propose we ask for contributors in the staffing-needs section instead or before taking this council way. -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
