From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1FpZ6N-00022J-Jd for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 23:12:16 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id k5BN8Hr1015914; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 23:08:17 GMT Received: from smtp-out4.blueyonder.co.uk (smtp-out4.blueyonder.co.uk [195.188.213.7]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k5BN2RFt029973 for ; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 23:02:28 GMT Received: from [172.23.170.137] (helo=anti-virus01-08) by smtp-out4.blueyonder.co.uk with smtp (Exim 4.52) id 1Fp1ta-0008O7-Dp for gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org; Sat, 10 Jun 2006 12:44:50 +0100 Received: from [80.235.134.226] (helo=[10.0.1.6]) by asmtp-out6.blueyonder.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1Fp1tZ-0001sT-Lm for gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org; Sat, 10 Jun 2006 12:44:49 +0100 Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item From: Christel Dahlskjaer To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org In-Reply-To: <1149929808.1663.26.camel@localhost> References: <1149906516.4234.91.camel@gaspode> <1149929808.1663.26.camel@localhost> Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="=-mzKIyQwN7xilv0+nwp0l" Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:44:02 +0100 Message-Id: <1149943442.9414.66.camel@gaspode> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.4.2.1 X-Archives-Salt: da60f61c-f9b5-4843-8897-fd5663a5cdcc X-Archives-Hash: b65325ca41ab39b074289de4f9423bb1 --=-mzKIyQwN7xilv0+nwp0l Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable 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=20 > offered to help. Ulrich never responded to these offers. He usually has=20 > a good reason for not doing the GWN (like no Internet access, broken note= book 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.=20 > > 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 u= nderstaffed 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.=20 > > 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.=20 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 t= o > > publish corrections is extremely insulting to those wronged). > The reason for that is that the GWN is mostly sent out by mail. This=20 > makes corrections a bit more difficult, but I think having a sane policy=20 > for that would be helpful. >=20 > > 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 ha= ppen. >=20 > > 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given. > Yes.=20 >=20 > > From a PR perspective, Gentoo could benefit greatly by better > > utilisation of the GWN. I believe that as it stands, however, the GWN i= s > > 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.=20 > > Another thing that concerns me is the way the articles are written. It > > is blatanly obvious that the GWN writers are not native English speaker= s > > 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.=20 > > 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. >=20 > > 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 tha= t > > 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. > >=20 > > 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.=20 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?=20 > > I would like to see discussion about the way the GWN is > > (mis)representing Gentoo, how we can better actualise its full potentia= l > > and what can be done to address the concerns listed above.=20 > 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. --=-mzKIyQwN7xilv0+nwp0l Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBEir6S0WARHgC5cN0RAuDoAKCOcHHra2zwif63x2PrQBjXGyIOLACgiPO/ bKkk2zLq7iugFqSHHgPvwBw= =SsbG -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-mzKIyQwN7xilv0+nwp0l-- -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list